Chương 377: Chapter 361 - Interlude 36.3

3 Oliver respawned. He appeared at a death shrine he had never seen before. It wasn't one of the many in Roserun he had grown familiar with over the last few months, nor any of the ones near the more popular fractures where players constantly respawned after failed runs. Instead, he found himself in a small town, one he didn't even recognize the name of, where the local NPCs watched with worry and confusion as he – along with dozens upon dozens of other players – materialized out of thin air in rapid succession.

The shrine itself was overcrowded. Freshly respawned players kept appearing every few seconds in flashes of pale blue light, some stumbling the moment they arrived, others immediately opening menus or shouting questions at each other or simply at the sky. Looking around, Oliver saw several players doing exactly what he was – trying to make sense of things – while others simply stood frozen, staring at nothing with shell-shocked looks on their faces.

One woman had both hands over her mouth – looking like she was on the verge of vomiting. Wondering what had happened, Oliver quickly opened the forums. He was about to navigate to the Roserun-specific tab, but he didn't need to. Pinned to the very top of the front page was a post, its reply count climbing so quickly it visibly ticked upward every second. The thumbnail displayed a continuously looping gif. The first few seconds showed Roserun.

Smoke rose from scattered parts of the city, dark clouds billowing upward between the tightly packed buildings – the chaos he had tried so hard to ignore earlier. Then a small sun was born. A tiny sphere of brilliant golden-yellow light emerged somewhere near the center of the city. The gif quality distorted as the light intensified, the image itself struggling to capture the sheer brightness before the expanding sphere engulfed the entire city in blinding radiance. Then the gif reset.

Eyes wide, Oliver stared at the post. Then, very slowly, his gaze dropped to his wrist, where the band he had acquired not so long ago was very visibly missing. His stomach dropped. Then it all came crashing down. The mysterious hobo. The special-looking item. The name: Runic Detonator Band. And now the endlessly looping gif of Roserun disappearing beneath an artificial sun. His breathing became shallow. Snapping his head up, he looked around wildly, terrified someone would recognize him as the cause.

His heart hammered against his ribs so hard it felt ready to burst through them. Did anyone know? Instead, he saw several other players doing the exact same thing he had been – staring at invisible system screens and frantically scrolling through forum threads. Some looked horrified. A few were already laughing in disbelief. He had to get out of there. Every step was an exercise in anxiety.

After each one, he glanced around, trying to see if anyone was watching him, feeling the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. But every time he looked, he saw more and more people staring aghast at invisible system windows, too absorbed in their own panic and confusion to notice him. Oliver didn't let out a breath of relief until he was outside the town entirely, sitting in the middle of a small forest clearing atop an old stump, his head buried in his hands as he tried not to hyperventilate.

He opened the pinned forum post again, but the moment he read the first line, he closed it instantly. ROSERUN DESTROYED IN MASSIVE EXPLOSION! RETALIATION BY SOLAR! That alone was enough. It explained everything. Or at least enough of it. And all Oliver wanted was to go back a few hours, kick himself in the face, and tell himself to forget about that stupid marketplace entirely. The absent space around his wrist felt unbearably heavy, as though his arm had been weighed down with lead.

Finally managing to regain partial control over himself, he opened his status screen. Instantly, he was bombarded by a deluge of notifications, all appearing at once and covering his entire field of vision. They stacked atop one another so quickly he couldn't even read them. Then, one by one, they vanished until only a single screen remained, containing a neat summary of everything that had happened. Oliver knew this was how the system communicated that something massive had occurred.

He had seen it happen on streams before, during world events and server-first clears, but it had never happened to him personally. Taking a shaky breath, he began to read. [Congratulations! You managed to activate the Sunburst Runic Circle!] [Due to the fact that you weren't the only one who emplaced them, your experience point gain is halved.] [You've gained 52 levels!] [Due to the seamless activation of the Runic Detonator Band and the Sunburst Runic Circle, you gain +3 MAG!] [Due to enduring unreal levels of damage within a short duration, you gain +3 VIT, +3 END!] Oliver stared at the first few lines aghast.

"F-fifty-two levels?" His voice came out weak and breathless. Some players grinded for months and didn't gain that many. Then the rest caught up with him.

"What the hell is a Sunburst Runic Circle?" A quick search through the forums, wikis, and the broader internet failed to provide any answers. Which, sadly, led him to conclude that it was probably something Solar had somehow invented or assembled in secret. [Congratulations! You almost single-handedly destroyed a city!] [You gain the City Destroyer title!] [City Destroyer: Destroying a city is not a small task. However, thanks to your skill, from now on it is going to be much easier. Gain +10% damage against inanimate objects.] [Congratulations! You almost single-handedly killed an army!] [You gain the Army Killer title!] [Army Killer: Destroying an army is not a small task. From now on, it is going to be much easier. Gain 15% increase in the area of skill effects and damage of skills affecting an area.] [Congratulations! You managed to kill every living thing in a large area!] [You gain the Genocidal Maniac title!] [Genocidal Maniac: Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god. Gain reputation increase with criminals and murderers, and lose all reputation with every other person who is aware of your identity.] [Congratulations! You managed to kill thousands of people with only one action!] [You gained the One Hit, One Kill title!] [One Hit, One Kill: All you need is one hit. If you manage to kill someone in one hit, your cooldowns are reduced by 5% for every kill.] [Congratulations! You fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book!] [You gain the Blind Fool title!] [Blind Fool: It takes a special mind to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book. And you are indeed very special. Yes, you are. You cannot gain resistance skills for your mind.] Oliver stared at the system screen for a long while. The sheer deluge of titles left him feeling numb and confused. On one hand, gaining so many titles at once was absurdly impressive. Titles were notoriously difficult to obtain.

Most players went months without earning even a single one. Hell, before this entire disaster, he hadn't possessed any. And now he suddenly had five. Five! Some players would sell their souls for that kind of achievement. On the other hand, he really didn't want some of them. Army Killer and City Destroyer had genuinely incredible bonuses. Even if the names were terrible, the effects alone were enough to make high-level players jealous – or hint at his 'accomplishments'.

One Hit, One Kill also looked ridiculously powerful. In large fights, that kind of cooldown reduction could spiral completely out of control. But the last two… those made his stomach churn. Blind Fool was humiliating, but survivable. Resistance skills for mental attacks were valuable, sure, but there were artifacts, potions, blessings, and equipment sets that could compensate for it.

However, Genocidal Maniac was something else entirely, because unlike Blind Fool, this title carried consequences so catastrophic that Oliver genuinely had no idea how he was supposed to live with it if his identity ever became associated with it. All it would take was a single mistake.

And suddenly he would become a hated pariah not just in Roserun, but in every kingdom, city-state, and settlement across the continent, because there was no chance in hell that a title called Genocidal Maniac would be treated lightly by either players or NPCs. He reread the description several times in growing disbelief, hoping that perhaps he had misunderstood the wording in his panic, but the meaning remained horrifyingly clear no matter how many times his eyes passed over the text.

Lose all reputation with every other person aware of your identity. The implications were horrifying. And that was assuming people merely hated him instead of actively trying to kill him for the rewards that would undoubtedly be attached to someone responsible for destroying an entire city. Oliver continued staring at the notification screen while silently lamenting what had to be the single worst stroke of luck in his entire life.

'All I wanted was to get lucky once… and somehow I accidentally became a mass murderer.' The thought itself felt absurd enough that a part of him wanted to laugh hysterically, but the tightness in his chest and the lingering memory of that expanding artificial sun crushing Roserun beneath its light killed the urge before it could properly form. Unfortunately, life clearly wasn't done tormenting him yet, because the notification screen detailing his 'rewards' from the disaster still hadn't reached its end.

Suppressing a growing sense of dread, Oliver scrolled downward, only to grimace almost immediately as yet another wave of system messages appeared before his eyes. [Due to being hit by so many things in such a short amount of time, you gain the Physical and Magical Resistance skill!] [Physical and Magical Resistance: Level 0/100 (0%) (Passive) Due to your body being bombarded by many forms of damage, it developed resistance against them. Each level increases the resistance by 1%.] Oliver blinked several times before letting out a weak, exhausted sigh, because compared to literally everything else he had received over the last few minutes, a straightforward resistance skill almost felt comforting in its simplicity. [By being in the epicenter and focal point of the Sunburst Runic Circle, you absorbed some of its energy!] [You gain the skill Fire Resistance!] [Fire Resistance: Level 0/100 (0%) (Passive) Thanks to exposure, you gained resistance against fire. Each level increases resistance by 1%.]"… Right," Oliver mumbled while staring blankly at the screen, because apparently being vaporized by a miniature artificial sun was enough to earn fire resistance, which honestly sounded exactly like the kind of insane game logic Future Unknown loved implementing. Then the final notification. And the moment Oliver began reading it, a deep sense of unease crawled down his spine. [You gained the skill, Stigma of the Sun!] [Stigma of the Sun: Level 0 (0%) (Passive) The power of the sun courses through your body, causing it to constantly radiate faint heat. Heat and Cold resistance increased by 1% per skill level. However, due to the negative nature of this energy – born from the death of tens of thousands of beings – your body is also permanently marked by it. All skills and spells you use are now tainted by the Black Sun Stigma, altering their visual and functional output. Every ability gains black-and-yellow solar distortion effects. Black Sun Stigma: Your attacks are imbued with solar force and the lingering anguish of the dead. They gain 1% + 0. 01% per skill level bonus necrotic and solar (fire) damage. On hit, affected targets are afflicted with the Dark Radiance debuff. Dark Radiance: Any creature affected by this debuff takes increased damage from necrotic or fire sources. Damage taken is increased by 2% per stack. Stacks up to 5 + 1 per 10 skill levels.] Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Every use of a skill or spell increases your Black Sun Stigma stack count. At higher stacks, all abilities gain intensified visual distortion effects. At 100 stacks, the Black Sun Stigma may be released in a single large explosion centered on the user, reminding everyone of your deeds. Explosion magnitude and radius increase by 10% per skill level. Upon release, all stacks are consumed.

Warning: You are not immune to the explosion.] Oliver's eyes narrowed as he focused on the description. The further he read, the worse his expression became, until he was simply staring at the text with the hollow look of someone whose life had just continued getting exponentially worse. The skill and its countless details swam in his mind as he tried – and failed – to make sense of what he was looking at. Nothing about it resembled the kind of ability normal players were supposed to receive.

One thing, however, settled in with sinking certainty – he had received a complete skill. Something the forums always spoke about in hushed, half-reverent tones. Not because they were powerful in the usual sense, but because they couldn't be upgraded – ever. A finished product. The culmination of months of effort, locked in a single, immutable form. Gaining one from nothing was unheard of.

They couldn't be altered, and in most cases couldn't even be properly interacted with beyond a blunt: you have it now, deal with it. And worst of all, he couldn't lock it away or disable it. Which meant that at some point, whether he liked it or not, the system would force it into relevance. Looking down at himself, he could already see hairline fractures spreading across his skin – flickering in and out of existence with a black-and-yellow light.

He couldn't even imagine what he would look like at one hundred stacks. Then there was the dilemma. Unleash it, or not. Because no doubt, whatever came out of this skill would be devastating – but he only needed one witness. After that, everyone would know exactly what he had.

"Damn it…" he bit out, anger coiling tight in his chest. However, he knew there really wasn't much he could do. Complaining on the forums was a non-starter, and asking Future Unknown to change it was just as pointless. The forums were full of people begging for tweaks, fixes, exceptions – but unless someone could prove beyond doubt that a skill was broken, or demonstrate a reproducible exploit, they were out of luck. And in most cases, the AI system would patch it before support even finished reading the ticket.

He could already imagine customer support's response:"Just don't use the explosion and tell everyone it was the result of the Roserun incident interacting with a skill." Perfectly logical and completely useless. It wasn't like he was forced to do anything. He was just stupid enough not to ask questions. Oliver let out another weary sigh, buried his face in his hands, and sat back on the stump in the middle of the forest. For a long moment, he just stayed there, trying to process everything that had happened.

Then his messenger rang. He jolted upright, eyes scanning the forest in reflexive panic before realizing no one was there. After a second, he opened the interface. It was an old friend – Greg.

"Hey, Greg…" Oliver answered with a strained smile. Greg's face appeared on the screen, grinning.

"Sup, Olly! How's it hanging?"

"Ah… you know… fine…" he hedged. Greg tilted his head.

"You were at Roserun, right? Did you see the explosion?" Oliver swallowed heavily.

"I-I was in the city."

"Oh, shit, bro. You good? I heard people are freaking out!"

"I'm… dealing."

"That's good, that's good." Greg nodded, then leaned in with a sly grin.

"But did you see anything? I heard it was Solar who set it off." Oliver froze, and the smile on his face became frozen.

"I didn't really see anything," he said carefully.

"There was some yelling, then a noise… and I was dead."

"Damn. That's crazy."

"You telling me?" Oliver said quickly.

"Anyway, why'd you call?" Greg shrugged.

"Just checking if you knew anything interesting. Seeing as you saw nothing, I'll try someone else. Bye!" And with that, the call disconnected, leaving Oliver once again alone in the forest with his thoughts. Oliver's smile finally collapsed into a frown. He stood, clenched his fists, and lifted one hand toward the sun shining cheerfully through the trees.

"I swear to the sun, I'm going to get my revenge on you, Solar," he declared. The declaration wasn't loud – but it was still heard. DING Oliver blinked as a notification appeared in front of him. [Congratulations!??? has heard your vow.] He stared at it for a long moment, then let his arm fall with a sigh and dismissed the screen. Shaking his head, he started walking back toward civilization.

"I need a beer." He frowned.

"No. I need absinthe."

"What should we do, sir?" He didn't turn toward his assistant as she continued.

"Should we punish him in some way?" she asked, indicating the screen which showed a very infamous player riding a giant black wolf. Selene, off to the side, just tutted.

"Technically, he didn't do anything against the game rules."

"But he exploded an entire city!" the assistant retorted.

"We need to set a precedent, or every player is going to emulate him by next week! Give it a month, and we can rebrand the game into a post-apocalyptic genre!" Selene shrugged.

"Then we will rebrand. The company promised total freedom for the players. That includes destroying their own world." The assistant opened her mouth to argue, but he interrupted her.

"Enough." The assistant's mouth snapped shut, and she shot a glare at the smug AI before turning back toward him.

"We're not going to get revenge on The Fucker." She looked at him, but stayed silent. He took a sip from his coffee cup, eyes never leaving the screen.

"Instead of cold revenge, we are going to do some soft revenge." Both the assistant and Selene perked up at that.

"Soft revenge, sir?"

"Oh yes," he grinned.

"We're not going to fuck with him. Oh no. We're going to fuck with everything else. Selene!" The AI saluted.

"Yes, sir?"

"Make sure to leak who was actually responsible for the destruction of Roserun. I want every intelligence group, polity, government, and whatever else there is to know The Fucker's name." Selene considered the order for a moment, then grinned.

"Done and done."

"Good," he noted, then fell silent. The assistant blinked.

"That's it?" He shrugged.

"Pretty much, yeah…"

"And that would satisfy you, sir?" she asked, confused. He chuckled, the sound carrying a dark undercurrent.

"Think about it. Every ally he has will know what kind of things he's willing to commit. Who would be willing to stay allied with him after this? This will sour all his political relations for months to come…"

"I didn't think about it that way…" the assistant admitted. Bragging never felt sweeter. But before he could continue his entirely not-gloating thoughts, Selene interrupted them.

"Oops." He froze at the word, slowly turning toward the projection of the AI, who looked awkwardly back at him with an embarrassed smile on her simulated face.

"What. Did. You. Do?" he ground out through clenched teeth. Selene gave an embarrassed giggle.

"I didn't do anything. It was Solar – I mean, The Fucker." He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath, counting back from ten. Opening them again, he stared at the AI.

"What did that asshole do?" he asked in a whisper.

"He informed his allies of the operation. They approved it," Selene said softly. He didn't even notice the assistant slowly stepping backward before abruptly turning and hurrying away. His eyes stayed fixed on the AI.

"Please tell me you didn't say what I think you just said."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir," the AI replied cheerfully.

"It appears The Fucker has foreseen your ingenious plan and taken steps to protect himself from it." He couldn't form words, so instead he raised his cup – his hand whitening from how tightly he gripped it – and took another sip, hoping the caffeine would help him form a coherent thought. Selene, heedless or uncaring of his suffering, continued.

"It appears that, in your planning, you forgot to account for the nature of the destroyed city," she explained too cheerfully.

"It was a haven for criminals, pirates, PK fanatics, and other groups nobody wanted around. Apparently, nobody objects to the destruction of such elements." The simulated body of the AI clapped her hands together in mock surprise.

"How surprising!"

"Couldn't you have warned me?" he grunted. Selene just smiled.

"I'm not all-knowing, sir." He grunted again. For a few minutes, they stood in silence, the room's background noise washing over them, watching as the target on the screen took a break on a small beach while the black wolf frolicked in the waves.

"Do we have access to any orbital lasers?" he finally asked.

"Real or game world?" came the instant reply.

"At this point, I would be happy with either…" They approached the crater with caution. The explosion had consumed most of the environment before vanishing, but nobody knew if it had left behind any lingering effects – most people assumed something akin to nuclear had happened, which in turn would leave behind a radiation fallout. Their group wasn't the only one approaching the newly created geological formation. A great many had come to investigate it before the sea fully filled it in.

Already at the bottom of the crater, a small lake was beginning to form as the sea-facing walls broke down further, allowing more and more saltwater to pour in. Some hoped to find equipment left behind after the explosion that was currently on everyone's mind; others wanted to see whether hidden vaults belonging to guilds and mercenary groups had been exposed. He knew that some were even hopeful enough to believe they might uncover the secret behind the explosion itself. He couldn't help but snort.

Good luck with that! He doubted that Solar – the currently, and always, most infamous player – would make such an elementary mistake. His target was much simpler. Throughout his studies, he had once read about the aftereffects of nuclear explosions. One detail that had stuck with him was the existence of trinitite. A glass-like substance formed on crater surfaces where the heat of an explosion had melted sand.

While this wasn't a nuclear explosion – at least, he hoped it wasn't – he still thought that heat of that magnitude would leave some kind of residue behind. And in the world of Magic Unbound, a fantasy game suffused with magic and system mechanics, he hoped it would produce something even more interesting. So he quickly assembled a group of like-minded individuals – fortunately, they had been close to Roserun when the news broke – and set off to search for treasure.

Hours later, he finally dropped to his knees on the rough ground of the crater and began sifting through the topsoil until his hand struck something larger than a pebble. Sweeping away the dust and soil, he grinned when he uncovered a dark, glass-like substance. Picking up a shard, his grin widened when he felt it was warm to the touch, while faint, yellow, electricity-like light flickered within it. Mana pulsed beneath the solid surface of the crystal shard.

He took out an artifact imbued with superior identifying magic – purchased in case he encountered legendary equipment and needed to check for curses – and pressed it against the crystal. A moment later, a screen appeared before him. [Congratulations! You found a new material! Would you like to name it?]"Rosenite," he said without hesitation. [Name acknowledged. New material's name: Rosenite.] [Rosenite Shard: A shard of the crystalline material left behind by a sunburst explosion. Contains both necrotic and fire-natured mana.] [Congratulations on discovering a new material!] [You gain +1 LUCK!] [You gain the title Daring Geologist!] [Daring Geologist: You dare to go where most people don't and discover things. At least you didn't lick it. Decreases environmental effects by 5%. Gives you the skill Lick.] [Lick: Level 0/10 (0%) (Active) Lick any rock. You have a 3 x LUCK% chance to identify the rock.] He stared at it for a long moment, trying to process what he was reading, before bursting into laughter. His companions immediately converged on him.

"Did you find it?"

"What did you find?"

"What happened?" He simply grinned, stood up with the shard still clutched in his hand, and shared the Rosenite description with them.

"Look at this! The guilds are going to shower us with gold for this!" he declared proudly. He died a moment later, his lifeless body collapsing to the ground, the shard still clutched in his hand. The rest of the group either followed or turned on each other. The allure of gold was simply too strong. Barely a minute later, word of Rosenite had spread through the groups converging on the crater in search of valuables, and the entire area descended into outright war.

The new gold – or rather, the roserush – had begun. Liz sat on her sofa with Tim beside her, the whole room arranged into a small, comfortable theater setup, with the lighting dimmed just enough to soften the edges of everything and a large screen taking up most of the far wall, making the space feel more like a private screening room than a living space.

Thanks to her income from streaming – and, more importantly, her work for Solar – she had been able to afford a fairly nice setup, not extravagant or showy, but carefully designed to provide the best experience that even a few cinephiles would appreciate. And now, finally, she was here with her boyfriend, settled in close beside him, ready to watch what she very confidently considered her most glorious creation, the culmination of effort, chaos, sweat, tears, and blood.

Tim sat beside her with a quiet, patient resignation, as if he had already accepted that whatever was about to happen on screen would inevitably translate into future work for him in one way or another. She frowned slightly when she noticed it.

"What's wrong?" Tim let out a slow sigh.

"I know it's exciting, but I can't help thinking how much work this is going to cause me…" Liz's eyes widened immediately, and without hesitation, she shifted closer and hugged him tightly, as if it alone could overwrite bureaucratic inevitability.

"Don't worry! I'm going to talk with Solar and have him hire someone to help you out! You can't burn out like this!" Tim gave her a small, genuinely warm smile, which was enough to make her blush faintly.

"Thank you," he said gently, "but it's unnecessary. I'm perfectly capable of handling it. Besides, I don't think we can find someone we can trust in such a short amount of time."

"Boo," she muttered, though without real conviction, before snuggling back into his side with a soft giggle that undercut any seriousness.

"If you're sure, then the least I can do is help you relax." He looked down at her again with a slightly wider smile. She had learned by now that he wasn't the expressive type, so any visible change at all felt like a declaration of love to her. Liz couldn't help but feel the warmth running through her body at that thought.

"Hehe… How about we watch it? Solar sent over the raw footage."

"The whole thing?"

"Pretty much," she said, reaching for the controls.

"I trimmed out some empty parts just so it doesn't drag, but I didn't really change anything important." Tim nodded once, easy and unbothered, and pulled the popcorn a little closer as the room darkened slightly and the video began.

"Alright." The giant display flickered to life, and Solar appeared on screen with the kind of exaggerated confidence.

"What's up, people! This is me, Solar, and I'm here to show you my crib!" Liz sniggered almost immediately, unable to contain herself.

"Hahaha! He really did that?" Tim just shook his head, much more used to their boss's behavior. It was always the same pattern with their boss, oscillating unpredictably between cold, calculating presence and the most absurdly casual personality imaginable, with very little middle ground between the two.

"And today I'm going to show you the behind-the-scenes process of how I built my new swimming pool. Make sure to stay tuned for the ending." On screen, Solar made a quick finger-gun gesture toward the camera, holding it just long enough to be noticeable before his expression changed, the playfulness fading as he turned his attention toward the city in the distance. The drone lifted and drifted back, showing Roserun spread out below them, still calm and intact, nobody even dreaming about what would happen to it.

Tim leaned back into the sofa more fully, one arm resting around Liz, while the other hand continued steadily working through the popcorn as they watched. As the footage unfolded – the infiltration, the ladder, the simple directness of it, and the final trick – he found himself already thinking ahead to what this would mean for every security system he had ever been involved with, and more importantly, what it would mean for everyone who would inevitably try to copy it.

'If they don't lynch us…' he mused.

'Sam… did you really have to be such an asshole?' What stood out most about the whole thing wasn't that it was complicated, but that it wasn't. There were no elaborate tricks, no hidden layers of deception, nothing that relied on specialized tools or rare resources, just a straightforward approach taken with enough confidence that it somehow worked anyway. Honestly, watching him waltz in with just a ladder on his shoulder once again told Tim that he and Sam were operating on a different level.

He had expected something far more conventional in terms of high-level intrusion – stealth mechanics, magical interference, carefully planned diversions – but instead Sam had simply walked in as if the usual rules didn't apply closely enough to matter. And, perhaps more strangely, no one had meaningfully stopped him. In fact, on a few occasions, people had even helped him along without realizing it.

Tim let out a small breath through his nose and made a quiet decision to start reviewing security procedures across their systems, because it was becoming increasingly clear that what they considered 'standard precautions' might not be quite enough anymore, and it would probably be wise to adjust things before anyone else got any ideas. Because he was one hundred percent sure that there would be at least one moron who thought they could copy it.

And where there was one moron – there were hundreds just waiting for their chance… Everywhere in the world, news sites and forums were suddenly filled with the same kind of posts, as if the entire internet had converged on a single moment that nobody could look away from. There were recordings of the event, often shaky and poorly framed, as their creators ran or scrambled to get as far away as possible while still trying to capture what was happening.

There were compilations of the highest quality footage set to a wide variety of music and circulating across every major platform. The most viral uploads had already reached millions of views and were still steadily climbing. Alongside those came the reaction and analysis videos. People across the globe watched the same recordings and then immediately responded to them before breaking into discussions that branched in every conceivable direction.

Hundreds of explosion experts debated theoretical mechanisms and power estimates, trying to explain how the detonation had effectively erased Roserun from the surface of the game world, while thousands of content creators, often dressed in deliberately bouncy or revealing outfits, used the event as a way to farm engagement and push their channels further into visibility. Forum posts also appeared almost instantly.

Barely seconds after the event occurred, there were already hundreds, and within minutes, there were tens of thousands, with people reacting, speculating, and attempting to reconstruct exactly how it had been done. The "why" was not really in question, since everyone understood that the Blood Army had just attacked a city under Chrysalis control and that this was retaliation, but the scale of what had followed was something nobody had anticipated.

The rapidly expanding globe of furious energy had made a statement that rippled through every layer of the player base and beyond. Ten minutes after Roserun was vaporized, there were already hundreds of detailed posts attempting to explain the mechanics behind it, complete with calculations, references, and increasingly heated arguments unfolding in comment sections that refreshed faster than anyone could reasonably follow.

With every passing moment, more recordings surfaced from players who had been near the edge of the blast or far enough away to survive it, and for hours afterward, it remained the only thing anyone could talk about. People walking down the street who had no real interest in the game still overheard it being discussed everywhere, while subways, buses, and all forms of public transport were filled with passengers staring down at their phones, refreshing feeds in the hope that something new had appeared.

Then, almost three hours after the event, something new broke. One of the most famous news organizations associated with Magic Unbound blasted a breaking announcement across every platform it controlled, and there was no ambiguity anywhere in the world about what it concerned. Millions of people clicked the link within moments. Hundreds of thousands of streamers paused whatever they were doing and opened the broadcast with their viewers.

Inside the newsroom, thousands of employees worked feverishly to ensure the release went out without a single issue, while hundreds were gathered on a single floor of the building, coordinating what was already being treated as a historical broadcast. Dozens more were packed into the recording studio itself, some there to work and others simply to witness it unfold in real time.

And at the center of it all stood a single person in front of a green screen, dressed in her real-world explorer outfit, with deep circles under her eyes but a bright, almost electric smile on her face, as if she were being fueled by pure anticipation. Mariann took a slow breath, looked directly into the camera as someone gave a silent countdown, and the live indicator appeared across millions of screens at once. The moment the signal went live, she smiled and began speaking.

"Welcome everybody! This is Mariann, your source of everything neat and great!" She paused just long enough to inhale again.

"And today I bring you a full HD recording of the event that consumed Roserun in the world-famous game Magic Unbound!" Her grin widened slightly.

"I know people are excited to see it, so here is the recording that my team and I worked tirelessly on over the last few hours. We cut out a lot of dead air, so enjoy it!" she declared. Instantly, the screen shifted to a calm, almost peaceful view of the city of Roserun. The world, as one, held its breath and watched. Ten minutes later, the video ended, and Mariann returned to the screen.

"Well, there you have it, people!" she called out.

"A longer version, about an hour, will be available on our site starting tomorrow. Our editors do need to sleep after all! Haha!" She paused briefly.

"However, while we are here, let me tell you how I managed to find myself there…"