Chapter 320: Consistent Disparancies
Gorr tapped her pickaxe against the digital floorboards of her sanctuary. She pointed a spectral finger directly at Ignisar’s quadrant.
"When you log out, you go to sleep in a warm bed," Gorr stated. "When our health bars hit zero, our divine cores shatter. The pain tears our minds apart and erases our souls from existence completely. We do not respawn. I know this because I was almost deleted once after de-ranking."
Ignisar shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"You think this is a fun strategy game," Gorr continued. "You launch your base raids and laugh with your friends. You and your other friends wiped out nine minor gods during your territorial expansion across the Third Continent. You deleted actual human beings from existence."
Ignisar scowled in complete confusion. He shook his head and gestured to Nyxara’s screen. "What are you talking about? We did not kill anyone."
"You are completely crazy," Nyxara added. She crossed her obsidian arms. "The minor gods we defeated were just kids from our school. The Sun-Hawk was literally Kevin from our biology class. He got mad when Chris and Megan destroyed his capital, so he uninstalled the game. He texted me yesterday to ask about the homework."
Gorr froze and looked over at Rubedo’s quadrant in shock.
Iron-Arbiter nodded his massive metallic head. "Everyone on the second, third, and fourth continents goes to our high school. This entire server is just a private multiplayer map we all joined during the summer break."
Rubedo absorbed the information and instantly connected the mechanics of the divided world. The system operated on two completely different levels. The teenagers simply logged into a sandbox application after school. They played alongside their local classmates and fought digital wars for fun.
The Seventeenth Continent was an isolated quarantine zone. It served as a dumping ground for the souls of people permanently trapped inside the game engine.
"Only the gods of the Seventeenth Continent are trapped," Rubedo clarified. His voice carried across the six-way grid. "Every single vassal under my command is a human soul permanently locked inside this engine. You fought your classmates in your local territories."
Rubedo focused his golden eyes entirely on the Radiant Monarch.
"But it was different for me. I wasn’t summoned here as a god, but as an NPC when the Radiant Monarch bought a premium summoning event," Rubedo said. "You bypassed the normal player base. You ripped an entire high school class from my world and pulled them into your digital sandbox as mercenaries. The twenty-nine people you summoned are trapped exactly like us."
Ignisar and Nyxara stared at the Radiant Monarch in absolute horror. They realized the terrifying truth behind their recent wars. They had spent their free time launching attacks against actual human captives who were forced into a digital bloodsport.
"You kidnapped real people to defend your base," Iron-Arbiter told the Radiant Monarch.
The Radiant Monarch waved his floating golden hands frantically. "I just clicked a button in the cash shop! I did not know the developers were using actual souls for the premium units!"
Ignisar stared at the screen and shook his head. "How could thousands of people vanish into a video game without anyone finding out? The news would cover mass disappearances immediately."
"The system probably targets isolated individuals," Gorr suggested. She leaned on her spectral pickaxe. "I lived completely alone. Nobody checked on me for weeks."
The Radiant Monarch leaned closer to his camera. "Where are you even from, Rubedo? If your entire high school class disappeared at a reunion, someone definitely filed a police report."
"I am from Miami, Florida," Rubedo answered. "We were summoned from the United States."
The teenagers stared at him in complete confusion.
"There is no place called Miami," Nyxara said.
"The United States dissolved decades ago," Iron-Arbiter added.
"I expected another twist but I never expected that..." Rubedo frowned and looked over at his two commanders. "Is this a surprise to you as well? You might not know about those places either. You have both been stuck inside this game for a massive amount of time. The geography probably shifted while you were trapped here."
Nyxara interrupted the conversation entirely. "Time moves completely differently in the game engine. One month in real life means around ten years inside the server."
Sylara pushed her white hood back and looked directly at Rubedo’s quadrant. "Sovereign, what year was it when the Royal Mage summoned your class?"
"It was 2024," Rubedo stated.
A profound silence fell over the six-way grid. The teenagers and the commanders looked at him in absolute shock.
"What happened?" Rubedo asked.
Gorr dropped her pickaxe onto the digital floorboards. "I was summoned in 2071."
"I was summoned in 2067," Sylara whispered.
Nyxara wiped the dark water from her eyes and looked directly into the screen. "The current year is 2077."
Iron-Arbiter leaned closer to his screen and frowned. "That timeline is completely impossible. The developers officially launched the base game in 2065."
Rubedo processed the dates carefully. The summoning ritual pulled his class from 2024. That event occurred four decades before the game even existed on Earth.
"It is a live-service title," Nyxara explained. She wiped the dark water from her eyes. "The studio maintains it continuously. They drop new system patches, release monthly combat events, and add massive map expansions all the time."
Sylara gripped the edge of her wooden throne. "I arrived in 2067. I woke up in a feral forest completely surrounded by mutated beasts."
"That was the Universe 2.0 expansion," Radiant Monarch said. He dropped his floating golden hands and stared at the screen. "The developers added the Seventeenth Continent to the server that exact year to celebrate the game’s second anniversary. They advertised it as a hostile deadland for hardcore players to conquer."
Gorr tapped her spectral pickaxe against her sanctuary floorboards. "I got pulled in during 2071."
"The Cataclysm patch," Ignisar added. He crossed his arms over his chest. "The studio introduced a huge wave of deep-earth mining mechanics and subterranean bosses that year."
The terrifying truth connected across the six-way grid. The teenagers and the trapped commanders stared at each other in shock.
The mysterious studio behind the software utilized temporal anomalies to run their servers. The developers actively harvested human souls from across different points in history to populate their digital patches and premium cash-shop events.
The studio treated actual human lives as seasonal content updates.
Or perhaps, they were simply thinking too much and the developers had no hand in this.
Rubedo sat forward and pressed his hands flat against the cosmic crystal console. A profound rage settled in his chest. He looked directly at the four teenagers on his monitor.
"Tell me," Rubedo commanded. "What is the name of this game?"
The Radiant Monarch stared back through the screen. His glowing halo remained perfectly still.
"It is called Project Civilization," the Radiant Monarch answered.
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