Chương 99: Chapter 98: Wings of a Butterfly

12: 07 AM. Just past midnight. I pulled the helmet off and lay still, staring at the ceiling of the room… I spent sixteen hours in the capsule; my longest session ever since I followed the glowing shadow back at the northern ridge, just outside Carpa. Sixteen hours of running, betrayals, a civil war, and a shot that I didn't think I could forget anytime soon. I was so immersed in Godsrealm that the real world could only come back in pieces.

I faintly registered the rain tapping against the windows, a sound Scotland never seemed to tire of. Then, the darkness of the room, as the only light source, the capsule, was gradually shutting down. Then the silence. There were no church bells, no clashes of steel outside the walls, no melodies coming from Kara's lute. Just the rain and the wind to provide a silent ambience.

I swung my legs off the capsule's platform and got ready for a quick night routine of shower, something to bite, and getting a really good sleep. I could log back in at 4 pm tomorrow, which gave me quite a lot of time to process everything that had happened this week. The shower was scalding at first, making me remember the hot steam in Twinfire's dungeon. After a while, however, it became pleasant enough to help me relax all my muscles, tension leaving my body.

I stood under the water for longer than usual, letting the heat work. I was a tad dizzy. The mind-body disconnect of VR was well documented, but knowing the science didn't make the feeling any less overwhelming. After the shower, I made some pasta for the night because it was the only thing I had the energy for, and ate it standing at the counter, watching the darkness beyond the window. Somewhere out there, the Scottish highlands rolled into the distance. I set the alarm for ten and fell into bed.

Sleep came fast and deep, and I don't think I moved an inch all night. Usually, the mornings here were either grey with approaching clouds or already wet, but to my pleasant surprise, I woke up to the sun on this Sunday morning. Its gentle warmth reached my face as I was lying on my bed, and the moment I opened my eyes, my mouth was already curling into a smile. Sunday. This evening, the Recoronation Ceremony was about to take place.

We'd prevented an all-out civil war, found and restored an ancient weapon, and saved the capital of Tidemark County. All that was left was for the rightful ruler to take his place on the Seastone Throne. My body felt better. I got to work on it, to keep it that way. Push-ups, sit-ups, stretches, followed by thirty minutes on the incline, the motor whirring in the quiet cottage. My next stop was the kitchen. Fresh coffee, eggs, and a toast. Once again, I didn't sit; I was getting used to eating at the counter.

I'm lying in a pod for hours on end, I thought. Being in the game felt every bit like moving; it even came with sore muscles at times, but I still thought it was a good idea to stand around IRL from time to time. I checked my cooldown timer. Sixteen hours played meant sixteen hours locked out. I'd logged out just after midnight, which meant the capsule wouldn't unlock until 4 PM. I had a bit more than five hours left, so I grabbed my tablet and went out to the porch. The forums had gone nuclear.

The top post in the kingdom-wide forums had over forty thousand upvotes and was climbing by the minute. In Onyx Tower's Ashenmere County, there was a huge collapse of a mine-turned-dungeon, with massive rescue operations and over 200 players involved.

In Blackthorn County, Ravenbeak region, there was a whole county-wide quest arc around a Plague that corrupted local wildlife, and Ravencrown experienced a Drake Migration: a swarm of level 60 to 75 Drakes started migrating, devastating farmland and even threatening some of the villages along the way. It was sorted out by King Seraf's men, with players taking on aiding roles during the process. I made a quick scan of the event, and just as I thought, Ryder and the rest of Avalon were in the middle of it all.

They're not lagging behind, either. There was an assassination attempt against the heir of Featherfall's Duchess, and the ruler actually disabled all teleportation gates throughout the whole region. The players could take on investigative roles, and from the looks of it, they had a blast doing so. Moongate's Redwyne County was just ending the Vineyard Wars, a feud between two barons who recruited adventurers to do their bidding.

It became a massive, 200 vs 200 PvP event with serious political consequences throughout the whole region. However, the most upvoted, most talked-about thread was about something else. It seemed like Tidemark's civil war was a bigger event than anything else happening in the kingdom. [MEGATHREAD] Tidemark Civil War – The Biggest Event in Godsrealm So Far Posted by: Shieldbreaker | 8 hours ago | 40, 217 upvotes | 6, 847 replies Shieldbreaker had posted it within hours of the battle ending.

He must have stayed up all night, cutting and editing a video this long. The man's dedication to content creation was genuinely frightening. The thread included a full timeline of events, embedded footage from multiple angles, and a breakdown of the major players. It was comprehensive, well-organized, and already being treated as the definitive record. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

His video was uploaded to loads of sites, raking in millions of views. Over half of Ravenloft's players had reacted to it on the forums. I scrolled through the comments. ThunderClash: I've been gaming for 15 years. This made me feel like I didn't play anything before at all. Brightforge: It says there was a crystal blocking skills in the city. What happened to it? Loreweaver: You can see it shatter in one of the other players' POV videos! Let me find it. Loreweaver: link Galacto: Looks like it was shot.

Xavier54: The shot's coming from way outside the frame, though. Brightforge: I asked my guild leader, but he is not disclosing info like that. He must know tho. Galacto: @SirSalmon, tell us! Athos didn't react to the comments, and I was grateful, although I knew we couldn't escape the recognition for too long. Our Quest hasn't been completed yet. And that only meant one thing: the Count will most likely reward us in public.

If my intuition was correct, it meant my face would be posted, and people outside Tidemark would know about the Black Ranger soon enough. That doesn't connect me to Zephyr just yet, but people might start putting pieces of the puzzle together. In fact, as I was reading through the comments, I realized I might not have to wait until tonight. Someone had analyzed the trajectory and determined the shot came from a tower in the palace district's eastern wing, most likely the Mage Tower.

Another poster had identified the arrow as an item crafted using Wasp wings from the Dustfields. A third had written that a party of players broke from the host the moment the battle began. The thread was narrowing. I guessed they'd pinpoint me in about five more comments. I was right. Fang-sama: Had to be Orion, right? Winner of Oakenlight's tournament, the Black Ranger of Carpa, yada yada. Court_Lorrando: There are other good archers in Tidemark as well.

Urandeel: Are you self-plugging lol WardenPrime: I was there, in the first line. It was the Black Ranger who went to the city, and probably the one who made the shot. I smiled before closing the topic.

There were a few other threads, mostly players of the other Silverwing counties jokingly complaining, saying things like "they were stuck doing fetch quests while there was a whole-ass civil war going on at the neighbor's" and similar, but all of them were made in good faith; the community was incredibly happy the game was going in a direction that such grand schemes were already happening.

The guild recruitment posts were exploding; every major guild present in Tidemark was using the civil war and the achievements around it as a springboard. They were posting clips of their best players carving through abyssal thralls, subduing brainwashed soldiers, and marching alongside the mighty Count Vizgrad. Second Wind, Crimson Court, King's Glade, Midnight Sun, Oathkeepers, Stormfall, and a dozen others had players represent them in the battle.

I gave all the recruitment posts brief attention, and in the end, a reliable hierarchy formed in my head. Ace called at noon.

"You know, you never told me your in-game name," he started without saying hello.

"No? Huh."

"Why are you doing this to me, boss?"

"Don't call me boss."

"Well, you're not giving me too many options." A pause.

"Or you weren't, but after that little tournament of yours and yesterday's events, Orion would be a safe bet, wouldn't it?" I leaned against the kitchen counter.

"Never heard of him."

"Stop playing me, Seb. Half a kilometer long shot hitting a bull's eye, beating everyone bloody at a random tournament, encountering that spirit deer you talked about, and leading a raid against a vengeful ghost," He trailed off, and when he spoke again, his voice had changed. Quieter. More deliberate.

"Only you have this much main character energy." I sighed.

"Four hundred meters, the Elder Stag and the Woe of Riverhear," I corrected him.

"And that tournament was way closer than you'd think."

"Bloody hell, Seb." He laughed, but somehow it felt like he was concerned about me.

"Subtlety isn't your strong suit, is it?"

"Never really was, I guess. It just hid behind Ryder's ego until now."

"Yeah, I guess. If we're talking about him, though," he paused for a moment, "you'll be glad to hear this, but someone, maybe utilizing a lot of favors and quite a bit of his charisma, had scattered the seeds of information through Avalon's ranks that Bow God Zephyr had left the continent, and didn't even stop until Asia." Silence. The rain tapped against the windows.

"How did you achieve that?" I asked. If Ryder believed I was in Asia, I didn't have to worry about staying incognito for quite a while. Not that I was any good at it. He let out a short laugh.

"Business secret. Although it wasn't too hard. There's a guy on the other continent, a ranger that you should probably look into."

"Zhan Ji?" I asked. I'd seen clips of him, although not much, as I didn't have the time just yet. But from what I've seen, he was a serious contender for the Bow God title. If this were Valhalla, I'd be confident in my victory, but Godsrealm was a world full of upsets.

"Wait, don't tell me," I suddenly realized what he was talking about. Zhan Ji might have been Asian, but he clearly had European ancestry, judging by his appearance.

"Ryder thinks he's me?"

"He has a strong suspicion. It would have been possible to alter your looks to resemble him." That was quite a reach, even from Jack.

"I mean, the info crumbs I'd fed them were quite realistic. I don't want to go into details, but not going to lie, I could be a criminal mastermind." I believed him.

"Tell me about the war," he said.

"The real version, not the public one." So I told him everything: the infiltration through the eastern wall, the sleeping city, the climb up Elindra's tower. Kara and Athos freeing the prisoners, dying in the process. I told him about the shot, and he applauded me several times during the call. We also talked about Calian, his treachery, his escape, and his possible plans. When I finished, Ace was quiet for a long moment.

"Calian walking away like that," he said.

"Definitely foreshadowing something bigger. Region, no, maybe even Kingdom-wide things."

"I know."

"Which means whatever questline he's connected to is going to draw attention from every major guild in Ravenloft eventually. Avalon included."

"I know that too." He let it breathe. Then, because Ace could never help himself:"So about that guild—""Ace."

"I'm just saying. Gryphon's Claw has 228 members and is growing. Cassie's running logistics. We've got Carnivore and Werebear leading the raid teams. There's this Rogue named Ghost who might honestly be as good as Lowkey with a bit of training. If you joined—""Not yet." He sighed, but there was no real frustration in it.

"Alright. Not yet." We talked for another twenty minutes. He told me about an Ironholt dungeon with a musical puzzle that would have been perfect for Kara, about Cassie's Arcanist build, which was apparently terrorizing the county's dueling circuit, about all the things their guild was setting up to do, about how they were preparing to hunt for the Guild Seals from tomorrow on, although he wasn't Gold rank yet. The flow of the conversation reminded me of the old days.

The way they used to go before everything fell apart and we went our separate ways.

"Hey, Seb?"

"Yeah?"

"If you need backup for whatever comes next. With Calian, with the lore stuff, with anything." A pause.

"You know where to find me."

"I know."

"Regions won't matter forever, boss." I smiled.

"Don't call me boss."

"Never gonna stop." He hung up. The cooldown timer ticked past three-thirty. Thirty minutes. I went through the login routine. Checked the capsule's calibration, made sure everything was in order, and set a glass of water by the platform for when I'd eventually log out again. At 3: 58, I climbed in. The helmet settled over my head, the familiar hum of the neural link starting up at the base of my skull, covering me in seconds.

At 4: 00 PM, the cooldown ended, I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, Tidemark was waiting for me.