Vorn wore a calm expression. He recalled seeing a similar videos before, people killing and running.
He never liked this show, never watched it, and looked down on those who did, seeing them as savages in masks of civility.
He remembered the ruckus, the intensity of every media when the past season of the end games was launched; in all this time, he had never imagined being in one of these videos.
He wasn’t just in the videos; he was at the head of them, the first, the best.
They made me look like a fucking god, but I fail to understand the reasoning, can’t they see that I’m in way over my head?
Can’t they see my suffering and pain?
Where is my low key? Low profile? Flying under the radar?
I did nothing, absolutely nothing, so why am I punished?
Lilith remained behind the giant undead at the door, a shadow with eyes.
She only watched me.
My throat was dry enough to crack. I swallowed anyway.
Somewhere out there, people were paying to watch me, well fuck them; I might as well just die in a few days and make them lose money,
Entertainment.
I’ll never be your entertainment; I’d rather die a horrible death.
Just as I was thinking of committing suicide instead of a painful death, I lifted my eyes slightly to see Lilith’s cold face, so I chickened out.
I said coldly, full of anger and indignation internally, “It’s of no consequence; there are more important things to do.”
I looked at the timing for causality memento, 6h 42m left for it to be used again.
I knew my mission: I must survive long enough to use it again.
Anyone who knows the game would understand that the rankings aren’t ranked by strength.
They mainly use a formula between strength, possible viewership, and profit.
Countless crazy people would come to kill me horribly and take the 1st place from me with style.
The skyscraper or my domain hissed, mana being gathered and swallowed in the 40th floor like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to anything living.
The survivors weren’t here or above, but a few floors below. They had moved while I slept, gathered in a tight knot like injured animals.
The super team of six was with them, protecting them, although some of these survivors are pieces of shit; some are still worth saving.
I said calmly to Lilith, “Call for Nyx, Aelar, and the others to floor 40. We will meet there in 7 hours. We have important business to discuss.”
When I said that, Lilith looked at me for a while and then nodded, leaving.
I looked at her back and couldn’t help but sigh internally, ‘Why is life so difficult?’
Vorn knew that the domain core ‘Hollow’ is currently controlling the domain rules, so all he needed was to order Hollow what he needed; otherwise, he could take control of the rules himself, but that would mean he would have to keep paying attention to the domain 24h/day.
It is easier to just have Hollow in control, as for the defensive positions of the undead troops, he can change them at any time through Hollow, as this is no longer a dungeon, Hollow, and I are not restricted by the system.
Otherwise, if it weren’t for the system restriction, Hollow could have sent everything to kill me at once before I entered the 40th floor.
I called for Hollow softly, and he popped in front of me out of thin air in his child form. He was excited and kept on rambling.
He knew of the ranking and was excited to follow someone as strong as Vorn.
I looked at the child like a corpse with a blank expression.
I cut him off, saying, “The guard position needs to be changed.”
When Hollow heard that, he grew nervous; after all, he was the one who decided on their position. Before he could explain himself, Vorn began to speak.
“I know that you made them to protect me during my sleep, but that won’t work now. As far as I'm concerned, there are only 2 entrances to the domain: the ground floor and the roof.”
“First on the ground floor and roof, you must put at least 5 mage undead, let them focus on using detection magic at all times, even if they become useless in a fight, their main objective is to warn you and the other undead if an enemy intrudes.”
“Also, have some scattered every 10 floors or so in case someone manages to break through the skyscraper walls.”
Hollow thought for a while and said: “We have eleven mages in total, we can put three on the ground and two on the roof, that leaves us with six, we could make them rotate through the floors, unless the intruder knows their location beforehand, it would be difficult to escape their detection.”
“Also, with the help of my natural mana absorption, I could produce two undead mages in the next four hours. They would be much weaker than the current ones, but they will be good enough for detection. You don’t need to worry about the corpses; I have many.”
I ignored the last remark about the corpses and nodded, “Good, now for the level two physical undead, we have 10, so let’s put one every eight floors, they should remain hidden even after the mages expose the enemy intrusion.”
“If an intrusion occurs, then delay them with the 100 or so undead, the ones that have high status in level one; they should be scattered around, let them focus on delay instead of kills if the enemy is too powerful.”
“As for the 5000 or so useless undead, use them in waves in case of intrusion whenever you see fit.”
“And most importantly, call me immediately when the enemy attacks.”
“Can you do all of that?”
Hollow answered immediately, “It can be done easily.”
“Good, start on it, you can leave now, only keep the three wardens for my personal protection, I will be the one controlling them.”
After Hollow left, I breathed a sigh of relief. This situation is too dangerous.
I can already see the shadow of death looming over me.
There is a high chance that viewers have already shared my information with countless other challengers.
Sharing information isn’t too difficult; someone outside of the game would just need to follow the person he/she want to share the information with and send it as a gift.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
In the gift tab, there are only 3 things: the number of followers, the discussion tab, and the gift tab.
As a challenger, you are allowed to know the number of people following you. You can also see your followers speak to one another, and this is a way to communicate with followers and get them to send you gifts.
However, there is a catch; followers can’t send important information, such as if someone is planning to attack you, on the discussion tab.
If you want to send such information, then you must send it as a gift; however, gifts are too expensive, and information is even more so.
In the outside world, the currency is unified, named EG; every world uses this currency.
If a normal person in an average job of a 9th-ranked world worked for 150 years without spending a single EG, then they might be able to gift one allocation charge to their favorite challenger.
However, there are always rich people, especially from higher worlds, which is why my information is probably everywhere.
As for me, I received no notification of a gift, as for my followers in the discussion tab, I’m too afraid of talking to them, if I expose myself, I’m sure to die.
‘I will only speak to them after the causality memento cooldown is over for safety, so I can’t make any requests from the rich until then.’
[Causality Memento — Cooldown: ~6h 41m remaining]
…
Worlds away, families and friends gathered around screens and watched in silent enjoyment.
And some… They purchased.
A woman in a blue dress sat on a couch watching the same footage replay of events that took place on the first day. She saw how Vorn and Lilith took on such a strong dungeon.
She saw how he avoided every obstacle as if he knew the future and was greatly interested.
Therefore, she followed him, but she also read about his location from the endgame challenger center, which is a Wikipedia for all the public information of challengers.
Afterward, she sent gifts with his location to some promising challengers near his location; she didn’t want him to die but to see his limits.
Moreover, she wasn’t the only one; countless others spent an astronomical amount of money, some to test him, and some wanted him dead so that their favorite one could increase their rank.
…
Back inside the skyscraper, Vorn felt none of that.
He only felt the pressure of being watched, and the weight of time sliding downward like a guillotine.
Outside, it is dark again, my fear intensified by the minute, but I found my guiding light once more.
[Causality Memento — Cooldown: ~0h 01m remaining]
‘Now, for my future plan, it is simple: I should give 5000 shop points to the team so they don’t kill me, then I should spend the remaining 2012.3 to buy allocation charges and invest in AGI/STR. I can’t stay this weak; otherwise, I would die sooner or later.’
‘Then I should stay low, defend my domain, maybe explore a little with the undead so I can get more shop points, strengthen myself, and the undead bound to the domain as they are definitely loyal.’
After sorting out my thoughts, I spent the four remaining allocation points on luck.
LUCK: F (16%)
With this, the prediction for the future will be more specific and accurate.
After activating the causality memento, the world changed like before, and I saw the fog realm.
…
A ripple ran through the gray, like water disturbed by footsteps.
Twelve figures of dark and gray appeared, half circling one figure.
Then one of the twelve figures said calmly, “You are not a bad opponent. I couldn’t understand the reason behind many of your actions, but they still gave me a lot of trouble.”
“However, I must admit, I expected more from the so-called top strategist, but then again, you lost the moment I started to gather the undead to counter your army, with the wardens and Lilith distracted, it will be you against us, so any last words?”
Just then, I heard my own voice, calm and composed; oddly enough, it didn’t sound like acting but more of a probe.
“Before I die, I wish to know one thing: when did you start gathering undead toward me?”
“This calm act of yours isn’t fooling anyone, however, to satisfy your curiosity, I started planning right after I saw the endgame promotional video. I was close by, so I was lucky enough to know your exact location, started to gather like-minded individuals, and the plan was put into action four hours later with the help of some special donors.”
Just then, Vorn started to mutter in a low voice, “The ranking announcement was delayed. I asked Lilith if it was released about an hour and a half before I woke up from sleep.”
“Also, don’t strengthen your other attributes; this isn’t the time, you know what is more important.”
“What are you muttering?” the leader of the figures asked, confused and worried this time.
Even I could feel it without seeing his face or expression; he probably realized that something was wrong.
“It is nothing that you need to concern yourself with, after all, this wasn’t for you but a message for me."
"And by the way, none of this is real, because if it was, I should have already seen it.”
…
The scene broke like glass, and I returned to my seat, the same one I sat on for the past 7 hours, waiting to use causality memento.
My expression remained the same to fool the viewers; after all, they couldn’t see what happened in my vision, but I was in turmoil inside.
‘The me in the vision looks like it knows that it isn’t real. I didn’t expect that, but it makes sense. After all, the me in the vision knows about the memento.’
‘Not using it would be stupid, so he must have guessed that he isn’t real but a possible outcome, because he didn’t use the memento, so he gave me as much information as possible to save himself.’
‘On top of that, someone is planning on killing me. He started about an hour before I woke up, so 8 hours in total, minus four hours of planning, then this guy started to move against me four hours ago.’
‘He is dangerous, somehow managing to bypass the wardens and Lilith.’
‘He said something about gathering undead toward me, that is when I lost. I can’t change this fact because, according to the timeline, he already started, but I can still stop him. I don’t believe that it’s impossible to win.’
‘I love myself for being smart.’
Without wasting another minute, I got up, used the map to check on Lilith and the others; they were gathered as I said, so I moved toward them calmly.
The door to their room slammed open as I entered. I looked into each one of them in the eyes, checking on their status window.
To my surprise, everyone's status has improved, especially Nyx, Aelar, and Orik.
Although Rook and Mira improved as well, their improvement wasn’t much.
As for Korgan, he changed his race to begin with, so his status has also improved greatly.
Lilith, she is a monster, but I needs her for now, at first my thoughts were to give 5000 shop points to them equally, but now, I need Lilith to be stronger to fight for me.
After looking into everyone's eyes and somehow intimidating them, I said calmly, “It is time, the enemy is on the move, first I will give Lilith 2000 shop points, use it now as the enemy coming isn’t easy to deal with, understood?”
After thinking for a while, Lilith nodded, so I transferred the points without much thought.
“As for the rest of you, I will give you 500 points each. If you have already bought weapons with your rewards from clearing the dungeon, then buy allocation points; if not, then buy a weapon, then allocation points.”
“Understood?” I said quickly as I was running out of time.
However, they seem not to understand this fact, Rook said after some hesitation, “We have not helped you much, is it really okay to reward us, although we didn’t receive much, we did gain something from the dungeon clear reward, you d…”
I cut him off before he could continue in a menacing, “This is no reward, I need a stronger you for my plans.”
Just then, Nyx started to speak, “You don’t need to worry about us, just tell us wh…”
“Enough, this is me telling you I have no need for useless people, so strengthen yourself to be useful, and never question my decision. If you don’t like this fact, then scram.”
“All of you have 10 seconds to decide whether to stay or leave. This is your one and last chance. If you stay and receive my help, then you will follow me in life and as a corpse in death. If you decide to stay, then know that I will try my best to keep you alive and well as long as you follow me truthfully, and if you betray me, know that death will be your mercy.”
They looked at each other and were afraid of leaving. After all, they began to understand this world more and more as time passed. Mostly from the ones who followed them, they began to understand the end games and what the 1st rank represented. Even their followers are only here because they are associated with Vorn.
None wanted to leave his protection; they objected because they might appear greedy if they agreed readily.
After seeing no one moving, I said calmly again, “I’ll consider this your approval.”
So I transferred 500 points to each of them.
“Now for the main business, let’s talk about the threat.”
