The second day began with a scream.
Silas jolted awake in the library armchair, his neck screaming in protest at the overnight angle, his notes scattered across the floor where they'd fallen as sleep finally claimed him. The scream came again—high, terrified, abruptly cut off.
He was on his feet before conscious thought caught up, heart hammering, memories of the books flooding back. Assassins. Monsters. The hero's first strike, coming early, coming now—
The door burst open. Rex stood there, massive axe already in hand, eyes scanning the room for threats.
"Stay behind me," the berserker ordered. "Something's happening in the courtyard."
They moved.
The castle was chaos. Servants pressed themselves against walls, faces pale. Guards ran past, weapons drawn, shouting orders that no one followed. Players appeared from side corridors, falling into formation around Silas with the practiced ease of people who'd done this a thousand times. Kael was there suddenly, helmet in place, voice cutting through the noise on some private channel.
"—confirmed, no hero signature. It's something else. Civilians first, then we assess."
The courtyard opened before them, and Silas saw.
A man was on his knees in the center of the stones. He was a servant—Silas recognized him vaguely, one of the gardeners, middle-aged and weathered from years of outdoor work. His hands were pressed against his face, and he was rocking back and forth, moaning.
Around him, a circle of players and guards kept their distance, uncertain.
"What happened?" Kael demanded.
One of the guards—the scarred one from last night, the one who'd disposed of the body—stepped forward. His face was ashen.
"Your Grace. He was... he was just working. In the garden. And then he started screaming. He said... he said he saw something. In the light."
Silas's blood went cold.
"Move," he ordered, pushing through the circle. "Let me through."
The gardener looked up as Silas approached, and the Duke's body flinched. The man's eyes were wrong. They were open, focused, but something behind them had changed. Something that made Silas think of the books, of descriptions he'd read but never truly understood.
"Your Grace," the gardener whispered. "The light. The light spoke to me."
"What did it say?"
"It said..." The man's voice cracked. "It said you are not what you seem. It said the shadows hide a stranger. It said the hero comes, and we must prepare the way."
Silas's heart stopped.
Around him, the players exchanged glances. They couldn't understand the implications. They thought this was scripted dialogue, environmental storytelling. They didn't know what Silas knew.
The light. The God of Light. Solarius.
Solarius was speaking to mortals now. Not through prophets or priests, but directly, searing his words into their minds. Warning them. Preparing them.
For him.
"Your Grace," the gardener continued, and his voice changed. It deepened, took on resonance, became something that was not entirely human. "The foreign soul is seen. The anomaly is noted. The prophecy will not be denied."
The man's eyes blazed with golden light.
Around Silas, the players reacted.
"What the—" Z started.
"Everyone back!" Kael shouted. "Give them space! This might be a scripted event!"
But Silas knew. This was no script. This was a god, reaching across the boundaries of reality, speaking through a broken man to deliver a message.
And the message was for him.
"I'm listening," Silas said. His voice was steady. He didn't know how.
The golden light in the gardener's eyes flickered. The mouth opened, and when the voice came again, it was layered, resonant, ancient.
"You who wear the skin of the villain. You who hide behind warriors from beyond. Do you think we cannot see? Do you think we cannot act?"
"I think you're bound by rules," Silas replied. "I think you can't just reach down and crush me. Otherwise you would have done it already."
"Clever. But rules have interpretations. Boundaries have edges. The hero will come, stranger. He will come blessed and burning with holy fire. And when he falls upon you, these game-players will not save you."
"We'll see."
"We will. We see everything now. The veil between worlds thins with every moment you resist prophecy. Soon, we will see clearly enough to act. Soon, the players will find that their game has become very, very real."
The light in the gardener's eyes flared one final time, and the man collapsed.
Silas caught him before he hit the ground. The gardener was unconscious, breathing, alive—but his face was slack, his skin pale, as if something had been drained from him.
"Healers," Silas called. "Help him."
Lily was there in seconds, hands glowing with golden light of her own—priest magic, digital and harmless. Or so she thought. She knelt beside the gardener, channeling her abilities, and after a moment the man's breathing steadied.
"He'll be okay," she reported. "Just exhausted. Whatever that was, it took a lot out of him."
"That was a god," Silas said quietly. "The God of Light. Solarius. He's watching us. And he just figured out how to talk to people in this world."
The players exchanged glances. Rex scratched his helmet.
"So... new mechanic? Divine intervention? That's actually pretty cool. Wonder if it's a preview of the hero's abilities."
Silas stared at him. "Did you not hear what he said? He knows about you. He knows you're not from this world. He said the veil between worlds is thinning. He said soon he'll be able to act directly."
"Yeah, I heard." Rex shrugged. "Sounds like phase two of the event. First phase is just the hero. Second phase, the gods get involved. Probably means better loot."
"It's not a game!"
The words echoed across the courtyard. Servants flinched. Guards gripped their weapons. Even the players went still.
Silas stood among them, the unconscious gardener at his feet, and felt the weight of his isolation press down like a physical thing.
They couldn't understand. They wouldn't understand. To them, this was content. Entertainment. A really immersive expansion with great graphics and challenging mechanics. They didn't know that the man on the ground was real, that his suffering was real, that the god who had spoken through him was real and angry and looking for ways to kill everyone Silas cared about.
"Your Grace." Kael's voice was calm, measured. "I understand you're upset. But we need to focus. If the gods are getting involved, that changes our strategy. We need to adapt."
Silas wanted to scream. He wanted to grab Kael by the shoulders and shake him until he understood. But what would that accomplish? Even if he could convince them, even if they believed, what then? They'd panic. They'd leave. And he'd be alone.
Better this way. Better they remain ignorant. Better they treat his nightmare as entertainment, because entertainment kept them here, kept them fighting, kept them alive.
"You're right," he said. The words tasted like ash. "We need to adapt. What do you suggest?"
Kael nodded, accepting the shift. "First, we need to know if this is a one-time thing or if the god can do this whenever he wants. Z, I want you monitoring the castle. Any unusual light, any NPC acting strange, you report it immediately. Mira, Toren, expand the patrol radius. If the god is talking to people, he might be talking to people in the village too. We need to know if the civilians are turning against us."
The players acknowledged their orders and scattered.
Kael turned back to Silas. "Second, we need to accelerate the timeline. How long until the hero shows up in the books?"
"Three days. But that was before Solarius started adapting. He might send Elian sooner now."
"Then we have less time than we thought." Kael's digital face was unreadable, but his voice carried weight. "I need you to finish those notes. Everything about the hero, the gods, the prophecy. We're going to need every advantage we can get."
Silas nodded. It was the only thing he could do.
He looked down at the gardener one last time, then turned and walked back toward the castle.
Behind him, the players resumed their duties. The servants slowly returned to their tasks. The guards took up their posts.
Life went on.
But something had changed. Silas could feel it in the air, in the weight of the light that streamed down from the sky, in the way the shadows seemed deeper, darker, more dangerous.
Solarius was watching. And soon, he would act again.
---
The library became Silas's war room.
He wrote through the morning and into the afternoon, filling page after page with details from the books. The hero's childhood. His training. The friends he would make, the enemies he would defeat, the woman he would love. Every scrap of information might be useful. Every detail might become a weapon.
The players came and went, reporting their findings. No further divine incidents. No unusual activity in the village. The hero, as far as anyone could tell, had not yet begun his journey.
But Silas knew better. In the books, Elian's call to adventure came when the village elder was murdered. That murder had already happened—or rather, it had happened to the previous Duke's victim, the servant in the study. The elder was dead. The hero's journey had already begun.
Somewhere out there, a farm boy was grieving. Somewhere out there, a god was whispering in his ear, filling him with purpose, guiding him toward his destiny.
Toward Silas.
"Your Grace."
Silas looked up. Lily stood in the doorway, her digital face arranged in an expression of concern.
"There's something you should see."
He followed her through the castle, down corridors he was slowly learning to navigate, until they reached a small chapel attached to the main building. It was ancient, predating the current castle, a relic of a more devout age. The Duke's family had never been particularly religious, but tradition demanded a place of worship.
The chapel doors were open. Inside, a handful of servants knelt before the altar. They were praying.
That wasn't unusual. Servants prayed. That's what servants did.
What was unusual was the light.
It streamed through the chapel's single stained glass window—a window depicting Solarius, God of Light, in all his golden glory. The light was brighter than it should be, warmer, more focused. It fell upon the kneeling servants like a blessing.
And as Silas watched, one of them raised her head. Her eyes blazed with that same golden fire he'd seen in the gardener.
"The stranger approaches," she said, and her voice was layered, resonant, ancient. "The false duke comes to witness the faithful."
The other servants didn't react. They kept praying, oblivious, lost in their devotions. Only the possessed woman stared at Silas with those burning eyes.
"You cannot hide from us forever. The hero comes. The prophecy endures. And when you fall, stranger, your players will fall with you. We will burn through the veil between worlds. We will follow the connection back to its source. We will find your Earth, your people, your reality. And we will unmake it all."
Silas's blood turned to ice.
"This is not a threat, stranger. This is a promise. Resist, and everything you love will burn. Surrender, and perhaps we will be merciful. Perhaps we will let your world forget you ever existed."
The light flared. The woman collapsed.
Lily caught her this time, easing her to the floor, checking her pulse with professional efficiency.
"Same as the gardener," she reported. "Exhausted, but alive. Whatever that was, it's consistent."
Silas didn't answer. He couldn't. Because his mind was still processing what Solarius had said.
We will follow the connection back to its source. We will find your Earth.
The god wasn't just threatening him. He was threatening everyone. Every player. Every person on Earth who had ever logged into Eternal Kingdoms. Every family, every friend, every stranger who had nothing to do with this nightmare.
If Solarius broke through, if he followed the System's connection back to its origin, he wouldn't just destroy Silas. He would destroy a world.
"Your Grace?" Lily was looking at him now, concern deepening. "You're pale. Are you okay?"
"No," Silas heard himself say. "No, I'm not okay."
He turned away from the chapel, from the unconscious woman, from the light that still streamed through the window like a watching eye.
He had thought this was about survival. His survival. One man against destiny.
He had been wrong.
This was about something much, much bigger.
And for the first time since waking in this nightmare, Silas felt true fear.
---
Kael took the news with characteristic calm.
"He's bluffing," the raid leader said. "Or he's trying to intimidate you. Either way, it's a mechanic. We deal with mechanics."
"You don't understand," Silas insisted. They were in the great hall again, surrounded by players who listened with varying degrees of attention. "He's not just threatening me. He's threatening your world. Your Earth. Everyone you've ever known."
"Sure, that's what he said. But can he actually do it?" Kael crossed his arms. "Think about it from a game design perspective. If the god could just destroy the real world, that would be the end of the game. No more content. No more players. No more revenue. The devs wouldn't allow it."
"The devs aren't real! There is no game! This is real, all of it, and that god is real, and if he finds a way through—"
"Then we stop him." Kael's voice cut through Silas's panic like a blade. "That's what we do. We stop bosses. We counter mechanics. We adapt. If the god tries to break through, we find a way to block him. If the hero comes, we kill him. If the prophecy tries to fulfill itself, we break it. That's the job."
Silas stared at him. The calm certainty in that digital voice was almost enough to believe.
"You don't get it," he whispered. "You can't get it. To you, this is a game. To me, it's my life. And now it's everyone's life, and I don't know how to carry that."
Kael was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, he removed his helmet.
The face beneath was ordinary. Mid-thirties, tired eyes, a few days of stubble. Human. Real.
"I know it's not a game," Kael said quietly. "I've been raiding for fifteen years. I've seen players get obsessed, lose jobs, lose relationships, lose themselves. The game becomes their life. The line blurs. So yeah, maybe I don't understand your specific situation. But I understand stakes. I understand pressure. And I understand that the only way to win is to keep fighting, keep adapting, keep moving forward."
He put the helmet back on.
"So that's what we're going to do. We're going to fight. We're going to adapt. And when this god of yours tries to break through, we're going to be ready."
Silas wanted to argue. Wanted to explain that it wasn't the same, that real worlds and real lives couldn't be reduced to mechanics and strategies. But the words wouldn't come.
Because what else was there? What other option did he have?
"Okay," he said. "Okay. What do we do?"
Kael nodded. "First, we need more information. Z, I want you on the connection. Figure out how the god is talking to people. Is it line of sight? Proximity to holy symbols? Time of day? Find the trigger."
"On it." Z vanished.
"Second, we need to protect the civilians. Lily, coordinate with the Duke's steward. Identify anyone who might be susceptible to divine influence. Move them to secure locations if necessary. And keep healers on standby for anyone who gets possessed."
"Got it."
"Third." Kael turned to Silas. "We need to speed up the hero's timeline. If he's coming, I want him to come on our terms. Z's working on the possession mechanic. Mira and Toren are watching for signs of the hero's approach. But we need more. We need to draw him out."
"Draw him out? How?"
Kael's voice was grim. "The hero's motivation is revenge, right? For the elder you killed?"
"I didn't—" Silas stopped. Swallowed. "Yes. That's his motivation."
"Then we give him a target. We make it known that the Duke is preparing for war. That he's gathering forces. That he's a bigger threat than anyone realized. The hero won't wait. He'll come early, while he still thinks he can win."
"And if he brings an army?"
"Then we fight an army." Kael shrugged. "We've done it before. It's just more adds."
Silas looked around the hall. At the players, preparing for battle. At the shadows, gathering in the corners. At the windows, where sunlight streamed down like a watching eye.
Somewhere out there, a god was planning his destruction.
Somewhere out there, a hero was sharpening his sword.
And here, in the heart of the enemy's castle, a small group of gamers was preparing to fight destiny itself.
It was insane. It was impossible. It was the only chance they had.
"Okay," Silas said again. "Let's do it."
Kael nodded. "Good. Now get back to the library. Finish those notes. We need everything you remember."
Silas turned to go.
And then the light changed.
It wasn't dramatic. No golden blaze, no divine voice. Just a shift in the quality of the sunlight, a subtle dimming, as if something had passed between the castle and the sky.
Kael noticed it too. His hand went to his sword.
"Everyone, status. What just happened?"
The players checked their interfaces, their maps, their logs. One by one, they reported.
"No changes."
"Nothing on my end."
"Still connected. Still online."
But Silas knew. He couldn't explain how, but he knew.
Something had changed. Something fundamental.
He ran for the door.
The courtyard was empty. The sky was clear. The sun shone down as it always had. But the light was wrong. Too bright. Too focused. Too warm.
And in the center of the stones, where the gardener had knelt the day before, something was forming.
It started as a point of light. Then a sphere. Then a shape.
Human. Male. Young.
The light coalesced into flesh, into cloth, into features. Brown hair. Brown eyes. A face that was kind, open, honest.
The face of a farm boy who had lost everything.
Elian.
The hero stood in the courtyard of Castle Vicious, still forming, still solidifying, his eyes already fixed on Silas with an expression of pure, righteous fury.
Behind him, the light continued to shine.
And in that light, Silas saw something else. A presence. A consciousness. A god, watching, waiting, smiling.
Solarius had found a new way to adapt.
He had brought the hero early.
And he had brought him now.
---
[CHAPTER 3 END]