The Flames Burn Bright(1): Prologue

The year 2091 …

A year when humanity had reached their highest peak in technology yet.

Overly-Immersive Virtual Reality {OVR} of otherwise unattainable proportions became a possibility now within reach.

The OVR could only be extensively augmented into one thing; Gaming. Attempts to use it for other aspects of life weren't as commercially successful as they were for gaming.

MMORPG's and gaming in general became a common way for people to spend their pastimes and leisure.

Anyone could enter into any of the numerous planes of reality that had been created in the digital OVR space.

Naturally, Gaming became a common hobby.

Game after game was released, played and cleared daily. In fact, starting a game developing company was seen as the quickest way to make cash while being a Professional Gamer quickly fell off as a proper occupation.

Well, then the expected grave catastrophe took place…

Other mainstream VRMMORPG's began to lose popularity quickly as their servers were left deserted and their companies left bankrupt.

A game released prior to the peak in Virtual Reality technology was finally resurfacing and catching the attention of Gamers everywhere.

The Chaotic Inferno: Online+.

Originally, those rich enough to purchase devices that allowed for VR exploration in the past refused to have anything to do with the game.

All because of its supposedly unholy and occultic intonations which drove away and scared a lot of players despite its originally bad overall quality, retro-like appearance, constant and recurring soundtracks that were nothing short of earrape and disrespect to deities from popular religion.

The difference now was that the vast gaming community has become insatiable in their search for VR games and Inferno: Online+ went for one last breath of life.

The single game dev spent months working on one final update and all of his college savings to release an update that could make it run on the new OVR devices and improve its overall graphics and add the ultra 24k 3d aspects that are expected with VR games.

Now no one cared about its context anymore, all they wanted was a good game with a good challenge.

… And they got much more than that.

The game's breathtaking scenery and astonishing graphics and lively colors pulled even more attention.

[A/N: Basic VRMMORPG game stuff.]

People even began to wonder how a single man could create a game that looked better than games with hundreds of professional game devs.

Inferno: Online+ singlehandedly pushed all other mainstream games down the drain and became number one.

The game developer was surprised at the games sudden success and he went straight to work at creating weekly updates which added more Levels, scenarios and missions against all odds.

The game got so popular and sought after that people were willing to give up the lives of their relatives and even themselves just to get their hands on its case, which featured skewered winged beings, upside down and flaming crosses, gory corpses and an unnecessary amount of blood splatter and demonic imagery.

The selfish game developer realized the potential of his game and how possible it was for it to end up dead and forgotten later on and he took advantage of what he had.

He released a new update on the fourteenth of June, 2099.

An update that only changed the final scenario of the game, or as called in the game, The Ninth Circle.

Pro gamers that had already scaled the challenges and grinded their way to the Ninth circle were forcefully pushed out and obligated to restart the whole game… On full difficulty.

The game became a frustrating grind, yet it was still sought after and this only increased its commercial success.

In fact, its ratings increased drastically and more than ninety percent of the population were playing this game. Young, old. Living and dying.

No one seemed to care about the demonic and occult intonations anymore, in fact, no one even noticed them anymore.

Everyone just kept playing and grinding.

But as every story of humanity goes, something horrific must take place due to their own idiocy.

This game was an utter blasphemy to the deity's that watched over the world and protected them.

Of course, some scenarios entailed killing and humiliating some of these deities in the most shameful ways.

{I'm really tired of their shenanigans!}

This voice thundered from the sky with loud crashes and bangs, all that heard it were stopped dead in their tracks and even those who were blocked off from reality while in the game could feel shivers.

The game wasn't just blasphemy to the Deities and Divinities above, but to the very Demons and Devils below.

Although they were at constant war with the Deities and Divinities, they came together to decide on the fate of humanity.

Humanity which the Deities so diligently protected were to be sold off to the Devils for punishment.

The Mighty ones were enraged and humanity took one step closer to destruction and damnation.

"Punish them, punish them, punish them!!!"

After the first loud thundering, a whole lot of other voices joined in and were chanting with loud voices and even the Gamers could hear.

"Is this a new update? It sounds sick, I actually have goosebumps bro." said a random game player, his avatar was wearing B-class chaos battle armor which was evident from the stat table the player was scrolling through.

"How does Invertive even do it!? Updates every week! This is the second one this week, its impossible!!" Some other Player screamed in awe, praising "The mighty game dev; Invertive."

"I didn't get a Notification about an update tho." His teammate replied while looking up, his avatar was wearing a similar attire with a different color.

They foolishly thought it was a new Event.

{They are so immersed that they can't tell the difference between Fantasy and reality!!} The loud voice thundered once more.

{You want to create your own reality, right?! – Well, I shall assist you.} The loud divine voice added.

-

In some large mansion off the coast of the main continent and on an island, the Game dev; Invertive was also immersed but in a developer version of Inferno: Online+ Where he worked tirelessly to keep up the maintenance of the game.

His Complete Immersion room was wide, immaculately white and filled with the most highly advanced technology on the planet all working with the Game Developer to keep the biggest game in existence constantly running.

The room was covered from top to bottom in screens- screens that were constantly playing the whispers and moans of women and showing them dancing around completely naked. Invertive was a rich game developer, but that didn't transform him from his original weird self.

There was a highly advanced Immersion point right in the middle of the room; a platform of sorts wirelessly connected to the hardware in the room and the micro computer in Invertive's brain. Invertive was strapped to the Immersion Point and his body was lean, filthy and almost rotting.

He was expectedly dying.

Two beings crawled out of the shadows in Invertive's large and high-tech developer room and one of them swiftly dashed towards one of the many projectors which projected the holographic control centres in the room and with its black, razor sharp claws the being ripped it to shreds.

Invertive sprung from the Immersion point and looked at the two beings, and deemed them non-human, but his lifeless eyes and warped mind was still not surprised or scared. He didn't care.

"Back again? I'm already updating the game as you asked, this is the second one this week, do you want me to update it again? C-Can it wait? I'm hungry and my mind feels like mush. I've been strapped there for a month, theres only so much the nutrients being delivered to my blood stream can do. Just let me eat real quick and I'll be back, I already have another idea for a few more mobs, a few new bosses, areas, missions and other things. Damn, I'm so hungry, I could really go for a hashbrown or a crumpet right now, and a bit of coffee, do you guys want some…?" Invertive babbled as he rolled away the Destroyed Immersion point and tried to walk over to the supposed exit of the room but his legs failed him when he heard one of the non-human beings speak to him.

{Its time for Codex Gigas to be uploaded, HERMAN…} One of them said, as through the shadow around its face, its yellow and beastly teeth were the only distinct facial feature visible as it spoke.

The dark, shadowy and murky beings stood over Invertive, silently. Invertive stared back, with lifeless and emotionless eyes as his mind slowly picked up on what it said.

"Herman?! My name isn't her… man..." Invertive said as his eyes grew wide and he finally understood what was happening.

"No! No! Not now. You said I had twenty more years at least!! This can't be happening! I never got to play my own game yet!!! I never got to use my own money!! I never got to make friends, I never got to-" Invertive tried to say until he felt a strange sensation slither soundly down his spine.

The malicious presence of the two beings grew intensely and the blonde haired, middle aged and lean man had his eyes widen in absolute terror.