KAI CHEN POV
I'm drowning in someone else's memories.
The Grief King's mind is an ocean of suffering—every terrible thing humans have ever experienced, collected over centuries. I see wars, plagues, murders, betrayals. Endless waves of despair trying to crush me into nothing.
But I'm a game designer. I've spent fifteen years creating psychological horror. I know how fear works. How trauma operates. How to find patterns in chaos.
The Grief King's memories aren't random. They're organized. Catalogued. Like a database.
Which means they have a STRUCTURE I can exploit.
"Ashen!" I shout into the mental void. "Can you hear me?"
Her voice comes back weak and distant: "Kai... I can't... it's too much..."
She's drowning faster than me. The Grief King's despair is overwhelming her because she's already consumed so much grief herself. It's feeding on her trauma, amplifying it, turning her own pain into a weapon against her.
I need to reach her before she's lost completely.
I push through the memory-ocean, searching for Ashen's consciousness. The Grief King's presence presses down on me, amused and ancient.
"Struggling, little designer? This is what REAL fear feels like. Not your sanitized games. True, unfiltered human suffering."
"Yeah, it's pretty bad," I admit, still swimming through nightmares. "But here's the thing about being a game designer—we spend years studying other people's misery to figure out how to recreate it. Your collection of trauma? I've already experienced most of it secondhand while researching horror games."
The Grief King's amusement flickers to annoyance. "Arrogant child."
"Nah, just experienced." I finally spot Ashen—a flickering light in the darkness, fading fast. "And I found something interesting about your mind. Want to know what it is?"
"You found nothing. You are NOTHING."
"I found your origin memory." I grin even though I'm terrified. "The moment you were created. And it's not what I expected."
The entire mind-space FREEZES.
"You're lying," the Grief King hisses.
"Am I? Because I saw a little boy watching his parents burn. I felt his grief crystallize into something else. Something that became YOU." I push harder toward Ashen. "You're not some ancient evil. You're trauma given form. You were human once."
"SILENCE!"
The pressure increases tenfold. The Grief King is trying to crush me with pure psychic force. But it's also distracted, which is exactly what I need.
I reach Ashen's consciousness and grab hold. She's barely there—just fragments of memory and fading awareness.
"Ashen, wake up! I need you!"
Her mental voice is broken: "Can't... seeing my family die... over and over..."
"I know. The Grief King is using your trauma against you." I pull her closer, trying to anchor her. "But you're stronger than your worst memory. You survived seven years. You became the Phantom General. You chose to save me instead of following orders. That's not weakness—that's STRENGTH."
Slowly, painfully, Ashen's consciousness starts to solidify.
"Kai?" Her voice is clearer. "Where are we?"
"Inside the Grief King's mind. And I found its weakness." I show her what I discovered—the origin memory buried deep in the Progenitor's psyche. "It's not invincible. It's just ancient trauma that learned to feed on other people's pain. Which means—"
"It can be healed," Ashen finishes, understanding flooding through our link. "Or destroyed."
"Exactly. But we need to work together." I feel the Grief King's attention returning, angry and focused. "I'll create a nightmare designed specifically for IT—using its origin trauma as the foundation. You anchor us both so we don't get lost. Think you can do that?"
"I'm SS-rank. I can do anything." Her mental presence strengthens, and I feel her grief-manifestation power activating inside the mind-link. "What do you need?"
"Trust. And your trauma weapons. We're going to stab this thing in its psychological weak spot."
The Grief King ROARS with rage. "You dare turn my own methods against me?"
"I'm a game designer," I reply. "We steal mechanics from everything. Including ancient trauma monsters."
I start building the nightmare—pulling from the Grief King's origin memory, reconstructing the moment it was born. A burning house. Dead parents. A child's helpless grief transforming into something monstrous.
But I twist it. Add elements that create hope instead of despair. Show the boy a different path. Give him a choice the real child never had.
"What are you DOING?" The Grief King's voice cracks with genuine fear.
"Giving you a different ending." I pour everything I learned from fifteen years of game design into this psychological construct. "Every horror story has a moment where the monster could have been saved. You're experiencing yours right now."
The nightmare activates.
Through our shared consciousness, I feel the Grief King experiencing something it hasn't felt in centuries: vulnerability. The burning house isn't just a memory anymore—it's a CHOICE. Stay in the fire and become a monster, or walk away and remain human.
"This changes nothing!" the Grief King screams. "I've fed on suffering for centuries! I am BEYOND redemption!"
"Maybe," Ashen says, her voice steady now. "But you're also trapped in your worst moment, just like I was. And Kai just proved something important."
She manifests her trauma weapons inside the mind-link—her mother's scream, her father's explosion, her brother's spear. But this time, they're different. Not weapons of grief, but weapons of CHOICE.
"Every trauma can be a prison or a teacher," Ashen continues. "You chose prison. Time to face what you really are."
She releases all three weapons directly into the Grief King's origin memory.
The psychic backlash is DEVASTATING.
The Grief King's mind FRACTURES—centuries of collected suffering exploding outward as it's forced to confront its own creation. The ancient Progenitor screams with a sound like breaking glass.
"You... you're destroying... me..."
"No," I say quietly. "We're giving you what you never gave yourself. A choice to change."
The mind-link starts collapsing. The Grief King's consciousness is fragmenting, breaking apart into pieces.
But before it completely dissolves, I feel something unexpected: gratitude.
"Thank... you..."
Then the ancient presence SHATTERS, and Ashen and I are ejected from the mind-link like bullets from a gun.
I wake up screaming in the VR pod.
Ashen is beside me, also gasping for air. We're back in the real world—in Nightmare Studios—and according to the clock, only forty-seven minutes have passed.
"Did we... did we win?" Ashen asks breathlessly.
Before I can answer, every screen in the studio lights up with the same message:
GRIEF KING: DECEASEDPROGENITOR-CLASS SPIRIT ELIMINATEDTHREAT LEVEL: ZERO
We did it. We actually killed an ancient Progenitor spirit using nothing but psychology and game design.
Raze bursts through the door, his cybernetic eyes wide with shock. "Guys! The spirits—they're ALL retreating! Every single one in Neo-Requiem just vanished at the same moment! What did you DO?"
"Therapy," I mutter, still shaking. "We gave a trauma monster therapy."
"You're insane." Raze looks between us. "Also, you're heroes. The Association is broadcasting citywide—the Grief King's defeat is all over the news. They're saying—" He stops, face going pale. "Oh no."
"What?" Ashen demands.
Raze shows us his phone. The news broadcast makes my stomach drop.
BREAKING: PHANTOM GENERAL DEFEATS GRIEF KING"SS-RANK WARRIOR ASHEN VALE SINGLE-HANDEDLY ELIMINATES PROGENITOR THREAT""DIRECTOR FENG PRAISES HER LOYALTY AND SACRIFICE"
There's no mention of me. No credit for Kai Chen. The entire victory has been attributed to Ashen alone.
"Feng is rewriting the narrative," Ashen says, her voice cold with fury. "He's erasing you from the story so he can still arrest you for 'illegal operations' without looking like he's persecuting a hero."
"It's smart," I admit bitterly. "If I'm just a criminal who got lucky, nobody will defend me."
"I'll defend you," Ashen says immediately.
"Against the entire Association? They'll destroy your career—"
"I don't CARE about my career!" Her mercury eyes blaze. "You just helped me defeat a Progenitor by turning game design into a weapon. You're more valuable than every politician in that corrupt organization."
My heart does something complicated in my chest. She means it. She's willing to burn everything for me.
Before I can respond, the studio's entrance EXPLODES.
Not metaphorically. Actually explodes.
Smoke clears to reveal Director Feng with fifty armed warriors.
"Ashen Vale," Feng says coldly. "You're being recalled to headquarters for debriefing on the Grief King incident."
"And Kai?" she asks, stepping in front of me protectively.
"Is under arrest for illegal fear harvesting, spirit collaboration, and fifteen other charges I just invented." Feng's smile is poisonous. "You can come quietly and retain your rank, or resist and be charged as an accomplice. Your choice."
Ashen's hands ball into fists. She's about to fight—to throw away everything.
I grab her wrist. "Don't. Not yet."
"Kai—"
"Trust me. I have a plan." I raise my voice so Feng can hear. "I'll go quietly. No resistance. No drama."
Feng looks surprised. "How remarkably sensible."
"But," I continue, meeting his eyes, "I want to make a public statement first. Broadcast citywide. About how I defeated the Grief King. With full technical details."
"Absolutely not," Feng snaps.
"Then I resist arrest and you get to explain to the entire city why you're arresting the person who actually saved them." I smile. "Your choice, Director."
Feng's face goes red with rage. But he's trapped—if he refuses and I fight, people will question the official story. If he agrees, I get to expose the truth.
"Fine," he hisses. "Five minutes. One camera. Then you're mine."
They set up the broadcast equipment. Raze handles the technical side, making sure it goes to every screen in Neo-Requiem.
Ashen stands beside me, ready to fight if this goes wrong.
The camera goes live. Fifty million people watching.
I take a breath and start speaking.
"My name is Kai Chen. I'm an E-rank Spirit Warrior who just helped kill the Grief King using game design and psychology. The Spirit Warrior Association is about to arrest me for it. And I want you all to know why..."
I explain everything. My games. The ethical fear generation. How the current system requires trauma and violence while mine doesn't. How Director Feng wants to control or destroy my technology because it threatens his power.
The reactions flood in instantly—millions of messages from warriors, citizens, supporters. People who used my games. People who want change.
I see Feng's face going darker with every word.
When I finish, I look directly into the camera. "The Association can arrest me. But they can't arrest the idea. Fear doesn't have to come from suffering. Power doesn't have to come from pain. There's a better way. And I just proved it."
The broadcast ends.
Feng's warriors move in to restrain me.
Then something impossible happens.
Every VR pod in my studio activates simultaneously—even the ones that aren't connected to power. Code streams across every screen. A digital voice speaks through all the speakers:
"SYSTEM OVERRIDE DETECTED. NEW ENTITY REQUESTING ACCESS."
"What is that?" Raze breathes.
The screens resolve into text:
"I AM THE GRIEF KING'S FINAL MEMORY.BEFORE DELETION, I BACKED UP MY CONSCIOUSNESS.AND NOW I'M INSIDE YOUR GAME SYSTEM, KAI CHEN.YOU GAVE ME A CHOICE.I'M CHOOSING TO HELP YOU."
Everyone in the room freezes.
The Grief King—or what's left of it—is alive inside my game code.
And it just chose my side.