1.

The powers of despair spread across Eternal World strengthened several bosses.

Bosses empowered by the power of despair became, quite literally, despair itself and grew extremely powerful.

Normal bosses rose to raid boss level, raid bosses were strengthened up to hidden raid boss level, and people who would normally have been able to clear them began to get wiped out.

If there was any small mercy, it was probably that the regular monsters were not strengthened by the aura of despair.

It was only “some” bosses, but if you looked at Eternal World as a whole, that still meant a considerable number of bosses had been empowered.

So of course players were quick to notice that something strange was going on.

Bosses they’d been able to clear just fine until now had suddenly become absurdly strong—not noticing would have been the weird part.

[Title – What is this???? Why did Flame Lancer get so strong???]

[Author – ManaFullButUnused]

『Our party used to clear it with room to spare, but we got wiped;;;;

Did it suddenly get buffed or something???

Its effects and model changed a bit???

What is this???

Is it an event?』

[DieOnReturn : nnn event notice says nothing???]

└[ManaFullButUnused (author) : Right??? There’s nothing, right???]

└[TrappedInDungeon : Isn’t this event foreshadowing???]

└[ManaFullButUnused (author) : Ah, is that it???]

[Title – No seriously what is it??? Why did the boss get so strong??]

[Author – NotAMob]

『It’s actually way too strong;;;;

Attaching a video.

I happened to have a video from before because I recorded it to upload a challenge.

If you compare the old one with the new one, it looks at least twice as strong???

[Previous boss video]

[Current boss video]』

[GotKilledByAlly : I came here to be mean and say “you just got weaker” but seriously what is this???]

[StoleTheHeal : It really is different????]

[NoTankChallenge : What is this for real????]

At first, people were talking like it was event foreshadowing.

Naturally, though, those who had watched the Demon King’s, Seong’s, stream from Rapid Guild noticed the anomaly faster than anyone.

If they’d seen the stream, they would recognize the aura of despair the moment they saw it.

And there were not a few of them.

Nearly one hundred million people had watched the stream.

[Title – Isn’t that the Lord of Despair thing from Mugan?]

[Author – GotSixStarInGacha]

『I watched that boss video someone posted just now,

and the aura of despair from yesterday’s Demon King stream looks exactly the same???

Didn’t they say the Lord of Despair’s mind was awakening and affecting the entire continent?』

[PassedOutWhileDPSing : yyy yeah, looks like it. It’s the same aura of despair from yesterday’s Demon King stream. I’ll attach pics. (Image attached)]

└[GotSixStarInGacha (author) : Right? So I didn’t see it wrong???]

[BuffedTheEnemy : The Demon King again???]

[OneShotSkillOnly : Whenever the Demon King does anything, he blows up a large-scale event lolol]

[ThrewMySword : So how do you beat this despair whatever???]

It didn’t take long for the fact that it had started from Seong, the Demon King, to spread.

As word spread rapidly and people discussed this and that, they also realized that the aura of despair was showing up not only on the continent that could be called the East Asia server, but on the other continents as well.

Because it all happened in the same time frame, everyone pooled their information together.

Even when they were getting wiped by bosses they should have been able to defeat, there was more excitement than complaint.

[Title – Is this going to turn into another event?]

[Author – FailedBombPlanter]

『Ah, please put up the official notice quickly!!!

Honestly, though, I’d be fine even if it wasn’t an event lolol

The bosses really did get stronger, but it suddenly feels like playing a new game, all the boredom is gone, and now there’s even a queue to get in lolol』

[ArmorValueZero : fr, it is fun.]

[OutOfRange : When you run into the aura of despair your body locks up, but as long as you just watch out for that it’s still doable!]

[PetAggroedTheBoss : Their power really did go up, but it’s more fun than I expected.]

[OnlyGotACape : Still, it would be nice if there were an event......]

[GotOnlyACloak : Nah, there has to be an event;;;;]

If there was any small complaint, it was basically just that they wanted the event to start quickly.

And in the end, the event announcement they’d been waiting for finally appeared.

『Hello, this is E-World, the company operating Eternal World.

We apologize for the delay in the event announcement.

Because Eternal World is a world built together with our users’ play, your actions unexpectedly affected all worlds at once, and we are sorry that our response was delayed.

We should have identified this and prepared countermeasures in advance, and we sincerely apologize for that. As compensation, we also plan to run an experience point event alongside it.

The Lord of Despair’s Advent event will run on a structure where you accumulate points by defeating bosses imbued with the aura of despair, and receive rewards based on your point totals.

Details will be listed below.

We support your adventures.

E-World Chairman – Park Won』

Once it was acknowledged as an official event—

Players’ reactions exploded.

On top of the event, they were even adding an experience event as apology compensation.

Everyone cheered, and Eternal World’s stock price began to soar even higher.

2.

After the previous day’s stream ended, Seong had agreed to meet around lunchtime, so he spent a leisurely morning at the gym.

He worked out with Lee Geondong in the morning, but since Geondong still had editing work left, he wrapped up early and went back, while Seong stayed and kept working out at the gym until just before lunch, then returned to Geondong’s place.

Then—

“Seong!! Did you see this!?”

“Hm? See what?”

Given how hard he’d just worked out, he should have been tired.

But when you looked at his face, Seong just looked pleasantly refreshed, which made Lee Geondong look at him like he was a bit sick of it.

Anyway, that wasn’t the important part right now.

Saying that, Geondong thrust his phone at Seong, and when Seong saw the screen, he tilted his head.

He wondered what it was that had him making such a fuss.

When Seong looked—

There was a video playing on the phone Geondong was showing him.

It was a very common boss raid video.

But there was one thing that was familiar and off at the same time.

“The aura of despair?”

“Right?”

“Why is that over there?”

“I mean, who knows.”

At Seong’s question, Geondong explained what was currently going around on the internet.

That the aura of despair had spread across the world, and bosses had been powered up.

And that there was even an event.

Watching that, Seong could only nod.

That the Lord of Despair was influencing the world.

It made sense enough, but he couldn’t help wondering why it had to be only the Lord of Despair.

The Lord of the Abyss and the Lord of Destruction existed too.

But the talk was only about the Lord of Despair’s mind having awakened.

That part he still didn’t really understand.

Seong murmured, sounding a bit troubled.

“So then we can’t participate in this?”

“Since we’re hunting the Lord of Despair’s main body, wouldn’t that count toward the points too?”

“Hm, you think?”

Right when Seong was puzzling over that—

The group chat where the backup teams were gathered blew up like it was on fire.

[Kyou – Things are getting interesting, aren’t they?]

[Embris – This is blowing up more than I expected?]

[JoseonGreatestSwordKimChegeon – Fufufu, our rise to becoming the heroic figures of the continent is not far off now.]

[Hwa-Wol – Kim Chegeon, do you do stocks?]

[JoseonGreatestSwordKimChegeon – K-keep it down.]

[Usagi – Anyway, this is because of us, right?]

[Mayrin – It has to be because of us, hahahaha!]

[Luna – The scale is quite large.]

Some of the team members weren’t saying anything, but their thoughts all seemed similar.

It was something that had happened because of them.

Some of them felt like they’d caused trouble.

But overall, they were enjoying the situation quite a bit.

It was undeniably a huge deal that affected the entire world.

Feeling the same way, Seong stroked his chin.

To be honest, he hadn’t even imagined something like this would happen.

But one thing was clear.

'Looks like despair is a higher-level concept than I thought.'

Thinking there might be something new to be gained, Seong nodded.

At this rate—

[Seong – We’ll have to handle it quickly. Still, let’s /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ keep the schedule as is, and I’ll tell Mihael hyung in advance.]

Seong sent that, and everyone replied that they understood.

Immediately after, he sent a message to Mihael.

[Seong – Mihael hyung, because of us this time despair has leaked out, so viewers are going to flock in and a bunch of questions are probably going to come up. Let’s just handle it honestly. We didn’t really know either. And I think it’ll be enough to say that we came together here because it’s related to my class.]

[Mihael – Oh, got it. I’ll do my best with the hosting.]

After sending a reply to Mihael too, Seong let out a breath, as if a weight had been lifted off his chest.

Then, just in case, he looked up more posts online.

Seeing that there was actually more public opinion thanking him than blaming him, he felt relieved, even as he steeled his resolve.

If he’d just caused trouble, that would be one thing.

But now that it had become an event—

'We’ve gotta take first place.'

Thinking, of course, that they had to take first, he grinned.

And right as Seong was about to sit and think through this and that—

A completely unexpected message came through Messenger.

It was a message from an NPC.

In Eternal World, when an NPC contacted you while you were offline, it could be logged in Messenger like this, but it was the first time anyone had used this function, so Seong was a bit surprised.

Wondering what this was supposed to be, he checked it.

And then Seong stared at the message with a strange look in his eyes.

'Hmm.'

If that was the case, he would definitely have to make a move.

And—

'I didn’t expect something like this to be tied to the Lord of Despair.'

Seeing the story taking a much more interesting turn than he’d expected, Seong smiled.

He’d already been looking forward to the Lord of the Abyss and the Lord of Destruction more than he’d thought, but now he was looking forward to the Lord of Despair even more.

If this information was true, that is.

Given the source, it was almost certainly accurate.

But you never knew.

Seong sent a reply to the one who had messaged him, then said to Lee Geondong,

“We should hurry up and eat lunch and get in there.”

“Sounds good. Want to order delivery?”

“Yeah.”