On the last night of the VR Game Advent of the Hero, a blood orange sky hung above the last city on the server.
Waves of fire and shadow rolled over the city's walls as hordes of demons and dragons seiged us from all sides.
The south of the city had already collapsed. Only a dark and endless crater remained in its place, as if something had eaten it out of the world.
I stood on the fractured remains of the eastern wall as I watched the war unfold, spear in hand, and my eyes flicked to the raid party on the left side of my HUD.
[IronSaint]: F*ck, we're being pushed back on the south. The damn Vampire hoards are endless!
[Kitsune]: Heal CDs up in 12, hold out!
[Warden-X]: The north's been breached by the shadows. One of the raid bosses is here!
[SYSTEM]: Player [Warden-X] has fallen.
"North is gone," I said automatically, eyes tracking the top of the screen where another name greyed out. "The shadow legion will start pouring through to the heart of the city"
"Hah! I told the dumbasses to run daylight in their spell books, no way they're stopping that boss without it." IronSaint chuckled and replied, his fingers gently tapping the blade sheathed at his side.
Kitsune snorted over comms, "They were running Daylight, genius. The boss still killed all the battlemages through it."
IronSaint whistled, "Hell of a heavy hitter. Isn't that a 50% debuff on all shadow-based damage? We still got wiped?"
"50%? Warden-X had the Bile Barathion set, it's a 95% damage debuff, and he still got one-shot." Kitsune clicked her tongue and hastily continued. "Shit is hopeless."
"Relax. LastLight, what's the setup with the rune surge?" IronSaint sighed, his eyes drifting towards the north end of the city. A dark, shadowy tide could already be seen spreading towards the centre of the city.
"That skill takes a long time to charge." I gripped the spear again; this time, faint runes lit up across its handle and climbed to the spearhead.
"How much longer?" Kitsune said, "We've already lost 3000 players and counting."
I sighed, "One more minute."
"It better be worth it." Kitsune trailed off. A moment later, the distinct screech of an undead army echoed through her surroundings. "Necromancer is advancing on the West. The best our squad can do is hold out."
"That'll be fine." My lips curled into a smile. I nudged my avatar back along the broken parapet. "Try your best to lead them all here," I smirked, dragging the butt of my spear behind me.
My eyes narrowed. Demons already swarmed the base of the eastern, dozens of different models layered into one churning mass. The smaller ones crawled, scrambled, climbed, their claws biting into stone.
The larger demons stalked behind them, towering silhouettes that shrugged off ballista shots and spellfire. Farther back, there was the shadow of an immense, half-rendered figure, a silhouette that bent the sky around it.
Timers flickered at the edge of my vision. Cooldowns. Buff durations. Wave intervals.
"Forty more seconds," IronSaint said, tracking the timer of my skill. "Everyone, gather."
I gripped the spear tighter, and the icon near my name pulsed. My heart was racing. Every muscle in my body tensed. A heat spread through my chest. Almost as if my brain was celebrating having made it this far.
It was strange, I was ecstatic.
I was among the top 10% of all players on the server and was counted among the Archmages of my class. It was primarily because I had chosen a very rare Rune Bearer class that no one played, which allowed me to maintain my [Archmage] title. But even then, I wasn't the strongest nor the fastest on the server. I wasn't a renowned player, at best, infamous in the right circles.
So a part of me still couldn't believe I was among the few chosen to lead the last raid for the entire server.
"Thirty." IronSaint echoed, "LastLight, get into position!"
"Got it." I flickered towards the top of the eastern wall, shuffling my feet to get inside a crude circle carved into the stone floor.
There was only one good reason for my participation in this monumental raid. So that the players could use the exclusive ultimate ability of a top-ranked Rune Bearer.
-World Imprint-
The wall shook again. A section of parapet further along simply crumbled.
"Incoming!" IronSaint barked.
The horde surged.
Four gargantuan silhouettes flickered ahead from the shadows. Towering over the city walls.
"Four Unholy Titans," IronSaint said unsheating his blade. A golden aura enveloped his body. "Everyone, prepare for LastLights Rune. Keep him alive, if not, we will wipe right here!"
"You know we wipe anyway," someone muttered in the background.
'We would wipe anyway. That was the point. This last raid. We weren't the only server to have attempted this. The developers had promised that it was impossible. And so, server after server, players tried to get through it. But no one could. '
> [SYSTEM]: Player [Kitsune] has fallen.
I smiled wryly.
'In the end, everyone knew it was just a way for the developers to gently let down the players.'
The game was shutting down. This was simply their last goodbye.
'I know that. I know that and yet. A part of me isn't willing to give up.'
One of the unholy titans lunged forward.
"Ten seconds," I said into comms. My eyes tracked movement patterns, collision boxes, and my body was already moving.
The spear twirled in my grip. I looked up.
A fist the size of a mountain descended from above.
Before I could react, a glowing mark appeared above. IronSaint flicked his wrist. His sword cleaved through the Titan's arm, splitting it in half before the blow could land.
The Titan wailed.
IronSaint's figure turned golden. He stabbed forward with an ultimate skill. A simple thrust and the Titan's chest caved in. A gaping hole remained where its heart had been.
[Unholy Titan Defeated (1/4)!]
I chimed in, "Five seconds."
The distant silhouettes of the remaining Titans flickered forward.
"Fire!" IronSaint bellowed.
A fraction of a second later, a thousand mage players released their strongest spells towards the approaching enemy.
But my focus was already somewhere else. It was time.
I raised my spear, and runic lines flashed along its body. The runes coloured everything around me, and I spoke.
[Masaredo]
The city shivered. A pulse of bright light burst out and covered every inch of it with a large magic circle that continued to expand.
~World Imprint: Inverted Heaven~
I uttered.
Everything went white.
There was no big explosion. No roar. Everything had crossed into the city's boundary, the Vampires, the Shadowed legions, the Undead armies all collapsed into nothing.
Matter lost the right to exist, blotted out so completely that even absence struggled to mark where it had been. No corpses. No ash. Just emptiness.
As the world turned back to normal, the players realised that for the time being, everything had been wiped clean.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
But that joy didn't last long.
Beyond the city's edge, the remaining armies stood frozen.
Then the pressure came.
The sky bent, space thickened, and something dark, something immense turned its attention toward me.
> [SYSTEM]: Player [AncientWizard] has fallen.
> [SYSTEM]: Player [GrimTycoon] has fallen.
> [SYSTEM]: Player [SpeedyFoot] has fallen.
> [SYSTEM]: Player [Erise133] has fallen.
.
.
.
[Special World Event: The Demon King Appears!]
Whatever I saw could not really be called a model. Advent's engine was too old to handle what the designers were trying to do at the end.
The King was more like a hole cut in reality, an absence dragging at colours and lines. Looking directly at it made my eyes burn.
"All right," IronSaint heaved a breath, still radiating golden light from his form. "So this is the rumoured special last stage of the raid. Guess it really does appear if you manage to wipe out the armies in the City."
I felt a jolt run through my spine, and with a cough, I dropped to my knees. "Yeah. Guess the forums weren't talking out of their ass," I panted.
"You good?" IronSaint waved his hand, a bit of his golden aura extended towards me. My health bar flashed green; I was being healed, albeit slowly, but the recovery was evident.
"All good. Just playing with high immersion on." I replied.
"Crazy bastard. You'll fry your brain someday." IronSaint chuckled. "Better get back to your feet. Looks like it's only you and me remaining from the raid leaders."
But as I got up. We both felt the immense presence of the Demon King hovering above us in the air.
"Give me everything you have," IronSaint watched it approach and continued with a smile. His sword gleamed with light. "We'll drag this out and make it the longest two-man in Advent's history."
"Who's the real crazy bastard?" I raised my spear, and Runes flared from my armour. But despite my words, a smile hung on my lips. The end was near.
-
The Demon King advanced, and the air warped with every step it took.
IronSaint met it head-on.
His sword left its sheath in a single, flawless motion. The strike was clean and direct, a horizontal cut that split the air with a blinding arc of gold. The moment the blade connected, the space in front of him ruptured, the Demon King's form tearing open where the sword passed. Light poured through the wound like sunlight through shattered glass, and the pressure crushing the city eased for a brief moment.
I moved immediately.
I could see where the Demon King anchored itself to the world, points where its presence dug into reality to remain stable. I slammed the butt of my spear forward and carved glowing runes into the air itself. The symbols locked in place, and the space around the Demon King tightened, its movement slowing as invisible constraints took hold.
IronSaint didn't hesitate.
He stepped into the opening and unleashed a relentless sequence of strikes. Each swing of his sword landed with terrifying precision, golden shockwaves tearing chunks out of the distorted form before us. The ground cracked under his feet. The sky flashed with every impact.
For the first time since it appeared, the Demon King stopped advancing. It raised an arm.
The motion was slow. Casual.
And every instinct I had screamed that what we had done so far was nothing compared to what came next.
Darkness thickened, coalescing around his gesture. The sound cut out for half a heartbeat. My ears rang as a wall of annihilating energy swept over us. Our Health bars plunged. Names in the raid party vanished, replaced by grey bars and little skull icons. Voice comms lit with swearing, laughter, bitter jokes.
"Still here," I said through gritted teeth, watching my own HP bar cling to life on a sliver.
By the time I managed to spare a glance to my side, IronSaint had already died standing on the shattered inner gate, burning his last cooldowns in a one-man wall that held the King's advance for three seconds longer than the devs probably thought anyone would.
I lasted a little longer than I probably should have, just stubborn enough to stay on my feet as the world crumbled around me.
In the end, my health bar vanished.
> [YOU HAVE FALLEN]
> [NO RESPAWN AVAILABLE]
For a moment, the game let me watch.
Third-person camera, no control, floating just above the battlefield. The Demon King stepped into the heart of the city. The world tree that had dominated the skyline since the tutorial days splintered, its leaves turning to embers, its trunk cracking open. NPCs screamed lines I had never heard before.
> [WORLD EVENT FAILURE]
> [SERVER SHUTDOWN IN 00:10:00]
> [Thank you for playing Advent of the Hero.]
The timer started at ten minutes and dropped.
All the Avatars of the dead players slowly loaded into the lobby. But most had already logged off. In the end, only a few remained.
"Damn, nice try, guys. " Kitsune said softly on the comms.
"Please, we got wiped in two minutes," IronSaint added with a wry smile, "It was an utter dogshit attempt"
"An attempt nonetheless, you know most other servers didn't even reach this stage." Warden-X cut in.
"You'll have to thank LastLight for that. Single-handedly carried us through it." IronSaint smiled.
"World Imprint is absolutely broken, though? How's the Rune Breaker class not busted!" Kitsune cried out.
"It's not as strong as it looks." I yawned. "Just setting that one up took most of my mana. Plus, the cooldown is massive. Casting time is also too slow. In a PvP fight, I'd have been killed the moment I tried it."
"Still. Inverted Heaven. What a disgusting skill." Kitsune hummed.
"Good stuff. Thanks for the raid." Warden-X waved goodbye, his Avatar disappearing.
"Well, guess I'll catch you all later." Kitsune also logged off.
"This is the end, huh?" IronSaint crossed his arms, "Well, it was fun while it lasted."
As he uttered those words, he too disappeared.
In the end, it was only me remaining in the lobby.
I rubbed my eyes under the VR helmet. Everything ached. I had not eaten since… I was not sure when. Nineteen hours in this chair.
Four. Three. Two.
"Guess that really was it," I whispered. "Game over."
It happened too quickly for me to even register. The Demon King, whatever it was. That boss was simply too strong. Nothing we did even hurt it.
A sigh naturally escaped my lips. 'So many years spent on this game, and this is how it ends? What do I even do now?'
My stomach grumbled in retaliation.
Well, I guess eating would be a good start. I lazily stretched in my chair. But just before I took the headset off, something else appeared.
[ADVENT: The Last Hero – CLOSED TEST]
[A new cycle is ready...]
[Would you like to participate?]
There was no cursor. No confirmation sound. Just the question, hanging there.
I frowned.
"What is this?" I muttered.
My thoughts raced.
'Advent was done. The shutdown had been announced for months. There had been no talk of sequels, spiritual successors, or test servers. Just a quiet promise from the devs that they would "explore new projects" and a flood of nostalgic threads on the forums.'
"Advent: The Last Hero." I read aloud. "Very dramatic."
My eyes narrowed as I glanced behind me. The narrow bed, the half-unpacked boxes. The fridge that probably had nothing in it except energy drinks and old leftovers. The notification I would get on my phone tomorrow telling me my recurring sub-payment had finally stopped. I then thought about the last five years of my life. All that time spent learning the muscle memory of impossible fights. All my friends whose voices I had never matched to faces. The ache behind my eyes when I looked away from a monitor, and the room felt too flat.
Having treated Advent as my second life, if this really was some cheeky little epilogue event, some last bit of content the devs had buried for the holdouts, I wanted to see it.
"Fine," I said. "Just one more session."
My Avatar's finger gently hovered over the yes button as I clicked it.
There was no animation. The text did not glow. The window did not slide away with a pleasing chime.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: NEW CYCLE INITIALISATION][LEGACY RULE: ONE GIFT MAY BE CARRIED OVER]
[NOTE: SELECTION IS PERMANENT]
My stomach tightened.
"A carryover," I muttered. "So that's what this is."
A status screen unfolded.
As I slowly scrolled down my own profile, I couldn't help but chuckle. After all, it had taken me five years to get to this point. And now? I was leaving it all behind.
Somehow, it felt bittersweet.
-
[CHARACTER STATUS]
Name: LastLight
Title: Archmage
Class: Rune Bearer
Level: 854
[CORE ATTRIBUTES]
VITALITY: A
STRENGTH: A
AGILITY: S
ENDURANCE: S
MANA CAPACITY: S
MANA CONTROL: S
FOCUS:
WILL: S
[GIFTS]
INSIGHT: EX
RUNE AFFINITY: S
RUNE SIGHT: A
RUNEHEART: A
VOID RESISTANCE: B
BATTLE RHYTHM: A
SIGIL MEMORY: S
[SKILLS]
SPEAR MASTERY: S
FOOTWORK: S
REACTION: S
DUELING: A
MASS-COMBAT CONTROL: S
THREAT READING: A
GUARD BREAKING: A
SPATIAL SENSE: A
BREATH CONTROL: A
RUNE CARVING: S
RUNE WEAVING: S
RUNE THREADING: A
RUNE ANCHORING: A
RUNE INVERSION: A
RUNE SEALCRAFT: A
RUNE PURGE: A
RUNE LATCH: A
SIGIL SHACKLES: A
ANCHOR FIELD: A
WARD SPLIT: A
PHALANX SCRIPT: S
HEX BREAK: A
RUNE ECHO: A
DOMAIN STABILISATION: A
SEVENFOLD THRUST: S
RINGCUT: A
SKYHOOK: A
GATEPIERCE: A
LANCE THREAD: A
GLYPH STEP: A
RUNE DOMINION (ULTIMATE): A
SIGIL OVERDRIVE (ULTIMATE): A
PHALANX ASCENT (ULTIMATE): A
RUNE JUDGEMENT (ULTIMATE): A
WORLD IMPRINT (ULTIMATE): EX
-
I looked through the skill section, reliving the weeks and months I had spent ruthlessly grinding out each one.
Finally, my eyes drifted towards the Gifts.
In Advent, gifts and skills were similar in effect but different in action. Skills were temporary; they could be learned, forgotten, or even traded. But gifts? They were permanent. Gifts defined the player character.
In fact, I had only managed to collect seven throughout the game.
-
[LEGACY GIFT SELECTION]
[SELECT ONE TO CARRY INTO NEXT CYCLE]
INSIGHT: EX
RUNE AFFINITY: S
RUNE SIGHT: A
RUNEHEART: A
VOID RESISTANCE: B
BATTLE RHYTHM: A
SIGIL MEMORY: S
-
I exhaled slowly. The first gift was important. It would shape my playthrough for sure. Though Battle Rhythm was a pretty good choice, I wasn't inclined to choose an A-ranked gift over my higher-ranked ones.
Rune Affinity and Sigil Memory. Those were two pretty good options. Still, my eyes drifted towards Insight. An (EX) rank gift.
[Insight] wasn't really a strong gift. In fact, many players would say that it didn't impact their playthroughs that much. Yet I held an entirely different opinion. At its core, Insight allowed players to break down anything into simpler versions for comprehension.
But at the (EX) grade? Insight was a borderline cheat sheet. There was simply no puzzle that couldn't be solved, no riddle that couldn't be answered. No secret that couldn't be deciphered.
It was also the only reason I was among the few to finish the Rune Bearer class to its end. So my choice was clear.
[CONFIRM SELECTION: INSIGHT]
[ARE YOU SURE?]
"Yes," I whispered.
And then the prompt flickered again.
[Starting Cycle...]
Heat lanced along both sides of my head where the headset's contact pads touched skin.
"Agh—"
It was a sharp jolt, nothing like the gentle haptic buzz of normal use. Pain crawled in a tight line from my temples back toward my ears, as if a wire had overloaded. The faint machine hum in the background of my awareness stuttered.
"Stop," I said, a sudden fear scraping my throat. "Menu. Hard exit. Emergency disconnect. Stop."
No menu appeared.
The heat climbed. My vision, already full of white, blurred at the edges. Somewhere under the helmet, I smelled something that absolutely should not be possible to smell through plastic and foam.
Burnt electronics. Hot metal. My hands scrambled as I tried to take it off, but it was as if the device had fused with my skin.
"Stop," I said again, louder. "Advent, stop. Log me out."
The prompt hung there, indifferent.
The world lurched.
Gravity let go. The sense of my body in the chair, the weight of the rig on my head, the feel of the floor under my feet, all of it peeled away like old wallpaper. Sound stretched into a long, thin howl, then snapped.
White swallowed everything.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing. No game. No room. No self, except for a thin thread of awareness and a single, crystal clear thought.
'This is wrong.'
And then, the heat became cold in an instant, a searing, biting chill that punched into my lungs. My eyes slammed shut on reflex. When they opened again, they were looking at a sky full of falling snow and a cracked bus stop roof.
The disconnect screen was gone.
So was my room.
Advent, it seemed, had accepted my answer.
