Leo, Victor, and the others stood at the front of their assembled force, thirty thousand elite players gathered under the banner of the Renegade Alliance. They had all converged on the coordinates Ethan had sent, waiting like a coiled spring for the first major strike of the war.

A full kilometer ahead, a fortress rose like a carved mountain, its new stone walls towering so high they almost seemed unreal. This was the fortress Ethan had singled out, the one he intended to conquer and transplant their guild hall into, an audacious plan before the first battle even began.

It was the southernmost fortress in the Harmony City zone, positioned right at the edge of the regional war frontier. It was also one of only four Advanced tier fortresses in the region, although people joked it was technically three and a half. Three belonged completely to Harmony City, while this one straddled the border, half claiming Harmony's side and half rooted in Springhaven's territory.

Leo squinted toward the distant walls, the fortress sealed beneath a shimmering golden dome. It glowed like a captured sun, an unmistakable sign that the invulnerability shield was still active. A digital timer blinked in everyone's peripheral vision, its steady countdown pushing tension into the ranks.

Three minutes until Fortress Wars commencement.

Once the countdown hit zero, every fortress in the region would lose its shield at the same moment. Ethan had been extremely clear that this fortress was their priority target, the place where their opening strike would land.

It was a strange choice. Every guild knew the usual flow. You took a lower tier fortress first, moved your guild hall inside for the buffs and safety, then worked your way up once you were firmly established. An Advanced fortress meant stronger NPC defenders, higher and thicker walls, and siege defenses that usually made any early assault look suicidal. No one understood why Ethan wanted to start here.

Victor and the others could only shrug at Leo's complaint. They had no idea where Ethan had gone or why he was skipping their most important battle. All he had sent was a short message assigning Victor tactical command, with Celeste overseeing deployments and logistics.

Everyone had assumed Ethan would lead the first charge, the Druid God himself at the front. His absence hung over the army like a weight. Thirty thousand elite players stood ready, murmurs spreading through the ranks in uneasy waves. It was the most important fight in their guild's history, yet the boss was nowhere to be seen.

To be fair, the command structure made sense. Victor had an uncanny feel for PVP tactics, and even though he played a Holy Priest, he was infamous in one-on-one duels. Leo, for all his strength, had always led PVE raids, a job now mostly shifted to Celeste's Leaf Guild. A siege was entirely PVP, so Victor at the helm was the logical decision.

Logic did not calm nerves, however. The air felt tight and unsettled.

System notices flashed across their vision in quick succession.

[Fortress Wars commence in… 30 seconds]

[Fortress Wars commence in… 10 seconds]

[Fortress Wars commence in… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1]

[Fortress Wars are LIVE. Invulnerability shields deactivated. A new age dawns. Charge forth, warriors]

Silence fell for a heartbeat as the golden barrier dissolved in a bright ripple.

Victor's voice, amplified through the command channel, cut across the stillness. He was not the type to give speeches, but he could see that morale needed a push. A sloppy, half-hearted charge would turn into a massacre.

"Listen up. The boss isn't here. You know it, I know it. Which means whatever he is doing right now is bigger than this, big enough to shake the whole world. He trusted us with this fight." Victor pointed toward the fortress, his expression hardening. "He trusted us to hold the line. So don't even think about letting him down."

He took a breath, pushing himself through the awkward part. "He promised all of us the good life. Steak for everyone, beer on tap. The women part is on you though." A thin ripple of laughter moved across the ranks, small but enough to break the tension's grip.

Victor let the moment settle, then glanced toward the sky. Dozens of orb-shaped devices hovered above their formation. Farther back, he could see the WCC Radio crew, Ethereal's biggest news outlet. The orbs were WCC's broadcasting rigs, providing a floating, omniscient view for a live worldwide stream.

They had considered refusing WCC's request to film the assault. Almost everyone had agreed it was better to deny them, to keep their strategy hidden. But Ethan had approved it without hesitation. He had invited the world to watch their first move.

Of course, Ethan had also demanded seventy percent of the broadcast revenue. Rumor had it that Trina Starr, WCC's lead host, had nearly had an aneurysm when she heard the number. Negotiations stalled instantly, Ethan refused to budge, and somehow her higher-ups still approved it.

Victor lifted his eyes toward the swarm of broadcasting orbs overhead. This fight was no longer a simple fortress assault. It was a public trial, a spectacle judged by the entire world. Because Ethan's name carried weight everywhere, the global audience had turned its attention toward the Renegade Alliance.

He could feel the army's mood lift again, not enough to ignite them completely but enough to steady their footing. 'Boss, you really dumped this one on me,' Victor thought, exhaling through his nose. He still believed Ethan should have been here.

"Move out," Victor ordered.

The vast line of players shifted into motion. He directed three smaller detachments toward the far sides of the fortress, instructing them to strike quickly and retreat, anything to scatter the NPC defenders and thin their coverage. The main body would crash into the front gate.

None of them had siege engines. Not yet. Ethan had acquired the blueprints, but constructing them took time, and time was the one resource no guild possessed on the first day of Fortress Wars. Every faction faced the same crude reality. To conquer a fortress, you climbed ladders and ropes, dragged makeshift throwing carts through the mud, and fought for every stone step and walkway.

The objective was brutally straightforward. Get bodies onto the walls, push inward street by street, clear the NPC garrison from the inner district, and fight your way to the control banner inside the central keep. Only when that banner fell would the fortress shift to their guild's name.

---

Springhaven Region, Mountain Hollow

Ethan stood in the quiet basin with his six closest companions, Markham and Rowan among them. Before them, spread across the stone-ringed clearing, waited four thousand Renegade Alliance players.

His gaze drifted over them. Their equipment was a messy spread of scavenged armor and weapons, mismatched and plain. A surprising number wore unenchanted white-grade pieces. The sight stirred something uncomfortable in his chest, a mix of memory and old humiliation.

'How long has it been?' he wondered. In his last life, at his lowest point, he had been exactly like these players. Worse, if he was being honest. No guild would accept him. Every group he joined, every fragile trust he built, ended the moment Zachary issued threats or launched an attack. People abandoned Ethan to save themselves, and he spiraled into the life of a stray, a ghost lurking at the edges of other people's success.

He stopped fighting entirely. Became a gatherer, then a miner. Days passed with him hunched over rocks, chipping ore with numb hands, selling the scraps for a few coins, stretching those coins into cheap instant noodles just to keep himself alive long enough to finish the cryptic quest that promised his rebirth.

Now he stood here again, but at the pinnacle, carrying foresight these players could never guess at.

He supposed he owed that to Morzan, in the most technical sense. But whenever Morzan came to mind, "gratitude" wasn't the emotion he felt. "Unreliable" was far closer.

Ethan breathed out softly and looked at the faces watching him.

When he finally spoke, his voice carried through the hollowed stone like something steady and deliberate.

"Everyone. I have failed you."

The words stopped every whisper. Even his companions turned toward him in surprise.

"I failed to lead every one of our brothers and sisters to the feast," he said, his tone even, "to make sure there was enough meat and drink for all of us."

He let the silence stretch, the weight of the admission settling over the crowd.

"But today is the beginning of the real Ethereal. Everything until now was the tutorial, learning your skills, grinding your levels, figuring out your class. The divide between elite and regular players is going to fade. From this point on, everyone will have a place, even if the roles look different than what you're used to."

He met their eyes one after another, calm but earnest.

"The reason I brought you here today is to ask something heavy. I am asking you to die for me. And for that… I am sincerely sorry."

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