N/A: I had two advanced versions, but in the end I think I'll stick to third person. I tried to continue writing the first-person version, but at some point it became too heavy for me, so I decided to upload it again but rewritten in third person. My apologies.
Prologue –
Chapter 1 – The Crimson Star's Omen
The sky was gray—a dull, oppressive shroud stretching over the city like a damp sheet, smothering any attempt of sunlight to break through. It wasn't a poetic or mysterious gray, but a sickly, washed-out shade—the color of an abandoned hospital wall, or of a photograph bleached by time. The kind of gray that promised nothing.
No thunder, no lightning—only the distant toll of bells, so faint it could have been a trick of memory. They said the sound came from a temple hidden deep in the mountains, a place no one had ever truly seen. There, they kept an old tale about a child marked by the Crimson Star.
The oracle had spoken: "The one destined to fall will rise where none are left standing." Most saw it as an ill omen. A few, as an excuse to do something foolish.
Thousands of miles away, Li Wei wasn't thinking about prophecies. He was hunched over three monitors in a room that smelled of instant noodles and overheated fans. Empty cans lay stacked beside his desk, some still sticky at the bottom. Coiled cables slithered under the desk like sleeping snakes. In the middle of that chaos sat Li Wei, playing as if the rest of the world didn't exist—each click of his mouse a heartbeat more vital than any conversation.
In *Celestial Dominion: Blood Oath*, Li Wei was the kind of player who never gave anything for free. If he could win, he won. If someone had to fall in the process, all the better. He didn't play to pass the time—he played to control it. And that made him dangerous.
That night, he was about to trigger a secret route that could alter the fate of one of the game's most tragic characters. Not out of pity, but because he liked having something no one else could touch.
What he didn't know was that, elsewhere, the pieces of a much larger game were already falling into place.
3:00 a.m.
Li Wei's room was a cubicle where noise never stopped—the constant hum of cooling fans, the heat radiating from the monitors, the precise tapping of mouse and keys. Outside, the city slept under a heavy silence. Inside, every sound was part of a calculated rhythm he commanded effortlessly.
The cold blue glow of the screens carved his silhouette. On the center monitor, his avatar stood still on the outskirts of the Burning Valley—a map almost no one visited: no valuable loot, no notable bosses, no tourist spots for curious players. A place so forgotten even the NPCs seemed bored of existing there, waiting for something—or someone—to shatter the monotony. Which made it perfect. No interruptions.
His target was clear: a nameless monk living in a shack at the foot of a hill, its wooden walls rotted, its roof sagging with damp. He appeared in no quests, no official records. Unlocking his event had been a riddle solved through trial, error, and sleepless nights. Now, only the final sequence remained.
Thirty-two minutes until the event servers opened. Plenty of time, as long as he didn't make mistakes. He grabbed an energy drink, popped the tab with a sharp snap, letting the carbonation burn down his throat. Back to the screen—inventories checked, buffs ready, cooldowns aligned. No nerves. Tension only bred mistakes.
In the official lore of *Celestial Dominion*, Zerel Kai—the Butcher Prince—was nothing more than a tragic villain, doomed to fall. His story always ended the same way. But Li Wei had found scraps of deleted dialogue, faint references buried in forgotten files, lines of code contradicting the accepted version. The real story was different. And if it was, he could change it.
He moved the cursor slowly, as if every click might shatter the delicate balance he'd reached. He entered the shack. Inside, there was almost nothing: a crooked table, an empty bowl, and the monk, hunched with his back to him, bent over a candle on the verge of burning out. In any other game, he'd be nothing more than set dressing. But Li Wei knew every detail here was placed with intent.
He approached and triggered the dialogue. The text appeared exactly as he had seen in his research: *"The one destined to fall will rise where none are left standing."* The monk's voice was deep, distorted, as if the audio file itself had been damaged.
This was the critical moment. One wrong move and all progress would be lost. Li Wei didn't blink as he executed the exact commands—open inventory, use an irrelevant item, cancel the animation at the perfect frame, step back once, and interact again.
The screen flickered. Not a normal in-game effect.
Textures warped, colors stretched, and the sound dropped into a low, teeth-rattling hum. A chill crawled down Li Wei's spine. He didn't look away.
Then—black.
For a heartbeat, he thought the game had simply crashed. But there was no hum of the fans, no faint beep of the monitor. Nothing. Only silence. A silence so deep he could hear his own heartbeat.
The cold came next. Not the draft of an old air conditioner, but a damp chill that seeped into his skin like it wanted to nest in his bones. The smell hit—wet stone, rust, and something else… a stale, metallic scent like dried blood.
He opened his eyes fully. Darkness—not the flat black of a dead screen, but true, physical darkness. Far ahead, the dim glow of a torch flickered, stretching long shadows down a narrow hallway.
He tried to move, but something yanked hard at his arms. A metallic clink broke the silence: chains. Iron shackles bit into his wrists, linked by a thick chain that crossed his chest. The rough scrape of metal burned his skin, its weight pressing against his lungs.
He blinked hard, processing. The touch, the smell, the ache in his shoulders—none of it was visual trickery or haptic feedback. This wasn't VR. This was real.
He knew the place instantly. The Black Spire Dungeon. Level 3-7 of *Celestial Dominion*. A cutscene he had always watched in third person, inevitable and unchangeable. Here, Zerel Kai—the Butcher Prince—awaited execution.
Only this time, he wasn't watching it. He was in it.
The air carried a faint murmur. He strained to listen—water dripping somewhere far away, a steady rhythm marking time like a slow, cruel clock. Beneath it, the low, repetitive echo of voices—a ritual chant.
He turned his head; the chains pulled taut. Rough stone walls, dark with moisture. A thin film of icy water pooled on the floor, numbing his bare feet. To one side, a wooden tray with rotting scraps of food; to the other, a faint carving in the stone, barely visible in the gloom.
The truth was clear—no HUD, no pause menu, no health bar. Just a body that wasn't his, a place that didn't respond to keys or commands, and a fate that, if the game's story was to be believed, would end with his death in minutes.
Cold. Damp. Darkness.
Li Wei sat with his back to the rough wall, wrists locked in black iron shackles, a chain tight across his chest. The air was thick, heavy with the scent of rust, mold, and that metallic tang he knew too well—blood. His bare feet pressed against the thin layer of icy water, each droplet falling from the ceiling ticking like a macabre metronome.
No HUD, no menu, no artificial hum of a headset. This was real. And he knew it too well. The Black Spire Dungeon, Level 3-7 of *Celestial Dominion*, where Zerel Kai was led to his execution. In the game, it was inevitable. In reality, Li Wei wasn't about to accept that ending.
He knew what came next—footsteps, guards, chains dragging across stone, and then the courtyard of the Elders for a public death. Minutes away. And yet, panic didn't fill his mind—calculations did.
He forced his wrists against the metal, testing for slack. Nothing—just the groan of links straining, a sound that sparked a memory. In the game, this scene had a glitch—an exact moment when the player could use an item before the cutscene locked input. Useless then. Not now.
Slowly, he felt along the cracks between the stone blocks. His fingers brushed something cold and sharp—a rusted nail, bent and forgotten. He gripped it tightly. Not a key, but enough.
The echo of footsteps came from the hall—slow, deliberate, drawing closer. Each one splashed faintly in the stagnant water, counting down to death.
He slid the nail into the shackle's lock, turning with care. Metal protested, creaked—then gave with a sharp click. One wrist free.
Blood rushed back into his hand, bringing with it a surge of adrenaline. Not fear—anticipation. That sharp, electric tension before a fight where one mistake means defeat.