[Gods' Playground – Closed Beta Launch: 00:12:04]
The screen's glow lit up the darkened room. Ethan Vale sat still, elbows resting on his knees, gaze locked on the countdown. His old, beat-up laptop hummed faintly—like it remembered too.
Twelve minutes until the game restarted.
Twelve minutes until he returned to the world that had chewed him up and spit him out.
Twelve minutes until they would see he was still alive.
He pulled his hood up.
The scars weren't on his body—they were carved deeper than skin. Etched into memory, etched into betrayal.
Betrayed by those he called family.
A soft ping pulled his eyes down.
The corner of the screen flashed—Group Chat: Nightfall Core (5 Members)
[Miranda: "Everyone ready? Let's relive old times. This time, let's go even bigger."]
[Kael: "I've already drafted a path to Guild Capital by Day 3. I'll lead again."]
[Lyra: "Let's stick together this time. No more secrets, right?"]
[Daren: "Haha. Can't wait to dominate again."]
Ethan stared.
The same four names.
The same voices who once stood beside him in the guild hall who saw him as dog because of digging secrets.
The same voices that voted "yes" when Miranda suggested using the Soul-Binding Artifact—the only item in the game that could permanently erase a player.
Your account has been terminated.
Your existence deleted.
Your data, soul, and story—wiped clean.
Ethan gritted his teeth.
"No more secrets," huh?
He clicked open the chat window. Their little icons glowed—smiling, confident, ready to reclaim their throne in the new world.
They didn't know.
Didn't know that he was back.
Didn't know what the curse had taught him.
Didn't know the demon who now wore his name again.
He hovered over the group's title: Nightfall Core.
Three dots appeared next to Miranda's name.
[Miranda is typing…]
"Ethan, you in? Don't ignore us."
The audacity.
They thought he'd forget. Forgive.
He clicked the settings icon.
Leave Group? This action cannot be undone.
[Yes]
[Are you sure?]
Yes.
With a click, the window vanished.
The chat dissolved. The laughter. The lies.
Gone.
No goodbye. No closure. Just silence.
Another ping.
[Kael – "Hey. Just saw you left the group. Can we talk? It wasn't as simple as you think."]
Ethan didn't even open it.
Blocked.
Another message popped up.
[Lyra – "Why are you being like this?"]
Blocked.
[Miranda – "Don't ruin things, Ethan. Don't make it personal."]
He laughed coldly.
You made it personal when you stabbed me in the back and erased me from existence.
He blocked her too.
Now it was just him.
He reached under the bed and pulled out a thick, weathered notebook. It had survived the years. Scribbled in chaotic handwriting were notes, maps, theories, secrets—his original guide through the chaos of Gods' Playground.
And on the last page, underlined thrice:
"The Beggar in First Light knows the truth."
He never found the beggar. No one had.
But he'd remembered the voice.
The one whisper that echoed in the void after he died:
"You were not supposed to die. You were silenced."
He turned to his screen. The countdown ticked lower.
The final seconds blurred: 00:00:03... 00:00:02... 00:00:01...
Ethan took a deep breath as the countdown hit zero.
The laptop screen blazed white, a low hum vibrating through the old wooden desk.
He reached for the sleek, black VR headset beside his notebook.
Not the newest, but his.
His key.
Carefully, he placed the headset over his eyes, adjusting the strap.
The real world vanished, replaced by the familiar, glowing entrance of Gods' Playground.
Ancient symbols swirled, forming the game's logo: two intertwined hands reaching from celestial clouds.
A soft hum against his temples told him the neural interface was working, scanning his unique signature. The system whirred, processing the new data. After a moment, the loading sequence initiated.
The loading screen shimmered with beautiful scenes of the game world: vast forests, towering mountains, and shining cities touching the sky. Every detail was incredible. He'd spent countless hours lost in these digital places, once.
Then, the familiar pull, his mind shifting from his body to the game. He could almost smell pine needles, feel cool grass under his feet.
He found himself in the Awakening Grounds, the starting place for all new players.
A small crowd of fresh avatars milled about, their movements jerky and uncertain as they navigated the initial interface.
A notification appeared in his vision:
[Welcome, New Player.]
The standard greeting.
No hint of recognition.
Good.
That made things cleaner.
[Welcome Interference – Loading Screen
The transition into Gods' Playground was supposed to be seamless—a gentle fade from reality into the game's lush, breathing world. But the moment Ethan's consciousness began to sync with the virtual space, something ripped.
A jagged tear split the loading screen like a fracture in reality itself. The serene landscapes of the game's promotional vistas—towering spires, emerald forests, cascading waterfalls—glitched, warping into grotesque, pixelated distortions before dissolving into static.
[SYSTEM ERROR]
[UNAUTHORIZED INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
[CONTAINMENT PROTOCOLS FAILING]
Ethan's vision filled with corrupted text, scrolling too fast to read, lines of broken code flashing crimson before disintegrating into nothing. The hum of the neural link stuttered, sending sharp, needle-like feedback through his temples. His body—or rather, the sensation of his body—twisted unnaturally, as if the digital space itself rejected his presence.
Then—silence.
Not the quiet of an empty server, but the heavy, suffocating silence of a place that wasn't meant to exist.
Ethan stood in a void of shifting static, the ground beneath him a flickering grid of unstable data. The air (if it could be called air) hummed with a low, dissonant frequency, like a machine on the verge of collapse. Above him, fragments of broken UI spiraled—half-rendered menus, shattered quest markers, distorted character models frozen in mid-scream.
And then she appeared.
Not from a spawn point. Not from any game logic.
She unfoldedfrom the corruption itself, her form coalescing from the glitching abyss.
Her wings were not the feathered, angelic appendages of in-game celestials—they were living fractures, edges sharp as broken glass, shifting between solid and static. Her armor, if it could be called armor, was a seamless fusion of silver and void, plates shifting like liquid metal one moment and dissolving into raw code the next.
Her face was perfection carved from ice—high cheekbones, lips curled in a smirk that didn't reach her eyes. And those eyes—silver, glowing, pupils slit like a predator's—locked onto him with the weight of a system admin scanning a bug.
[??? – Lv. ???]
[TITLE: CORRUPTION'S EDGE]
She lounged atop a throne that wasn't there a second ago—a jagged, asymmetrical structure of fragmented data, its edges constantly rewriting itself. One leg draped over the other, she rested her chin on her knuckles, watching him with detached amusement.
"Oh?"Her voice was smooth, mocking, every syllable laced with condescension. "So this is the infamous Ethan Vale."
Ethan's blood ran cold.
That name.
That dead name.
She shouldn't know it. The game had erased him. The system had no memory of his existence.
And yet—
"What's wrong?" She tilted her head, silver hair shifting like mercury. "Cat got your tongue? Or did you think a little thing like deletion would keep you hidden?"
A flick of her wrist, and the void around them convulsed, replaying his final moments in the old beta—Miranda's cold smile, the Soul-Binding Artifact flaring to life, the searing pain as his data was unmade.
"You didn't even scream, she mused. "Most of them do."
Ethan forced his voice steady. "What are you?"
She laughed—a sound like shattering crystal. **"I'm the reason your little 'return' is going to be *much* harder than you thought."** Leaning forward, her smirk widened. **"You see, Void, this playground? It's not just *theirs* anymore."
The static around them pulsed, forming shapes—brief glimpses of other players, their avatars twisted, their eyes hollow. Then, just as quickly, the images dissolved.
**"I've been watching,"** she continued. **"Waiting. And honestly?"** Her gaze raked over him. **"You're *underwhelming*."**
Ethan's fingers twitched. No weapons. No skills. Just him and whatever this thing was.
"But," she sighed, rising from her throne in one fluid motion, "I do love a good underdog story."
She stepped toward him, each footfall leaving cracks in the digital ground. When she was close enough that he could see his own reflection in her silver eyes, she reached out—
And tapped a single, claw-tipped finger against his chest.
[WARNING: FOREIGN ENTITY DETECTED
[MARK APPLIED: ???]
[EFFECT: UNKNOWN]
"Run along now, little ghost, she whispered. "Let's see how long you last."
Then—
The world slammed back into place.
Ethan gasped as First Light's crowded streets materialized around him, the noise of NPC vendors and excited players hitting him like a physical force. His knees nearly buckled, his vision swimming from the sudden transition.
A notification blinked in his periphery:
[New Quest: ???]
[Objective: Survive.]
[Reward: Unknown.]
And beneath it, in jagged, glitching text that shouldn't exist:
[She's always watching.]
Ethan exhaled, slow and controlled.
The game had changed.
And he was no longer the only player who shouldn't be here.