"Welcome back to the qualification finals of the International Tournament for the MOBA game, Legends of Heroes. Today, millions of players are competing for a fifty-million-dollar prize. I'm your host—"
Landen cut her off before she could finish.
"The lovely Melinda StarFrost, the most beautiful girl in the world."
He said it the same way he said it every broadcast. Not because he expected her to hear him—she never did—but because it felt like a ritual, something that belonged to him alone.
Inside his small studio apartment, Landen sat alone. The cold blue glow of his monitor painted shadows across his face, and the steady, rhythmic clicking of his mouse could be heard—slow, deliberate, like a heartbeat.
He was in the zone.
"We got this…" a voice crackled through his headphones. "Everyone, get the Red Dragon. Landen, rotate over, we need you."
He didn't respond. It was almost as if he didn't hear him.
"Uh, Landen, are you there?"
"Quiet!" He snapped. The word came out sharp. "I can't hear Melinda over your yapping."
A long pause on the line.
"Are you serious right now—"
"Landen, are you going to rotate over or not?"
The silence stretched. They waited. He let them wait.
"So the rumors are true," someone muttered, voice low. "He really is cursed by the International Champions."
That got his attention. He clicked his teeth, a habit from childhood that surfaced only when someone truly annoyed him.
"First of all," he said, leaning into the mic, "don't question the best player in the world. You're lucky to have me as your captain. Just follow my lead, stay quiet, and don't feed. If you want to win, go back to the base and wait for me."
A thud was heard. Then silence.
They'd muted themselves. Or rage-quit. Either way, he had peace.
Good, he thought. Finally.
"Team Thorne has taken the dragon," Melinda's voice floated back into focus, "and Landen is almost done destroying the bottom tower. It sure seems like they are pulling farther and farther away. Another easy win for them."
"I wouldn't call it over yet," said Puppey, her co-host—a former pro player turned commentator, the kind of man who seemed born specifically to disagree with everything Melinda said.
Landen smiled at her words all the same. She was always rooting for him. She didn't know him, had never met him, but still—she believed. That meant something.
However, his smile didn't last long.
He glanced at the minimap. His team had pushed deep into the enemy jungle—the exact opposite of what he'd told them to do.
"Fall back." His voice was calm, the kind of calm that comes just before something breaks. "Hey. Listen to me. Fall back. Now."
Nothing.
"Can they not hear me?"
He tapped his mic. Clicked through his settings. Spoke again.
Still nothing.
He ducked underneath his desk, crouching in the tangle of cables and power strips, running his fingers along each connection until he found the one that felt loose. His headphone jack had shifted from vibration — probably from the last time he'd slammed his fist down too hard.
"Something is wrong," Melinda said on stream, her brow furrowing as she leaned toward her monitor.
"What is it?" Puppey asked.
"Landen's character isn't moving. Did Landen disconnect?"
"Maybe it's one of his taunts. You know how he gets when he's feeling himself."
But it wasn't a taunt.
Landen was on his knees, flashlight clamped between his teeth, squinting at the back of his PC tower. He shoved the jack back into place and heard the satisfying click of it seating properly — then looked back at the monitor.
His stomach dropped.
DG was gone. Their entire team, missing from the map, which meant only one thing: they were already in position. Already moving.
He lunged from under the desk, half-falling back into his chair, and reached across his keyboard to activate his teleport.
"He's trying to recall home?" Melinda said, leaning forward. "What is he thinking?"
Puppey shook his head. "Teleportation has a seven-second animation time. He's not going to make it."
They were right. He didn't even make it halfway through the animation before DG collapsed on him from four directions simultaneously. One second of existence. Then death.
Landen stared at the death recap.
Then he noticed it—a small red slash cutting through his microphone icon in the corner of his screen. His team had muted him.
Now he was pissed.
"It's going to be fifty seconds before he respawns," Melinda said. "But fortunately for him, his team has the dragon. We'll see if it's enough to end it. Without Landen, it's going to be tough."
The dragon barreled towards DG's base, Team Thorne's four remaining players jogging behind it like they were following a plan. They weren't. Landen could see it—no formation, no positioning, no coordination. They were just chasing.
"RETREAT!" He slammed his fist on the desk, rattling his keyboard. "YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! RETREAT! NOW!"
The mute icon stared back at him.
"Team Thorne's minions are now attacking DG's mid tower," Melinda narrated. "And here comes the dragon."
"Wow—DG took down that dragon faster than expected."
Team Thorne's four players froze. Fight or fall back? The hesitation lasted less than two seconds, but in a professional match, two seconds was a lifetime. Three of them started retreating. One didn't. One—their support tank, a player who had been in the scene for eight years and should have known better—leapt into the center of DG's clustered formation and activated his ultimate into empty space.
"Oh no! Team Thorne's support tank jumped into the middle of Team DG and completely missed his ultimate!" Melinda's voice pitched upward, disbelief cracking through her professional composure. "What a mistake! He just threw away his life, and now—one by one—they're getting picked off! It's a disaster! A complete team wipe in favor of Team DG!"
Landen had his hands pressed flat against his desk to stop himself from putting them through the monitor.
"I don't think they recover from this," Puppey said quietly.
"It sure doesn't look good for Team Thorne," Melinda agreed, forcing herself back into broadcaster mode. "And now, they're rushing mid to try to end it. What happened back there, Puppey?"
"Team Thorne thought they were in the lead—but really only Landen was. The rest of the team was under-farmed, under-leveled. With it being four versus five, Thorne never had a chance. This is what happens when you put a bunch of random pub players against professionals. And now it's going to cost them."
He paused.
"I believe DG will end it here."
"But look at Landen's respawn timer," Melinda said. "He's coming back in ten seconds."
"Do you really think Landen can hold his own against five?"
Melinda pressed her lips together. Then, quietly—almost to herself:
"I believe… he can."
Landen's expression shifted from despair to joy.
"Thanks for believing in me, love."
Four seconds.
"Here is the last wave of minions," Melinda said.
Three…
"They're in Thorne's base at the edge of the last tower."
Two…
"It's gonna be close."
One…
The world outside the screen didn't exist. Not the apartment, not the failed team, not the fifty-million-dollar prize or the twenty million viewers or the career that hinged on the next two minutes of his life.
Only the game.
"Here comes Landen!"
He processed the battlefield in the span of a breath: DG's tank and fighter side by side, pushing forward too aggressively. Their mage and marksman hanging back, unprotected. The assassin — fifth member, nowhere visible.
Flanking. Has to be.
He positioned himself at the exact edge of tower range and stood still.
"What is he doing?" Puppey said.
DG's frontline stepped in. They committed. They lunged.
Too predictable.
He blinked away. Their stuns hit nothing but air.
Landen blinked — a short-range teleport, perfectly timed — and both stuns tore through empty air where he'd been standing a tenth of a second before. He reappeared behind their backline like a ghost stepping out of fog, and before the mage or marksman could react, they were dead.
"DOUBLE KILL!"
He was already scanning. Still no assassin.
There.
He lashed out blindly behind him, his blade catching the assassin mid-stride.
"TRIPLE KILL!"
The tank and fighter, both hurt, both furious, charging at him with everything they had left.
But this time, Landen didn't move.
He just stood there, taunting them.
"Landen is absorbing all of their attacks!" Melinda yelled. "They don't have enough damage!"
He waited until the exact moment both their cooldowns expired, and both their resources were dry. Then his character raised its head, and roared—and golden light erupted from his skin like a second sun, blinding and enormous.
He leapt into the air and came crushing down like a meteor.
"THEY CAN'T BEAT HIM!"
QUADRAKILL!
"THEY CAN'T BEAT HIM!"
PENTAKILL!
"A PENTAKILL FOR LANDEN! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! HE DID IT! ONE VERSUS FIVE AND HE WIPED THEM ALL!"
The studio erupted. Puppey had both hands over his head. Melinda was on her feet.
"That's why he's number one," Puppey said. "That's why they call him the Legend."
Landen leaned back in his chair and looked at the viewer count in the corner of his stream tab.
Twenty-one million, three hundred thousand, and climbing.
"Twenty million viewers just witnessed the greatest solo comeback in history," he said, smiling.
Then he looked back at the screen, and his smile died.
He'd forgotten to clear the minion wave.
A line of enemy minions was already marching toward his base, uncontested, ticking down toward his tower like a slow fuse.
He calculated instantly. Could he turn back in time? No. Could he clear and then push? No. Could he end it before they hit?
Maybe.
He had to try.
"I think he's okay," Melinda said, reading his movement.
"I don't know." Puppey's voice was tight. "One hit to Thorne's tower from those minions, and it's GG. He might have cost himself the match."
"Landen is dashing forward — straight into DG's base — and he's on their crystal now—"
"But the minions have entered Thorne's base. They're approaching the tower—"
"It's going to be close!"
"Come on Landen!" Melinda yelled.
Landen was leaning forward now, nearly touching the monitor, his mouse moving in short, efficient bursts.
"I'm coming, Melinda."
"AAAAHHHH—"
The crystal exploded.
White light swallowed the screen.
VICTORY.
He won. He actually won.
Landen launched himself onto his bed, arms thrown wide, voice cracking as he yelled at the ceiling. He lay there for a moment, chest heaving.
Then the lights went out.
Not just the monitor. Everything.
Total darkness. Total silence.
A strange weightlessness passed through him, there and gone in a single heartbeat, like the drop at the top of a roller coaster.
Then wind.
Cold air hit him from every direction, and he felt, with sudden and terrible clarity, that he was standing up — and that the floor beneath him was not his floor.
He blinked.
Above him stretched a sky the color of a bruise: deep violet threaded with indigo, no sun, no moon, no stars he recognized. Buildings rose around him in shapes that made no architectural sense — towers of glass that twisted as they climbed, suspended walkways crossing between them at impossible angles, neon signs written in alphabets he'd never seen. The street he stood on was wide and pale, some kind of material that wasn't asphalt or concrete, and vehicles were moving through it at speed — sleek, silent things that hovered an inch above the surface and banked around corners like fish.
One of them screamed past him and laid on its horn.
He was standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by strange buildings unlike anything he had ever seen before.
This wasn't his room.
This was an unfamiliar city.
A different world.
"What the hell?... Where am I?"