The Last Raid

“Mortal! Ruin has already arrived!”

I lifted my gaze to the colossal beast shaped like a ram, standing proud against the blood-red full moon at its back.

A vortex of death howled across the sky, and the black breath the creature exhaled polluted everything it touched, as if determined to defile the world itself. Drawn by that darkness, ambient mana began to rush toward the beast at an impossible speed. The mana, gathered to its absolute limit, hung like overripe fruit, ready to drop slowly to the earth.

“Embrace death!”

I’ve been waiting for those exact words.

This was the timing I had prepared for all along. I gifted the beast before me a single spell I had readied long ago.

“Receive the light of judgment.”

The heavens split open, tearing the darkness asunder as holy, sacred power slammed into the ground.

KWA-GWA-GWA-GWA-GWAANG!!!

A magnificent explosion melted the corrupted earth and belched out a thick cloud of dust. My vision vanished behind the haze, yet I was already preparing for the attack that would follow.

“The heavenly barrier drives out the dark.”

A sacred wall of light surged upward at the same instant the dust cloud ripped apart and the enormous beast burst through. It was a dizzying sight, as if an entire mountain were charging straight at my face. Yet the creature’s terrifying charge ended like a lie the moment the wall of light shattered it.

KWAANG!!

A crisp notification chime rang in my ears.

I unleashed every skill I had on the beast frozen by the counter and flicked my eyes to the secondary monitor. Over forty thousand people were flooding the chat of a stream that had neither mic nor camera.

I had finally worked up the courage to go live for the first time in my life, but without a chat moderator the place was pure chaos—cursing as the baseline, people fighting each other, trolls running wild. A few supportive messages and nostalgic reminiscences floated by now and then, but overall it was hopeless.

“This is a complete mess.”

Just watching the chat was enough to make me dizzy; I clicked my tongue. Of course I wasn’t streaming for money—this was a one-off event—so it didn’t really matter.

I pulled my eyes from the chat and watched my character locked in fierce combat with the massive boss, thoughts swirling.

The game I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was playing was called Hero Con Brio. Among players it was simply “Hero Con,” a title that had held the number-one PC-bang occupancy rate for 158 consecutive weeks and exploded in popularity across Asia—Korea, China, Japan, and beyond.

Yeah. Had been.

Fifteen years old this year, the game had finally lost its war against time. Tonight at 23:59 its service would end and it would vanish forever—a tragic title reduced to past glory.

I had spent middle school, high school, and university with this game. Even after graduating from unemployment and landing a job, I still sat at my computer after work to play. As the years passed and most players drifted away, Hero Con stubbornly kept releasing its endgame Apostle raids one by one… until, after the twelfth Apostle, it died without ever launching the final boss, the Evil God.

Hearing that the game which had somehow held on was finally shutting down left me with a complicated heart, so I prepared one small event. I would solo the strongest of the thirty-man Apostle raids: the 12th Apostle, White Ram Kumal.

Wanting as many people as possible to witness the final journey of my favorite game, I went live on the popular platform Nertube under the title “Funeral.”

“Fate never changes. Ruin shall soon arrive!”

The red moon in the background shattered into pieces as Kumal’s already enormous body swelled even larger and began spewing flames. Scorching heat seared the earth, and towering walls of fire sealed the entire area so that escape was impossible.

“Now!”

The tiny opening while he awakened was the perfect chance. The alarm announcing the boss’s last phase rang out, and I calmly opened my inventory. I had already stashed every unnecessary item in the warehouse and brought only what the raid required, so there was no risk of mistakes. I scanned the inventory and consumed the items one after another without hesitation.

Precious items steeped in blood, sweat, and countless memories were mixed in, but after today they would all be nothing more than vanishing scraps of data. Dozens of buffs stacked on one side of the screen; flashy effects and sound cues bloomed around my character until I looked every bit as dazzling as the boss monster Kumal himself.

The last phase had begun. Kumal’s remaining HP hovered around six percent. I had started the stream that morning and been raiding for thirteen hours straight—six percent was no small number.

Apostles that entered the last phase gained a special state called “Rampage,” granting them the absurd ability of Unstoppable. The 12th Apostle Kumal was no exception. Under normal circumstances three tanks could block the attacks through the “Joint Defense” system and break the pattern. But this was a solo raid. I didn’t even have three tanks—just one lonely damage dealer. That was exactly why I had prepared my trump card.

An Apostle raid with a pattern no one could clear alone. Yet in one item I had found the breakthrough that finally let me challenge it solo.

Heaven’s Spike.

The effect was simple: upon use, absolute freeze on the target’s movement for five seconds. Back in the earliest days of the game a field boss had a bug that kept it from ever stopping. Any method that halted its movement even briefly cleared the bug, so the developers had handed out this temporary fix item.

I was the kind of math illiterate who only knew the four basic operations, but play a game long enough and you develop a natural sense of timing. In a raid, five seconds could be long or short depending on the moment. Right now, five seconds was enough.

Cloaked in Unstoppable and wreathed in flames, the charging beast looked like a walking catastrophe—but to me it was nothing more than meaningless thrashing. The fist-sized cube-shaped item touched its massive body, and enormous iron chains dropped from the sky to bind it fast.

[5.]

“It’s the finale—might as well go out in style.”

[4.]

This single skill held my entire fifteen-year gaming life.

[3.]

“Here we go.”

[2.]

My fingers hit the keys and the character on screen began the chant.

“O light, become the spear that slays the gods.”

[1.]

[0.]

The spike holding Kumal vanished at the exact moment a colossal spear of light struck true.

Thuk.

A short hit sound.

KWA-GWA-GWA-GWA-GWA-GWAANG!!!

Then the explosion, and a storm of alarms began to scream.

A tidal wave of notifications filled the screen as Kumal’s enormous body gradually faded away.

“Mortal… you can never defeat the Great On—”

The automatic GM message that appeared whenever an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Apostle fell was joined by congratulations from the many players who had logged in for one last farewell. The stream chat also filled at lightning speed with cheers and awe.

“It’s really over!”

I had heard that a group of hardcore veterans once cleared a five-man Kumal raid among themselves, but a solo clear was almost certainly a first. Open-beta player, overall ranking #1, PvP ranking #3, first clears on eleven of the twelve Apostle raids—plenty of titles had followed me, yet with today’s successful solo Apostle raid my Hero Con career was complete.

I checked the clock: 23:56. I had cleared with roughly three minutes left until service ended.

“Holy shit, I almost failed.”

I opened Notepad on the screen, typed “Thank you for watching my stream late into the night,” and hit the end-broadcast button. Completely burned out, I sat in front of the computer and stared blankly at the game window.

“Yeah… it was fun.”

As a kid I had poured allowance into cash shop; as an adult, my paycheck. Outside of Hero Con I had no real hobbies, so it was true I never had anywhere else to spend money—but that was how deeply the game had sunk its claws into me. Family and acquaintances could never understand spending money on games and only fretted that I was addicted, yet for someone with neither friends nor a lover, Hero Con Brio had been worth far more than just a game.

And now it was disappearing.

No matter how many ranking titles I held, I was still just one ordinary player. When a game company announced the end of service, an ordinary player could do nothing but accept it.

Then 23:59 arrived. The game screen froze, and a notification window appeared.

Sadness, regret, disappointment, relief—every emotion swirled together inside my head. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again.

Everything that begins must someday end.

“Haa…”

A long sigh rose from deep in my chest.

“……Guess I’ll just sleep.”

As an ordinary office worker I had to get up for work, so sleep was mandatory. My head was a mess. I doubted I would actually manage to drift off, but I had to force myself.

And so, lying in bed and forcing sleep to come, I—

—found myself reincarnated into the world of Hero Con Brio.

“I’m so fucking screwed…”