MMORPG: Rise of the Strongest Shadow God

As Flynn stared at the vibrant wedding photos, a single thought kept circling in his mind with increasing disbelief: ’This guy actually got married?’

Chad had never said a word about it. Not a hint, not a slip, nothing. It felt like a deliberate omission, and the more Flynn thought about it, the more it irritated him. How do you get married and not tell your best friend?

He kept scrolling, eyes moving across photo after photo. The ceremony, the reception, candid shots filled with laughter and raised glasses. There were dozens of familiar faces, old high school classmates he hadn’t seen in years, all smiling like they were part of something real. Nothing about it looked staged or fake. There was no room for doubt. Chad had gone through with it. He had actually gotten married.

But Flynn had been back in the States for nearly two months. Two whole months, and Chad hadn’t mentioned a thing. Not only that, but the moment Misty Rain’s name came up, Chad had spiraled so badly he’d nearly drowned himself in alcohol.

The disconnect didn’t sit right.

A haze of questions settled over Flynn’s thoughts as he scrolled further, eventually landing on a long post that read more like a tribute than anything else. The author practically worshipped Chad, recounting his rise in Dragon’s Age with a kind of breathless admiration. According to the post, Chad had been a dominant force, leading the Red Mount Guild into the top ten rankings at their peak.

Then came the part about Misty Rain. Their first meeting, the gradual build of their relationship, and finally, the marriage itself. It was all laid out neatly, almost too neatly.

And then it just... stopped.

No aftermath, no complications, no hint of anything going wrong. Just a celebratory ending, like a toast raised and left hanging in the air.

Flynn frowned and closed the tab, his instincts telling him there was more beneath the surface. He dug deeper, jumping between threads until a headline abruptly caught his eye and made his stomach tighten:

"Blood-Stained Boxers Stripped Bare: Betrayed by His Bride? Guild’s Millions Vanish!"

He didn’t hesitate. This was it.

He clicked.

As he read, his expression gradually drained of color.

The post retold the same story, but with a completely different tone. Where the earlier account had been warm and admiring, this one was cold, analytical, and laced with suspicion. Every sweet moment between Chad and Misty Rain was reinterpreted as something calculated, every gesture reframed as part of a long, careful setup. What had once looked like romance now read like a trap slowly closing.

The turning point came two months after the wedding.

Chad had been leading a guild team on a classified mission when they were suddenly ambushed by a coordinated group of rogues. The attack was clean and overwhelming. No one made it out alive.

That alone would have been bad enough. But what followed made it clear this wasn’t a normal incident.

When Chad respawned at the Temple of Rebirth, he didn’t get a chance to recover. A group of rogues immediately rushed him the moment he materialized, cutting him down again before he could react.

In Dragon’s Age, death came with a price. Losing a level was standard, but being killed inside the Temple was something else entirely. The area wasn’t meant for combat, and the penalty for breaking that rule was severe. Anyone who killed a player there would be locked up for three hours in-game.

And yet, despite that, the assassins kept coming. Wave after wave.

Organized. Relentless. Willing to throw away their own time just to keep him pinned down.

After losing three levels in rapid succession, Chad finally forced a logout. According to rumors, he had immediately called for an emergency meeting with the guild’s core members in the real world, trying to figure out who could be behind such a targeted attack.

But less than thirty minutes later, something impossible happened. His character logged back in.

Flynn’s jaw tightened as he read on.

The account moved with purpose. It emptied the entire guild bank without hesitation, transferring out everything of value. After that, it traveled alone to a remote wilderness zone, far from any interference.

And then came the part that made Flynn’s chest feel heavy.

Dozens of rogues surrounded the character. They didn’t rush him all at once. Instead, they took turns. Killing him, waiting for resurrection, then killing him again. Over and over, methodically grinding him down until his level dropped all the way back to ten.

Someone had even recorded part of it.

The video showed Chad’s character, Blood-Stained Boxers, lying motionless on the ground. A cleric would step forward and cast resurrection, and each time, without fail, the prompt would be accepted.

No resistance or attempt to escape. Just acceptance... followed by another death.

Flynn stared at that part longer than he meant to.

By the time it ended, Chad’s name had already disappeared from the leaderboards.

Meanwhile, in the real world, he was still in a meeting with his guild, trying to figure out who was attacking him.

The implication didn’t need to be spelled out. If Chad wasn’t logged in... then who was?

The post didn’t claim to have all the answers, but it didn’t need them. Three days later, Misty Rain released a statement announcing her divorce from Chad, both in-game and in real life.

After that, everything fell apart.

Blood-Stained Boxers never returned to Dragon’s Age. Chad drifted from one obscure MMO to another, never staying long, never rebuilding what he had lost. Without him, the Red Mount Guild quickly lost its footing and was eventually absorbed by rival factions, including Aether-Reach.

As for Misty Rain, she didn’t escape unscathed. The remaining loyalists hunted her relentlessly, killing her character again and again until it was reset to level one. After that, she vanished entirely.

No one saw her again.

Flynn leaned back slowly, the weight of everything settling over him. He scrolled through a few more pages, but there was nothing new, nothing that filled in the gaps. After the scandal, Chad’s reputation had steadily eroded. His ranking in the World Gaming Alliance dropped year after year.

If not for the legacy of the Red Mount Guild and the players it had produced, his name might have disappeared completely.

Flynn finally closed the forums and returned to the game, but he didn’t move right away. He just sat there, staring into nothing, letting the silence stretch.

It wasn’t until an elven maid knocked gently on the door of his private room that he realized how much time had passed.

He paid his tab, stepped out of The Twilight Heart Tavern, and found the streets of Moster City quieter than before. There were still people moving about, but most of them were NPCs going through their routines.

As he passed through Norlinst Avenue, a sudden jolt of instinct shot through him.

He moved without thinking.

A silver flash cut through the air where he had been standing just a moment ago, missing him by inches. The attacker’s stealth broke as he landed, revealing a masked rogue.

Flynn glanced at him, irritation flickering across his face. "You again?"

VoidShadow’s voice came out low and rough. "You’re my contract. If I don’t kill you, I can’t go back to the Mercenary Guild."

Flynn frowned slightly, then asked in a calm, almost casual tone, "What makes the quest fail?"

The question clearly caught VoidShadow off guard, but he answered anyway. "For assassination contracts? Either the timer runs out, or the target kills me three times. Then it auto-fails."

A faint smirk tugged at his lips. "But I don’t fail."

Flynn raised two fingers, his expression turning cold. "Then that makes two."

His hand moved in a blur, flicking three small spheres into the air.

VoidShadow scoffed, already shifting his position. "That trick again?"

But halfway through his movement, his expression changed.

The bombs weren’t aimed at a single point. They spread out mid-air, forming a precise triangle that cut off his escape routes. Left, right, retreat, all blocked. The only path left was forward.

He looked up, but it was too late.

In the split second it took for the bombs to descend, Flynn had already closed the distance. The blade flashed once, clean and brutal, slicing across VoidShadow’s throat.

Keen Strike—Critical!

Basic Attack—Critical!

Rupture—Critical!

The final blow came without hesitation. Flynn drove his silver dagger straight into the rogue’s chest, the blade piercing through leather and sinking deep into his heart.

For a brief moment, their faces were inches apart.

VoidShadow stared into Flynn’s eyes, something unfamiliar taking hold of him. There was no hesitation there, no doubt, just a sharp, focused intensity that felt... real.

’Is this what killing intent feels like?’

His body collapsed.

Even as his vision faded, a lingering chill crawled along his spine, something that didn’t quite make sense for a virtual death. He watched, unable to speak, as Flynn’s figure blurred and disappeared into the shadows.

The moment the fight ended, the tight knot in Flynn’s chest loosened slightly.

Learning what had happened to Chad had stirred something raw in him, something close to anger, maybe even rage. He didn’t believe for a second that Misty Rain had orchestrated everything alone. There had to be someone else behind it, someone pulling the strings from a safe distance.

But even with that thought lingering, Flynn didn’t leave.

He stayed where he was, hidden beneath the eaves of a nearby building, his gaze fixed on the spot where VoidShadow had fallen. If killing him three times would end the contract, then waiting was the simplest solution.

Five minutes passed, Ten, Twenty, Thirty. An hour crawled by, and still nothing.

Flynn’s eyes narrowed slightly. This wasn’t some remote wilderness. The Temple of Rebirth was only a few blocks away. Even taking into account travel time in spirit form, it shouldn’t have taken this long.

Either the guy had logged off out of frustration, or he was nearby, hiding, and waiting.

"The kid’s got patience," Flynn muttered under his breath.

He leaned toward the second possibility. Patience was essential for a rogue, and while VoidShadow was inexperienced by Flynn’s standards, he had already shown a certain stubbornness. Walking all the way to the mines earlier instead of taking a carriage wasn’t something most players would bother with.

Still, there was always the chance Flynn was wasting his time.

An hour and a half in, the corpse finally vanished.

Flynn’s attention snapped to his surroundings instantly, catching a faint flicker of movement to his front right. The street was empty, with no alleys or corners to duck into.

Which meant only one thing; Stealth.

Flynn moved the moment he confirmed it, his mind already working through possibilities. He placed himself in the rogue’s position, thinking through the options one by one.

Where would he wait? Where would he strike?

A faint smile formed as he pressed himself against a wall, inching forward with measured steps. If the boy still intended to finish the contract, then he wouldn’t have gone far. He’d be watching, and waiting for a mistake.

But if it came down to patience, there was no contest.

Flynn had no intention of dragging this out any longer than necessary. He wanted a clean kill, something decisive enough to end the contract before it could become a nuisance later. It wasn’t fear that drove that decision, just practicality. Games were unpredictable, and even a low-level player could get lucky under the right conditions.

The weighted net from earlier was proof enough.

This wasn’t the real world. There were too many variables, too many strange tools and mechanics to ignore. Staying sharp wasn’t optional.

Still, sharp didn’t mean cautious to the point of hesitation.

The fact that he was hunting VoidShadow at all meant he had already acknowledged him as a threat, no matter how small.

"If you want to be a real rogue," Flynn whispered into the empty street, his voice barely was audible, "then prove it."

The faint smile on his face carried a different edge now. It was the look of a predator that had found its prey, and decided not to end it too quickly.