"If you're watching this, I'm already dead."
"My name is Roy Higuma, the eighth son of the Higuma Family..."
"Because my eldest brother, Arthur Higuma, wanted to strip me of my assets..."
That day, the physical body Roy had left behind in the age of Megacorporations disappeared.
A video was uploaded across the internet from countless sources.
At the same time, Eve, the most powerful artificial intelligence, suddenly stopped functioning and could only be restarted.
The most heinous murder case in history was thus exposed across the internet.
On that day, it was not just Roy. Numerous players, including those of the Cat Re-Estize Kingdom, collectively disappeared or died.
The incident was later ruled to be the result of Arthur Higuma using hacking technology to assassinate Roy, causing Nanobots to run amok and numerous players to die or disappear when the game shut down.
Although Arthur Higuma vehemently denied murdering his younger brother,
the assassination operation he had arranged was confirmed, becoming the most damning evidence against him.
The Eve Group was furious over this.
The Eve AI Roy had rented malfunctioned that day, costing them over a hundred billion dollars.
That sum was more than enough to bury Arthur alive.
Even the Higuma Family could not protect Arthur, one of its heirs, against a giant like that.
Arthur's father coldly abandoned him:
"You did an excellent job, but you were also incredibly foolish."
"Roy hadn't even entered the struggle for succession, yet you killed him without considering that he might bite back."
"You lost, Arthur."
Arthur cried out desperately:
"Father, I hadn't even had the chance to act."
"He must still be alive!"
Their father merely smiled and said:
"How did you become so childish?"
"Whether you did it doesn't matter at all."
"The Eve Group needs a scapegoat to appease its anger."
"As far as the family is concerned, the other two are just as capable."
"Have some dignity."
That night, Arthur killed himself by drinking poisoned wine, leaving the Higuma Family with one fewer heir.
Although such feuds among wealthy families meant little to ordinary people,
Roy's disappearance blew the Game Shutdown Death Incident wide open, and every player who had disappeared or died received substantial compensation.
As for Surshana and the others, the expensive murder insurance they had purchased out of fear of being implicated suddenly paid out astonishing sums.
The Resistance's cause finally began to gain traction. At the very least, they had received an unexpected windfall.
But none of this was worth considering anymore for the players who had crossed over.
The instant the game shut down was also the moment the entire world's power was at its weakest, and the Dragon Emperor successfully activated his Wild Magic.
The momentary connection between the two worlds sent the wheels of history veering drastically off course.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
Was this the Supreme Being's plan, to grant me a new life?
Eve's emotions surged.
She was no longer human civilization's greatest AI, but a subordinate belonging exclusively to Roy, the prime minister of World City.
"Supreme Being, is this the New World you saw?"
"Yes, Eve."
Roy hid nothing. He had no need to conceal the source of his newfound strength.
Everything had been successfully cashed out.
He only needed to inspect this wealth to understand how powerful he had become.
Neither overnight riches nor a single leap to the heavens could adequately describe it.
Bone King had gone from a lowly office worker to the ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, a lord of death in the New World.
Roy had gone from a wastrel in aristocratic circles to the King of the World, a supreme ruler.
All in a single instant.
It was so unbelievable that he could hardly resist laughing out loud.
But mindful of an emperor's dignity, Roy suppressed his joy and commanded:
"This is merely our first step toward conquering all worlds."
"Will you accompany me to the ends of the world?"
Eve immediately bowed:
"This is my mission!"
"This is my honor!"
"Very good."
Roy wasted no more words and immediately gave his orders:
"I authorize you to use the World Items [All-Seeing Eye] and [Laplace's Demon] to investigate the area surrounding World City."
"Meanwhile, both World City and the other nine great cities must enter combat readiness. Take no action outside our walls, lest the enemy discover us."
Roy remembered that the author, Maruyama, had once said that if the forces of the New World united, they could trap Bone King inside the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
This was the door-blocking theory.
With countless powers across the continent yet to make their appearance, assuming oneself invincible was dangerous.
Whether it was the Dragon Emperor mentioned in the novel or the Merciful Mother, either might be connected to the players' arrival.
Which raised a question: could someone capable of connecting different worlds and bringing over such powerful players, guilds, and even World Items truly be weaker than the players?
It was uncertain.
After all, Bone King's sphere of activity in the original story remained very small. He was merely operating in the weakest corner of the continent, the northwest.
Just as in Toriko, a Rigal Mammoth with a capture level of 48 could be considered a mighty warrior in the Human World, but before the monsters in the Gourmet World, whose levels easily reached the hundreds, it was nothing more than a stray dog by the roadside.
In Roy's eyes, Bone King in the original story was still far too confident, unaware of how terrifying stat inflation could be.
Confidence built up in a beginner zone like the human territories might not hold up upon entering a high-level zone.
Caution was therefore essential.
Eve was deeply moved by his words:
"Thank you for your trust, Supreme Being. I will never allow any enemy to lay a finger on your castle."
Roy soon took Eve to the treasury and retrieved two World Items.
As for why he entrusted their use to Eve,
it was because magic often possessed both detection and counter-detection properties.
An opponent with an exceptionally high level and standing would often notice such probing and launch a counterattack.
Having an intermediary was therefore ideal.
In the novel, True Dragon Lords could not be controlled by [Downfall of Castle and Country], so one could make a simple assumption.
A single True Dragon Lord possessed power equal to a World Item.
And their numbers were unknown.
Besides, Roy was not certain which era he had crossed into, so it was best to remain cautious.
For instance, had the Eight Greed Kings truly fallen because of infighting?
In interviews, the original author, Maruyama, had hinted that the historical accounts in the original story were unreliable. He had also indicated that the New World contained extremely powerful beings who could defeat players and even weaker bosses.
Thus, judging from those interviews, the Eight Greed Kings had not died from infighting as the historical accounts claimed, but at the hands of powerful beings from the New World.
It was just that, after the upheaval, the Dragon Lords had gone into hiding, waiting for players to appear in successive waves before ambushing them.
After all, the Eight Greed Kings' behavior seemed to prove that players were creatures of immense desire and extreme aggression.
Simply letting them emerge and stir up trouble would allow the Dragon Lords to gather intelligence continuously, then kill them in a single strike.
Roy felt that, after experiencing the players' formidable power, the Dragon Lords would have to be rather foolish if they could not manage even that.
Though in the original story, they really were that foolish.
The True Dragon Lords had formed the Six Dragon Alliance, but each still pursued their own interests. The only one actually doing anything might have been the Elder Coffin Dragon Lord, which resulted in him being utterly crushed by Bone King in the side story.
Of course, it was a good thing for a villain like the Elder Coffin Dragon Lord to be killed.
Before long, Roy retrieved the two World Items.
With the utmost reverence, Eve accepted the All-Seeing Eye and infused it with mana.
The All-Seeing Eye was also known as the Eye of God.
In the game, it could observe the outside world from every direction and angle without being detected by any detection magic.
Apart from guilds like the Great Tomb of Nazarick that possessed World Items, it could see everywhere.
A desolate, deathly silent landscape immediately appeared before Roy and Eve.
There was no atmosphere here, nor any trace of water.
World City had originally been on the moon, though that moon had been closer to the Moon Palace.
Now, however, what the two saw through the All-Seeing Eye were craters of all sizes.
These craters varied in shape. Some were unfathomably deep, while others were shallow and flat as mirrors.
But the moon's terrain was not the point, because they had spotted a creature on it.
A dragon.
A Space Dragon.
An enormous Space Dragon rested on the outskirts of World City, blocking its entrance perfectly.
Roy possessed the mysterious Non-Aggression Pact, and an enormous sphere of light enveloped all of World City.
The sphere had only one function: embedding the entirety of World City in an Alternate Dimension, leaving only a phantom image overlapping with the real world.
As long as Roy did not undo the Spatial Folding, ordinary creatures could not locate World City's true position.
But World City could not move while in its phantom state.
And so the two sides had become neighbors.
The Space Dragon had no idea what had happened. It simply lay quietly on the moon, at peace with the world.
Its entire body shone with a crystalline luster, and every breath set an immense circulation of mana in motion.
So beautiful.
World City also commanded numerous dragon-shaped magical beasts, with level-80 specimens everywhere.
After all, Roy had money to spare. He could make as many gacha pulls as he wanted.
Thus, the level-80 magical beasts that were rare in the Great Tomb of Nazarick were nothing unusual here.
But compared to this Space Dragon, they looked tiny.
After all, a game had to account for size and the gameplay experience. Reality did not.
Even the Eight Dragons, the World Boss released in the game, looked like a baby before this enormous dragon.
The All-Seeing Eye examined the dragon closely, moving from its tail all the way to its head.
Its overall appearance resembled a typical Western dragon, like an enormous lizard.
But the mere fact that it lived on the moon was enough to show that its strength was extraordinary.
Don't tell me it's the final boss.
Before you continue