Insomniac Player

Far from Viremont sat the city of Sylvaris. Before the world changed, most of humanity had known it by another name. Paris.

The old name hadn’t disappeared entirely. Older citizens still slipped it into conversation now and then, but the maps, the system announcements, the official paperwork, all of it had long since moved on without them.

At the heart of the city, morning sun poured through floor-to-ceiling windows into a bedroom big enough to host a small wedding.

On a bed built for five people slept one enormous man. John Jones, six foot six, taking up an unreasonable share of the mattress on his own. Thick arms rested over the blanket, stomach rising and falling with each heavy breath. Ginger hair clung stubbornly to the sides and back of his head, having long since surrendered up top. The mustache, at least, had never once retreated.

His eyes cracked open. "...Morning already?"

He reached over and rang a small silver bell on the nightstand.

Twenty seconds later the door opened, and a maid came in with a tray.

"Sir John, your citrus-berry smoothie."

"Ah! Thank you, dear." He pushed himself upright and took it from her.

"You’re welcome, sir." She bowed and left.

He took a long drink. "Perfect." Then came the part of the morning he actually dreaded.

He opened his system interface.

➤[Unread Messages: 399,284]

He stared. "...No." Closed it. Opened it again.

➤[Unread Messages: 399,286]

Two more had landed in the time it took to blink. "Nope." Not a chance he was touching that pile today. Fame had sounded a lot better before he’d actually gotten any.

"Favorites." The nightmare vanished, leaving a short, manageable list behind. His secretary alone had sent twenty-three, meeting schedules, government requests, three interviews, a guild conference, something about an international summit.

His eyes glazed over the list, scrolled, then stopped.

Two names sat there.

Imran Ali. Rahul Modi.

His thumb went still. The easy morning smile faded, just for a second, while he sat there looking at two names from a life that felt like someone else’s now.

He scrolled further, waiting for a third name that should have followed right after.

It never came.

His smile disappeared entirely. He locked the screen without a word. "..."

Another sip of the smoothie. "Too early for sad thoughts."

His eyes stayed distant a while longer anyway. If he’d only bothered opening the pile of unread messages sitting one tap away, he’d have found it.

◇◇◇

Back in Viremont, Damien and Daria walked toward the station, headed for the First Sanctuary, and specifically the Murim server, a whole world he’d apparently never heard of until an hour ago.

"So people actually sell martial arts."

"Yep."

"The same murim stuff, like the wuxia and xianxia novels?"

"That’s the one."

"But the system came after those novels were written. How’d humans write about something that hadn’t happened yet?"

"Nobody really knows. Best guess is the system reads deep enough into what people want that it just... makes room for it. There are theories. None of them proven."

He thought about that for a second. "Is there something in there that could teach me to fly?"

"Sure, if you can afford it."

"Can I afford it?"

"No."

"...Why answer it like that."

"Because you’re broke."

He sighed. Harsh. Also accurate.

They were less than two blocks from the station when the sky split open with sound.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A siren tore across the whole city. Everyone on the street stopped mid-step. Every ordinary announcement cut out at once, replaced by a mechanical voice thundering out of every terminal in sight.

➤[EMERGENCY ALERT]

➤[GATEBREAK DETECTED]

➤[Location: Tycho City]

➤[Distance from Viremont: 86 km, North]

➤[Threat Classification: EPIC]

➤[All available combat-class Players are requested to engage immediately.]

His stomach dropped. "Epic."

Daria was already moving. "That’s bad." Her casual clothes vanished in a flash, replaced by green fabric and enchanted plate, staff already solid in her hand. Madam Marvel had shown up in her place before he’d even finished processing the alert.

He opened his inventory on reflex, and black gear swallowed him head to toe. Sleepless, standing where the carefree version of him had been a second earlier. All around them, combat players summoned weapons out of thin air, everyone else scattering toward the nearest doors, vehicles pulling to the shoulder to clear an emergency lane down the middle of the street.

Daria’s eyes went to the station. "Come on!"

"The train?"

"Fastest thing we’ve got."

They hadn’t made it twenty meters before a flying vehicle dropped in beside them with a hiss of pressurized air. Damien flinched back on instinct as the window rolled down.

A teenager sat behind the controls, couldn’t have been older than seventeen. "You two combat players?"

He glanced at Daria, then back. "Yeah."

"Combat, right? Not support?"

"Yeah, why..."

The doors unlocked. "Get in. Heading to Tycho too."

Daria didn’t hesitate, already pulling the rear door open. He climbed in after her, and the second it clicked shut, the kid grinned. "Hold tight."

The accelerator hit the floor.

"Wai.." His skull snapped back into the seat. "..t!"

Buildings smeared into streaks past the windows. Daria grabbed the handle overhead. "Do you actually know how to drive this thing?!"

"Of course! Got my license last month!"

Damien stared at the back of his head. "...That’s not the reassurance you think it is."

They shot above the traffic, and he pulled up his contacts, calling Doctor Smoke. She picked up before the second ring finished.

"Sleepless."

"Doctor, what’s going on?"

"Was about to call you." Her voice had lost every trace of the woman who’d smoked under a no-smoking sign that morning, hard and clipped now, urgent in a way that didn’t match her at all. "The gate. The one I showed you."

His stomach turned over. "The unknown-rank one?"

"Government reclassified it thirty minutes ago. It’s not Epic. It’s Legendary."

"The alert said Epic."

"Because telling every civilian in the region ’Legendary’ would start a citywide panic. Only combat-class players get told the truth. The expedition inside failed. Gate broke wide open."

He looked at Daria. She’d clearly heard every word through the speaker. "What came through?"

"We don’t have a full picture yet."

"That’s comforting."

"Shut up and listen." He shut up. "Tycho’s defense force engaged the second it broke. They’re losing ground."

"Where are the top government players?"

"Scattered. Three separate operations running at once, most of our strongest people are hundreds of kilometers out. Guild reinforcements are mobilizing now. Sir John’s been contacted too."

Something shifted in his chest at the name, but she kept going before he could sit with it.

"He’s in Sylvaris. Can’t get there fast."

"How long?"

"Forty minutes."

He looked out the window. Tycho City had come into view, a column of black smoke rising off the skyline ahead of them.

"We’re not clearing it," Salma said. "Not killing whatever’s coming through. Job’s simple. Hold the line for forty minutes."

He went quiet, running the math. Forty minutes against something Legendary, with barely anyone senior in range. He looked at Daria. She met his eyes and gave a small nod.

He exhaled. "...Alright."

A short pause on the line. "Don’t do anything stupid. I’m on my way there too. Wait for me."

"You know who you’re talking to, right?" A dry laugh escaped him despite everything.

"Unfortunately." The call cut out.

The teenager glanced back over his shoulder. "Legendary gatebreak?"

"...Yeah."

"Sick. My first real fight’s against a legendary." He hit the accelerator harder.

Damien grabbed the seat. "Why are you speeding up?!"

"We’re almost there!"

"That’s exactly when you’re supposed to slow down!"

The kid ignored him completely.

◇◇◇

Tycho City grew fast in the windshield, smoke thickening by the second, emergency aircraft crossing overhead in both directions.

Players raced along the roads on foot. Ambulances hauled civilians out of the city center in the opposite direction. Then they crossed the outer boundary, and the whole atmosphere changed at once, explosions no longer distant but close enough to feel through the frame of the car.

BOOM!

A shockwave rattled every window at once. The kid finally eased off the gas. "...Holy."

Nobody spoke after that. Collapsed buildings lined the streets, glass carpeting the road, storefronts blown open. Civilians ran the other direction under police escort and a thin line of low-level players holding the perimeter.

Another blast rolled through, and underneath it, something else. A roar, deep and wrong.

IROOOOOAAAAARRR!

His hand went for the dagger without conscious thought. Daria’s grip tightened around her staff.

The car rounded one last corner and just stopped, no one telling the kid to brake, the road simply ending where the road used to be.

Damien got out first. Daria followed. Neither of them said anything for a moment.

He’d seen monsters before, goblin packs, wolves, ogres, things that had no business existing outside a nightmare. This was something else entirely.

The center of Tycho had turned into a battlefield. A massive crimson gate hung suspended in the sky between two skyscrapers, not planted on the ground the way every other gate had been, cracks of red light spidering outward from it like a wound torn into the air itself. Monsters poured through in a steady stream, thousands of winged shapes circling between the buildings, armored beasts charging down the streets below, long-limbed things crawling straight up the sides of towers like insects on a wall.

Players fought everywhere he looked. Fireballs cut across the sky, arrows rained down from rooftops, a wall of shields locked together across an intersection while civilians streamed out behind it.

Beyond all of it, something enormous moved.

He tilted his head back. A colossal shape stepped through the crimson gate, one horn emerging first, then another, then a massive bone-plated skull. A hand the size of a bus curled around the edge of the gate itself, gripping it like the doorway was simply too small for whatever was trying to fit through it.

Daria’s voice came out barely above a whisper. "...That’s the boss."

He didn’t answer, eyes locked on the thing still pushing its way into their world.

Then the system caught up with them.

➤[Emergency Regional Quest Generated]

➤[GATEBREAK: TYCHO CITY]

➤[Primary Objective: Halt the enemies until reinforcements arrive without dying.]

➤[Estimated Time: 00:39:47]

The timer started ticking down.

00:39:46

00:39:45

He drew the dagger. Forty minutes had never sounded shorter in his life.