MMORPG: Rise of the Strongest Shadow God

The system notifications echoed across the region three times, each broadcast repeating the same list of names until they were firmly etched into the minds of players throughout Moster.

For that moment, at least, everyone knew who Flynn and his companions were.

Whether those players would truly remember them, however, depended on what came next. In a game like Age of Conquest, reputation was fragile. A single brilliant achievement could make a name famous overnight, but if it wasn’t followed by more victories, the memory would fade just as quickly.

Still, the impact of the announcement was undeniable.

Among veteran players, a few of the names stood out immediately.

Let-There-Be-Light and Not-A-Bystander were not strangers to the competitive scene. Both had built reputations across several previous games, and their names were familiar enough that many older players instantly recognized them.

Players like Hair-Stays-Perfect and Beast-Lover were completely stunned.

They knew exactly what Let-There-Be-Light’s studio was capable of, and if someone had told them just yesterday that this team would end up securing a top-three clear of the Ceylan Ruins, they would have laughed it off without a second thought.

Yet the proof was right there.

Their clear time sat on the leaderboard for everyone to see, less than thirty seconds behind Mila’s team.

Had Light’s studio really grown that strong?

But before players could even finish processing that shock, the system notifications continued.

Another announcement rang out across Moster. This time, the message hit the player base like a bomb going off.

[Congratulations to Let-There-Be-Light, Night-Stalker, Amy, Not-A-Bystander, and Peerless Blood-Sword for achieving the Glorious Achievement: Extreme Adventurer: Ceylan Ruins!]

The broadcast repeated three times.

But this announcement carried a completely different weight.

A Glorious Achievement was an entirely different category of accomplishment. These were rare milestones that only appeared under extremely difficult conditions, achievements that many players could spend months chasing without success.

Obtaining one was far more impressive than simply being the first team to clear a dungeon.

What made this one even more shocking was the context.

They had earned it while finishing second, which meant something very specific. They had cleared Hell difficulty on their very first attempt.

Everyone in Age of Conquest was encountering the Ceylan Ruins for the first time. There were no guides, no strategies, no recorded attempts to study beforehand.

And yet this team had walked in and cleared the hardest version of the dungeon without wiping even once.

The moment players realized what that meant, the reaction across Moster was explosive.

People were losing their minds.

Clearing Hell difficulty on the first try wasn’t just impressive. It was borderline absurd.

Was Let-There-Be-Light really that powerful?

Since he was the party leader and already had a small reputation in the professional circuit, most players immediately assumed he must have been the driving force behind the entire run.

His ranking placed him somewhere around the top 8,000 players in the world and roughly within the top 1,000 in North America. That wasn’t elite-tier celebrity status, but it was still well within the professional range.

Compared to him, the other three names on the team were practically unknown.

Naturally, the majority of players dismissed them as background members who had simply been lucky enough to join the party.

That assumption quickly gave rise to another wave of speculation; had they discovered some kind of bug?

Even Mila’s team couldn’t help wondering about that possibility.

They had only just finished defeating the boss themselves, and they hadn’t even finished distributing their loot when the second broadcast appeared, announcing that another team had earned a Glorious Achievement in the same dungeon.

Mila stared at her teammates in stunned silence. A long moment passed before she finally spoke.

"How did they do it?"

A leaked strategy guide was the first explanation that came to mind, but that theory fell apart almost immediately.

The time difference between the two clears was far too small. Even if someone had somehow leaked Mila’s tactics, there wouldn’t have been enough time for another team to study them and clear the dungeon before the broadcast went out.

Besides, Light’s team had secured the first kill on Prince Markel during the run.

That meant they had been the ones setting the pace inside the dungeon. They hadn’t followed anyone else’s strategy.

They had created their own.

Mila’s teammates exchanged glances before slowly shaking their heads. Compared to a Glorious Achievement, their world first clear suddenly didn’t feel quite as triumphant.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the dungeon, Flynn’s party was dealing with an entirely different kind of chaos.

Their communicators were going wild.

Messages poured in so quickly that the notification alerts were practically overlapping. Calls, friend requests, business inquiries, congratulations, recruitment offers; the sheer volume of incoming communication made it feel like their devices might explode at any moment.

Let-There-Be-Light and Not-A-Bystander were hit the hardest.

Because of their existing reputations, their message feeds were flooded with inquiries from guild leaders, studio managers, and veteran players asking to purchase their dungeon strategy, negotiate gear trades, or simply congratulate them while subtly fishing for future cooperation.

Neither of them were surprised. This sort of attention came with the territory.

What surprised them more was what happened to the rest of the team.

Even someone like Flynn, who had been completely unknown just hours earlier, began receiving recruitment offers from multiple studios. The messages were filled with phrases like negotiable conditions, high growth potential, and long-term collaboration opportunities.

From the studios’ perspective, the logic was simple.

Let-There-Be-Light and Not-A-Bystander were already established professionals, and more importantly, they were the founders of Byance Studio. Convincing them to leave their own organization was practically impossible.

But Flynn and the others were different.

They were blank slates.

Anyone capable of participating in a Glorious Achievement run clearly possessed talent. If those players hadn’t already signed with a major organization, they were exactly the kind of undervalued prospects studios loved to recruit.

Naturally, the offers came pouring in. Amy and Peerless Blood-Sword handled it calmly.

As members of an established studio, they had experienced this kind of attention before. Without hesitation, they both disabled their communication channels.

The constant stream of alerts vanished instantly.

Flynn tried to take a more polite approach.

At first, he attempted to reply to the messages one by one, explaining that he wasn’t interested in joining a studio.

But within thirty seconds, his communicator had received over seventy new messages and incoming call requests, most of them from people he had never even heard of.

Chad’s messages were buried so quickly that Flynn couldn’t even find them in the flood.

Realizing the situation was completely unmanageable, he looked toward Amy for help.

Amy had clearly been waiting for this exact moment. When she saw Flynn staring helplessly at the endless notifications, she burst out laughing.

"Just turn off your communication channel," she said. "In situations like this, silence is the best answer."

Flynn nodded immediately, grinning as he followed her advice.

"Good call."

While the three of them could afford to disappear for a while, Let-There-Be-Light and Not-A-Bystander didn’t have that luxury.

They represented the studio.

If they suddenly went silent, it could easily be interpreted as arrogance or unwillingness to cooperate, which might damage future business relationships.

So the two of them continued responding to messages, even as the attention surrounding their achievement continued to grow.

When curious players checked the leaderboard, they quickly discovered something that made the situation even more shocking.

Two teams sat at the very top.

Mila’s team had cleared the dungeon in 8 hours and 35 minutes.

Let-There-Be-Light’s team had finished in 3 hours and 8 minutes.

In other words, Light’s team had completed the dungeon in less than half the time. The difference in efficiency was so dramatic that it only intensified the frenzy of players trying to contact them.

Eventually, even Let-There-Be-Light reached his limit.

He sent out a mass message thanking everyone for their support and politely explaining that any serious business inquiries should be sent through email instead.

Unlike communicators, emails didn’t trigger constant notifications. Players had to visit a mailbox in a city to check them, and messages could remain stored there for a long time.

Because of that, email had become the standard method for handling non-urgent business matters.

With that problem temporarily solved, Let-There-Be-Light finally turned his attention to the loot.

Their second-place clear had rewarded them with two silver-grade items. Inside the treasure chest left behind by Duke Ceylan; labeled Treasures of Ceylan, they discovered another two silver-grade pieces along with three green-grade items.

Every single piece required at least level 18 to equip.

Not all of them were perfect endgame gear, but they were still significant upgrades for the team. Considering that Hell difficulty dungeons could only be cleared once per day, the generous rewards were hardly surprising.

The four silver-grade items turned out to be a shield, a greatsword, a staff, and a cloak.

Even Let-There-Be-Light couldn’t help letting out a low whistle.

"Now those are perfect drops. Exactly what we needed."

The shield naturally went to Not-A-Bystander.

The greatsword was an obvious upgrade for Peerless Blood-Sword.

And the staff, of course, belonged to Let-There-Be-Light himself.

That left the final piece: the silver-grade cloak.

The cloak boosted both Agility and Attack, making it suitable for Chad, Amy, or Flynn.

Since Peerless Blood-Sword had already received the greatsword, he was automatically out of consideration. Let-There-Be-Light was about to hand the cloak to Flynn, but Flynn noticed Amy quietly studying the item.

Without hesitation, he waved a hand.

"Give it to Amy," he said. "I already have a better one."

The cloak’s stats were impressive, but Flynn already had the Cloak of Swift Winds that Mia had given him earlier. Compared to the new drop, Mia’s cloak was far superior.

The three green-grade items were fairly mediocre by comparison. To make up for Flynn giving up the cloak, Let-There-Be-Light simply handed all three of them to him.

With the boss defeated and the dungeon officially cleared, the Rogue NPC Edruson finally reappeared.

He stood near the center of the hall, staring thoughtfully at the enormous hole in the floor where Duke Ceylan had vanished.

"I never imagined such darkness was festering within the Ceylan Ruins," he said gravely. "Duke Ceylan has become a lord of the undead, and that makes him a direct threat to Moster itself. This must be reported immediately."

The players’ eyes lit up at once.

"Ooh," Amy said with interest. "Follow-up quest?"

"Sounds like free experience to me," Not-A-Bystander added as he stepped forward.

When he accepted the quest and glanced at the reward, his grin widened immediately. The experience payout alone was massive.

The others quickly accepted the quest as well. But just as Flynn was about to leave, Edruson called out to him.

"Young Rogue."

Flynn turned back.

Edruson studied him with an approving expression.

"The skill you displayed today fills me with pride," the NPC said. "Watching you fight reminded me of my younger days. When you return to Moster, seek out a girl named Linda at the Rogue Guild. If she learns that you were the one who rescued me from that wretched dungeon, she will surely be grateful."

Flynn smiled.

"It was nothing, Mentor Edruson."

The system didn’t generate an official quest notification, but Flynn didn’t think much of it. Since he needed to return to the Rogue Guild anyway to complete Mia’s task, he figured he might as well look for this Linda while he was there.