When Cyrus sold three years of his life away for good money, he hadn't expected to be stripping butt-naked in a freezing cold room under surveillance cameras.

  A soft blue light blanketed the windowless room, allowing him to make out only vague, shadowy outlines. The guide had promised no details would be visible on the camera, should they ever need to peek in case of an emergency. If only he could bring himself to wholeheartedly trust the words of a multibillion-dollar company with questionable ethics.

  He faced away from the two slow-blinking cameras in the corners before removing his last piece of clothing: his lucky pair of purple boxers. He wasn't embarrassed. Not really. The neat string of zeroes trailing a single digit on the contract meant he would have agreed to this even if he'd known about the process in advance.

  Cyrus did, after all, ignore every red flag in the document, including the section that basically said Etercon, the company, would not be liable for any neurological, sociological, or psychological issues, nor responsible for any unforeseen physical degradation down the line. The sum that had shaken his bank account went beyond beta-testing their latest game; he himself was their test subject.

  Compared to practically selling his body and mental well-being away, why would he care about flimsy things like dignity or pride?

  Not that he had much of a choice. The debt from the liquidated damages for quitting his job wasn’t going to pay itself.

  His only other options were to starve, sell his spare organs (which he unfortunately didn't have enough of to settle his debt), or, worst of all, sell himself to Gilda.

  A shiver skipped down his spine, endorsed by a breeze of chilly air against his scarred, bare skin. That woman terrified him more than Etercon ever could. With Etercon, he would at least remain human at the end. Well, he had better odds.

  "Shit. I-It's so fucking cold."

  His teeth clattered madly as he turned to his coffin for the next two months: a sleek, elongated ovoid made of matte-black material with a quiet blue glow at its edges. It stood at a forty-five-degree angle, and when he hovered his hand above it, the hinges snapped open with a muted click.

  As the pod rose, something crawled up Cyrus's back—something with many, long legs, a thousand tiny thoughts of everything that could go wrong tapping on him. What if the pod malfunctioned and I get trapped inside like the characters in those novels and Anime? What if the world decided to end when I'm playing away?

  Then the ticklish anxiety sank its barbed lengths deep into his spine, and his heart kicked into a frantic rhythm. An irrational urge surged through him. The impulse to say farewell to the world and the few people he might call something close to family.

  Ridiculous. Silly even. The world hadn't ended in the last two decades, and it wouldn't end in the next two. He planned to beat the game on his first try, and three years would be over before he knew it. He would be out of this damned ward in no time. It was just fear cloaked in anxiety coaxing him, the uncertainty making him feel uneasy.

  Yet his eyes glided toward the door, or where it had seamlessly merged with the wall. He'd already handed over his phone after sending out a wall of instructions and a few casual goodbyes. Maybe he should have made a proper call. He wondered if they'd be willing to delay this just a minute or two.

  "Mr. Cyrus, get into the pod," the familiar voice of the guide came, though sharper and more unfeeling than he remembered.

  I guess not.

  Cyrus remembered how timid and fidgety the guide was on the day they first met when Etercon reached out to him. It had been a cold, hungry day, exactly four months after he quit his job.

  Now the same guy who flinched when Cyrus merely looked at his way was curtly giving out orders. Sounded about right. He had no way out of this anymore after all. The due date for the fifth payment was next week, and Etercon was the one paying. Cyrus's life was basically theirs until the contract ended at least.

  Here I go make even more bad decisions.

  He quickly folded his clothes and placed them on the floor beside the pod, as there was no other furniture in the room. With one large stride to the capsule, he prepared himself to climb in it.

  Inside was a single, human-shaped indentation, carved into a block of solid, shimmering jet-black Jell-O substance. When he finally stepped in, the gel was cool on his skin, but slightly warmer than the air outside. Cyrus sank into its embrace, where he would remain until either they woke him up or he died in-game—preferably the former.

  The plan was to cycle through 2-month dives followed by a 2-month rehabilitation period that could be adjusted as needed.

  I'll make the call to check up on them after my first dive, Cyrus decided. He needed to trust Mila's ability to care for herself and the other kids.

  At his gesture, the pod door lowered, closing with a hushed hiss of pressurization. Everything went still and silent except for the rhythmic pulse of the blue data-lines. The guide promised that any additional setup to sustain him throughout the dive would be handled by the team once his vitals stabilized. There was no need to worry at all.

  Cyrus sighed just as the pod did before a calm, androgynous AI voice spoke.

  "Neural link calibration commencing. Please remain still."

  A faint tingling sensation spread across the back of his head, and Cyrus realized that he couldn't move even if he wanted to. What felt like minutes later, the artificial voice returned right as his eyelids grew too heavy to hold open. Pressure rose, and a force dragged at him. It felt as if a vortex had formed above his chest, tugging at his being to hurl him somewhere unknown.

  "Initiating sustained stasis. Metabolic suppression will begin in T-minus ten seconds. The immersion sequence will follow. Thank you for your service, Mr. Cyrus! We hope you achieve what you want."

  The voice deepened, turning less mechanical as it multiplied into cacophonous echoes that drilled into his skull.

  "'O Great God, please save our children…

  "'O Great God, please salvage our Hollow Rift…

  "'O Great God! At any cost!"

  The last thing he perceived was not darkness, but the birth of a new light. The glaring white loading screen of Salvation and Beyond.

  Salvation and Beyond

  Welcome, wandering soul.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Proceed with caution—do not lose yourself or anger the Divine, for none is more dangerous than a man who is no longer one.

  May you find what you seek,

  at a price you can afford.

  – Your Trials Begin –

  "Master! Master! Please rise from your slumber, for the time has come!"

  A high-pitched, energetic voice squeaked into Cyrus's ears, and he knew it was none other than the guide NPC even before he opened his eyes for the first time in the game. The voice was exactly what he'd imagined when he saw the game mascot: a golden-feathered crow with one too many legs, four too many eyes, and a face that looked like it could use a couple more beaks to squeak non-stop.

  "Moshi..." Cyrus mumbled, recalling its name. "Where am I?"

  Slowly blinking to soft rays of light filtered through running mist, he found himself standing at the edge of the world, greeted by untamed gusts of wind and soft cries of cranes. Below him, seas of clouds billowed and crashed like great white waves. Mountain peaks shot up from the endlessly spiraling abyss, like spears slicing through layers of heaven. Yet none managed to reach anywhere close to the soles of his shoes or even halfway up the mountain beneath his feet.

  At this moment, atop this unreal realm, Cyrus felt more alive than he ever had. No growling stomach. No intrusive scent of mold. No lingering ache he could never pinpoint. It felt almost disconcerting to not have the dull headache that'd been there since forever. He inhaled deeply. His lungs welcomed the cleanest air he'd ever breathed.

  Here, he was free from poverty’s chokehold, even if it was all just an illusion.

  "We're at the Forlorn Pavilion, Master. Below us are the mortal worlds of Taan River. The snowy summits running from west to north are Hares."

  Cyrus turned to the chain of white-capped mountains. They were supposedly mortal worlds? A wispy veil of clouds shrouded them, and he half-consciously waved a hand as if to swipe at a map. And to his surprise, the clouds followed his gesture, drifting out of the way.

  Even at a closer look, they were just normal mountains except for the specks of light climbing up their slopes. The number of sparks thinned the higher they ascended. What were they supposed to be? Since the mountains were mortal worlds, were the sparks mortals? Oh, and, of course, there was also the pagoda floating a hundred or so meters above each peak.

  Totally normal flying pagodas.

  Jokes aside, something about them intrigued him, other than the fact that they were airborne. The tiered towers had similar appearances with distinctive upward-curving eaves and a spire. The only differences were the varied colors schemes, minor structures, and total tiers.

  But he could feel their distinction more than what the eyes revealed. Some were far stronger, sturdy and unshakable. He knew he couldn't topple them so easily. A few of them, however, felt weak enough that he could push them over with a single finger.

  He wisely chose not to test that out. He didn't know what they were, and didn't want to poke at the unknown.

  The tiny spark, on the other hand, looked harmless enough to be messed with. He reached out and nudged one upward, as if he could touch it across the vast distance.

  Apparently, he could.

  The spark ascended, pulsing brighter and bolder the higher it climbed.

  "That mortal shall forever be grateful for Master's divine blessing," Moshi chirped, confirming his suspicion.

  He had just randomly made someone stronger by pushing him up what appeared to be the visual representation of the world's hierarchy. Awesome.

  "The southern twin peaks are Staywes and Terras. The small bald peak is a new one, Lonan. Those are some of the mortal realms Moshi has been keeping watch of in Master's stead. And of course, right there, below the feet of Forlorn is Hollow Rift, the world that had recently roused the gods of Taan River with its impending downfall."

  Hollow Rift was the world Cyrus was supposed to save. He took a careful look at the mountain and saw nothing that made it stand out from the others. The floating pagoda above it was one of those that felt formidable to him, having a total of ten tiers. In fact, it was among the strongest as far as he could sense, especially the upper tiers that had a colorful aura swirling around them like a flowing silk ribbon around a lofty maiden. So he certainly wouldn't want to mess with it unless necessary.

  Instead, he turned to the crow perched on the wooden guardrail to his side. A string of floating texts shrouded in violet mist appeared above its small, fluffed-up head.

  < Moshi. My child. They are my Archon. The youngest of the ten, and the last of them. >

  Oh. So they are going with the classic move of framing new information as the player's character's thoughts.

  Cyrus hadn't been told much about the game mechanics or its backstory. Etercon wanted him to do a blind playthrough to stimulate the players who'd just tap away the initial cutscenes. They set it up so that he wouldn't see any of the pregame cinematics either.

  So, he'd half expected the pod to inject whatever lore he needed to know straight into his brain.

  He wondered why they didn't go with it. The sense of strength he perceived about the pagodas was likely information implemented into him that way. Maybe they still couldn't fully manipulate the player's consciousness, even with how far their technologies had apparently come.

  The big corporate sharks had always been discreet with their technological advancement, especially to Lowfloorers like Cyrus. An average person had only heard about some games coming out, and no one was really interested. After all, it wasn't like they could ever afford to play it.

  Regardless, Etercon was at least still decent enough to give him the minimal information about his character setup beforehand.

  Mo Tian was a god, weakened from years of slumbering away. He was, and Cyrus quoted, 'Kind of an Isekai god who can summon Heroes.' Another developer had added during the briefing, 'Basically a Gacha system, though the Heroes are NPCs. Well, mostly.'

  The 'mostly' part had intrigued Cyrus a bit, but the old geezers refused to elaborate further, so he could only find out for himself.

  As for how weak the player's god character had become, it depended on the difficulty level. For the sake of a couple of extra zeros on his payment, Cyrus had chosen to play on Quintessence mode, more commonly known as Hell mode. In this mode, Mo Tian was barely a god. He was, but a mostly made-up Legend whispered among children. He basically had the weakest possible start to the game.

  The god had finally woken up to find the mortal world at war with itself, the Insanities and tyrants born from the evils of sinful mortals. He decided to disguise Himself as a Hero to keep a good eye on His pawns, save His Faith farm, and finally revive His past glories in Hollow Rift.

  And that was basically everything Cyrus knew about his god persona. A former star making a return to save the industry and make it big again.

  "God Father has gathered enough Faith to summon the Heroes beyond the Sun," Moshi started again.

  Cyrus gave a brief nod, guessing they were directly starting with his initial free pulls. Just as he wondered how to open the wishing menu, Moshi's creaky voice sounded again.

  "Lower the Sun, Master. Cleave its body to call upon the Heroes!"

  Lower the freaking Sun, ha. Talk about dramatic.

  He looked up to the blinding ball of light above, seemingly hanging far closer to him than it should.

  "Drop," he ordered with a hand raised, and the Sun dropped.

  First, it shook, crimson surges of heat twisting and turning inside the golden sea of flames. Then it shifted, rising slightly up as if to gain momentum before it fell, crashing like a shooting star into his open palm. At a splash, the world turned scarlet, and the vivid shade of vital blood became all he knew. Solid red painted in every direction he turned.

  The crimson realm held its breath for a split second until a crisp chime rang. Bells rattled with vigorous tremor, each sending a splinter in the red and a spike in his heartbeat. Cyrus heard incoherent voices. There were cries. There were pleas. Prayers and curses. He felt their intent, desires, and most strongly, he felt a searing need in the pit of his stomach to possess something, to be something.

  He wasn't sure how the game could make him feel all that with nothing but red in his vision and feverish voices in his ears, but they were there. Undeniably present.

  At the final knell, red cracked and bled gold.

  With yet another screen flashbang, ten round marble-sized orbs rolled out from the crack. When the light faded, he found himself back inside the pavilion, sitting on a bench.

  "Haha. Who needs to see anyway?" Cyrus laughed dryly, rubbing his stinging eyeballs. Surely, there was a setting to make things easier on his poor eyes—an animation skip button, maybe.

  Aren't wishing screens normally designed to pump up as much adrenaline as possible so that the player gets addicted to it?

  All of the Gacha games he'd played before had a kick to them, but this one wasn't the most pleasant, he had to admit. Not to say he wasn't excited because his heart was still racing a mile a minute, but it wasn't so...easy. He felt drained, not to the point of weakness, but there was a noticeable sense of strain. It'd taken a toll on him, not physically but mentally. Somehow.

  But this minor inconvenience was quickly forgotten when he could see again. The orbs had turned into ten cards, floating before him as they lined up in two uneven rows. Without a second wasted, Cyrus turned to the cards.

  "Let's check out my first kidnapped vict—first summoned Heroes, shall we?"

  The ten cards spread out in two uneven rows, their back facing him so as not to spoil the reveal. He turned to the first row where the almost identical backs of two cards faced him.

  Both had a similar design with a lone sword at the center. One was a rusty sword that seemed to have been forsaken, unpolished and unsharpened. But with plenty of care, it could still make a decent sword.

  On the contrary, the other card gleamed the way a high-rarity sword would if he'd ever seen one. It looked like something that would get its own banner if the game had a weapon banner. The radiant blade was wrapped in heavy black chain, its holy light warped into something fiendish. Overall, it gave off a fallen angel vibe in the form of a sword.

  "A rusty sword and a pristine, chained blade..."

  A small grin crept onto Cyrus's face. Looked like he'd pulled something interesting.

  follow, favorite, comments, ratings, and maybe even a review when you're ready. The number really does help to feed the Algorithm Goddess. I really could use Her blessing!

  About Tag:

  All current tags reflect the current point in the plot. As the story progresses, the tag list will be revisited, and it may or may not see some changes. Competing Love Interest is included for creative flexibility. More on it:

  I spent so long on it but ended up not using it):

  Onto chapter two!