Prologue

"There are eight minutes left!"

500 of the best ranked players in the world gathered in one place on the fourth floor of the dungeon Lord of the Wind Dunes. To start the massive battle royale event that was at that time.

It was a spectacular sight of a gathering of users with combined power to capture a massive fortress. But tension and anxiety filled everyone's faces.

"Four minutes left!"

As the time was decreasing, the nervousness of the users reached the top. They stirred their legs restlessly and bit their nails. Amberblade looked around with tired eyes, his hands holding his sword soaked with sweat.

"I have not slept in the last three days...I need to win this and collect the rewards..." Amberblade said to himself as he tried to stand because the last three days he had been collecting objects for the massive PVP event.

The lack of sleep slowly began to eat his concentration preventing him from thinking clearly.

"Two minutes left!"

A wave heat started to slowly permeate throughout the dungeon floor, even that this space was 2000 Km in size.

"One minute remaining!"

The 500 players on the south side began to feel more and more nervous since dying was delivering a heavy penalty to the players by withdrawing 5% of their total accumulated experience at the level they were.

While on the north side another 500 users were planning a strategy to quickly win the event. Completely annihilating his enemies from the south.

"We must let the wizards and archers attack first, so we can get the advantage of the first attack" a high-ranking player called Cyanman explained his strategy of how to get a quick advantage over his opponents.

"We cannot allow our magicians and archers to sacrifice themselves in vain, so that they can then be eliminated by all the tanks of the enemy team." Another high-ranking user called Sabbart responded to the strategy saying that it would be suicide. Since that strategy would make them kill all their "DPS" and leave only their tanks and healers fighting against the remaining "DPS" enemies.

"Twenty seconds remaining"

The magicians and healers of both teams began to cast their support spells one by one to their companions in the hope of extending their life spans on the battlefield.

Despite this AmberBlade was more confused than attentive, while he felt how the effects of the support spells affected his strength, endurance and speed.

"The event has begun!"

The 500 players from both sides began to run in the dunes starting their fight, which was being tuned to the whole world.

Through the television tears of grisaea was transmitted to the whole world since its release to the market the game gained excellent reputation for allowing the player to basically what he wanted to be.

The game gained fame prominently in the world of betting where a person with money could reach higher than anyone.

But at a certain point, talent outstrips money and users who paid to obtain simple routes should start to obtain talent in order to overcome the toughest tests and thus obtain fame.

AmberBlade was poor outside and inside the game, the game by itself had a value of 300 dollars in the first years of premiere which was too much money for him but in any case he ended up buying it.

Its equipment was of Golden rank reason why it was the minimum rank that a player of level 1000 had to possess, although always it was able to compensate the lack of power of equipment with talent. Talent to find pieces of weapon and armors that allowed him to become stronger.

The rewards of the Battle royale event. They went between gold, jewels which could be sold to the NPC for long amounts of gold and weapons of Legendary rarity.

While the game advanced and gained fame, thousands of businesses emerged in which gold was the king and the main trade currency virtually.

The gold could also be changed into real money through a special NPC that was in the game so the players did not have much trouble making 600 dollars in a week of hunting.

Although for AmberBlade this game had become his work as many people became famous and rich thanks to him, so he decided to try it too although the results were unexpected.

To get really good profits a user had to enter a level 1000 dungeon at least 10,000 dollars a month, but the risk of death in the game is extremely high.

AmberBlade tried to avoid the use of those dungeons since there were also hundreds of problems with the "Party" system of players in which those who wore Legendary Rare armor demanded the most valuable parts of the monsters.

Thanks to this AmberBlade decided never to form a "Party" with other players and decided to overcome the world of grease by itself even though it was incredibly difficult almost impossible.

"Hey wake up! The event has already started" a female voice shouted at AmberBlade who was asleep on the floor against the wall.

"Huh, what's wrong?" AmberBlade answered with saliva falling from his mouth, as he could see the girl in front of him.

"Raise your ass and go to the battlefield, you will not get any reward if you do not hurry." the little girl told her out loud pointing her finger to the battlefield that was a disaster.

AmberBlade slowly turned his head and watched as almost everyone was clashing swords with swords and attacking with spells.

.....

.....

.....

After a few seconds he got up and ran out with his sword in hand sweating and agitated due to the sudden awakening.

[You have received 44,429 damage]

[You have received 78,918 damage]

[You have received 41,311 damage]

[You have received 121,912 damage]

[You have died]

[experience reduced by 5%]

Within a few seconds of entering the battlefield, AmberBlade received four direct spell attacks which caused enough damage to kill him by leaving him outside the event.

"Damn, now I'm really lost this month to pay the rent, I only have 400 dollars left for this month." John said so himself while the game forced him to disconnect from the game.

John got up from the virtual reality capsule just to observe the disaster in his room where there were bags of junk food everywhere and cans of soft drinks in every little corner of it.

Every step John took to get out of his room was a second step on his trash until he finally left that place.

Silence, darkness and loneliness were all around his house for his family had died in a car accident in which he had not been present because he was active in the game.

The last thing he got from his family was a small inheritance, but due to the lack of education, he refused to receive John was unable to find a job to cling to and allow himself to live in a more "humane" and a less miserable way.

5 rooms in that great house were present at that time which were totally empty because John had sold absolutely all of his family since for him they were useless and unnecessary objects.

The kitchen did not have any furniture, ornaments or lights even which made the place either day or night it looked like a cave in which a horrendous creature lived.

The guest room, the bathroom, the garage was completely empty except for the bathroom that still had a shower and a toilet in which only the cold water flowed.

"I will see the event online, I can surely see who the winners are and bet to get some extra money." John returned to his room and sat in the chair in front of his computer.

John entered the internet and watched a live stream which was broadcast all over the world while two famous comedians described the raw and violent battle to the viewers around the world.

"We can watch JayC from the lion's tooth embrace guild as he firmly holds his position by protecting his healer and her sorcerer to try to take advantage of the battle." the famous commentator named Duke's explained the strategy that player JayC was implementing to his transmission partner BLackArray.

"It's a good strategy to put into play, but it's very little when you're the only tank that defends two DPS units, if this continues, they'll end up dead before they can cause any losses to get a minimum reward." BLackArray responded to his partner explaining that the situation seemed incredibly problematic for the guild members.

John watched in an unfathomable way as, little by little the numbers of users present at the event began to drop drastically from the initial 1000 until there were only a total of 50.

"Well, this will be a show, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that the 50 best players in the world are the rest of this titans fight, you tell me BLack, who could be the future winner?" Duke's enthusiastically asked his partner to observe the battlefield on the screen.

"Undoubtedly it will be a very tough fight for all, the players present are known for their skills, equipment, effort and teamwork and as you can see there are some groups still as they seem to be together, cooperating to get some even greater reward do not forget that there is also the possibility of obtaining Rahkasa's teeth in that event." The commentator Duke's explained to his partner and mentioning the chance to obtain such materials as a reward.

John was surprised to hear the name of such material because after 5 years of playing the game that was the first time I hear such a name so his curiosity made him review the game market to find out the price of such an object.

After 5 minutes of long search John finally found a famous website where hundreds of game objects were interchanged for game money as well as for real money, but when observing the price of a Rahkasa's teeth he almost ran out of air.

"12.5 damn millions of dollars!?!?" John screamed with all his strength and immediately covered his mouth lowering his head thinking that all the Legendary objects in Grisaea were made from that material.

John began to feel more and more frustrated knowing that there were people capable of paying such an amount of money for a virtual item and that he was not lucky enough to find one of these objects.

Envy, greed and hatred have been always present in John's life and all those emotions were directed towards the people with more luck in their lives or towards those who lived much better than him.

An egotistical reason to treat everyone badly and having a bad relationship with everyone around him made John become a lonely player who only depended on him and only him.

The more John looked at the virtual market and all the people present selling something and earning money for just playing that game so that John felt more and more frustrated with himself but in a corner of his monitor there was a small sign.

"Hmm?" John observed the small advertising poster that offered an expansion package for a new area of the game Tears of grisaea and immediately clicking on that advertising redirected to a page.

John felt totally crushed by the doubts at that moment to observe the price of the expansion.

"30 dollars, what kind of joke is this?" John did not think that announcement was true since after 5 years of playing teas of grisaea the game had gone up completely from 300 to 3000 dollars! So this made it impossible for him to believe that an expansion of that game would only be worth 30 dollars.

The advertising changed several times with John present observing how this expansion offered a single random option to the first buyer of the expansion which would only come out once.

John thought and thought for several minutes until he decided to take the stupid decision to buy the expansion.

"Anyway, it's only 30 dollars and I lived with much less than that for a week." were the last words of John before pressing the button to accept the transaction and put all the data on his account of the game.

"Anyway, if they steal my account, they will not get anything valuable." John stretched his arms crossing them behind his head and watching as the data was being processed thinking it was possibly a link which would steal his account at the end.

....

....

....

[Thanks for your purchase, you need to start your account in order to install your new content]

[The expansion Gates of the flame of the abyss has been obtained]

"Oh, so it was real?" As John told himself he was still somewhat confused because usually the game was so famous that even the smallest patch that the game had was published for everyone to find out.

Without much desire to discover that this expansion was a lie, John entered his capsule and discovered a sign that demanded the confirmation of the user to update the game with the contents of the new expansion.

"At least something new there is ..." John still did not believe that a new expansion had come out and nobody really knew why he continued to read what would be new when he finished installing the new expansion.

[Guide Gates of the flame of the abyss]

[Thank you for buying the new expansion]

[The great abyss of the flame will be available for players of level 1-1000 and the rewards will be higher than the common dungeons in the rest of Grisaea's global map]

[Important message for the first player who bought the expansion]

[Optional] The character (s) that the player has in mind can be erased and their equipment can be put together to create a complete set of armor and a weapon of preference and the statues of 3 characters (ignoring the levels) can be put together and put into a single random character that the game will create.

[Additional note] There is a small chance to create a secondary character of random monster type that accompanies the player in his adventure through the abyss.

John was even more confused than before to learn of such an operation that destroyed all the characters in an account and created a set of armor and a weapon customized for the player.

John's confusion became much greater when he read the extra option of destroying 3 characters from the user's account to take all his total statues and thus add them to a single character created randomly by the game.

"That would not be a bit exaggerated??" John knew that a 1000 level character could have totally demented attributes and even more because of certain titles and items that were available in the game.

It would be total madness to create a character that was level 1 and had naturally the triple attribute that a character level 1000 but thinking clearly the option said that option only seemed to be for the first buyer of the expansion, so that did more or less digestible the information.

"I see, there would be a unique user that way, but surely in the future the creators of the game would increase the ability to level up even more by making that unique character stay behind." John told himself.

[The new expansion has been created successfully]

John and his thoughts were immediately interrupted by the sound of the confirmation of installation of the new content.

"Wow, that was fast." John activated his virtual reality capsule and immediately entered his menu where he could observe his 7 1000 level characters and the option that said those characters could be used to make a set and deliver their accumulated attributes to a new creative character randomly.

Oh! Lightly touched the box causing it to open and reveal 3 legendary Class full-body armor, the first legendary pieces that were now in John's hands.

"Hahahaha yes!!" John was totally excited and happy to see that he had gotten 3 full-body armors of the legendary class, but his emotion and happiness were not to have found objects super rare and difficult to obtain. His happiness was that now he would be able to sell them to the market and get a lot of money.

John observed again, his remaining 4 characters and decided to use the option to destroy 3 to obtain a character with totally crazy attributes, the madness of John slowly began to be shown since that way he would be able to obtain many materials to sell and win more money and avoid working in real life.

John accepted the second option the 3 characters began to turn as if they were on a platform beginning to light up and finally appeared a character completely covered in mist.

"So I must enter the game to be able to reveal it, huh?" John observed the character covered by the haze as if he was an actor who did not want to be seen or discovered.

Without thinking about it relatively twice and totally moved by the new experience John entered the game and the first thing he felt were strange sounds.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

A strange metallic sound could be heard every time he moved.

John opened his eyes and his vision was divided into 4 sections observing different angles and parts of the strange room in which he was, behind him were a couple of huge statues, one of a lady and the other of a strange warrior.

John tried to move and felt as if something restricted his movement almost completely until he looked down and could see huge chains that were tied to him. But what surprised him the most was that when he looked at the ground, he could see in the reflection of the water the strange creature.

"What the hell?"