Demonic Pornstar System

He began to laugh softly, then snapped back into clarity, voice sharp and excited. "But there is more. In the past, every dungeon break carried with it an explosion of empowerment. Monsters would erupt from the gate swollen with new strength, their levels spiking in an instant. I have personally documented cases of a level ten creature climbing to level fifty within a breath. That was the terror of dungeon breaks. That was why entire armies fell, and why stopping dungeon breaks occurring was paramount to military strategies. It was much easier to get rid of the monsters inside than outside."

He stabbed a finger toward the camera. "Yet today, nothing! Not one documented case of sudden empowerment. The gates shattered, the monsters poured out, but they were no stronger than they were inside their dungeons. If that were not the case, we would not be speaking of hundreds of millions dead. We would be counting billions."

The room behind him buzzed with faint noise, assistants moving uneasily as if his rant was not part of the script. Roht’s grin only widened. "Why is this happening? That, ladies and gentlemen, is the question. The end of the grace period was proclaimed, yet the rules have shifted. We are still piecing together what has changed and why. And every answer we uncover only raises more questions."

The interviewer tried to steer him back. "So you’re saying the danger could have been worse...?"

"Worse?" Roht barked out a laugh. "It will be worse. This reprieve is not mercy. It is design. The board wants me to reassure you, but I will not insult my intellect. This is not a collapse. This is a controlled escalation. Something is watching the clock. Something is setting the rules. Whether that something is as abstract as the laws of the universe being at play and escalating the mana apocalypse, or some powerful-beyond-comprehension entity controlling things, is what we don’t know."

The camera lingered on his manic smile, the rattling of his chains, and the gleam in his eyes as though he had seen the edge of a storm no one else could fathom.

But he was not alone.

Kaiden shuddered from head to toe as the words of the mad scientist echoed in his skull.

Controlled escalation. Rules being set. Something dictating the terms.

They made him think of one figure.