Sera uploaded the footage at nine in the morning.
Kai got the notification while making breakfast.
His phone buzzed. ssage from Sera. "Sending you the edit first. Eighteen minutes. Watch it before I post."
He downloaded the file. Stood in the kitchen with his phone in his hand for a full minute before pressing play. Eighteen minutes of a graveyard dungeon and a level thirty-seven boss, and the two of them making decisions under conditions that, watching from outside, looked significantly far less survivable than it had felt inside the dungeon.
He sent back a single ssage.
Good edit.
Sera’s response ca in four seconds.
Obviously.
He put the phone down. Then picked it up again and watched the last thirty seconds one more ti. The General collapsing, Sera landing, and the silence after.
She posted it twenty minutes later.
The site lagged imdiately.
Then it crashed for eleven seconds. The title appeared online in bold letters: "C-rank Clear - Undead General."
The views exploded instantly.
It was not just the original upload spreading.
Within the first ten minutes, six separate clip channels had already cut sections out of the eighteen minutes and posted them individually.
The first Grave Warden kill.
The cross-switch with Sera.
The mont the General walked through its own explosion and the final strike.
Each one was titled differently, and finding a slightly different audience. Yet in the end, it sent them back to the original video.
The clips drove people to the full upload.
The full upload created more clips. The cycle was already running faster than any single platform could asure.
Because everyone was desperate now.
Desperate for information, for strategy, for proof that soone could survive these increasingly impossible dungeons. The comnts flooded in imdiately, a torrent of reactions and analysis.
...
Sora was eating breakfast when her phone started going off.
Four hundred ssages in thirty seconds.
"Okay," she said to her empty apartnt. "What happened?"
Then she saw it, a video posted fifteen minutes ago. "C-rank Clear - Undead General."
The view counter was climbing so fast it looked broken.
Two hundred thousand.
Three hundred thousand.
Four hundred thousand.
This was a mont, and then she saw a ssage from Kai, making her eyes widen as she quickly read what he sent.
"Oh my god," Sora said.
She shoved her plate aside and opened her streaming setup. Her fingers slipped on the keyboard once before she clicked through her equipnt checks.
This wasn’t normal attention anymore.
By the ti she went live, the footage had hit six hundred thousand views. Her chat was already losing its mind.
Everyone is freaking out!
Sora, you need to watch this video now!
IT’S EIGHTEEN MINUTES OF PURE INSANITY!
The boss is level 37!
"Okay, okay!" Sora laughed, but her voice was higher than normal. "We’re watching this together. All eighteen minutes. I want to see everything."
She pulled up the video and took a breath. "Let’s go."
The first Grave Warden appeared on screen with a flaming sword, ancient armor, and it was Level twenty-five.
Sora paused it imdiately.
"Look at that weapon," she said, pointing at the screen. "That is an actual rare weapon! Like the ones so players have! Sohow these monsters are using high-level weapons!"
Her chat exploded.
Wait... Since when could monsters use those types of weapons!?
How do you even fight that?
Has that ever happened before!?
"No other monsters did except for the bosses of the dungeons," Sora said flatly. "But that isn’t the most insane part... watch this."
She let it play.
Kai moved through the first wave without appearing to hurry, which was sohow the most unsettling part of watching it. The Grave Wardens swung their weapons, and he moved between them swiftly.
Sora frowned. She rewound fifteen seconds and watched it again.
"Wait," she said slowly. "Wait! Wait! Wait."
She paused on Kai’s footwork before drawing a circle on the screen around where he was standing. "Look at his feet. Not his sword. His feet!"
Her chat went quiet but so were clipping the mont.
"He’s moving before the Warden attacks," Sora voice was getting louder. "Look. The Warden’s arm is still raising its sword. Kai is already stepping to the side. He’s not reacting. He’s predicting."
Two seconds of silence in chat.
Then:
Wait!? How is that–
He really did move before it started!
Rewind it again!
Sora’s eyes got wider. "He’s reading the attack before it happens," she said quietly. "He’s seeing sothing we’re not seeing."
For the first ti since she beca a strear, Sora felt like she was watching soone fundantally different from everyone else.
And then the whole chat reacted to Sora’s confirmation, hundreds of people all rewinding at the sa mont, all arriving at the sa answer independently, the chat beca one long version of the sa realization.
Soone in her chat dropped a link to a fra-by-fra breakdown that had already been posted. Not a full video, just a series of screenshots with red circles drawn around Kai’s feet and arrows showing his movent direction.
It even had tistamps to specific monts in the footage, with the caption: He moves BEFORE the attack starts. Every ti. Without exception.
The post had been up for four minutes and already had forty thousand shares. Soone else had done the sa thing with the sword angles.
A third person had gone quieter and more specific, posting a spreadsheet tracking exactly how many milliseconds ahead of each attack Kai’s body had already committed to its counter-position. The number was consistent across twelve separate engagents to within a tenth of a second.
Nobody in the comnts could explain how that was humanly possible. The spreadsheet person’s userna was getting more attention than the spreadsheet.
Sora unpaused the footage.
The Ashen Knights ca through in the next section, level twenty-eight, greatswords with burning runes that detonated on impact.
She watched Kai take the angle on the first one and paused the footage. "No, no, no, look at THIS," she said, tapping the screen rapidly. "He just killed that knight, right? But watch where he’s standing. That position doesn’t make sense for the knight he just killed."
She let it play two more seconds. The next knight swung. Kai was already in position to counter.
"THERE!" Sora almost shouted. "He set up the second kill while finishing the first one! He’s playing the fight three moves ahead!"
Her chat lost it.
That’s insane!
How can you even do this!? He has no class!
Could it be because of a rare piece of equipnt!?
Who cares, it’s aweso!
I can’t handle this!
Sora was grinning now. "This is why live reactions matter. Because sotis you get to watch history happen."
The footage continued through the corridor section, Sera’s light swords raining down in columns while Kai moved through the disruption they created with a precision that looked choreographed until you understood it was not because no one had told him where Sera’s strikes were going to land.
"They haven’t run together that many tis," Sora said, mostly to herself. "But look at this. She drops the light column, and he’s already in the gap. She doesn’t signal it. He just knows." She leaned toward the screen. "He’s reading her the sa way he reads the monsters."
Even Sora looked unsettled after saying it.
They move like they’ve been doing this for years!
Sera is carrying too, let’s be real!
Sera is insane, but KAI is sothing else entirely.
Then the boss’s room.
The video had been building toward this for twelve minutes, and when the General appeared on screen, her chat went completely silent for three seconds before erupting simultaneously.
Holy crap it’s big!
Four rare weapons!?
Level 37!? Are you kidding !
Sora, I’m scared!
Sora read the level display, and her face went pale.
"Level thirty-seven," Sora said quietly, reading the display that appeared when the boss registered in the footage. "In a C-rank dungeon. That is seventeen levels above Kai." She sat back. "I have never seen anyone fight ten levels above themselves. Because the results are that you will die! It’s why players who aren’t level twenty can’t tackle C-rank dungeons!"
But the gap for Kai is even bigger than that!
THEY’RE GOING TO DIE!
SORA I CAN’T WATCH!
"They’re not dead," Sora said. "I know they’re not dead because I’m watching the footage they uploaded. But I also understand why you’re scared. Because I’m scared too."
Chat slowed again.
But they were also agreeing with her.
The General’s flaming sword battered the stone into fragnts. The ice scythe carved grooves through the walls. Explosions rocked the chamber. Sera’s armor groaned and cracked. Kai staggered as a wind spear tore into his shoulder. Then the General simply strode through its own blast.
Completely unscathed.
Sora made a strangled sound, half scream, half sob of disbelief.
Her chat wasn’t doing any better.
THE EXPLOSION DID NOTHING!
They are so dead! Nothing they are doing seems to be working!
On-screen, Kai halted dead center. The General still advanced and yet sothing in Kai seed to have changed as his eyes narrowed.
Chat slowed.
Not because people lost interest but because thousands of people were staring without typing.
Sora froze the footage. "Right here," she said, voice tight. "Zoom in on him." She nudged the image closer. "See that? He seed to have realized sothing and is now thinking of a plan."
Chat flew questions:
What did he find!?
Is it the boss’s weakness!?
How did he find it!
"I don’t know," Sora admitted. "But watch."
She hit play, and the next forty seconds played out like a movie: Kai signaling Sera for more ti, Sera diving into an incoming strike to stall the General, Thread Caster hurling debris overhead, Pulse Fist shattering the floor, and finally Kai’s blade sliding into a hidden joint.
Revealing the weakness.
"Sera!" Kai’s voice rang through the speakers.
Sera rose as a colossal golden sword materialized in her grasp. Light poured outward, engulfing everything, and then the General shattered.
Silence.
Sora sat motionless, eyes glued to the screen. Ten seconds ticked by. Then chat flooded with tears and cheers:
I almost broke my phone in shock!
They really did it... unbelievable...
A LEVEL 20 PLAYER JUST BEAT A LEVEL 37 BOSS!
THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN!
Sora’s eyes glistened. "I need a minute," she whispered. "Give one second." She brushed away tears, then laughed, breathless. "That was the most insane thing I’ve ever watched."
A comnt pinned itself at the top of the chat: "That’s not luck. He moves like he already knows where danger will be before it happens."
Sora read it aloud, slowly. Then she queued up every clip of Kai’s past runs—every dungeon people swore was impossible. "Oh my god," she murmured.
She faced the cara. "He’s been doing this the entire ti. It was never luck, and it was never the weapons."
The class debate had reignited harder than it ever had before and this ti it was not people dismissing the Null designation.
Okay! Seriously, what the hell is the Null Class!? Is it really no class, or is it sothing the system can’t define?
Maybe it could be above Epic Class!? Maybe the system can’t define classes like that! Think about it! Only Kai has Null Class, and no one else in the city, or from what I research, the world!
At this point, the null class isn’t a limitation but an unknown. The question becos... Is it the Class doing the work, or is it just Kai’s godlike talent?
Maybe the system marked him Null because it couldn’t classify him safely.
Sora’s smile grew at these comnts before pausing and saying. "No wonder Ironpact collapsed," Sora said.
Her chat flooded instantly.
Ironpact! Wait, don’t tell it really was him!?
No way!
Sora laughed imdiately. "I don’t really know!" But her grin widened as she looked back at the footage. "But if this is how he fights? Then honestly? I’d believe it."
...
By lunch, the footage had three million views.
Every major strear had already reacted and the forums were still going. But in the forums, the tone shifted completely. The thread from weeks ago, the one with eleven thousand likes and hundreds of replies about Kai.
It now had thousands of new replies.
All saying the sa thing.
"I was wrong."
"This is real."
"How is this possible?"
"He actually did it."
The poll that got deleted before was quickly recreated by soone else. The question this ti asked whether Kai Rosefield could reach Victor Hale’s level of strength.
Before, no one had said yes.
But now?
Over forty percent believed.
Kai was at ho when his phone started going off. He blinked before he saw it was ssages from strangers. Then it was guild invitations, and even interview requests. His lips twitched at these before he turned off notifications and set it face down on the table, but it kept buzzing against the wood.
Mina looked up from her book. "What’s happening?"
"Sera posted the footage."
"And?"
He slid the phone across the table. The numbers climbed too quickly to process cleanly and her expression changed.
"Three million people watched you fight?"
"Yeah."
She looked up at him. "Kai. That’s the whole city."
Leo ca running from his room, phone in hand, and his eyes shining.
"Hana just texted ," he said breathlessly. "She said sorry for not believing . She said you’re trending. She said you’re ACTUALLY trending."
He showed his phone, and it displayed the trending searches page.
[Mythal city Trending Searchers:]
B-Rank Advancent
Mythical C-Rank Locations
Raze
Kai Rosefield
He sat with his phone in his hands and read the number again. Back when the video of him leaving the dungeon unscathed while Daniel’s own team was damaged had failed. Many had dismissed what they were seeing and even believed he had cheated to clear a gate. But now, the story was different; they all saw the truth.
Kai set the phone down slowly.
Fourth in the city.
Kai stared at the number longer than he ant to. And then felt a warmth in his chest before the sounds of the chain cracking echoed out.
[External Attention: Increasing.]
[True Fans Gained: 3.]
Three more.
Kai blinked before looking at Mina and Leo, who were grinning at the video of him clearing the Undead General playing.
Mina and Leo had just watched eighteen minutes of him fighting sothing that should have killed him.
That was the threshold.
Not trust on its own, but seeing the work. If he had kept it all hidden, he might never have unlocked this at all. Kai suddenly understood that hiding himself completely might have been impossible from the beginning.
User Comments
0 comments from readers