The Billionaire's Last Game

Chapter 6: The Storm

The Billionaire strode quickly through a fortified hallway, his footsteps echoing against walls of reinforced metal, walls so dense that even glitches couldn’t breach them. The red emergency lights flashing overhead bathed the corridor in warning, their pulse signaling disaster.

He reached the control room, and his eyes widened at the sight before him.

“What’s going on?!” the Billionaire barked, his voice reverberating through the chamber.

No one dared to answer. Every operator simply stood frozen, their gazes locked on the giant holographic display in front of them.

The screen showed a storm, no ordinary storm, but a clash so devastating it seemed to warp the battlefield itself.

The Billionaire’s expression twisted in fury.

“No… What the hell are they doing there?!” he shouted, his words edged with disbelief. They weren’t supposed to be there. Not in that place.

Cut to the Sovereign Guild captains.

Steve, the one who commanded above the rest, was flung violently back toward the safezone. His body slammed into the ground, leaving him coughing up blood, kneeling with nothing but a snapped blade in hand. His obsidian armor was shattered, every protective rune extinguished, leaving him exposed and broken.

“I was thrown…? Almost into space?!” he thought, his mind spinning at the absurdity. He tried to rise but his body betrayed him, forcing him back to his knees.

That was when the ground beneath him lit crimson. A pentagram spread under his feet, searing its shape into the soil. Steve’s eyes widened in horror.

> System: Protection Barrier Activated. As long as you remain within the safezone, nothing unleashed against you can break through. An unshatterable barrier has been cast.

A translucent shield flared around him just as the pentagram erupted into hellfire. The barrier trembled but held firm, consuming the attack until the flames finally vanished. Steve exhaled, shaken but alive.

Meanwhile, far below on the zone’s ravaged surface, the true storm raged. The six remaining captains dashed between thunderous strikes and cataclysmic blasts, their movements frantic not in pursuit of victory, but of survival.

They weren’t fighting to win. They were fighting simply not to die.

Violet blurred from side to side, vanishing in desperate bursts of speed, barely holding on against the storm around her. Then, a figure emerged. An unknown player, his eyes blazing white, stepped out of the chaos with lightning coiled in his hand like a weapon.

"What?! How is he holding lightning?!" Her thoughts raced as her feet tangled, tripping her momentum. She fell hard, the ground ripping the air from her lungs, leaving her exposed.

The player roared, hurling the lightning downward. Violet instinctively raised her arms, as if that could shield her from a god’s fury. The strike connected. A deafening thunder followed, tearing through her body, and blood burst from her lips as pain flooded every nerve.

"I'm completely paralyzed!? What is this!? I'm a captain! How—?!" Violet’s thoughts spiraled as her body refused to move. She caught a glimpse of the unknown player looming above, grinning wide, lightning dancing in his fist.

He roared, swinging his arm down, lightning screaming toward her. Violet braced for the end.

But the strike never landed. A shadow cut across her vision, intercepting the blast. Arms seized her, lifting her from the ground in a blur before vanishing into the chaos.

“Veil!?” Violet gasped, her voice ragged. She clutched his cloak, seeing its edges torn and burned. “Your cloak, it’s damaged! If you keep using invisibility, your mana will drain completely!”

Veil’s single remaining eye glinted through the haze, his body trembling with wounds, blood trailing from his lips.

“Violet!” he hissed, his tone sharp with urgency. “The System tricked us, it led us to death! This is the Valley of the Broken Gods!” His words shook as much as his body. “They’re not monsters… they’re players. Players thousands of levels above us, locked in a stalemate for over a millennium!”

“This is no Zone!” Violet shouted, her voice trembling with disbelief. “This is a storm! A stalemate of godlike players? I didn’t even know such a thing could exist!”

Meanwhile, Kyle had returned to the Broken Zone. A tattered sweater hung on his frame, and his ancient wand rested in his right hand. The cold bit deep, every breath escaping his lips as mist.

His steps slowed. His eyes softened, a sadness welling up as they locked on a figure in the distance, a fallen captain of the Sovereign Guild, encased in ice, forever frozen mid-battle.

“I came here looking for answers…” Kyle thought, clutching the wand tighter. The sight gnawed at him, but his resolve pushed him forward. “If this is the path to that Zone, then so be it.”

He paused before the icy monument, lowering his head. “I know he’s gone, but… it wouldn’t be so bad if I came to give my respect.”

Suddenly, his eyes widened when the System came in buzzing. His heart pounded, he almost thought it was a monster.

"This System is going to give me a heart attack one day… What now?" he muttered, staring at the frozen captain.

> System Alert: New quest detected. “Are you ready?”

Kyle froze, his breath fogging in the cold. Then, without hesitation, he whispered, “Yes.”

> System Update: Anomaly detected. Subject classified as Captain – Sovereign Guild.

Status: Self-induced temporal cryostasis.

Estimated survival probability: 12%.

Objective: Extraction required.

Reward upon success: Tier A Item.

Kyle’s hands trembled as his thoughts raced. “Alive? He’s alive…! He froze himself, every part of him... to preserve what little chance he had. Waiting for someone… waiting for me.”

The ancient wand in his grip pulsed once, as if answering the quest.

"He knows I'm the only one who knows this place better than anyone else. And cryostasis? That's the most captain move I've ever seen, a big brain move!" Kyle muttered with a grin as he approached, pressing the tip of his wand against the captain’s heart.

"You're coming back!" he declared as the wand flared with light, the ice cracking and melting from the captain’s chest outward.

Suddenly, Kyle’s wand pulsed and released a bubble of light that swallowed both him and the frozen captain. The air warped, glowing blue as everything outside slowed to a crawl.

> System: Time Reverse has been activated. Within this bubble, you may bend the past.

Kyle’s heart thudded. “Reverse time!? Could I bring him back, before he froze the entire valley?”

He focused, dragging the timeline back. Images warped and blurred until—there. The moment the Sovereign captain raised his blade, frost surging from his body to seal the valley in ice.

Before the final release, Kyle lunged forward, seizing the captain’s wrist.

The captain’s eyes flared wide. “You—!?”

The bubble cracked, its blue sheen collapsing into purple sparks before vanishing. Both men dropped to the ground, gasping.

> System: Casting Time Reverse has consequences: Temporary blindness — 30 seconds. Fatigue: movement crippled.

Kyle knelt, blackness covering his sight, his chest heaving. The captain coughed blood, one knee pressed into the frost.

“I saved your ass… Captain of the Sovereign Guild,” Kyle said with a ragged grin, smiling into the dark.

The System chimed again, cold and calm.

> System: A Tier A reward is available. Would you like to see what it is?