Thirty minutes after Hecate left the game.

The sound of wailing cries slowly died down within the unnamed ruins.

A pale-skinned woman without a single cloth covering her body, stood quietly in a room full of spider corpses. She has a very beautiful face and ideal body proportions, no less than the supermodels who appear on TV. Her long, unkempt white hair detracted from her overall beauty, but at the same time gave her a mystical charm.

However, this woman was not human. Anyone with healthy eyes would be able to see clearly that the bottom was not a human body, but a spider with the same color as its pale skin.

Arachnia, who was mourning her slaughtered relatives, suddenly opened her eyes.

Her facial expression changed with anger, making her beautiful face look ugly as she hated whoever was the perpetrator of this tragedy. The remaining mana in the air clearly told him that this incident was caused by a human spell.

• • HUMANS!! UNFORGIVABLE!

Hatred and anger had blinded Arachnia from her reasoning. Right now, only vengeance filled inside her mind.

But alas, no matter how she searched the surrounding areas with her Life Sense, she didn't sense any single human presence. It's as if they were vanished into thin air. Unable to pinpoint the perpetrator, Arachnia's wrath could only be directed to the perpetrator's race itself.

• • THE SIN OF SPILLING BLOOD OF MY KINS!! I'LL MAKE SURE YOU'LL PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD, HUMANS!!

♠♠♠

 

On that day, the entire continent was turbulent with chaos.

Every spider-racial monsters suddenly become stronger. Their level has been elevated by 10 levels simultaneously. Not only that, for some reason they seems to borne some hatred towards human race players and will immediately attack on sight. Even the spiders in every beginner areas was not an exception.

Strangely enough, they aggressive towards players and NPC only from human races. Other races such as Elf, Dwarf, Beastkins, and many others did not really change that much.

The discussion forum suddenly burst with complain and curses from the players.

Such discussion become hot topics in the discussion board.

Many speculation and theories appeared about this sudden event, the possible boss monster, and the "human" that caused all of this. In just less than one hour, the thread had reached more than 150.000 views and 999+ posts.

Unfortunately, their heated discussion did not give any valuable result, due to the limited information.

♠♠♠

 

[Hokkaido - Gaia Technology Headquarters]

Inside a high rising building in the center of Hokkaido, is the HQ of Gaia Technology, a subsidiary of Gaia Corporation. They are the company behind the game Ascension, as well as its developer.

TV, Household AI and devices, Terminal Bracelet, Automatic Cars, Medical Equipment, Virtual Network...

Those things that was widely used by people were made by them. Using the latest cutting-edge technology, Gaia Technology had surpassed all of their competitors in the same field by huge margin.

It would be no exaggeration to say that they had successfully reign half of the world with their products.

Its parent company, Gaia Corporation, was not widely known like Gaia Technology. Not much information available in the public about them, except they were an investment company. However, their investment network was wide and they have invested into many business. But that's for another story.

 

A man in the middle between 40-50, sat in a chair while surrounded by lots of holo-screen.

Countless records of system logs appears like a turbulent waterfall in every single holo-screen beside him. However, he ignored them all as he focused his attention towards another holo-screen in front of him.

The screen shows different viewpoint inside Ascension.

Mountains, Forests, Cities, Dungeons... they were the part of the world that he created with his own hands.

Observing this virtual world inside the screen all day has become his hobby of spending time. He no longer had any shortage of money, and he did not have any relative to care about. Ascension was his everything, the fruit from his lifetime worth of work.

Prof. Ichinose Takumi, the main and sole developer of Ascension... or more precisely, the AIs behind its creation.

"Takumi... Entity #830, Arachnia has gone berserk."

A woman's voice called him from one of the screen. The numerous logs holo-screens vanished, replaced by a single screen that shows a girl about 16-18 years old. She has delicate face as well as purple hair and purple eyes. She has beauty that could captivate the opposite sex with just her looks alone.

However, Prof. Ichinose knows very clearly that she is not human, but an AI that he creates.

"Ah... I know, I saw the system log just now, Norn."

The girl named Norn was the highest AI that supervises anything that happened inside Ascension. Besides Norn, Prof. Ichinose also created few super AI to assist her managing the world.

• • Ignis: Manages the volcano, furnace, or anything that related to fire.
  • Aqua: Manages the sea, lake, river, rains, or anything that related to water.
  • Ventus: Manages the wind, sky, thunders, or anything that related to wind.
  • Gnome: Manages the ground, as well as collision system.
  • Licht:  Manages daylight system, reflection in the mirror, light intensity, etc.
  • Umbra: Manages night system, gravity, etc.

As the leader of the 6 AI, Norn maintained Ascension with their assistance. Perhaps, calling her its goddess is not quite wrong.

Prof. Ichinose shrugged the girl's words, not taking it to heart.

From his point of view, it's not the first time that a player did something that affects the whole continent. There are previous case where players causing civil war and involving many kingdoms in the process.

But, Norn did not finish her words just yet.

"If this is left alone, she definitely will use Ruler's Offering again after the cooldown finished, until her level becomes 1."

Ruler's Offering is a skill that was granted to an acknowledged ruler. It can grant its subjects 10 levels, in exchange of consuming 1 level and 10 Charisma of the caster. It can be cast once per month and the change is permanent, even if the ruler has been killed, the granted level won't go away.

Arachnia's current level after using the skill is 229. If not because of the cooldown, she might use it over and over until she exhausted her levels. If that were to happen, all of the spiders in the field will have at least 2290 level!

At that point, no one will be able to contend against the spider army, and they will become the top of the food chain. Defeating giants and dragons and rule the whole Rodinia continent.

Prof. Ichinose replied with tranquil expression.

"That's only if she can exhaust her level. The skill can only be used once a month.
At most, she can only raise the spiders level by 120 in a year. That's plenty of time for the players to defeat her.
Stop fussing with such trivial problem."

Norn closed her eyes for a moment as if contemplating something.

Is the problem really that simple? No!

The real problem was the existence in the unnamed ruins B5F that currently is slumbering. A giant red cocoon that gives uneasy feeling to anyone who saw it. It's just there, silently beating like a heartbeat, signifying that there is life inside.

[🚫][Chaos Spider - Lv510]

Even as the Super AI that manages the whole Ascension as its goddess, Norn couldn't help but sensing a bad feeling about this cocoon. She felt that it was not good to give it more level. Once the cocoon hatch, then it won't be a pretty sight for the natives and the players.

Ascension is a special case of Virtual Reality. Every NPC, as well as the monsters was controlled by sentient AI.

They have emotion and can laugh, sad, anger and express other emotion as well. If one ignore the game mechanical aspect, they almost indistinguishable with real humans.

Prof. Ichinose respected their will of life and makes a minimal interference policy towards their lives. Because of this, Norn can't openly interferes, or else she already vanquished that cocoon to particles long ago.

- To think Arachnia had hidden such a trump card... What is she planning to do?

- Nah, it was the previous Arachne's arrangements, Arachnia perhaps did not know anything.

When a boss monster died, they will be replaced in a month by the most closest monster to fulfill the evolution criteria into the boss. When the time for succession has come, the said monster will be forcefully evolved into the boss regardless of the condition.

The last Arachne died by a native long before players come, so the cocoon was kinda forgotten.

Should she talk this to Prof. Ichinose?

- Forget it, Takumi probably didn't want to hear it even if I tell him right now.

Norn shakes her head, canceling her thought. Even if he knows, he probably just shrug it off and leave the problem for the players to solve.

Few moments later, Prof. Ichinose suddenly asked her.

"By the way, how about that certain player?"

As he says that, he continues to swipe the holo-screen, changing the scenery view. Now the screen shows a certain familiar scene, a crater caused by Mana Explosion.

"This player is interesting... Her combat operation, decisiveness, ruthlessness... and that use of skills."

Norn instantly knows what is Prof. Ichinose referring to. With a single thought from her, another holo-screen appeared, showing the relevant information about the said player in a great detail.

"ID-450048348204200 - Hecate..."