Twenty-seven years.

  Almost three decades trapped in this hellish abyss, a desolate wasteland where the banished wound up. And yet, I don’t belong here. Not a demon, beast, or monster, never was. But here I am all the same. All thanks to that bitch Queen who tricked me into this place.

  Sending me back home, she said.

  I scoff, the bitterness in my chest rising with the thought. How long did I really believe that?

  Twenty-seven years. To be honest, it’s hard to remember exactly how long. Time blurs when there’s nothing but endless heat and barren dunes to mark it. A long time to sit and stew over one's fate, especially in a hellscape like this.

  Now, I realize how stupid I was for ever thinking she made a mistake. How na?ve was I?

  The Queen, a user of divine arts who prided herself on her skills, claiming to be an expert in magic that crossed worlds. She was the one who used the Convergence to summon me and that other bastard to her world in the first place, after all. Hell, she used magic to hop-skip across dimensions!

  How gullible was I to believe that one simple portal misfired, that I had ended up here by accident?

  I should have known better. Of course, I should have.

  For one thing—there was no Convergence this time around.

  The summoning spell she used. A forbidden, ancient ritual that, under normal circumstances, was supposed to fail or bring untold disaster. I had heard the legends, understood the risks. The sages spoke of it as a dangerous form of magic, one that required a rare phenomenon to make it even remotely possible.

  So why, oh why, did I let myself believe she could send me back without such an event, without such a rarity? Why did I think she’d was just sending me home? Foolish. A pitiful fool I was.

  And then there was Radley. That son of a bitch.

  He didn’t port into this hell with me. I watched. I waited for days and thought, maybe, just maybe, I’d see him on this other side—his face lit up with a smug grin, like the asshole he was. But no. He wasn’t there. And that was the first sign something wasn’t right.

  At first, I told myself, "Maybe the portal sent him somewhere else." I didn’t want to believe that someone I had fought beside, someone I had called a comrade, could betray me. We’d shared battles, had each other’s backs. But as the years stretched on, as loneliness and isolation gnawed at my sanity, it became glaringly clear. He’d played me. He had to have.

  Twenty odd years gives you a lot of time to think—time to replay everything in your head, every little moment, every decision, every look, every word. And when I went over it all, there it was. Right in front of me.

  They were in cahoots. The Queen and Radley—they were both in on it. Together, they set me up, and they did it so damn well I almost didn’t see it. Hell, I didn’t want to see it.

  Radley? He was easy enough to figure out now. The reason for wanting me gone was clear. I was a threat to him. He’d always been in my shadow, and if it were him alone... he could have it all. He needed me out of the picture. I was in his way. That part made sense.

  But the Queen… Her reasons for wanting me gone? That’s the part I still can’t figure out. I have theories, inklings—vague suspicions that float in my mind like smoke—but nothing solid. Nothing concrete. They don’t explain it. They don’t explain the betrayal.

  I had just saved her damn kingdom. I had fought for her people, only to have her turn around and send me to Hell? I mean, sure, I might’ve flirted with her—hit on her a bit—after all, who wouldn’t? But this? This was low for a rejection.

  No this… this was something much deeper.

  There’s more to this, I can feel it. I don’t know what it is yet, but something is missing. Some piece of the puzzle that’s just out of reach, something I just can't see.

  What did I really do to her? What did I do to deserve this?

  * * *

  The Queen’s country, Andalus, had been plagued by a demon infestation for almost a century. At first, the demons were nothing more than a minor nuisance—weak, disorganized, and easily dispatched. They had no real cohesion, no purpose beyond wandering aimlessly out of the hellmouth that had cracked open on the edges of the kingdom’s territory. For years, the demons became little more than target practice. Knights, mages, even the soldiers from neighboring states saw them as opportunities to sharpen their skills. The hellmouth itself, continually spewing forth these creatures, was treated like a training ground where one could level up and hone their powers.

  But that little nuisance grew quickly—far more quickly than anyone could have predicted. A more powerful demon arrived and seized control of the hellmouth. Overnight, the hordes grew in strength. No longer did they wander in solitary packs. They coordinated, organized, and began to move with purpose. They were no longer mere pests. They were invaders, intent on conquering.

  And then came the worst part. The hellmouth’s corruption wasn’t just contained to the immediate area. It began to grow, slowly but steadily. The corruption spread, encroaching on the great forests to the north, where the last remaining elf havens stood, their magic wards keeping the boundary between the physical and spiritual planes intact. If that corruption continued to expand, it could tear down the very walls separating their world from others. It was a threat that could destroy everything.

  A great battle followed, with Andalus uniting with its rival states and even calling in aid from the elves of Whitetree. Together, they formed a formidable army, hoping to push back the demons and contain the hellmouth. But their efforts were in vain. They were routed. Nearly all of them were either killed or taken prisoner, subjected to fates worse than death in the depths of the hellmouth.

  Andalus’s king, the father of the young Queen, died on that battlefield, and the throne passed to her. She was just seventeen, the first woman in history to wear the crown. But with the hellmouth looming over her country, how long could she possibly hold onto her power? Her reign was on the brink of collapse.

  Yet salvation came two months later in the form of an ancient prophecy: the Convergence. It was a rare, natural phenomenon—a once-in-a-century occurrence where the moon of their planet aligned perfectly with a distant Red Dwarf star. This event, known as the Night of the Red Moon, would open the gates of the cosmos, allowing magic to be elevated to its highest potential.

  But that wasn’t all. This alignment also happened to coincide with a Holy Night, a magical event that occurred once every hundred years. The combination of these two phenomena created a mystical veil—a power that could elevate any spell cast during this time to unimaginable levels.

  The Queen, desperate, chose to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity. She used the Ritual of Summoning Hero, a forbidden and legendary spell. It was said that this spell could reach out across the cosmos, summoning a person of great destiny to answer the call.

  But on that fateful night, the Queen summoned two men—two men from Earth. Both had been playing video games when they were abruptly pulled into her world.

  I still remember the moment. It’s burned into my memory.

  I was sitting in my chair, VR helmet on, totally absorbed in the new Farscape mod I had downloaded. Then, without warning, I was hit with a feedback pulse—a shock, an electric jolt, stronger than anything I had ever felt. It was so much that I thought I've had to been struck by lightning.

  When I came to, I found myself lying prone before the feet of possibly the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She had long, dark hair with a violet hue, eyes the same shade, skin as pale as alabaster, and an undeniable aura of regal elegance. And she was gorgeous. A part of me—the part that had always loved fantasy worlds—wanted to believe this was just a new game experience.

  But it wasn’t a game.

  This was real. I was summoned to another world. Something straight out of an anime. And I wasn’t the only one. Beside me stood Todd Macy—MrRadley, as he went by in his Farscape avatar. Radley was a doorman from New York City. Just a regular guy, but somehow, here we were. Summoned to save this world.

  Looking back, I should have known better than to trust that fucker.

  The first day we met, it was all so obvious. He was plotting against me from the moment we stepped into that room.

  It wasn’t something I saw at the time. I was still reeling from the shock of being dragged into this strange new world. But when the Queen and her advisors left us alone in summoning chamber, to deliberate, I could see it play out in my head now.

  Radley bumped into me, a move so casual it seemed almost instinctive. His face was close to mine, his breath hot against my skin, as he whispered with a smile, "Don’t get in my way. Don’t do anything stupid."

  I laughed. I thought it was some kind of joke. I wasn’t intimidated. After all, none of this could be real, right?

  That was when he swung at me.

  It happened so fast that I barely had time to process it. His fist was like lightning—fast, deadly. A punch I couldn’t have seen coming, yet somehow, I could. My body reacted before my mind could even catch up. The motion was instinctive, almost like blinking.

  I raised my weapon, Celestial Champion, without thinking. The translucent staff, seemingly fragile, blocked the punch. But it didn’t just block it—it stopped it cold. Radley’s entire body jerked from the impact. There was no noise, no resounding crash. It was as though the punch had simply ceased to exist.

  The idiot me—still caught up in the excitement of it all—couldn’t help but exclaim how cool that had been. It was like I was a kid again, amazed as if seeing a magic trick for the first time.

  It wasn’t until later, with time and distance and torment, that I realized how much I had missed. How many signals had gone unnoticed.

  But the me at that time started telling Radley all about my setup. My character, a mix of Wizard and Cleric, was a combination that could only be called ridiculously overpowered. It wasn’t optimized for the official servers, but in the mods I played, it was an absolute beast, especially for solo play. Every class feature unlocked, all the epic feats maxed out, and all mastery levels gained. I had more power than any of the top-tier characters in the retail game. A one-man raid team, really.

  Radley, of course, had realized this the moment I blocked his punch with ease. His optimized build was impressive for sure—he was a Blackguard + Lancer, outfitted in a mythic plate set and wielding Gae Bolg, a legendary spear. But it was nothing compared to my modded build. He might have had physical prowess, but I had the raw arsenal of two full magic classes to level the playing field.

  It didn’t take long for him to extend an olive branch. He offered me his hand, proposing that we combine our talents to defeat the demonlord. Without thinking, I accepted. A partnership, a truce, even if there was something in his eyes that I hadn’t quite noticed yet.

  Radley had never been my friend. And that fact would cost me dearly.

  The war began in earnest shortly after we were summoned. The demonlord, who had taken control of the hellmouth, had dubbed himself the Easter King, a title that struck us both as rather comical. But we were told the Easter Kingdom had once ruled the continent, before the High Elves—descendants of gods themselves—had fallen. The Queen, still a girl of 17, had inherited the crown and the weight of her father’s failure. Her army was shattered, most of the kingdom’s forces destroyed in the battle that claimed the King’s life. We heroes, summoned to aid her, were supposed to tip the balance.

  But the army we were given was less than inspiring. Fewer than 800 troops in total, half of them conscripts. It was a ragtag collection of farmers, blacksmiths, and shepherds who’d been handed spears and shields and told to fight for their land. We didn’t have much hope for them at first.

  Then the Queen stood before us. Her beauty, her presence, was undeniable, and her words stirred something deep inside me, something I hadn’t expected. She gave us her favor—a platinum medallion with her family crest, a token of protection—and for a moment, it felt like we had a chance. We had a purpose. And so, we marched.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  What we didn’t realize, at least not right away, was that this war wasn’t anything like the history books. It wasn’t glorious. It wasn’t the grand battles of legend. It was more like a hunting expedition. Only instead of deer or boar, we were hunting demons.

  Our first engagement was a massacre. We wiped out over 300 demons with barely a scratch on us. With my combined magic, I supported the troops with buffs and defensive spells, while I personally obliterated demons from afar with spells that one-shotted them. It was as easy as I expected. I didn’t even need to use my highest-level spells.

  Radley had his own way of dealing with things. His spear was deadly in close quarters, and he cleaned up when demons got within range. He enjoyed the challenge—at least, I thought he did. But, to me, it became a bit of a game. We started keeping track of our kills, competing to see who could take down more demons. I was always ahead, but Radley was determined to win. I thought it was funny at first, just a little friendly competition. But looking back, I can see that it wasn’t just a game to him. He was trying to prove something. Trying to one-up me.

  But for all our killing, the true heart of the war wasn’t in the battles. It was in the aftermath. It was in healing the land. We didn’t just fight demons. We helped those whose homes had been ravaged, whose crops had been destroyed. We didn’t save the world by fighting—at least not entirely. We saved it by helping people rebuild. It was a quiet, often thankless work, but it was necessary. And while Radley’s talents weren’t well suited for it, mine were. Healing magic, restoration spells, purification. I had the tools to make a difference.

  Still, the work didn’t go unnoticed. When we went to the elf forests to combat the demonic corruption there, I earned their favor. I purged the blight from their woods, and while Radley was honored, he couldn’t help but feel overshadowed. The elves treated me like a hero, showering me with gifts and praises. And while I didn’t want any of it—rejecting most of the gifts as I felt unworthy of them—it only seemed to make Radley more the bitter.

  It came to a head during a feast at the elves’ haven, where I danced with a beautiful elf maiden. I was awful at it, awkward and self-conscious, but she didn’t seem to mind. And for a moment, I allowed myself to forget about the war, about the demons, about everything. I lost myself in the music, the beauty of their city, and the joy of a simple moment.

  But that night, I did realized something then—Radley’s smile was gone. The light in his eyes had dimmed. It took years for me to understand it now, he wasn’t playing the game anymore. He was plotting. The war wasn’t over for him. Not by a long shot.

  Seven months had passed when we returned to Andalus’s shining castle. The Queen held a grand celebration in our honor, a parade even, and we were hailed as heroes. The entire city gathered to celebrate our victory, and I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Sure, we’d cleared the demons from much of the land, but the hellmouth still loomed large. The real threat hadn’t been dealt with.

  And yet, the celebration went on. The Queen awarded us the rank of Knight, and then bestowed upon us a special emblem—one only given to those who had done a great service to the kingdom. We were elevated to the status of national heroes, a title that brought with it more honor than I could have ever imagined.

  But even in the midst of all the revelry, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I tried to speak up. Tried to tell the Queen that the hellmouth was still a threat, that the demonlord wasn’t defeated. But my warnings went unheeded. The celebration was too important. And so, it was Radley who suggested something to me.

  He told me to go to the hellmouth. To scout it out, use my magic to enter undetected, and gather information. At first, I thought it was a smart idea—a good way to get more intel on the demonlord’s forces. But as the words left his mouth, I began to wonder.

  What if Radley was trying to set me up?

  I didn’t know it then, but it was his last play. A final attempt to stand on top. He had seen the power I wielded and wanted it gone. He wanted to be the hero. He wanted to claim the demonlord’s death for himself.

  But Radley wasn’t going to do it. Not alone. He wanted me to enter the hellmouth first to confirm the dangers.

  However I acted on Radley's advice the very next day. I went to scout the hellmouth and its region. Yet the demons I encountered there were no stronger than those I fought in the war, but this time, I had no army to worry about. I was free to fight without hesitation, so I did. I struck down every demon in my path, venturing deeper and deeper into the hellmouth.

  It didn’t take long—less than 40 minutes, in fact—before I stood before the demonlord himself. If I’m honest, it was a bit underwhelming. I almost laughed when I first laid eyes on him, but I quickly kept my composure. He might have been using some kind of deception skill, so I didn’t want to risk it.

  This ‘Easter King’ was a far cry from the terrifying figure the kingdom expected to see. The demonlord was no taller than five feet, clad in a crown too large for his head, a cloak that dragged on the ground, and a potbelly that wobbled with every step. The only thing remotely menacing about him was the whip he clutched—but even that was undermined by his constant trembling.

  If I had to judge him by Farscape standards, I’d say he was around a level 55 trash mob. A weak, pathetic demon, especially for a supposed leader of a hellmouth. He wasn’t even worth killing yet. I figured he might have some valuable knowledge about destroying the hellmouth, so I readied my Celestial Champion's staff to trigger an auto-attack and force him to surrender.

  The problem? It critted. And in one blow, the demonlord was dead.

  So much for that plan.

  Now, the hellmouth remained a dangerous threat. The demonlord’s death would scatter any remaining hordes, but the hellmouth itself would continue to spawn more demons. Perhaps another stronger demon could take his place, continuing the cycle of war in later years. I had no choice: the hellmouth had to be destroyed.

  A thought crossed my mind—bunker bombs, the ones used in the Middle East to clear out terrorist hideouts. And I had a spell that could mimic that kind of destruction: [Ultima]. The strongest damage-dealing spell in all of Farscape. It would cost nearly a third of my mana bar, but it had the potential to obliterate an area, even if the damage was Typeless. My [Ultima] spell had one-shot countless level 60 bosses in Farscape. But how would it fare in this world?

  I hesitated for a moment. Would it be too powerful? Its in-game effect was a giant green explosion, after all. But the sages had always said the hellmouth was a bridge to the hell dimensions, so I reasoned that the explosion would be contained, perhaps with minimal impact on the world outside. At least, that was the plan.

  I quickly tested a few teleportation spells, just in case I needed a quick getaway. Basic teleports were blocked, but [Circle Teleport] wasn’t. I set up a circle far enough away from the hellmouth, then rushed back in to the demonlord’s chamber. After grabbing the demonlord's crown and cloak as proof of his demise, I stored them in my inventory.

  I raised my staff and cast [Ultima], amplifying it with five magic boosters to improve its AOE, hoping to hit enough of the hellmouth to collapse it.

  The spell’s effect was immediate, and I was shocked by its intensity. Green light poured from the hellmouth, cascading in every direction. It was as if a volcano erupted from the cave, the force tearing through the ground with overwhelming power. The eruption lasted only five seconds, but the hellmouth that once towered like a small mountain was now reduced to a massive crater.

  The damage was a bit more limited than I expected, thanks to the hellmouth’s cross-dimensional nature, but it was enough. My tactic had worked.

  I returned to the capital, feeling a strange mix of relief and anticipation. The Queen and her advisors were stunned when I reported that I had killed the demonlord and destroyed the hellmouth, which had plagued their land for over a century.

  Perhaps the most shocked of all was Radley.

  Though I didn’t realize it at the time, there was no celebration in the air. No parades, no grand feast. Instead, the tone of the kingdom felt… somber.

  A few days later, a scout party returned, confirming the rumors of the hellmouth’s destruction. But even so, the mood didn’t shift. There was no festivity in the streets. No cheering. Those demons were gone, forever, but something felt off.

  A week later, I was summoned privately by the Queen. She invited me to one of her chambers, and I immediately sensed the change in the atmosphere. This meeting was different from all the others.

  She was alone, save for two of her handmaidens, and to my shock, the young Queen genuflected before me, thanking me for my service. I froze. It was a strange moment—this regal queen, bowing before me. I was only fulfilling my duty.

  I tried to brush it off, insisting she didn’t need to do this, but her face was flushed with tears. Her weak smile only added to the confusion. She asked what reward I wanted from her, but I couldn’t think of anything in that moment. My mind was a blank slate.

  In a moment of desperation, I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind: "A hug."

  Looking back, it felt ridiculous, but she smiled again, and we shared a long, warm embrace. Her head rested gently on my neck, and her scent filled the air. Her body pressed against mine, and I couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of gratitude.

  When I closed my eyes, sometimes, I could still feel that hug. It was a memory that lingered, that stayed with me, even when everything else felt so distant.

  It wasn’t long after that hug that the Queen held a secret meeting with the summoned heroes. She thanked us again, but this time, her words felt different. She implored us to consider returning to our homeworld.

  I should have known something was wrong. Why would she ask us to leave now? Why bestow titles upon us and then send us back to Earth? It didn’t make sense.

  I didn’t accept her dismissal quietly. I protested, saying I had nothing left to go back to. My family was long gone, and Earth held no appeal after everything I had experienced here. I knelt, begging her to let me stay by her side. How pathetic.

  But it wasn’t the Queen who convinced me. It was Radley. He agreed with her that we summoned heroes were too powerful, that our mere presence would only hinder their recovery. We were an obstacle.

  I tried to argue, but the Queen admitted, reluctantly, that she would love nothing more than to keep us. But the advice of her advisors weighed heavily on her. They claimed there was unrest in the countryside due to the fear our powers had stirred. A bald-faced lie if there ever was one—there had been no unrest even in her castle city.

  But I couldn’t fight them anymore. I agreed to return to Earth, and the Queen thanked us once more, sealing our fate. She told us to keep it a secret until the preparations were ready.

  The next time I saw her was the day she created the portal.

  Except, it wasn’t a portal to Earth.

  It was a portal to a hellish world.

  And I walked right into it.

  * * *

  I was betrayed.

  But I didn’t die. I survived.

  And that was their mistake.

  The god-beast of this hell world devoured all who entered. Yet I survived.

  Twenty-seven years of suffering, of being trapped in a desolate, sulfurous landscape. The heat, the constant gnawing hunger, the despair.

  Surviving here made me stronger than anyone—perhaps even myself—could have ever imagined.

  Surviving here had changed me in ways I couldn't fully understand at the time. You see strength in this hellish place didn't just come from the body; it came from the mind. Because I had nothing else to do but survive. The barren, oppressive landscape stretched endlessly around me, a constant reminder that I was trapped. Nothing else mattered—nothing except making it through another day.

  And so, I started looking for ways to distract myself, to stave off the loneliness and madness that gnawed at the edges of my sanity. I needed a hobby. Something to keep my mind from unraveling completely. And after all these years, that hobby had become a ritual—an almost meditative process.

  Going over my situation became one of those habits. I would sit and look at the object in my hand, the one constant reminder of my past. The platinum medallion the Queen had given me and Radley, back when she had seen us off to war. Back when things were still... normal. Back when I had purpose. I could still feel the weight of it, the intricate design of it—the cool, polished metal against my skin. I could almost remember her voice, the soft way she'd spoken, and the warmth of her smile when she handed it to us. It had been a gift, a token of her favor, a gesture that was supposed to mark us as heroes, as protectors of her world.

  But as with everything else, that world was gone. She'd asked us to leave everything behind when we entered the portal—everything we’d gained, everything we’d fought for. "It will be better for you," she’d said, "to leave the same way you came." A neat little package, a symbolic gesture that made me feel like everything I'd been through was just a passing dream. That I would step back through the portal, back to Earth, and leave this otherworld behind. I should've known better. But when I entered that portal, it was with this medallion still clutched tightly in my hand.

  And now, twenty-seven years later, it was all I had left. This piece of metal, this sliver of a life that no longer existed.

  I hadn’t let go of it. Not because I thought it would get me home. No, that was a delusion. But because, in a way, it was all that remained of the time before—before the betrayal, before the hell I’d been tossed into. A memento of something that had mattered, that had been real. It reminded me that my life had meant something once. That those eight months, the battles fought and victories won, hadn’t been some cruel fantasy. It reminded me that I had once been important, not just a pawn in someone else’s game.

  If I survived here long enough, I would make my way back. I had to.

  My other hobby, though, was the one thing that kept me from completely losing my mind in this red desolation. Sky gazing. I’d never been much of an astronomer back on Earth. My mind had always been too practical, too rooted in the things that had to be done. But here... here, the sky was the only thing that ever changed. And it had become an obsession for me.

  The sky was unlike anything I had ever seen. Three distinct skies—each a shade of red, but with differences so stark they couldn’t be ignored. Purple mists swirled between them like an endless fog rolling in from an unknown distance. It was both beautiful and haunting, and it was all I had. Sometimes I would just stare at it for hours, lost in the shifting colors, watching the strange lights far off in the distance, wondering if they were other worlds. Or if they were merely another trick the hell dimension played on those foolish enough to seek escape.

  I had tried to chase them. I’d run for miles, pushed myself until I was gasping for breath, each time trying to break free of the gravity of this place, only to be pulled back by the force of the realm itself. A gravitational pull that seemed to exist only to mock me, to remind me that I was not allowed to leave. I had tried, oh how many times had I tried, to escape into the horizon that seemed to beckon from beyond. But each time, I was yanked back, powerless to do anything but surrender.

  But I kept looking, kept watching.

  Over the years, I began to notice something odd. The three skies, which once seemed entirely separate, began to move. Slowly. Fluidly, like the slow undulating dance of a lava lamp. The red hues, swirling in waves, would shift and blend, mixing with purple streaks, as if they wanted to be something more. I hadn’t noticed at first, but gradually, I began to see it: the skies were changing.

  The once misty fog between them was no longer a fog. It was something else. Something more intentional. Wavelengths—dancing, flowing, alive in their own right. Streams of color that interwove across the sky, never quite touching but always near. For years, I had thought of it as a bizarre mist, something to watch passively, something that blended together in a way that made it hard to tell where one sky began and the other ended. But now, something had changed. The purples began to shift, pulling apart into distinct lines, slowly separating the three skies into individual vistas. It wasn’t fully formed yet, but I could feel it coming.

  And as I stared, watching the strange aurora of the skies above me, I knew. Somehow, it had to be. It was the only way. My only hope.

  The medallion gleamed in the fading light, reflecting the shifting colors of the sky. The Queen’s favor, the only thing I had left of that world.

  And this sky, this ever-changing sky that I had watched for so many years, was the key to something bigger than even I could understand. A Convergence.

  Together, they were going to be my ticket out.