The Demon King advanced, and the air warped with every step it took.
IronSaint met it head-on.
His sword left its sheath in a single, flawless motion. The strike was clean and direct, a horizontal cut that split the air with a blinding arc of gold. The moment the blade connected, the space in front of him ruptured, the Demon King's form tearing open where the sword passed. Light poured through the wound like sunlight through shattered glass, and the pressure crushing the city eased for a brief moment.
I moved immediately.
I could see where the Demon King anchored itself to the world, points where its presence dug into reality to remain stable. I slammed the butt of my spear forward and carved glowing runes into the air itself. The symbols locked in place, and the space around the Demon King tightened, its movement slowing as invisible constraints took hold.
IronSaint didn't hesitate.
He stepped into the opening and unleashed a relentless sequence of strikes. Each swing of his sword landed with terrifying precision, golden shockwaves tearing chunks out of the distorted form before us. The ground cracked under his feet. The sky flashed with every impact.
For the first time since it appeared, the Demon King stopped advancing.
The Demon King, an amalgamation of dark shadows convulsing around an even darker figure, raised one arm. Or what passed for an arm.
The motion was slow. Casual.
And every instinct I had screamed that what we had done so far was nothing compared to what came next.
Darkness thickened, pulled from the environment, coalescing around that gesture.
The sound cut out for half a heartbeat. My ears rang.
A wall of annihilating energy swept over us. Wards flared, shattered, fell.
Our Health bars plunged. Every damage number that floated up came with the same tags: [VOID], [UNBLOCKABLE].
Names in the raid frame vanished, replaced by grey bars and little skull icons. Voice comms lit with swearing, laughter, bitter jokes.
"Still here," I said through gritted teeth, watching my own HP bar cling to life on a sliver.
By the time I managed to spare a glance to my side, IronSaint had already died standing on the shattered inner gate, burning his last cooldowns in a one-man wall that held the King's advance for three seconds longer than the devs probably thought anyone would.
I lasted a little longer than I probably should have, just stubborn enough to stay on my feet as the world crumbled around me.
In the end, my health bar vanished.
> [YOU HAVE FALLEN]
> [NO RESPAWN AVAILABLE]
For a moment, the game let me watch.
Third-person camera, no control, floating just above the battlefield. The Demon King stepped into the heart of the city. The world tree that had dominated the skyline since the tutorial days splintered, its leaves turning to embers, its trunk cracking open. NPCs screamed lines I had never heard before.
Then the cutscene everyone had data-mined but no one had ever legitimately reached played out.
The last sanctuary broke. The last wards collapsed. The King reached toward something unseen, and the entire map shuddered.
> [WORLD EVENT FAILURE]
> [SERVER SHUTDOWN IN 00:10:00]
> [Thank you for playing Advent of the Hero.]
The timer started at ten minutes and dropped.
All the Avatars of the dead players slowly loaded into the lobby. But most had already logged off. In the end, only a few remained.
"Damn, nice try, guys. " Kitsune said softly on the comms.
"Please, we got wiped in two minutes," IronSaint added with a wry smile, "It was an utter dogshit attempt"
"An attempt nonetheless, you know most other servers didn't even reach this stage." Warden-X cut in.
"You'll have to thank LastLight for that. Single-handedly carried us through it." IronSaint smiled.
"World Imprint is absolutely broken, though? How's the Rune Breaker class not busted!" Kitsune cried out.
"It's not as strong as it looks." I yawned. "Just setting that one up took most of my mana. Plus, the cooldown is massive. Casting time is also too slow. In a PvP fight, I'd have been killed the moment I tried it."
"Still. Inverted Heaven. What a disgusting skill." Kitsune hummed.
"Good stuff. Thanks for the raid." Warden-X waved goodbye, his Avatar disappearing.
"Well, guess I'll catch you all later." Kitsune also logged off.
"This is the end, huh?" IronSaint crossed his arms, "Well, it was fun while it lasted."
As he uttered those words, he too disappeared.
In the end, it was only me remaining in the lobby.
I rubbed my eyes under the VR helmet. Everything ached. I had not eaten since… I was not sure when. Nineteen hours in this chair.
Four. Three. Two.
"Guess that really was it," I whispered. "Game over."
It happened too quickly for me to even register. The Demon King, whatever it was. That boss was simply too strong. Nothing we did even hurt it.
A sigh naturally escaped my lips. I had spent so many years playing this game. With it finally ending, I didn't even know what to do.
My stomach grumbled in retaliation.
Well, I guess eating would be a good start. I lazily stretched in my chair. But just before I took the headset off, something else appeared.
A window resolved in the blankness. No background, no logos, just a blinking text prompt in crisp black.
[ADVENT: The Last Hero – CLOSED TEST]
[A new cycle is ready...]
[Would you like to participate?]
There was no cursor. No confirmation sound. Just the question, hanging there.
I frowned.
"What is this?" I muttered.
No answer. No loading spinner. The prompt sat there and blinked, as if it had all the time in the world.
My thoughts raced.
Advent was done. The shutdown had been announced for months. There had been no talk of sequels, spiritual successors, or test servers. Just a quiet promise from the devs that they would "explore new projects" and a flood of nostalgic threads on the forums.
"Advent: The Last Hero." I read aloud. "Very dramatic."
My eyes narrowed as I glanced behind me. The narrow bed, the half-unpacked boxes. The fridge that probably had nothing in it except energy drinks and old leftovers. The notification I would get on my phone tomorrow telling me my recurring sub-payment had finally stopped.
I then thought about the last five years of my life. All that time spent learning the muscle memory of impossible fights. All my friends whose voices I had never matched to faces. The ache behind my eyes when I looked away from a monitor, and the room felt too flat.
Having treated Advent as my second life, if this really was some cheeky little epilogue event, some last bit of content the devs had buried for the holdouts, I wanted to see it.
"Fine," I said. "Just one more session."
My Avatar's finger gently hovered over the yes button as I clicked it.
There was no animation. The text did not glow. The window did not slide away with a pleasing chime.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: NEW CYCLE INITIALISATION][LEGACY RULE: ONE GIFT MAY BE CARRIED OVER][NOTE: SELECTION IS PERMANENT]
My stomach tightened.
"A carryover," I muttered. "So that's what this is."
A status screen unfolded.
As I slowly scrolled down my own profile, I couldn't help but chuckle. After all, it had taken me five years to get to this point. And now? I was leaving it all behind.
Somehow, it felt bittersweet.
-
[CHARACTER STATUS]
Name: LastLight
Level: 854
[CORE ATTRIBUTES]
VITALITY: A
STRENGTH: A
AGILITY: S
ENDURANCE: S
MANA CAPACITY: S
MANA CONTROL: S
FOCUS: SWILL: S
[GIFTS]
INSIGHT: EX
RUNE AFFINITY: S
RUNE SIGHT: A
RUNEHEART: A
VOID RESISTANCE: B
BATTLE RHYTHM: A
SIGIL MEMORY: S
[SKILLS]
SPEAR MASTERY: S
FOOTWORK: S
REACTION: S
DUELING: A
MASS-COMBAT CONTROL: S
THREAT READING: A
GUARD BREAKING: A
SPATIAL SENSE: A
BREATH CONTROL: A
RUNE CARVING: S
RUNE WEAVING: S
RUNE THREADING: A
RUNE ANCHORING: A
RUNE INVERSION: A
RUNE SEALCRAFT: A
RUNE PURGE: A
RUNE LATCH: A
SIGIL SHACKLES: A
ANCHOR FIELD: A
WARD SPLIT: A
PHALANX SCRIPT: S
HEX BREAK: A
RUNE ECHO: A
DOMAIN STABILISATION: A
SEVENFOLD THRUST: S
RINGCUT: A
SKYHOOK: A
GATEPIERCE: A
LANCE THREAD: A
GLYPH STEP: A
RUNE DOMINION (ULTIMATE): A
SIGIL OVERDRIVE (ULTIMATE): A
PHALANX ASCENT (ULTIMATE): A
RUNE JUDGEMENT (ULTIMATE): A
WORLD IMPRINT (ULTIMATE): EX
-
I looked through the skill section, reliving the weeks and months I had spent ruthlessly grinding out each one.
Finally, my eyes drifted towards the Gifts.
In Advent, gifts and skills were similar in effect but different in action. Skills were temporary; they could be learned, forgotten, or even traded. But gifts? They were permanent. Gifts defined the player character.
In fact, I had only managed to collect seven throughout the game.
-
[LEGACY GIFT SELECTION]
[SELECT ONE TO CARRY INTO NEXT CYCLE]
INSIGHT: EX
RUNE AFFINITY: S
RUNE SIGHT: A
RUNEHEART: A
VOID RESISTANCE: B
BATTLE RHYTHM: A
SIGIL MEMORY: S
-
I exhaled slowly. The first gift was important. It would shape my playthrough for sure. Though Battle Rhythm was a pretty good choice, I wasn't inclined to choose an A-ranked gift over my higher-ranked ones.
Rune Affinity and Sigil Memory. Those were two pretty good options. Still, my eyes drifted towards Insight. An (EX) rank gift.
[Insight] wasn't really a strong gift. In fact, many players would say that it didn't impact their playthroughs that much. Yet I held an entirely different opinion. At its core, Insight allowed players to break down anything into simpler versions for comprehension.
But at the (EX) grade? Insight was a borderline cheat sheet. There was simply no puzzle that couldn't be solved, no riddle that couldn't be answered. No secret that couldn't be deciphered.
It was also the only reason I was among the few to finish the Rune Bearer class to its end. So my choice was clear.
[CONFIRM SELECTION: INSIGHT]
[ARE YOU SURE?]
"Yes," I whispered.
And then the prompt flickered again.
[Starting Cycle...]
Heat lanced along both sides of my head where the headset's contact pads touched skin.
"Agh—"
It was a sharp jolt, nothing like the gentle haptic buzz of normal use. Pain crawled in a tight line from my temples back toward my ears, as if a wire had overloaded. The faint machine hum in the background of my awareness stuttered.
"Stop," I said, a sudden fear scraping my throat. "Menu. Hard exit. Emergency disconnect. Stop."
No menu appeared.
The heat climbed. My vision, already full of white, blurred at the edges. Somewhere under the helmet, I smelled something that absolutely should not be possible to smell through plastic and foam.
Burnt electronics. Hot metal. My hands scrambled as I tried to take it off, but it was as if the device had fused with my skin.
"Stop," I said again, louder. "Advent, stop. Log me out."
The prompt hung there, indifferent.
The world lurched.
Gravity let go. The sense of my body in the chair, the weight of the rig on my head, the feel of the floor under my feet, all of it peeled away like old wallpaper. Sound stretched into a long, thin howl, then snapped.
White swallowed everything.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing. No game. No room. No self, except for a thin thread of awareness and a single, crystal clear thought.
'This is wrong.'
And then, the heat became cold in an instant, a searing, biting chill that punched into my lungs. My eyes slammed shut on reflex. When they opened again, they were looking at a sky full of falling snow and a cracked bus stop roof.
The disconnect screen was gone.
So was my room.
Advent, it seemed, had accepted my answer.