Ethan’s life continued on without anything worth ntioning.
Every day, he stread for long hours—spending all his ti isolated from the real world.
He had reached his late twenties, which ant his youth was already slipping away.
And although he was aware of that fact... Ethan didn’t really care.
Curled up inside his safe space, he genuinely believed he would spend the rest of his days living exactly like this.
His life was like a mirror without ripples—unchanging, stagnant.
Until one day... everything was turned upside down.
On the morning of the very first day of the new year, the world woke up to unexpected news that seed to co out of nowhere.
One of the most famous ga developers in the industry announced that his new ga would be released soon.
The announcent caused a massive uproar.
Not because of the ga alone—but because it was accompanied by a mad declaration from the developer himself.
---
"Hello everyone. This is developer Ishizaki.
As many of you know, I have always chased the dream of creating the perfect RPG.
My relentless pursuit of that difficult ideal led to create the Souls-like genre—loved and hated by many of you at the sa ti.
After years of continuous developnt, and nurous titles released by my studio, I am proud to announce my final ga.
The ultimate challenge.
The definitive experience.
A conclusion to everything that ca before it.
I am pleased to announce that my upcoming ga—Ordeal—will be releasing soon.
It will be unlike anything I’ve made before.
A vast, richly crafted world—the largest to date.
And new blood that will change this genre forever.
The challenge will be brutal.
I assure you .. there has never been, and will never be, anything like Ordeal.
But the reward... is just as imnse.
Whoever completes the ga will not only gain glory—
They will gain sothing far greater.
I hereby declare that I will give all of my shares in my ga developnt company to the person who succeeds in finishing the ga ! .
Conquer Ordeal...
and claim the ultimate glory!"
---
That was the essence of the announcent—one that sent shockwaves through the entire gaming community.
In fact, it reached far beyond gaming itself.
All because of the final part of his historic declaration.
"Has Ishizaki completely lost his mind? Do you even realize how much his shares are worth? We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars, at the very least..."
Stunned by what he had just seen and heard, Ethan sat with his face practically glued to the screen.
The chat window flew by at terrifying speed, viewers reacting wildly to the insane announcent.
Viewers: 4,081
MrTrashKim:
This is absolute madness. Is he really planning to give up his shares to whoever clears the ga?
BlackRose:
Maybe it’s just a publicity stunt—to get more people to buy the ga.
VenusPanties:
That makes no sense. His studio is already hugely successful with a massive fanbase. There’s no reason for him to pull a stunt like this and risk destroying everything he’s built over the years.
The chat box descended into total chaos.
Everyone voiced their opinions about the massive announcent made by the most famous Souls-like developer on the scene—the very man who invented the genre.
Ethan, on the other hand, remained silent.
He replayed the announcent again... and again.
"Ordeal..."
Just what kind of ga would make its creator willing to hand over millions of dollars to whoever finished it?
SquareDick:
Assuming the reward is real... doesn’t that an the ga will be insanely difficult? Like—unholy levels of hard.
MrTrashKim:
Wait... difficulty? If it’s about difficulty, isn’t our Moon the best there is?
VenusPanties:
He’s right. This degenerate cleared every Souls ga without taking a single hit. Aren’t his chances insanely high?
BlackRose:
Just imagine if he actually does it. That would be a historic achievent!
"A historic achievent..."
Ethan read those words .. and sothing new lit up in his eyes.
He finally understood the sheer magnitude of the opportunity before him.
Who would’ve thought that these simple gas he had always played... could open a door like this?
Just imagining it made his heart feel like it might burst out of his chest.
With a wide grin that bared his teeth to every viewer, Ethan stood up and declared loudly:
"I’ll finish that ga! even if it’s the last thing I ever do! Ordeal, or whatever the hell it’s called—bring it on! Give your worst! Hahaha!"
Ethan laughed like a madman, while the viewers mocked him—crowning him the greatest masochist of all ti.
Morale was sky-high.
And Ethan found himself unable to wait for the day Ordeal would finally be released.
He wasn’t alone.
The entire world was anticipating that mont.
And the biggest reason was the developer’s insane reward.
That alone turned Ordeal into the largest ga launch in history, surpassing even titles like GTA VI.
What the developer did angered many other studios, who labeled the move as dirty and underhanded.
But their criticism changed nothing.
The mont Ordeal was released, it sold tens of millions of copies in a single day—to the point that every major platform crashed under the load.
Fortunately, Ethan received an early copy, given that he owned one of the most prominent channels dedicated to Souls-like content.
And so—
Screens lit up.
Controllers were gripped tightly.
Players took their first steps into the ga described as the perfect RPG experience...
Ordeal.
The opening was unlike anything they had ever seen.
The technical and visual fidelity alone left players utterly stunned.
The ga’s initial story, however, felt familiar.
Ordeal told the tale of a world struck by a curse known as the Curse of Darkness.
The curse crept across the land, transforming all it touched into grotesque, filthy beings—stripping them of their humanity and turning them into monsters that looked as though they had crawled straight out of hell.
Creatures known as Night Walkers.
The curse was brought about by an entity called the Night Lord—a being who shattered the Light into fragnts and plunged the entire world into darkness.
Its origins were shrouded in mystery.
No one knew where the curse had co from.
The fragnts of Light scattered across the world ... And each boss in the ga possessed one of them.
The player was required to defeat the bosses one after another—strengthening themselves by absorbing souls, and collecting the Fragnts of Light in order to combat the curse and ultimately face the Night Lord.
That was the premise presented to the players.
A simple outline ..
before the real ga began, and they found themselves stepping into its breathtaking world for the first ti.
A vast, richly detailed world.
The NPCs possessed an astonishing level of intelligence—so much so that they felt like living, breathing characters rather than lifeless models driven by artificial intelligence.
Combat styles were diverse.
The ga was a visual masterpiece.
Within the first hour of gaplay, players around the world beca convinced of one thing:
They were witnessing the greatest RPG ever made.
But everything changed the mont the true challenge began ..
when they collided with the very first boss at the start of the ga.
"YOU DIED."
That ssage began to repeat itself with terrifying frequency across players’ screens worldwide.
Just as the NPCs felt intelligent and alive—
the bosses shared the sa trait.
A highly advanced artificial intelligence allowed them to adapt to each player—changing their behavior with every attempt, rembering every previous encounter.
Bosses that once followed fixed, predictable move sets had beco sothing else entirely.
Sothing far more sinister.
And that wasn’t all.
They were also granted an absurd number of abilities.
Together, these factors turned the experience into a living hell ..
to the point where most players failed to defeat even the first boss, despite fighting it hundreds of tis.
Only then did the world finally understand the true aning behind the developer’s words.
And the real reason he had dared to offer such a deranged reward.
Even among the best players attempting to conquer the ga—
Ethan was suffering imnsely.
He found himself dying over and over again every ti he tried to make progress.
Overwhelmingly powerful bosses that adapted to whatever the player used against them.
A living, breathing world that punished every mistake without rcy.
An extre—borderline absurd—difficulty that turned the entire experience into tornt.
All of it forced Ethan to pause for long monts during his streams, having died so many tis that he’d lost count.
The chat window fell silent as well.
His viewers were just as shocked by what they were witnessing.
Viewers: 4,120
MrTrashKim:
What the hell is this? Are you telling this is just the first boss?
VenusPanties:
This difficulty is simply impossible. I heard the ga has a massive number of bosses... If the first one is this hard, what are the later bosses even going to look like?
SquareDick:
We’ve been scamd, guys. That bastard Ishizaki took our money and designed a ga that screws its players.
Comnts continued to pour in—
all carrying the sa sentint.
Everyone who played or even watched Ordeal felt disgusted by its escalating difficulty.
So players demanded refunds.
Social dia exploded as players turned against developer Ishizaki and his studio, one after another.
What he had done was labeled the scam of the century.
With a single statent, he had convinced hundreds of millions of players to buy his ga—
only for them to discover a ga that could not be completed.
From the very beginning, his declaration had been nothing more than a trap—designed to attract as many people as possible and make them spend their money without hesitation on an impossible ga.
And what cented public opinion even further ..
was Ishizaki’s sudden, mysterious disappearance imdiately after the release of Ordeal.
In this way, the ga’s popularity collapsed rapidly.
Players gave up on trying to finish it.
After all, the core purpose of gas was enjoynt .. and there was no enjoynt in a ga that could not be beaten.
And yet—
despite everything, a considerable group of players continued to try.
Among them was Ethan.
Or The Moon You, as he called himself.
One of the most prominent among the stubborn few.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
Then months.
With each passing day, more and more players abandoned the challenge.
But Ethan continued.
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