CHAPTER 1: "Game Over... Or Game Start?"
The steering wheel felt cold beneath Ethan Cross's fingers as he navigated through the midnight streets of downtown Seoul. Rain hammered against his windshield, the wipers working overtime to clear his vision. But his attention wasn't on the road—not really.
His phone was propped against the dashboard, streaming the replay of yesterday's disaster.
"VoidEmperor's guild wiped at Phase 3 again," the commentator's voice crackled through the speakers. "That's the 47th attempt by a world-ranked guild to defeat Azrael, the Eternal Emperor. At this point, players are questioning if this boss is even beatable."
Ethan gritted his teeth. Of course it was beatable. He had designed it that way.
As the lead developer and creative director of Elysium Terminal, the world's most advanced VRMMO, Ethan had personally crafted every pixel of Azrael's encounter. The Eternal Emperor was his masterpiece—a boss that required perfect coordination, adaptation, and above all, trust between forty players.
But even he hadn't cleared it yet.
His own guild, Phantom Nexus, had come close. Phase 3, the Twilight Judgment phase, was where every team fell apart. The mechanic required splitting the raid into four groups with no communication, each trusting the others to do their jobs perfectly.
Trust. Something gamers were notoriously bad at.
"Maybe I made it too hard," Ethan muttered, reaching for his coffee.
That's when the truck hit him.
He didn't see it coming. One moment he was reaching for his drink, the next, blinding headlights filled his vision. Metal screamed. Glass shattered. His body twisted in ways bodies shouldn't twist.
Pain.
Then nothing.
Ethan's first conscious thought was that death felt surprisingly comfortable.
He was lying on something soft—velvet, maybe? His body felt heavy, weighted down by something substantial. When he tried to move his fingers, they responded sluggishly, as if operating through thick syrup.
Am I in a hospital?
He opened his eyes.
The ceiling above him was obsidian black, veined with pulsing crimson light. Golden chandeliers hung from chains that seemed to stretch into infinity. The architecture was Gothic, oppressive, beautiful—and intimately familiar.
No. That's impossible.
Ethan sat up, and the weight on his body shifted. He looked down and felt his heart stop.
His hands were wrong. They were covered in segmented black armor, each finger ending in a razor-sharp claw. Crimson energy pulsed through the gaps in the metal, synchronized with his heartbeat.
These weren't human hands.
These were the hands of Azrael, the Eternal Emperor.
"No, no, no, no, no—"
Ethan scrambled off the throne—because he was sitting on a throne, THE throne, the same one he'd spent three months modeling—and stumbled to the massive mirror on the wall.
The reflection that stared back at him was a nightmare made manifest.
Azrael stood at eight feet tall, encased in obsidian and gold armor that seemed to drink in light. A tattered cape of shadow billowed behind him despite the absence of wind. His face—Ethan's face now—was partially hidden behind an ornate helmet, but what was visible was pale as death, with eyes that burned like dying stars.
Beautiful. Terrifying. Wrong.
"This can't be happening."
A chime echoed in his mind, followed by text that appeared directly in his vision:
[BOSS SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE] Welcome, Administrator. You are now: AZRAEL, THE ETERNAL EMPEROR Status: Final Raid Boss (Undefeated) Kill Count: 147,832 Current Players in Dungeon: 0
Ethan's legs gave out. He collapsed against the mirror, his armored body cracking the enchanted glass.
He was inside his own game. Not as a player, not as a GM, but as the final boss.
The boss no one had ever beaten.
"Okay. Okay, Ethan, think." He forced himself to breathe, even though he wasn't sure this body needed oxygen. "This is clearly a dream. A coma dream. I'm probably in a hospital right now, and my brain is processing my last conscious thoughts into this... this elaborate fantasy."
He pinched himself. The claws drew blood—dark, glowing blood that evaporated before it hit the ground.
"Not a dream. Okay. Different hypothesis."
Before he could formulate one, a new notification appeared:
RAID PARTY REGISTRATION DETECTED Guild: Crimson Vanguard Players: 40 Rank: World #7 Estimated Arrival: 71:59:58
Ethan felt his blood run cold—or whatever passed for blood in this body.
In 72 hours, forty real players would enter this castle with one goal: to kill him.
And if the game worked the way he designed it, they would try with everything they had. Coordinated attacks. Ultimate abilities. Strategies refined over hundreds of attempts.
They would fight to destroy Azrael, the Eternal Emperor.
They would fight to destroy HIM.
"I need to get out of here."
Ethan ran toward the massive doors of the throne room. His armored feet thundered against the marble floor, each step shaking the chamber. He reached for the handles—
And an invisible wall slammed him backward.
ERROR: Boss Entity cannot leave designated arena. Restriction Level: Absolute Override Authority Required: System Administrator (Level 10)
He was trapped.
Trapped in the body of a monster, in a prison of his own design, waiting for players to come slaughter him.
Ethan slumped against the doors, his helmet hitting the cold metal with a resonant clang.
"I made this boss unbeatable," he whispered to himself. "If I die here, what happens? Do I respawn? Do I really die?"
No answer came.
Through the throne room's massive windows, Ethan could see the world he had created. Elysium Terminal stretched out beneath the mountain—cities glittering with magical light, forests teeming with monsters, players going about their virtual lives.
It was beautiful.
It was real.
And in 72 hours, its greatest heroes would come to end his existence.
[END OF CHAPTER 1]