MTL - Darkness is Coming - Chapter 378 Sophistry and Kingship (middle)

Ethan is a man nearing forty who has squandered his life behind a screen. Since his teenage years, he has poured everything into online games, chasing digital achievements while real life quietly passed him by. Now, with reality finally weighing on him, he realizes how empty his existence has become.Despite decades of obsession, he has only one thing to show for it: the #1 account in the world’s most popular MMORPG, Lost World Online—a fully immersive virtual game operated through neural-link technology. It is an account powerful enough to guarantee fame, sponsorships, and a second chance at life.But overnight… it vanishes.No warnings… No errors… His account simply ceases to exist.Ethan spends the entire night frantically searching for answers, contacting the developers through official forums, only to be told that nothing can be done. Without the account, even streaming or professional contracts are impossible. Exhausted and hollow, he finally gives up and falls asleep, deciding to forget his regret, half hoping everything would be a dream when he wakes up.When Ethan opens his eyes, he finds himself standing before the character creation screen of Lost World Online.It feels like a dream, yet his mind is clear, his body well responsive, not even like a game. Paying little attention, he goes ahead and creates a character and initiates the game.Then, his vision is swallowed by darkness.A violent rush of wind slams into him, and when his senses return, he is standing inside a bustling town from the game. Before he can question the missing opening cutscene—something that should always play after character creation—his attention is seized by the scene around him.The town was celebrating an Annual Festival. This was a festival that only ever occurred once, a festival that marked the first day Lost World Online was launched.Realizing the impossible, Ethan hurriedly calls up his system interface—only to find that there is no options menu, no settings, no log-out button…“This cannot be real.”

A man was about to commit suicide and decided to search for a way to die on the internet, but then he found an odd site that asked a lot of questions and had a point based system that allows you to create skills for a character. He took interest in it, and when he was done setting his character, he was asked, “You will now be transported to a world with the settings you chose. Coming back is not possible. Do you still accept?” Without thinking much of it, he pressed YES and found himself in another world with the skills he chose to have.

Growing up in a facility that turned children into weapons, Subject 42 never knew freedom; only survival.So when a strange creepy entity offered him a second chance in another world in exchange for one mysterious task, he took it. Even if that meant living in a world that was drenched in curses, ruled by ancient gods, and shaped by powers no mortal should touch.Reborn as a Moon Elf, a being of myth and moonlight, he finally thought he could live the life he was denied.But the task he completed set something in motion. Something that he couldn't outrun.Witness, as his fate twists and turns, as Noctis moves through this strange world in search of a respite...