In the Ruins of Sunset, rolling clusters of yellow clouds piled up along the horizon, while a black tower soaring into the heavens stood stark beneath the sky. Players dressed in all manner of attire gathered before the record stele amid the ruined walls, beneath the Golden Giant Tree.
These past few days, the situation in the Eerie Game had been ever-shifting and unpredictable. Amid the changing currents, most people could not see the situation clearly. All they could do was rely on past experience and possibly unreliable intuition to speculate on what lay ahead.
Some firmly believed that a massive upheaval, one surpassing even the Ragnarok of twenty-two years ago, was imminent. Realizing that they possessed neither Identity Cards nor exclusive skills, they worried that they would become disposable fodder at the bottom of the pyramid. They lived in constant fear, spreading their anxiety to those around them.
Others remained optimistic, believing that the Eerie Game's shadow would soon come to an end in the legendary final Instance. After all, the major guilds would bear the brunt if the sky fell. Ordinary people only needed to hide in some corner. No matter whether the final outcome was good or bad, they could always save their own skins and continue muddling through life.
Still others, speaking as veterans, looked back on the many "joint guild operations" over the past twenty-two years that had amounted to much thunder but little rain. They guessed that the current tense situation was merely another feint—the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.
Even so, nearly everyone was secretly and actively gathering all kinds of information about the Eerie Game.
In an age of great conflict, at the beginning of chaos, the amount of information one possessed was often closely tied to one's chances of