Although Sister Zoe had turned off her livestream, the players' yearning and excitent for Sekiro couldn't be switched off so easily.
The netizens who watched the broadcast were still hyped up. With the ga not yet released, they had nowhere to vent their energy—so they began sharing Sister Zoe's recorded livestream for repeated viewing.
In no ti, the replay videos skyrocketed to the top ten most viewed on major video platforms.
Other content creators even began analyzing Sekiro in-depth, using Sister Zoe's footage to predict the full plot, future bosses, and possible ga chanics.
Netizens eagerly listened to the analyses. After all, they couldn't play yet—this was the next best thing!
Honestly, they were suffering.
Overseas viewers were just as captivated. Although the ga's Chinese setting and language left them a bit confused about the story, they could easily tell just how incredible Sekiro was, just from the gaplay alone.
Within a few hours, every major Chinese social dia platform had Sekiro trending at the top of the charts!
The ga hadn't even released yet, and people were already making fan art and pairing up characters:
Yuko × Wolf, Eve × Wolf, Sculptor × Wolf, even Yuko × Eve...
The shipping energy was insane—more intense than anything even Deep Sea Trek had generated!
anwhile, overseas, at Valve's headquarters, the director had once again gathered the staff to watch Sister Zoe's livestream, just as he had during Deep Sea Trek.
When the stream ended, the entire room fell into stunned silence.
They couldn't compete.
There wasn't even a comparison.
Sekiro had completely redefined the action ga genre!
Sure, in older gas, you could perform flashy moves against enemies—but you just pressed buttons on a controller and watched animations happen.
But Sekiro?
It let players actually move. Actually swing swords. Actually fight!
The level of imrsion and realism wasn't even on the sa planet.
The director even thought, "You could record gaplay footage and literally market it as a martial arts movie."
"How the hell did such a monster studio even exist in this industry?!" he thought, practically tearing his hair out.
Last month, when Deep Sea Trek ca out, it had already caused Valve's player base to drop sharply.
Now with Sekiro looming on release day?
They were finished.
"Team, this is a life-and-death situation for our company. Any suggestions?" the director asked solemnly.
The employees, after a beat, all raised their hands and gave their thoughts:
"Keep reaching out to [New World] Studio—see if they'll agree to so kind of partnership!"
"Work even harder to reverse-engineer their tech. Maybe we can eventually create our own VR engine!"
"And when Sekiro drops... just buy it and play it hard!"
"...Eh?"
The director had been nodding approvingly until that last line.
He glared around the room but couldn't figure out who said it.
Still... he had to admit. That wasn't wrong either.
Even if they were competitors, there was no denying it—Sekiro looked like pure, addictive fun.
It wasn't just Valve feeling this way.
Nintendo, Ubisoft, Tencent—they all watched Sister Zoe's stream too. And every single executive ca to the sa conclusion:
We can't beat them. We're not even in the sa league.
The somatosensory suit assist technology alone had already put [New World] decades ahead.
But no matter how much these companies sighed or grumbled, deep down, every one of their employees couldn't wait to play Sekiro themselves.
anwhile...
At 1:00 a.m., inside a hospital inpatient ward in Shanghai.
Sister Zoe slowly opened her eyes, staring blankly at the white ceiling.
The air slled strongly of disinfectant, and the muted sounds of footsteps and hushed conversations filled the air.
"Where... am I?" she muttered groggily.
"You're awake..." ca an old, raspy voice next to her.
"To be honest, you've crossed over. You're now in the world of Sekiro. You've beco a one-ard wolf."
"WHAT?!"
Still disoriented, Sister Zoe's heart jumped into her throat. The voice even sounded eerily like the Sculptor's!
Panicked, she imdiately checked her left hand.
Was it a prosthetic now?!
To her imnse relief, her hand was still fair, slender, and attached to a normal human arm—only with an IV drip secured by dical tape.
So... just an infusion. Not a chanical arm.
"Whew... scared to death," Sister Zoe exhaled.
"Pfft. You actually believed it," chuckled a younger voice.
She turned her head and saw Charlie sitting beside her, grinning mischievously.
"Charlie..." she muttered, her mories slowly returning. She rembered ending her stream, sitting in her chair, asking Charlie for sothing—and then everything went black.
She couldn't recall anything after that.
"Here, drink so water." Charlie handed her a warm glass of water.
Sister Zoe sat up carefully, leaning against the pillow. She sipped the water—neither too cold nor too hot, just right. Charlie's carefulness ward her heart.
She gave him a soft, grateful look—only to find him looking at her like she was so sort of idiot.
No, not just an idiot—a special idiot.
Did she misunderstand? Maybe it was because she fainted?
Feeling suddenly uneasy, she quickly asked, "Charlie, what's wrong with ? Is it sothing serious?"
"Serious? Pfft." Charlie snorted. "You've got a serious case of being an idiot."
"Hey! I fainted! Don't joke about serious stuff!" Sister Zoe protested, pouting.
"Serious my ass!" Charlie shook his head.
"I've seen people faint from heatstroke. I've seen people faint from exhaustion.
But I've NEVER seen soone faint from... starvation."
"...Starvation?" Sister Zoe blinked.
Then it clicked.
Right—after the livestream, she'd felt incredibly hungry...
"The doctor said you exercised too much, barely ate anything all day, and passed out from low blood sugar," Charlie explained, spreading his hands helplessly.
"Ah, um..." Sister Zoe scratched her head awkwardly.
She tried to play the victim: "It's not my fault! Your Sekiro was just too much fun—I couldn't stop playing!"
Charlie raised his hand as if to smack her with a big slap of reality.
Sister Zoe imdiately flinched, quickly changing the subject: "O-oh! By the way, what were they giving in the IV?"
Charlie smirked.
"Your... precious fluids," he teased in a fake serious voice.
"????" Sister Zoe looked at him, utterly confused.
"Glucose," he said, rolling his eyes.
"What else could it be? You starved yourself, genius."
"Oh..." Sister Zoe mumbled.
Charlie handed her a pack of bread and milk.
"Here. Eat sothing."
The mont she slled food, her stomach growled loudly. She grabbed the bread eagerly.
Her hands were a little clumsy with the IV still in, so Charlie punctured the straw into the milk carton for her and held it to her mouth.
Nibbling bread and sipping milk, Sister Zoe finally felt alive again.
"You scared half to death, you know that?" Charlie grumbled.
"You locked yourself in your room for hours.
I thought you were resting—until I checked and found you collapsed on the floor next to your chair.
Face pale, cold sweat everywhere."
"I had to carry you to the car and rush you to the hospital myself.
It was so bad that I didn't even have ti to register you properly.
I just sprinted straight into the ER, shouting:
'Doctor! Doctor! Soone's dying here!!!'"
Sister Zoe turned red, half mortified, half amused.
"And then what happened?" she asked weakly.
Charlie snorted.
"The doctor rushed over, checked you, then rolled his eyes and said:
'Relax. She's just starving.'"
"Pfffft!!!"
Sister Zoe couldn't hold it in—she burst out laughing.
"Yeah, laugh it up," Charlie grumbled.
"You have any idea how many people gathered around? All of them thought it was so life-or-death situation!
When they heard it was just hypoglycemia, they laughed so hard they almost needed ergency treatnt themselves!"
Sister Zoe laughed even harder, nearly spitting out her milk.
Seeing Charlie glare at her like he wanted to smack her, she quickly wiped her mouth, straightened her face, and said solemnly:
"I'm sorry, Charlie...
It won't happen again."
"Hmph. Next ti you faint from hunger, I'm leaving you there," he said, pretending to be stern.
"But then you'd lose your cute, lovable big sister!" Sister Zoe said, batting her eyelashes.
Charlie deadpanned, "Losing such a dumb sister would honestly be a blessing."
Sister Zoe chuckled, finishing her bread and milk.
Charlie, anwhile, scrolled through his phone.
Almost every trending topic online was related to Sekiro.
He smirked.
Foolish mortals. Worship more!
Then sothing else caught his eye.
"Huh... already? Soone's posted Sekiro fanart on P Station?! And it's pretty spicy too!"
"Wait, seriously?" Charlie muttered, intrigued.
He glanced over to make sure Sister Zoe wasn't paying attention, then quietly leaned against the wall and opened P Station.
Sure enough, the hopage was flooded with Tifa fanart—Tifa in various outfits, most of them very... creative.
Charlie wasn't surprised. Ever since Tifa's release in Deep Sea Trek, she had taken the internet by storm.
Her popularity had exploded across all fandom spaces.
Charlie briefly considered whether he should release Tifa's 3D model to the public...
It would make a lot of fans happy, but also risk exposing [New World]'s modeling technology.
Hmm... better not.
Maybe he could secretly upload so short Tifa clips himself, using a burner account...
Cough. Focus, Charlie, focus.
He scrolled down and finally found the Sekiro fanart.
"Hmm, this Eve × Wolf art looks pretty nice."
"...Wait, what's this? Yuko × Wolf?!
Bro, she's like twelve—have so decency!"
"And what the hell—who paired the Sculptor with the Wolf?!"
Charlie's expression froze.
He looked just like that old of an old man glaring at his phone on the subway.
Several tis over.
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