Team Zero stood among the dead on Floor 9 while nobody moved for a long moment because the fight was finally over.

Finn was still gripping his axe with blood running down his face. Aria sat on a broken barricade and laughed weakly from pure disbelief while Elliot lowered his bow with shaking hands and stared at the empty settlement.

Kael kept the circlet active for a few more seconds before the dark aura fully faded and the divine light disappeared.

James stood beside the reanimated ogre while processing the fact that they’d actually survived.

Then the System notification appeared.

[FLOOR 9 CLEARED]

[ALL WAVES CLEARED]

[HOSTILE COMMAND STRUCTURE DESTROYED]

Another notification followed immediately.

[SIDE STORY CLEARED: HIDDEN CORRUPTION]

[CAUSE OF FLOOR 9 ANOMALY REMOVED]

Then the world-first announcement appeared in all their visions.

[WORLD FIRST CLEAR ACHIEVED]

[FLOOR 9 HAS BEEN CLEARED FOR THE FIRST TIME WORLDWIDE]

[COUNTRY OF CLEAR: IRELAND]

[PARTY: TEAM ZERO]

Finn exhaled slowly and spoke first. "We actually did it."

Aria laughed again, though it sounded more like a sob. "Ireland first. Team Zero first. I almost died for it."

Elliot looked stunned while staring at the notification. "World first."

Kael looked down at the circlet in his hands. "It worked."

James said nothing at first because he was still processing what this clear meant, but he knew everything had just changed.

The System distributed the floor rewards while Team Zero watched the notifications appear.

[FLOOR 9 CLEAR — PARTY REWARD]

[TOWER CREDITS AWARDED: 10,000 TC PER CHALLENGER]

[PARTY EXP POOL: 20,000 EXP]

[DIVIDED BY 5 CHALLENGERS: 4,000 EXP EACH]

James’s TC balance jumped from 61,615 to 71,615 before the MVP calculation even began.

Then the MVP notification appeared.

[CALCULATING MVP...]

[MVP: JAMES GANNER]

[MVP REWARD: 20,000 TOWER CREDITS]

[REWARD ITEM: S-RANK ORE ACQUIRED]

[ABYSSAL STAR METAL]

James’s TC balance climbed again to 91,615 while the S-rank ore appeared in his inventory. He felt the EXP rise sharply but didn’t level up, which meant he was still short of the threshold for Level 14.

Finn checked his own rewards quietly and nodded once. "Good TC."

Aria smiled at her notification despite the exhaustion. "Ten thousand credits for one floor. That’s more than I made in three months before the reset."

Elliot looked like he’d never seen numbers that high before. "I don’t even know what to do with this much."

Kael focused more on the side story notification than the TC. "The System marked the corruption source as cleared. That means destroying the statue counted as solving Floor 9’s real problem."

James stored the S-rank ore without examining it closely because they were still on the floor and the stream was still live.

The stream interface sat at the edge of James’s vision while the chat moved too fast to read properly. The viewer count had crossed one million and kept climbing because Ireland had just achieved the first confirmed Floor 9 clear in the world.

[VIEWER COUNT: 1,034,902]

[VIEWER COUNT: 1,289,440]

[VIEWER COUNT: 1,617,803]

The stream comments flooded in faster than James could track them.

@DublinClimber92: THEY CLEARED IT.

@GlobalTowerFeed: Ireland just became the first country in the world to clear Floor 9.

@RaidStatsGuy: World first confirmed. Team Zero is history now.

@GreenTowerFan: The Necromancer is terrifying.

@PriestWanted: The circlet saved them. Kael kept that aura alive the whole time.

@CivilianViewIE: I watched the world’s first Floor 9 clear live.

@TowerMarketWatch: The value of that circlet just exploded.

@IrishGuildWatch: Team Zero. Remember those names.

The public was losing control over the fact that James had reanimated the ogre and brought it back to the battlefield. Clips of that moment were already being replayed inside the stream overlay while people called him "the Necromancer" in every comment. Others praised Kael because the circlet had protected the team from dark corruption for the entire final wave.

Viewers had seen all their faces clearly during the fight, and people were already digging into their backgrounds through social media and Challenger databases. Forum threads were filling with speculation about who they were, where they came from, and how an unknown five-person team had cleared Floor 9 when guild teams had failed.

James opened the stream chat interface properly for the first time since activating it, but the questions moved too fast to follow. Viewers were demanding answers about the hidden forest, the statue, the dark aura, the three ogres, and whether other teams had died because they’d missed the real source.

The TRB stream platform highlighted three questions automatically based on donation amounts while the interface showed them at the top of his screen with the donation totals attached.

Highest Donation Question (€75,000): What did you destroy in the forest?

James looked at the question and thought about how to answer without mentioning the egg before speaking directly to the stream camera.

"There was a hidden corruption source away from the main battlefield," James said. "A goblin shaman was guarding it and channeling power into the waves. Destroying the source weakened the final wave and broke their coordination."

The chat exploded immediately.

@RaidStatsGuy: Hidden source confirmed.

@MageUnionWatch: So the battlefield was a distraction.

@FloorNineGraveyard: The other teams never found it.

Second Highest Donation Question (€50,000): Were the ogres being controlled?

James answered that one carefully because he didn’t fully understand it himself. "They weren’t being controlled like puppets, but they were being empowered and guided. Their movements changed after I destroyed the corruption source, which means something was directing them."

@TowerWatchIE: Directed, not controlled. There’s a difference.

@PriestWanted: That explains why the priest got targeted first in the other raid.

@GlobalTowerFeed: The corruption was smart enough to prioritize threats. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Third Highest Donation Question (€40,000): Can other teams clear Floor 9 by copying your strategy?

James considered that question longer before answering because he didn’t want to give bad advice that got people killed. "They should wait for the TRB’s official report. Floor 9 isn’t just about killing monsters. If a team ignores the hidden source and only fights the waves, they’ll probably die."

The chat went completely crazy.

@RaidStatsGuy: So the waves were a trap.

@MageUnionWatch: Floor 9 is a puzzle floor disguised as a combat floor.

@GlobalTowerFeed: TRB is about to sell this clear data for millions.

@IrishGuildWatch: Every guild in Europe is going to want Team Zero’s full report.

James closed the donation panel because he’d answered enough questions and the team was clearly done with being watched.

James looked at Finn, Aria, Elliot, and Kael. They were exhausted, covered in blood, and obviously finished with standing in front of over a million people.

He spoke to the stream one more time. "Team Zero is ending the stream. Thank you for watching."

He didn’t give a long speech or answer more questions because there was nothing else to say.

The interface appeared.

[END STREAM? Y/N]

James selected YES.