69 losses.

Magdalena had played through Adovoria's Fall sixty-nine times and failed at beating the Game every single time.

However, unlike most others, after the first handful of times, she managed to push the Game all the way to its climactic fourth year: the final great battle that determined the outcome of Adovoria's Fall.

Magdalena chalked that progress up to skill.

After all, she was no ordinary Player. Her username was whispered with awe and envy across the inner realm forums. BlueLizard was infamous for clearing even the most grueling Games.

Sure, the final battle remained a wall too high to scale for the next sixty Rounds. But with each loop, victory seemed to be inching closer and closer—just a hand reach away each time.

If I play it through one more time… I know I'll beat it.

That belief only grew stronger when the revelation regarding Luca and the Awakened came into the picture. Victory felt not only possible, but inevitable—granted, perhaps dozens of Rounds away, but now clearly within sight.

Then came Round 69's end.

Yes, the loss had been foreseen. Even planned. Luca had warned that the enemy suspected Grandov's true nature as a Player. He suggested they allow the enemy to confirm it to divert suspicion from Luca's role in the Game and preserve his position as a hidden joker. Thus, BlueLizard had agreed to the unpleasant task: a calculated sacrifice to feed the enemy's curiosity.

But that didn't mean she intended to go down without a fight.

I did not plan to die easily.

And yet, it was easy.

Grandov—their character—wasn't merely defeated. He was annihilated.

At this early point in the Game, Grandov wasn't yet as impressive a character as he'd become in a few years from now. But he wasn't weak. At just twenty-three, he was the youngest officer among his peers, already decorated within The Order. His leadership was trusted. His judgment was respected. He was a rising star whose rapid promotion by Princess Evelyn had raised eyebrows at first—but just as quickly earned quiet acceptance.

Moreover, he was controlled by BlueLizard, who had eons of experience and nearly seventy Rounds fighting against the Kobar enemy.

And yet, despite all that, Grandov died as easily as an insect under a boot.

Hundreds of undead poured in. Human and animal. Intricate hexes locked his body in place. He could barely move his blade and was unable to escape the onslaught.

Such a scenario was unheard of this early into the Game. Despite the impossible difficulty level, Adovoria's Fall followed a classic ladder progression of difficulty, increasing the hardship over time. The undead being one of the obstacles that would not appear until the second to last battle.

But with this most recent death, it was as if the Kobar side had finally decided to drop the act—to reveal to him the truth: Grandov hadn't survived four years into the Game because of skill.

You never made it to the end because you were so capable.

You made it there because we allowed it.

Grandov inhaled the cold, damp air of the fog-shrouded forest. His soul had fully synchronized with the body. There was no barrier between BlueLizard and the role.

Opening his eyes, he gazed at the fog mist floating between the green trees.

They were just toying with me all this time, hiding their true capabilities.

Grandov sighed.

The sun hadn't risen high enough to shine into this crevice of the Celestial Mountain Range, but the sky and fog had accepted enough of the morning sun's rays to provide a view of the lush forest.

But if they could wipe me out so early into the Game, why didn't they before? Why did they give the illusion that progress was being made?

Or were there certain missing criteria in the original setup?

Grandov stood up from his cross-legged position on the stone slab. Surrounding him were the familiar ancient runes etched in red across the mossy rocks. Around him, tall trees stretched upward in close competition, their branches clawing toward the unseen light like rival claimants to a throne.

Nonetheless, to be taken down so easily… It's a disgrace. Since that side already suspected me to be a summon, I should have taken greater precautions.

BlueLizard had always immersed fully into the roles. It was not just for strategy but for survival. Playing the part helped avoid detection. There had been instances—long ago now when BlueLizard was just a fledgling Player—when enemies had realized a possession was taking place. And in those realms, that knowledge brought swift and violent consequences.

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They had many names: Witch hunters. Possession breakers. Demon eradicators.

But this time, it was something new. The enemy wasn't just aware of possession. They were aware of the Game. And they remembered across the loops.

Grandov slowly stretched out his limbs, which had thankfully not grown stiff from too long in meditation.

And yet, rather than dread, a grin crept across his face.

Fine, so be it.

Grandov was a good-hearted hero. That also meant that if BlueLizard was to play the character accurately, certain actions could and could not be done—they'd be out of character.

But if they already know I'm a summon, I'll act like one.

With a flick of his hand, Grandov conjured the Game Store. Rows of shimmering icons hovered before his eyes, each tagged with a steep cost to make any seasoned Player wince. He scrolled past legendary weapons and equipment until he spotted a plain wooden flute for two Nexus coins.

He paid the price and moved on, scanning for proper gear.

It was considered a waste of money to buy equipment and items to beat Adovoria's Fall because if you died—which was inevitable—your equipment would disappear along with the round. But BlueLizard had long since discovered a workaround: if you managed to toss your gear back into the Store just before dying, it could be reclaimed. That was easier said than done, and given that Luca's death now controlled the Game's end, it was likely that at least a couple of times, the equipment wouldn't make it into the Game Store in time.

But it might be worth the cost. With Luca and the other Awakened, this might finally be winnable.

His smile faltered as Luca's words echoed in his mind.

Or rather, there's no other choice except for it to be winnable.

He slung the travel pack over his shoulder and stepped forward, vanishing into the fog as he descended from the Celestial Mountain Range. His destination? Govista Lake and the creature beneath it.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

"Rise."

Zuni Keita's eyes snapped open at the command—a voice that echoed not in his ears, which were too decayed to function, but somewhere deeper in his mind.

His eyes, however, were intact, but their once-lustrous gold pupils had dulled to a filmy, milky sheen. The whites of his eyes were veined with murky yellow, and the cornea was opaque and slightly discolored.

Nonetheless, he was grateful. He had awoken with his eyes still there. The black void began to melt away as the regenerative magic coursed through him. At first, there were only shifting shadows—indistinct, colorless forms pressing in on all sides. But slowly, the world sharpened.

He saw the four cramped walls of his earthen tomb, the soil packed and damp, threaded throughout with the twisted roots of the oak above.

Then came color.

A sudden burst of green stirred at the edge of his vision. The leaves of the oak that he was buried beneath, vivid and bright, danced in the breeze, their motion crisp against the blue of the sky. It was like seeing the world for the first time through the eyes of a newborn.

As a powerful gust of wind washed over the tree, the miracle of sound was regained.

Zuni carefully moved his jaw, which had overly relaxed from the decomposition. The bones creaked softly, like damp wood under pressure. Then he moved his dry and cracked lips, which were slightly retracted, exposing his white teeth.

Then his sense of smell slowly returned, which he didn't fully welcome, unlike the other senses. The air within the coffin was thick and metallic, saturated with the stench of old blood and the sickly sweet odor of his own decomposing flesh.

Taste followed, and it was worse. A foul, chemical bitterness coated Zuni's tongue, with sulfur and spoiled meat mingling alongside the acrid sting of stale bile. It was as if death itself had taken root in his mouth. And ultimately, it had given he was a living corpse.

His cheeks were puffed, stretched taut by gas-bloated skin, and his throat felt stuffed and swollen. Yet beneath his discolored flesh, the quiet prickling of necromantic magic worked with patient precision, knitting together the ruins of his body—nerve by nerve, cell by cell.

Zuni took his time getting reacquainted with his limbs, not pushing his undead body beyond its current limits. His limbs responded sluggishly to his intentions as if recalling movement only through effort. The tendons and vessels beneath his skin shivered as his flesh wove itself back into place, connecting the most critical parts of his body first.

Unlike regular zombies that lacked a soul and could be pushed through the pains of the regenerative process, it would take a couple of months for Zuni to recover fully.

Several long minutes passed in silence as Zuni's senses and basic mobility returned.

With a dry, rasping exhale, Zuni finally pushed himself up from his coffin. The stiff wood beneath him creaked faintly. Beyond, he could make out the make-shift graves of others that had also been laid to rest in this graveyard, not far from the capital city of the Kobar Empire.

"It's a shame the Game didn't start two weeks earlier," the voice of his benefactor sounded as he climbed out of his shallow grave. "You could have been alive then."

Zuni merely shrugged as he dusted off his clothes. It was the same coat and silk shirt that he had been killed in. The murder was now but a distant memory.

"It's no matter to me," he replied, his voice low and brittle, like a twig broom rasping over a stone floor. "You've awakened me, and in a few months, I'll be indistinguishable from the living."

He paused, running a stiff hand across his jaw, wiping off a family of maggots.

"Far better than it was in the original timeline," he added. "I don't envy Lord Tobias."

In his current state, Lord Tobias was little more than a forgotten skeleton in a highborn tomb. Ornate, yes. Reverent, perhaps. But he was merely dust and bones, nonetheless.

Zuni looked around the cramped, unadorned space that had been his resting place. The coffin was cheap and plain, with its wood already given in to mold and rot.

He smiled.

"At least I still have flesh," he muttered.

His expression turned serious, his thoughts turning to the previous loop and the topic his benefactor likely wished to hear about most.

"It's confirmed," he said. "Grandov died, and with his death, the world reset."

"You're certain?" the voice asked, lower now.

Zuni nodded.

"The timing matched perfectly," he replied. "It took just a minute to bring him down—I was monitoring his vitals the whole time. He logged out with barely a second to spare before his wounds would have finished him."

"Is it the same Player?" came the subsequent inquiry. "Lasting only a minute is…. disappointing."

"Same Player," Zuni affirmed. "His fighting style was unmistakably what I've witnessed in previous battles. Same burst of energy at the start. Same lunging style of his longsword. Surprisingly decent stamina despite being cursed. But your army of undead overwhelmed him before he could adapt."

A silence followed, broken only by the wind rustling the oak leaves overhead.

Then, a long exhale.

"Perhaps I was too eager to test him," his benefactor muttered. "So be it. We'll break him—one loop or another."

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