Chapter 1: The Beginning
The crackling campfire cast a warm glow over Elara, Ryx, Sera, Kay, and Lena. The night outside the cabin was cool, and the air carried the scent of burning wood and night-blooming flowers. Everyone sat in silence, their eyes fixed on the elderly woman sitting across from them.
Belle sat on a flat stone, wrapped in a thick blanket. Beside her, Lann remained quiet, his pipe resting between his fingers, a nostalgic look on his face. Though the years had left wrinkles around his eyes, they still held the sharp, knowing glint of someone who had lived through far too much.
Lena leaned forward slightly, unable to contain her curiosity.
“So… how do you two know so much about the game? And why did you decide to stay here?”
Belle smiled softly and exchanged a knowing glance with Lann before speaking.
“It all began in a place where hope had all but faded,” she said, her gaze drifting toward the flames. “I remember when we were fighting the Gray Leviathan. That thing was incredibly tough, but Sonya landed a shot right in its eye. That gave us the opening we needed to—”
“Hold on, love,” Lann interrupted, raising a hand. He took a slow puff from his pipe and let the smoke drift into the air. “Let’s start from the beginning. From my side of the story. We ended up fighting that thing because of a grudge, and if I don’t explain that first, none of this is going to make sense.”
The others settled around the fire. No one said a word. They knew that when Lann spoke in that serious tone, one he rarely used, the best thing to do was sit back and listen.
Lann closed his eyes for a moment, as though searching for the exact point where it had all begun.
“It all started back in college,” he said. “I was a sophomore, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into.”
Lann dragged his feet as he walked out of his last class of the day. The exam had been brutal, the kind that left your brain feeling like mush, and all he wanted was to get back to his room and switch off for a while.
He slipped on his headphones before leaving the building, and the moment his phone picked up a signal, it started buzzing nonstop. His Discord group chat was blowing up.
Marco: bro have you seen that new game that just dropped??
Marco: ETERNAL LIFE
Diego: it’s a full-immersion VRMMORPG
Marco: they say it actually feels real
Lann read the messages as he made his way toward the bike racks. It wasn’t the first time his friends had gotten hyped over a new game that turned out to be a letdown. Still, the name stuck with him.
Eternal Life.
It sounded like something bigger than just another game.
That night, after grabbing a quick bite and pretending to make some progress on his homework, he finally gave in. He looked up the game and watched the trailer.
A next-generation MMORPG.
The trailer showcased a shattered world where Heaven and Hell had collided with Earth in an ancient catastrophe. Ruined medieval cities stretched across the landscape, while angels with massive wings fought shoulder to shoulder with humans on battlefields swarming with mythical beasts—chimeras, lesser dragons, and ferocious griffins.
The trailer ended with a message in golden letters:
Help the angels restore the balance. Forge your legend in a world on the brink of chaos.
Beneath it, in smaller print, was the requirement:
VR Extreme 3500 Full-Immersion Headset.
He read a couple of reviews. The headset wasn’t cheap, but he had some money saved up from a part-time job he’d recently quit. He stared at the purchase button longer than he’d care to admit.
Then he bought it.
The headset arrived three days later. The moment he tried it on, he loved how snugly it fit his head. It was something he’d always wanted to experience.
That very night, he followed the instructions and set everything up, step by step, feeling nervous, almost as if he were about to do something forbidden.
He settled onto his bed, lowered the visor over his eyes, and then—
Nothing.
Total darkness.
When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer in his room.
He was standing in the middle of an enormous plaza, surrounded by glowing lights, market stalls, and hundreds of players materializing around him, all looking just as lost as he felt. The sky was a shade he’d never seen in the real world, a blend of purple and gold that seemed to shift and ripple overhead.
He looked down at his hands. They were his, but not quite. They looked stronger, more solid.
A user interface appeared before him.
Welcome to Eternal Life. Please select your starting class.
Lann had done a little research before logging in. He wanted something straightforward, something that didn’t require him to rely on anyone else.
He selected Dual Sword DPS.
The moment he confirmed his choice, two swords appeared crossed over his back.
He spent the first few hours on his own, getting used to the controls and learning to move in a body that didn’t quite feel like his. Whenever a mob hit him, it didn’t hurt at all. Red numbers simply floated above his head, and his health bar dropped a little.
It was strange. Everything looked so real, yet he couldn’t feel a thing.
He killed low-level mobs near the forest entrance, gained a couple of levels, and kept going until the mental exhaustion from his long day began to catch up with him. Deciding it was time to find somewhere to rest, he started looking around.
That’s when he heard them arguing.
“I told you we shouldn’t have taken this path, Leroy,” said a girl with long pink hair, her arms crossed and a whip coiled around her waist. “Now we’re lost, and it’s going to be dark soon.”
“We’re not lost, Lety. We’re just… recalculating.”
A tall man in heavy black-and-gold armor scratched the back of his neck while staring at a map he clearly had no idea how to read. A two-handed sword nearly as large as he was rested at his side.
Beside him, a woman with long, wavy black hair and an elven bow slung over her shoulder watched the scene with an amused half-smile, making no effort to get involved.
“This looks like an ambush waiting to happen,” Lann said as he approached, barely giving it a second thought.
All three turned toward him. Leroy gave him a quick once-over before relaxing his shoulders.
“Are you heading to the Old Forest, too?”
“I was, until I heard you had no idea where you were.”
The woman with the bow let out a short laugh.
“I like this guy. I’m Sonya.”
“Lety,” the other girl said, still a little annoyed, though she’d finally uncrossed her arms.
“Leroy.” The man held out his hand.
It was a strange gesture in a world where no one could actually feel anything, but Lann shook it anyway. He watched their hands meet, without warmth or pressure, like two 3D models bumping into each other.
“If you know the way, we owe you one.”
Lann glanced at the map over Leroy’s shoulder. He’d never been good with directions in the real world, but something about the game’s interface made everything seem a little clearer.
“I don’t know the way,” he admitted, “but I can read a map. There’s a difference.”
The three exchanged glances. Sonya was the first to speak.
“Works for us. Want to join our party? Besides, with those two swords, we’ll do a lot more damage.”
Lann didn’t give it much thought. He had no one waiting for him inside the game, and back in his room, all that awaited him were four empty walls and an exam he didn’t even want to think about anymore.
“I’m in.”
And just like that, it all began.
No ceremony. No idea what lay ahead. No war, no revenge, and none of the events that would eventually lead them, years later, to their battle against the Gray Leviathan.
Just four strangers, lost in a forest that wasn’t real, deciding to walk together.
