FireFlame.

  His real name was Gao Liang, the only son of the CEO of Liang Corporation, one of the world’s leading giants in the game and tech industry.

  Their crown jewel was the L-Capsule, an advanced neural gaming capsule used by millions worldwide.

  But none of that mattered now.

  Because Gao Liang had been humiliated.

  He sat alone in his private suite on the 52nd floor of Liang Corp Tower, city light bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling glass like an interrogation lamp. Holo-screens floated before him, displaying dozens of paused video frames, all centered on one figure.

  Frostina.

  That name looped in his mind like a curse.

  The footage showed her standing atop a wyvern’s frozen snout, robe trailing like a royal banner, black hair whipping in the wind. Her player tag gleamed above her head like a title card etched into legend.

  [Frostina]

  His teeth clenched.

  She’d said that to him. To him. The heir of the company that built the very capsule she played on.

  Gao Liang had hired over thirty players to help him dominate the event. Top-tier gear. He even had analysts reviewing his combat skills.

  And yet, not only did he fail to break into the top 100 of the leaderboard…

  He got outshined, outpaced, and outclassed by one girl.

  One player.

  A mage.

  She carried the northern front while he respawned and sulked. When he returned, she played coy, posing as a delicate support.

  And right before maintenance hit… she dropped that one word.

  It wasn’t just humiliation.

  It was a declaration of war.

  Gao Liang whirled around, eyes burning.

  “Why can’t you find her?!”

  The employee across from him flinched.

  “W-We’re sorry, sir. We’ve scanned all registered faces in the capsule database. But no match. It’s likely she customized her in-game appearance to hide her real face.”

  “Then track her by her account!”

  “We tried that, too. We scanned every user with the nickname ‘Frostina’ in the SuperGames network, but none of them have logged into Dream Land Online.”

  “So her in-game name is also different from her SuperGames account... What about the developer? They’re indie, right?”

  “We… attempted contact. We even offered sponsorship benefits, but Dreamy Games refused to disclose any player data.”

  Gao Liang’s fist clenched.

  “Tch. A no-name studio trying to act like a goddamn fortress. Do they even have a listed office? A press contact?”

  The employee swallowed.

  “They only have a single email address listed publicly. No company address. No phone number. Everything’s handled through their SuperGames publisher portal, and even that’s restricted to their VIP-tier access.”

  Gao Liang stared at him in disbelief.

  “Are you telling me we can’t even find where their headquarters is?”

  The employee winced.

  “According to SuperGames policy, developers with VIP status can remain completely anonymous if they choose. Dreamy Games… is using that privilege.”

  Gao Liang scoffed.

  “Anonymous indie devs acting like some god-tier studio… Fine. Threaten them. Tell them we’ll blacklist their game from our capsules unless they cooperate.”

  The employee paled.

  “S-Sir, without the president’s approval we can’t—”

  “I KNOW! It’s not real. It’s a bluff. What can they do? No matter how ‘great’ their little fantasy world is, they’re nothing without our capsules.”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “Now move!”

  “Y-Yes, sir!”

  The assistant bolted.

  But…

  The bluff backfired.

  It was the very next day when Gao Liang was summoned to the executive office.

  His father, the president of Liang Corporation, was already waiting, seated behind a heavy glass desk in a minimalist office lined with silver and black.

  He didn’t look up at first. Just tapped his finger slowly against the edge of a tablet.

  “What did you do?” he asked, voice low and flat.

  Gao Liang straightened in his seat.

  “I… I don’t understand what you mean, Father.”

  The president raised his head, and his eyes were sharp.

  “I got a call from SuperGames. Apparently, our company threatened one of their VIP developers.”

  Gao Liang stiffened.

  “T-That’s not—! I didn’t mean to—”

  “Fool!”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The word hit like a slap. The room echoed with it.

  “That game…! That game has tripled our capsule usage rates in under two weeks! Two weeks! And it already has over ten million wishlist hits worldwide! Investors are calling it the future of immersive gaming! And you want to pick a fight with it?!”

  “I-I just needed to find one player—”

  “One player?! You jeopardized a corporate contract over a player?!”

  He slammed the tablet onto the table.

  “You think you can throw around threats because your name is Liang?! That you can blacklist the game from our platform and walk away clean?! You didn’t even get proper authorization from me!”

  Gao Liang flinched.

  “I-It was just to pressure them, I didn’t really mean—”

  “Intentions don’t matter when you threaten a contract, you idiot!”

  He stood up from his seat now, hands planted on the desk.

  “You think SuperGames needs us?! They’re backed by three tech conglomerates! They’ll just build a capsule themselves! The only thing keeping us on top is our relationship with them! And if they pull their licenses, our entire pipeline collapses!”

  Gao Liang was frozen, face pale.

  “And thanks to your childish tantrum,” his father spat, “Dreamy Games retaliated. Our investors even questioned me because of it.”

  “R-Retaliated? What do you mean?”

  “You haven’t seen it yet?”

  He grabbed the remote, stabbed a button, and the holo-screen on the wall came to life.

  It opened to MeTube, already on the trending page.

  —

  #1 — Dreamy Games Official Channel

  Title: First Global Event: Defense Battle — All Fronts

  Views: 1.2M

  Uploaded: 6 hours ago

  —

  Gao Liang stared at it, lips slightly parted.

  The thumbnail was innocuous enough, just fifteen types of monsters on the left side and a top player of each town on the right side with the label “Global Event Replay” and the game’s logo at the corner.

  And one of those top players… wasn’t him. It was Frostina.

  And as he opened the video page, the top comment section came into view:

  [icefang]: bro she said "Amateur" to the CEO’s kid LOLOL

  [pixelveil]: hearing her at the end is really satisfying

  [critmancer]: imagine having full p2w gear, a hired team, AND a leaderboard goal, but getting dethroned by a girl he trash talked

  [minminTV]: when you pay to win but forget to train your skills

  Gao Liang’s hand clenched into a fist.

  His name wasn’t even mentioned in the video title, but everyone knew.

  That means the video had it.

  And worse, they enjoyed it.

  He didn’t just lose to Frostina. He had been turned into a joke.

  And the entire world was watching.

  His father crossed his arms.

  “Watch it. And fix this mess yourself.”

  But as Gao Liang watched, the more helpless he became.

  ……

  The screen opened with a countdown, five minutes, blazing across the sky in golden letters that shimmered against a swirling veil of storm clouds. A low, choral hum rolled beneath it, rising slowly in tension. Orchestral drums rumbled like distant thunder as anticipation thickened in the air.

  Then the world itself came alive.

  The scene shifted from the celestial countdown to the ground below, sweeping across town after town, 45 battlefields lit by different skies, cultures, and chaos.

  Players stood in huddled formations, voices rising and falling in overlapping layers of strategy and camaraderie. One group in a forested glade played rock-paper-scissors to pick a leader, and laughed despite the looming war. A team of Seraphims on a floating isle shouted ancient hymns, their wings spread wide as magic pulsed beneath their feet. Deep in an evernight town, a lone dreadknight gave a booming speech about honor and legacy.

  Then it cut to the northern wall of Stellar.

  There, unlike the others, it wasn’t strategy, but it was ego.

  FireFlame paced at the front of his team, gesturing arrogantly. His eyes flicked toward a girl in a plain white robe, scoffing at the tome in her hands.

  The girl didn’t respond. Just blinked slowly, like she hadn’t even heard him.

  Then the camera shifted again, this time to Iori standing tall on the ramparts, her armor glinting under morning light, voice like thunder.

  “Heroes from another world—” she declared, blade raised to the heavens, “it’s time to earn your legend!”

  And the air split.

  Fifteen screens bloomed at once, showing the eruption of the dungeon entrances across the world. Obsidian vortexes cracked reality open. Thunderous magical roars shook every region.

  From the underwater town, massive starfish-like beasts crawled through coral-encrusted arches. From the underground town came bronze golems, glowing with cores. In the evernight town, zombies clawed out under violet lightning. The forests teemed with plant beasts and insectoid creatures. The sky realms faced storms of screaming bird-things, and in the human cities, goblins and kobolds poured out like floodwaters.

  And with that, the battle began.

  What followed was a symphony of chaos.

  Clashes of magic and steel lit up the screen. Swirling blades, explosive spells, aerial duels, evasive maneuvers, and submerged ambushes. A dual-wielding dreadknight carved through zombies. A human fighter with a rapier and teacup danced like royalty. A lich in black robes spun his scythe like a death reaper. A foxkin flipped between enemies with a sword-staff of glowing runes.

  And then Frostina. Her tome hovered in the air and glowed with the frost symbol. Her spells froze armies in sweeping arcs of light. Enemies shattered like glass. Her face remained calm, even as she carried the entire north without lifting her voice nor moving from where she stood.

  Then came the bosses.

  The screen shifted again, massive shadows emerging from each dungeon gate. Spectral trees towered in the forest. Eagles shrieked through sky cities. In Stellar North, the camera cut to Frostina again, now seated on a throne of frozen goblin corpses, calmly eating popcorn as her party battled on.

  The music dipped, playful, then climbed again.

  Just when it seemed the battle had peaked, light fractured across the sky.

  A new threat emerged.

  The special bosses.

  The video cut between battlefields again, players stunned, jaws slack as beasts came in silence. On one field, Hiro charged in with a shout, his blade shone like dawn, but shattered on impact.

  Some panicked. Others hesitated.

  But every top player in each town fought bravely.

  Then came the reckoning.

  On the western wall, Yuki lifted her staff. A house-sized ice spear spiraled into the sky, then slammed through flame and scale in a single, perfect strike.

  On the eastern wall, Glacia stood atop stairs of pure ice. With one arm, she raised her staff and the wyvern froze mid-breath, dropping like a comet of crystal.

  Frostina grabbed the wyvern’s wing.

  It tossed her into the sky.

  The screen followed her ascent, hair streaming, tome flickering in the wind as the wyvern rose below her, preparing to destroy the town.

  Then she whispered it.

  A pulse of frost surged from her palm as glowing runes spiraled out like constellations.

  The wyvern’s skull crystallized from the inside.

  Its brain turned to ice.

  Its wings faltered.

  And then… it fell.

  The final scene was the beast’s corpse skidding across the frozen battlefield… stopping just inches from FireFlame, who sat stunned in disbelief.

  And above it all, perched like a queen atop the wyvern’s frozen snout—

  Frostina.

  Her robe drifting in the wind, black hair tousled by the cold. She looked down at him as she crossed one leg over the other. Tilted her head as her name glowed in white above her head: [Frostina]. And smirked with her chin resting on the glowing tome.

  Then the video faded to black and ended with a single line and a Dream Land Online Logo:

  First Global Event — Defense Battle

  ……

  Gao Liang stared at the screen, frozen in disbelief.

  The video played out like a perfect cinematic reel. Not a single frame mocked him directly, no insults, no edits targeting him specifically. In fact, it showed a broad spectrum of players. Strategists, jokers, tryhards, underdogs. A celebration of diversity and playstyles across every battlefield.

  And yet…

  There he was.

  When other teams gathered to coordinate strategies, he was shown pacing arrogantly in front of his squads, demanding obedience, issuing orders like a self-declared general. He sneered at a girl in plain robes, scoffing at her tome like it was a prop from a school play.

  The screen shifted, and for a brief moment, he looked almost heroic, fighting alone, slashing through goblins and charging the Goblin King with bravado.

  Then came the next cut.

  He was surrounded, buried in monsters, flailing in panic. And then dying.

  But it was just one death among many. The video showed others falling too, some graceful, some tragic, some even comically clumsy. But it was the contrast that stung.

  Because then came the final act.

  The special bosses.

  Some players were shown standing in stunned silence like him as the wyverns came. Others acted swiftly.

  And then… Frostina.

  She soared into the sky.

  She froze a wyvern mid-flight.

  She landed atop its corpse like an empress seated on an icy throne.

  The video cut was clean enough to let people understand it right away.

  Frostina had let her skill speak first, and only then delivered the finishing blow to him. Meanwhile, he had mocked her before the battle even began. He had declared himself the center of the stage… only to be written out of the script by the final act.

  The difference between them was undeniable.

  She had become a legend.

  He had become a joke.

  Could he sue them? Call it defamation? Claim emotional damage?

  No.

  The video had been fair and balanced. Legally untouchable. It didn’t mock him, it simply didn’t protect his pride.

  And so, with fists clenched and jaw locked tight, Gao Liang could only sit there, stewing in silence.

  No excuses.

  No retaliation.

  No plan.

  Only her voice lingered, cool, mocking, and clinging to his mind like frostbite.