Chapter 1: The Fall Of Ares If there was a game that one could say shook the very foundation of the modern world, it would be Fall of Ares. That wasn’t just some marketing gimmick or fanboy overhype — it was a fact. The day this game launched, social media died, relationships crumbled, and people stopped bathing. Fall of Ares wasn’t your run-of-the-mill "enter academy, make friends, kiss waifu, and punch demon king" RPG. No, no. This was pain. Real pain. Produced by the legendary but mildly sadistic developers at Tenebris Studios, Fall of Ares had the most intricately crafted plotline in gaming history. The worldbuilding was rich, the characters were hauntingly real, and the stakes? Unfairly high. Especially for the heroines. They weren’t plot-armored love interests. They were martyrs. Sacrifices for the greater good. Disposable lambs for the world’s salvation. And now, sitting in a pitch-black room with only the glow of a laptop screen illuminating his bespectacled face, a young man was witnessing their end. "...Dammit." On the screen, the final boss — The Goddess of Calamity, the last of the Children of the Sky — let out a shriek as the ultimate attack played out. "Dear Hero, don’t let their deaths be in vain!" the final heroine’s voice cried out in the background before crumpling to the ground. Her soul, a unique purplish sphere rushed into Reinhard’s sword. The young man gritted his teeth. "I know, I know. I’m literally doing everything here." Reinhard, the protagonist of the game, raised his gleaming sword — Astral Severance. Mana spiraled around him, golden aura clashing with purple storm clouds. His armor had been shattered, his body broken, and all the heroines were already gone — dead in spectacular, heart-shattering ways. This final move dubbed as the Universal Slash was only possible after the final heroine, Selene, burned away her bloodline, her soul, and all her memories to create the mana reservoir needed to fuel it. All for this one strike. With a single swing, Reinhard cleaved through the goddess. Time shattered. Reality warped.The screen exploded in light, and then... [Game Clear.] [Humanity has survived.] "Barely," the young man muttered. His glasses had fogged up again. He leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms with a creak that sounded more like an old door than a 20-something-year-old man. His name? Azel Winters. He was a college dropout. A full time Introvert as well as a self-proclaimed master gamer. "...What kind of bullshit ending was that?" He rubbed his eyes, his voice rough. "All the heroines dead, the world basically nuked, and the MC’s probably sterile from all the divine radiation. Yay, we won." He wasn’t new to dark games. He had played Soul Sacrifice, Endlight, and that one game where you spent 60 hours just to die from taxes. But this? This hurt. Azel still remembered the first heroine who died — Serenya Althaine, the hot-headed flame swordswoman with too much pride and too little self-preservation. She died in the first calamity saving the academy. Then Irene, the cold, emotionless lightning mage, who short-circuited herself while rerouting the energy grid to stop the thunder colossus. Then Liora, the bubbly summoner girl, who accidentally bonded her soul to a primordial beast and went down smiling as it devoured her. All of them. One by one. Gone. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖 And each death was so detailed. So gut-wrenchingly written. He had cried. And he wasn’t ashamed of it. Okay, maybe a little ashamed. But only in the manly way. With sniffles. Just as he was about to close the laptop, a new screen appeared. One he hadn’t seen before. [CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE CLEARED "FALL OF ARES" IN RECORD TIME – 13 DAYS, 8 HOURS] [NEW RECORD UNLOCKED!] [WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAVE THE HEROINES...?] [YES / NO] His heart stopped. "...Huh?" Was this a new DLC? A patch? A mod? Was someone pranking him? Save the heroines? His mouse hovered over the "Yes" button. There wasn’t even a second of hesitation. Azel clicked. The screen flashed white. For a moment, he thought the power had gone out. Then his screen changed. A cutscene began to play. Rain. A narrow alleyway. Someone limping in the shadows. Was this... Selene’s old memory? Or — Suddenly, his chest constricted. He clutched at it, gasping. His vision blurred. The sound of rain became real. Too real. "What the fu—" And then everything went black. ... He awoke with a groan. Everything hurt. His head was pounding, his back sore, and his wrists were — Clink. His hands were in chains. "What the fuck?" Rain pattered down on him, cold and unrelenting. He was being dragged. Literally. By two men in dark cloaks. He looked around. They were in an alleyway that looked exactly like the one from the cutscene. Stone walls. Cracked cobblestone. The smell of wet iron and blood... in the air. His body felt... smaller? Thinner? He looked down. A tunic. Ragged trousers. Mud-caked boots. "What is happening?" The two cloaked men stopped. One looked at him with a sneer. "He’s awake." "Should we break the other leg too?" the other one asked casually. "...Excuse me?" "Shut it, worm." Azel blinked, heart thudding. No, no, no. This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a post-credit DLC. This was the world of Fall of Ares. And he had just respawned... as a no-name criminal being dragged through the slums. He stared up at the gray sky. The rain poured harder. He let out a long, exhausted sigh. "...Of course. Of fucking course."