---

Volume 1: Genesis

Chapter 1: Welcome, Genesis

May 17^th, 2026

The scorching warmth of a high-noon sun was inflicting mayhem on our struggle to finally beat Holy Arc Online, an infamous MMORPG renowned for its absurd difficulty.

It was mid-May, and the New England Summer was already beginning to show us its wrath. Even the shade of a four-walled bedroom did little to soothe the almost visible ripples of heat. However, I persisted, attention riveted to the glowing screen in front of me, continuing my dance with the computer’s mouse.

The ragged apartment had a barely functioning A/C unit, that served only to sputter hot air into the small room, a cracked window provided the only other form of relief.

The heat was omnipresent. The dense suburbs of Cambridge—a separation from Boston in name only—bore no exception. Multitudes of pedestrians and metal-framed vehicles thronged the streets below, providing a bustling urban ambiance as they quickly tried to reach their destinations, for any respite from the unpleasant heat was immeasurably preferred.

Then, suddenly, a voice of exasperation and frustration tore through the noise of it all, nearly disrupting my unerring concentration on the game in front of me, “God damnit!” Kevin, my roommate, and long-time best friend, exclaimed while pounding his fists on the desk. In an act of apparent rage, he tore his headset off and threw it down on the ground, cursing all the while at the computer monitor displaying a ‘Game Over’ message in front of him.

With his slicked-back dark brown hair slowly giving way to the sweat on his forehead, he’d had enough. After all, the caramel-skinned mid-twenties man had just lost the character he had painstakingly worked with over the past year. All in the final boss fight of the game.

The bulky and stocky man went on a tirade of explicatives. The outburst lasted for only a matter of moments before my girlfriend, Rachel, a fair-skinned girl with strawberry blonde hair, made her displeasure known.

With a look that would make even a predatory beast cower in fear, the much larger man was silenced. Satisfied, the slender young woman returned to a large textbook that lay on her lap. Likely dealing with the intricacies of business statistics and management.

Her body laid sprawled on the bed, her back up against the adjoining wall. She too was clearly suffering from the heat as she wiped a glade of sweat from her brow, struggling to return focus to her book. Kevin’s outburst had evidently done little to help.

Then there was me, the final person in the room. A thin, and gawky-looking nerd, who had clearly spent too much of his recent time residing on the other side of a computer screen. My dark-brown hair had grown until they were long flowing curls, nearly reaching the bottom of the nape of my neck, indicating the need for a long-overdue haircut.

My attention had been so focused that not even a matter of simple distraction could subvert it.

The reason was, that after years of playing Holy Arc Online, we had overcome all odds and reached the final boss of the game—a feat that no one else up until this point had even come close to accomplishing.

After months of in-game planning, we had gathered a coalition of forces from the ‘Nine Great Kingdoms’—Kingdoms that boasted extensive militaries, populations, and resources. They were the 'Great Powers' of this virtual fantasy world. They were the only nations powerful enough to stave off the demon's advance.

Mine and Kevin's characters ultimately led this coalition into the final battle against the infamous Demon King Balfour. Fighting through numerous Demon Champions, Lords, and ultimately the Demon Monarchs, we marched forward with a stringent determination to free the world from the clutches of the Demon King.

As we assailed and vanquished every obstacle, more and more of our combined forces fell until finally, we defeated the final of the Seven Demon Monarchs. However, not before it succeeded in laying to rest every last man of the coalition force we had meticulously worked to gather.

Now, all of our efforts appeared that they might have been in vain. Kevin’s character had just died, and my character might very well be next. The problem? There was no coming back from death in Holy Arc Online.

However, it was this same mechanic that led to our love for the game. Its insane difficulty wasn’t for the faint of heart or the casual gamer. As such, not many ever stuck around to play the game. However, the feeling of exhilaration when overcoming a quest, a challenge, a monster was all that much more rewarding.

Despite our love for the game, it still struggled. It had originally been released years ago, back when I had just started going to college. It had been popular at launch, but its popularity quickly died as people became fed up with how difficult it was. I only ever saw a handful of positive reviews of the game among the thousands that raged online. Most were just salty their characters died and they had to keep starting over from scratch.

Right at the outset of the game, you didn’t start off in your average “Starter Town” and slowly level. You didn’t get some sort of divine-tiered weapon that made the game infinitely easier. You most certainly didn’t get to access or even "buy" in-game items within a cash shop. Frankly, only the most serious—or most insane—of players stuck around for any measurable amount of time.

The game's absurd level of difficulty was the perfect challenge for MMO junkies like myself and Kevin.

But our commitment to that challenge was about to bite us in the ass if I didn’t pull through. With Kevin out of the count, it was all up to me. Even if his character would never see the end, at least I could rub my success in his face, I chuckled internally, imagining his baffled look.

The moment was short-lived. My character was the next target of the Demon King; and unfortunately, I would be his last. There simply was nobody else that could even remotely be used as cannon fodder.

My mana was already reaching dangerously low levels, and my stamina and health were not far behind. My last chance laid in what I chose to do next.

I could always attempt to flee? The flame of a lonesome thought flared in my head for the briefest of moments. I quickly snuffed it out.

After all, why would I possibly flee, especially this close to victory? The thing is, Balfour was in a similarly terrible position. The next moves of this fight would decide the outcome.

Kevin had already helped me weaken the Demon King substantially, and I most certainly wasn’t going to let his death go to waste. Even though it was just a game, the mere thought of him having lost his character, permanently, filled me with a small sense of grief, but mostly pure ire.

Demon King Balfour was not going to win.

With a flurry of keystrokes and mouse clicks, I maneuvered the character that I had been painstakingly playing for the past year. I dodged countless dark and fiery beams, demon fire flickering throughout. Even a nick from one of those attacks would decimate any chance I had on coming out the victor of this duel worthy of being featured in a cinematic film.

I groaned with exhaustion as I foresaw the grueling challenge ahead. No armor, and certainly no spell I could feasibly cast with my current mana levels would protect me from those rays.

As the attacks continued, I noted the massive explosions decorating the background of the scene. Entire mountains were being obliterated with every attack. Even though this was a game; if I ever hoped for a world to explore after its climax then I needed to finish this now.

The realism of the game rendered all damage permanent. It was how the ‘Ten Great Kingdoms’ became nine—no one ever came back.

I dodged and launched the occasional minor divine spell, attempting to chip away at the impressive layer of demonic armor that the Demon King had conjured around itself. Its dark towering figure dominated the battlefield. Horns, whether natural or artificial I did not know, sprouted from the top of its skull, its intimidating aura constant.

Then, a flicker. As the unholy darkness gave way to a sliver of color, a sign that the armor had just weakened. Now there was a hole in Balfour’s nearly impenetrable defenses.

This was my chance, I realized.

There was one attack I had been saving for just the moment when the Demon King showed even the slightest hole in its defenses. The [Beam of Valhalla] relied on the utilization of a mythic-grade, 7^th Tier artifact. With a blur of keyboard shortcuts, I activated the artifact and poured a significant amount of my remaining mana into the spell.

I could only hope it was enough.

Suddenly, a glow. Then a crack, and the artifact was ready.

Dodging another demonic beam from Balfour, I raised the artifact into the air. A massive swirling pool of clouds, like the formation of a massive tornado, began to open in the sky above the battlefield. A cataclysmic-sized event was just activated, and it was likely that the repercussions of my attack would be felt across the entirety of the small continent in the form of earthquakes and tremors. Victory was never achieved without sacrifice.

Suddenly, with the crackle of a thousand lightning bolts, a massive beam of holy energy descended straight upon the Demon King.

I could see the damage being done right before my eyes as his armor slowly deteriorated away, the spell taking advantage of the chink in the Demon’s defenses.

While the spell would normally decimate entire scourges of demons, it only served to incapacitate the Demon King.

But this was all I needed, and I began my rush forward. Finally, after being utterly weakened by the combined attacks of myself and Kevin for the past hour, the Demon King was faltering. I powered up my legs and jumped, soaring above the Demon King’s collapsing form.

Then, with the added power of a divine artifact, my crystalized sword came crashing down upon the unprotected nape of Balfour’s neck. It was cleanly severed.

As the Demon King’s separated head crashed down to the ground, I looked on, shocked, as the stream of notifications popped onto the screen. The messages announced the defeat of the final boss of the game, the experience I had gained, and a notice announcing my character as the savior of the world of Alyria. I had just completed the impossible task of repelling an interplanar demonic invasion.

Of course, at this very moment, Kevin went hysterical, with the chortled laughter of an insane child. I jumped straight out of my cushioned chair, startled. Kevin had been behind me, peering over my shoulder the entire time since his character’s death.

“Hell yeah man! We finally did it!" Kevin yelled animatedly, with a flurry of fist pumps and crazed shouts of triumph.

Rachel rolled her eyes as Kevin’s outburst once again distracted her from her studies.

While Kevin continued his celebration, I turned my head to look back at the screen. Suddenly, as if responding to my returned attention, the screen started to fade away into black. Only for a blue message to appear on the display.

 

“What the hell...” I whispered as I finished reading the message. It was at that point that Kevin stopped celebrating and looked back down.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I’ve got no clue, it just popped up as soon as I turned back to the game” I responded, puzzlement imprinted on my visage.

“Oh! You know what would be cool? What if it was one of those isekai shit moments? You know, like from that one anime...” he trailed off as he attempted to remember the name.

But that was absurd. I mean, that’s all fiction. granted, perhaps it was referring to the game? What if there was a hidden update that was only activated once the game was beaten? Just imagining finding new zones and continents to explore practically made me salivate.

In fact, I was so engrossed with that thought, that my impatience won out, and I moused over and clicked [Yes].

After an extreme bout of fascination and confusion, a searing pain suddenly erupted in my head. My skull felt as though it was about to burst outward, so massive was the pressure I felt being exerted. The image of brain matter scattered around the room, along with the screaming of my girlfriend and my best friend adorned my thoughts, as suddenly, I blacked out.

⤜⤚⤙⤛

I must have only been out for only a minute at most, as I woke to Kevin and Rachel, both trying to hold me down as my body recovered from a series of convulsions. Rachel appeared visibly distraught over the sudden incident.

As my eyes fluttered open, I slowly focused in on both Kevin and Rachel, they relaxed at my sudden awareness.

Rachel fell across my chest, clenching my torso in relief. Kevin stared on with gritted teeth, holding back a torrent of worried emotions. Whatever just happened to me clearly had them unnerved.

“God Damnit Thomas, what the hell just happened!? You were sitting there staring at your screen, and then your computer just shut off and you collapsed along with it!”

“I thought you had been electrocuted,” Rachel shakingly said as she looked up. She was beginning to recover from the suddenness of the experience.

I slowly sat up and rubbed my forehead, the pain starting to fade away. I had never felt that much pain in my life, not even the pain of my appendix rupturing as a kid came even close.

I turned towards Rachel and helped her stand up, wiping away the tears that had begun to well up in her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine guys. What the heck was that though?”

Kevin sighed, “I don’t know; the last thing I saw was you trying to read something on your computer.”

I was confused. “Did you not see what it said?”

Kevin looked at me with worry-filled eyes, “uh, there weren’t any words on the screen, Thomas...” His concern over my current mental state evident.

Just as he finished that proclamation, an audible voice resounded in my mind, coinciding with the appearance of a holographic blue screen. I glanced at Kevin and Rachel. The look on their faces was enough evidence. They were experiencing the same phenomenon.

"What in the living hell..." both Kevin and I exclaimed as though God himself had descended.