King tapped the notification, and the interface expanded.

[Vi: 10 unread messages]

The messages loaded in sequence, each one a timestamp of escalating panic.

[Vi: King, it’s starting. The countdown just hit zero.]

[Vi: Something just dropped outside. I can hear screaming. A lot of it.]

[Vi: The streets are packed with people running. I can see them from my window.]

[Vi: Oh god. Those things from the game. They’re here. They’re everywhere.]

[Vi: My building just shook. Something hit the lower floors.]

[Vi: I can hear them inside now. Breaking through doors.]

[Vi: I’m barricaded in my apartment but I don’t think it’s going to hold.]

[Vi: King, I don’t know if you’ll see this but I’m scared.]

[Vi: I’m sending you my location. If you can... please.]

[Live Location Link: Vjidls___45’43.46"N...]

King stared at the final message, anxiety clouding his thoughts. The timestamp on the last one was twelve minutes ago.

Twelve minutes.

He typed fast across the translucent keyboard with enough force that the interface flickered.

[King: Vi, I’m coming. Hold on. I’m on my way.]

He waited.

Five seconds.

Ten.

Fifteen.

There was nothing.

Not a response, the typing indicator wasn’t blinking. And there was no confirmation that she’d even seen it.

King clicked the live location link, and a map materialized in front of him. The interface zoomed out, showing the surrounding region in sharp detail. A red cursor pulsed steadily over a cluster of buildings labeled Constin City, roughly thirty miles northeast of their current position.

The cursor was moving slowly, she was alive, but she was running.

He heaved a sigh of relief and turned to The butler. "Eli," his voice was still controlled. "We have to go, now."

The butler didn’t ask questions. He simply nodded, already turning toward the direction of the stables.

"The horses..."

The rubble blurred past them as they sprinted across the grounds, boots pounding against grass and gravel. King’s mind raced faster than his legs, calculating distance, travel time, the likelihood that Vi would still be alive by the time they got to Constin city and to her exact location.

He shoved the thoughts down and kept running.

They reached the stables in under a minute. The horses were agitated, stamping and snorting inside their stalls. The animals could sense it, the darkness filtering into the air ever since the game overlay had fused with reality.

King threw open the door to his horse’s stall, moving straight for his horse. The animal reared slightly, but King grabbed the reins and steadied it with a firm hand.

"Easy now, shh shh shh." He said brushing his hands against it’s neck.

Eli mounted his own horse, a black mare with a steadier temperament.

King swung into the saddle and urged the grey stallion forward. Eli followed close behind.

They rode hard out of the mansion gates with the sound of hooves thundering against the dirt road as they pushed northeast toward Constin City.

King hadn’t always entered Constin City during the First Woe. In most of his playthroughs, he’d avoided it entirely, remaining in his own city until the plague creatures cycled out.

The city was said to be a deathtrap in the early game, overrun by demi-humans and aberrants that spawned in concentrated clusters. Later in the game, the creatures became passive, reduced to background NPCs that only attacked if provoked.

But during the First Woe?

They were rabid. Hyper-aggressive. Driven by some unseen motivation that made them hunt players with relentless aggression.

King knew the dominant species in Constin City were demi-humans, corrupted descendants of Nephilim bloodlines that had devolved into mindless killers. They weren’t intelligent, didn’t strategize, they just murdered anything that moved.

And Vi was trapped somewhere in the middle of that.

King leaned forward in the saddle, urging the stallion faster.

"Eli," he said, his voice cutting through the wind. "I’m sending you the route. Scout ahead with the eagle. And try to select the safer path."

"Understood, Master King."

"Thank you"

Eli didn’t respond, he just closed his eyes for a brief moment, and when they opened again, the translucent form of his Spirit Eagle materialized above them. The bird launched skyward in complete silence, spreading its wings wide as it climbed higher and higher, soaring meters ahead of their position.

Through the shared vision of the skill, Eli could see everything the eagle saw.

The destruction was immediate.

Entire sections of the countryside had been torn apart. Houses reduced to rubble. Roads cratered and split. Bodies, both human and monstrous, scattered across the landscape in grotesque piles. The descendants of Nephilim roamed freely, hulking figures with disproportionate limbs and malformed faces, dragging crude weapons behind them as they prowled for survivors.

They were close enough to Constin City that the species overlap was inevitable. They weren’t quite as rabid as the plague demi-humans inside the city itself, but they were still dangerous. Less viral, but more intelligent. But the closer they got, the more the species changed.

Eli’s eyes scanned the mental map provided by the eagle’s vision, comparing routes while calculating the risk probability from the information he got.

And then he found it.

A path cutting through the eastern tree line, sheltered under a dense canopy that obscured it from aerial view. The creatures were sparse there, distracted by easier prey along the main roads.

"Bingo," Eli muttered.

"Three o’clock," he called out, dispersing his eagle. "Branch right in five gallops. We’re going under the trees."

King adjusted his grip on the reins and veered right at Eli’s mark, the stallion responding instantly. And as they plunged into the forest, the hooves became muffled by the soft earth and thick undergrowth. While the canopy overhead blocked most of the light, casting the path in shadow.

It was quieter here.

Almost too quiet.

They rode hard, weaving between trees, ducking under low-hanging branches. The forest smelled of damp earth and rotting leaves, but this stillness, was usually the kind that preceded violence. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

And then the stillness broke.

A roar erupted from their left.

King turned his head just in time to see it, a juvenile half-giant crashing through the tree line. The creature stood nine feet tall, its body covered in patchy fur and hardened skin. Its eyes were milky white, devoid of intelligence, driven only by instinct and hunger.

It charged.

The ground shook with each step, and the half-giant randomly swung a massive club made from a tree trunk.

King didn’t slow down. He raised his left hand, blue energy spiraling around his fingers as he summoned construct seals above the creature. Three translucent spears materialized in the air, their tips glowing with concentrated mana.

The spears launched.

THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.

All three drove into the half-giant’s torso, punching through the mass of flesh and bone. The creature stumbled, roaring in pain as its momentum faltered. It collapsed forward, crashing into the dirt as King and Eli rode past without looking back.

[+500 runes] The message appeared in his peripheral view.

They continued for minutes, the forest gradually thinning as they pushed closer to their destination. The distant sounds of destruction grew louder, screams and roars echoing through the air, carried on the wind from the city ahead.

And then they broke through the tree line.

The forest opened into a clearing, the ground sloping downward into a valley. And there, sprawled across the basin below, was Constin City.

Or what used to be Constin City.

The place was a warzone.

Smoke rose from collapsed buildings, fires burning unchecked across entire blocks.

The streets were littered with debris, overturned vehicles, and bodies. The creatures were everywhere, demi-humans and aberrants tearing through the city, dragging survivors from hiding spots and ripping them apart in the open, some fought backz, but some were simply overwhelmed.

King pulled his horse to a stop at the edge of the clearing, his chest heaving as he stared down at the carnage. The scene reminded him of an anime he used to watch, where mindless aberrant titans invaded a kingdom and killed it’s people.

Now, he was about to step into a similar world.

He opened the direct message interface again.

[King: Vi, I’m coming. Hold on. I’m on my way.]

Still no response.

He clicked the live location link, and the map expanded once more.

The red cursor was still there, pulsing steadily over a cluster of apartment buildings in the eastern quarter of the city.

But now, it wasn’t moving.

Really, it hadn’t moved since he last checked.

King sighed as he closed the interface and looked at Eli.

"Let’s go."

They followed the path ahead and descended into Constin City.