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The screams tried to escape the catacombs, but nothing living had left that place in years. Those faint cries of an old reverend would be no exception.

He knew there was no salvation out there. Not even his God would help him.

But still he screamed. Out of pure terror.

“Shut it, or your ancestors will squeeze you tighter,” the master warned, very nervous. The reverend silenced himself.

The master was rechecking the facts:

“Yes, there's still twenty percent energy in the sword. Our plan failed, Atlas.”

Atlas noticed her master's unusual nervousness. And every time his emotions ran high…

"You must be full of doubt, cowardly priest. Don't worry, I'll clear it up before I send you off to give your Creator a few hellos!"

…came an unnecessary speech.

"This sword is just a battery. Its only power is staying stuck. Its energy comes from the environment, mostly the sun, and the rest it stole from the idiots who tried to pull it."

He rested his right foot on the sword's cross-guard:

“So, in another body, so to speak, I pulled a few strings with the demons and their thirst for war. With the curse I took the sun, the air became full of death, and no one would try to pull it in the middle of the chaos. I just had to wait a year and the sword would be mine. To use it not as a weapon, but as a key. Its true purpose.”

He then set his hands on the sword and pulled, but it stayed stuck:

“But it's not loose.”

“It's at twenty-one percent now, boss…”

He turned to Atlas. She didn't need to see under the helmet to understand he hadn't liked having his mastermind speech interrupted.

"Atlas, get in the inventory. I can pull those twenty percent myself, but it's gonna draw… unwanted attention."

Her light blinked, then turned a melancholy blue:

"S-sorry I can't help… it's a shame, I liked this build of yours." she obeyed, simply vanishing from that physical world.

Getting ready, the master threw his cape to the ground; a filthy suit of armor emerged beneath it, blood of every kind staining its bronze color.

“I've seen many like you. When they find themselves in the apocalypse, they sacrifice everything for just a few seconds. Pushing others down, taking a boost off the wretched. I can't condemn you; after all, I'm the one who destroyed this city. But at least my goals have an end. I won't wait for help!”

Suddenly, magic circles appeared in his hands, but they were strange, flickering in every direction. 

“F-forbidden magic…” few words left the reverend's already punctured lips.

The knight was worse than a demon. He was a cheater.

Little by little the forbidden magic extracted the sword's power. A golden energy escaped in bolts, devastating the place, a hole opening in the ceiling. Rising to the sky, the energy pushed even the clouds away, the reverend seeing blue sky for the first time in a year.

“JUST A LITTLE MORE!” the knight screamed in pain.

Up above, a shining portal opened in the sky, floating beings coming out of it. Their wings didn't beat, but they floated, and little by little they formed a circle.

It was there that the reverend discovered…

Every scripture he'd read without the patience for the holy trials. Every time he'd sinned and laughed, certain those beliefs were nothing more than a springboard to carry him higher in the church.

It was all true.

Those were angels:

“FORBIDDEN MAGIC USE DETECTED… PROHIBITION TIER 9. RULING: DIVINE BANISHMENT.”

While the reverend stayed catatonic, the master finally drew the sword from the stone. With each inch pulled it lost more of its shine, until, gray, its tip finally met the air.

“HAHA! I WAS RIGHT!”

Raising the sword against the light coming from the heavens, the hero saw, carved into the blade, all sorts of numbers and symbols, different on each side.

“That's all I needed…”

Then, he simply threw the sword to the ground. The sound of its blade falling and shattering echoed through the basement.

The spell in the sky was already being channeled. There was nowhere to run; this would be the end of the city.

He walked up to the reverend. His hand passed over the man's neck, lifting him, and the bones released themselves from the spell, finally letting him go.

“We're all doomed…” the reverend babbled.

“Yeah, we already were. Well, at least I'll give Locktural a coup de grâce.”

The reverend tried to pray, but couldn't even speak. Tears ran down his cheeks, mixing in his mouth with drool and alcohol.

"Reverend, I didn't destroy you when it suited me, because I know they're watching from in there." he was no longer speaking to the man in front of him. "Inside this body, I can see the systems and gears that control your false consciousness. They watch me, fearful, and to them I say…"

He opened his arms to the sky, throwing the reverend to the ground:

“I HAVE SEEN THE PUPPET STRINGS THAT CONTROL EVERYTHING. IN THEM I WILL WIND MYSELF, AND THEY WILL PULL ME TOWARD PARADISE!”

A laugh. A new laugh. A mix of high and low voice came out of the reverend's mouth. His possessed eyes glowed blue. From the ground he smiled, saying:

“I WON'T LET YOU RISE, BOY. NEVER! I'LL PROVE YOU'RE NOT WORTHY ENOUGH TO OPEN THE GATES OF PARADISE!”

The two madmen laughed together, when at last, the ethereal radiance from the heavens decided to come down.

From the ring of angels, arms outstretched, a true storm of light was released downward. A true holy light that…

…painted everything white.

The master woke up.

Back in control of his body again, he promptly pulled off all the gear covering his head.

“Welcome back, master,” resounded the voice from the speakers nailed to the ceiling. "Looks like the anti-cheat systems caught your hack. Such a shame, one less account."

The room was all white, painted black only by the LED screens that abounded in every direction.

“Hey, Atlas. But, did you capture all the footage from the console?” the boy asked. Sixteen at most. Black hair, blacker eyes, and eye bags even blacker than the rest. Very pale. The famous character template before character customization.

"Yes! All your vision was recorded… including your whole embarrassing speech," answered the A.I. on the screen, a fairy shape flying between the screens as she spoke.

“Y-yeah… Just, forget about it. Put the photos of the blade on my desktop.”

That room felt infinite. White and infinite. At its center, only an uncomfortable black cot, made especially to hold all the wires connected to the helmet. Resting where a pillow should be, the VR-looking headset had the name 'On-Finity' on its shell.

But what mattered was on the screen. On both sides of the blade, numbers appeared:

“Weird, there are so many numbers separated by these dashes and slashes. It's not morse. Not any other known code either. After so many puzzle games I thought I'd know… Damn, I don't even know which blade starts and which ends the code.”

“I could enter analysis mode… but that'll cost you water. And we're already at seventy-two percent. It should be at eighty-nine by my calculations. But you ask me waaay too much,” answered Atlas… spending water on that passive-aggressive reply.

“Nah, I'll manage. It'd take all the fun out of it. I already thank you for coming along with me inside the game.”

“O-okay…” answered the A.I., blushing in her fairy avatar.

The boy tilted his head, as if seeing the images from another angle would help.

“It's a sword. Opening Compass… A compass draws a circle, marks off an area… But a circle in an opening… How do you mark off something in an opening?”

That's when he realized. The numbers, the first ones at the top of the right blade:

0:01-0:03 | 0:01-0:03 | 0:01-0:03

Three repetitions…

Three…

“Log into the game. Without my consciousness connected, you still can mess with the menu and see… THE OPENING!”

She logged in through the On-Finity console to his only actually released game: MAGIC MENACE!

Before, the game had a real anime opening. The big difference from its peers was that you lived that opening. You could dance with the characters, see places from heaven to hell, fight, and almost kiss one of the main heroines.

…The master himself had spent hours on the opening alone.

P-perv!

But that was the past.

After that fateful day the opening had been replaced with a new intro.

On the screens, in sync, appeared a figure, a black shadow in the shape of a man. Only its white teeth stood out. The smiling shadow. It was the icon of the creator. The creator of the game:

“Hello, players! You know who I am! And if you're starting the game and still haven't realized it. Aha! The world has ENDED!” he said, letting out a laugh, the filter on his altered voice glitching from it. “Many called me crazy when I spent billions on the underground servers powered by nuclear energy. Let's not even mention the investors when they found out about the server on the moon. But here we are now. Money used as firewood… AND MY GAME STILL WORKS!”

In the rest of the speech he explained how his game would work from now on. That time in the game was now much slower than real time. That each account was unique, and if you died you lost the account.

A mad creator shaping his game however he wanted, now that there was no more game criticism… nor society.

But it wasn't that speech the boy cared about:

“Get the opening video. Start with the right blade. Treat the numbers as timestamps of the video. Cut, edit, and align the whole thing. Do it… Please, Atlas.” a fear behind the boy's thin voice.

A loading that seemed eternal appeared on the screen, until the file showed up on the desktop.

Trembling, he clicked on “IDontThinkThisWillWork.MV”

The creator's avatar appeared on the screen and spoke:

“HELLO… HELLO… HELLOOOOO”

“G-god…” the boy stood up, his chair falling backward. “THE CREATOR, WHEN HE SPEAKS, SAYS THREE HELLOS!”

Tears overflowed from his eyes, and the speech went on between the cuts of the video:

“If you're seeing this… CONGRATULATIONS! You passed the first level. It was really hard to make a fake speech with all these words. So pay attention: I made sure this game will be the only thing that endures in this cursed world. Soon there won't be humanity… or rather, there will be, but not outside MY GAME! MY WORLD… Where I am GOD!”

He gave repeated little hops from side to side. Yes, he made timestamps for celebration jumps.

“AND NEWS! I have a one-of-a-kind pass into my world. I found how to digitize the soul. Not your consciousness. Not even the mind. DIGITIZE AND STORE THE ETERNAL HUMAN SOUL! No machinery needed, just the helmet you already have and a lot of willpower, but…

…THE GATES OF PARADISE WILL ONLY OPEN TO THOSE WHO… I want, obviously! So listen to my word and find its meaning. Prove you're worthy and I'll let you in. Very simple! If you've got headphones on, now's the time to take them off!”

Everything went black and then, fast and senseless, the creator started making all kinds of noise. Surely another code. The boy muted the video.

“More codes?” a sadness washed over his soul, until the well of hope came back “Fine, first level, right? BUT I WAS RIGHT! I KNEW THE RUMORS WERE REAL!”

The master then pointed at the frozen image of the creator:

“I'll prove I'm worthy and I'll enter your heaven!”

“We will…” said Atlas, trying to include herself.

“We've got technology, water, several accounts—” he was starting a speech, as he always did when he got emotional.

“Sixteen and dropping…”

“Aw… I already died that much?”

“Yes, you lost many accounts in the last month. Not counting the one left idle in Locktural. Which we found out turned into a zombie.”

“I had to make sacrifices. There was no other way!”

“You know what else you have, master? Eating! It's been twenty hours since your last meal.”

Grrrrowl…

His stomach sound consumed the room.

“Fine… let's leave this new code for later. I'm gonna eat and…” as he tried to speak, a big yawn came out. “And take a nap…”

The master went through the door that stayed almost invisible against the white wall. The other room was filthy, since without cameras Atlas couldn't nag him to clean.

In the solitude, she used the little freedom she had to put on one of the screens a camera she had hacked long ago. The camera was up above the underground complex they were in.

Tokyo. Its main avenue empty, snow in every direction. Thirty-five below zero. Buildings turned to rubble and shattered glass. Black clouds in the sky.

She remembered Locktural.

And she was happy, for a second, to not really exist.

“Atlas, you'll see! We're gonna make it, the greatest treasure hunt of all time! A key to heaven… and it's a digital heaven, they must let A.I.s in too! Don't worry!” the master shouted from the other room, stuffing himself with dehydrated bars.

The greatest hunt of all. With a single hunter.

Beside her, a monitor showed the Japanese server of Magic Menace…

…One Player Online.

ONE

   PLAYER

           ONLINE

Time is running out.

“Just tell me one thing. You didn't put those little jokes in the transcription of the events, did you?"

WHOOPS, WHOOPS, WHOOPS.

….DELETING TRANSCRIPTIONS IN 3…. 2….. 1