Chapter 466: Chapter 454: The Ghost on the Leaderboard

The Arena feature also quietly opened twelve hours after the Spirit Realm went live.

After being pounced on by a simulated Heart Eater for the one hundred and eighth time in the novice training grounds, even the miner Cole was starting to feel a bit bored.

That is, until he saw a new option in the system menu—[1v1 Matchmaking].

He hesitated for a moment before clicking it.

[Matchmaking...]

[Opponent locked.]

[Battlefield: Abandoned Industrial Zone.]

「Scene change.」

Cole found his Zaku standing beneath a rust-covered gantry crane.

A hundred meters away, another Zaku of the same model faced him, its mono-eye glowing red.

There was no time to think.

His opponent moved.

The enemy Zaku executed a sideways slide with a fluidity Cole couldn’t comprehend, simultaneously raising its Tower Shield.

"BOOM!"

Cole subconsciously pulled the trigger, aiming for the enemy mecha’s head. The beam rifle’s shot only created an insignificant spark on the opponent’s shield.

The lag.

’This damned lag again!’

’If I became a Level 3 Spirit Mage, I could reduce the lag to 0.3 seconds.’

Cole roared, shoving the control stick all the way forward. His Zaku charged straight at the enemy like a clumsy bull.

The opponent didn’t retreat. Instead, they dashed forward two steps to meet him, sidestepping with precision and letting Cole’s charge scrape past the edge of their mecha.

In the instant they passed each other, all Cole saw on his monitor was a flash of blinding red light.

Then, the world spun.

He saw his own Zaku’s head neatly severed at the neck, tumbling away through the air.

In its final moments, the cockpit view froze on the cold, mechanical motion of the other Zaku retracting its Thermic Axe.

"BOOM!"

The impact of the mecha’s explosion, mixed with 85% simulated pain, instantly washed over him.

Cole shuddered as if he’d been electrocuted, a cold sweat immediately soaking his back.

Three seconds later, he was back in the hangar.

The mecha was completely intact.

He gasped for air, his heart pounding. The experience of dying by being bisected was a hundred times clearer and more terrifying than being torn apart by Heart-Eaters before.

’Was that... a real person I was fighting?’

He glanced at the combat log.

[Defeat.]

[Match Duration: 27 seconds.]

Instead of despair, a crazed fire lit up in Cole’s eyes. Without a moment’s hesitation, he slammed the [1v1 Matchmaking] button again.

’A real man lives to fight!’

Fight—die—revive—fight again.

How could the natives resist such a temptation? An addictive, insane cycle quickly spread among the hundred thousand initial players.

By three in the morning, Jarvis’s game backend statistics still showed over sixty thousand blinking lights—an astonishingly high level of activity.

「The next morning.」

A strange scene unfolded in every city across the Aiselan Kingdom.

People walked around with dark circles under their eyes, yawning constantly, yet their faces wore bizarre smiles that mixed exhaustion with exhilaration.

"Hey, Old Gary, how’d you do last night?"

"Don’t even ask. Some bastard named ’Minehammer’ bashed me to death with his shield seven times!"

"Hahaha, I ran into an expert! The guy could do a windmill with his Thermic Axe. He completely shredded my mecha’s joints!"

"I’m telling you, that side-slide into a shield parry is a god-tier move!"

On the Spiritnet, discussion threads about the "Cyber Spirit Realm" were being refreshed at a frantic pace of over a thousand posts per minute.

Meanwhile, those who hadn’t managed to snag a helmet were lost in a different kind of madness.

"When the hell is the second batch going on sale? I’ll pay double!"

"Someone in the west district of Golden Stone City listed a helmet on the black market for a hundred times the price! Damn it, it was snatched up in a minute!"

The entire kingdom’s production order was hit with an unprecedented shock.

The rate of tardiness in major industrial zones soared to seven times the daily average.

「On the third day after the Spirit Realm went live.」

Another feature that would drive all players completely insane was officially activated.

[Leaderboard].

The combat scores, win rates, and ranks of all one hundred thousand players in the nation were displayed in real-time on the most prominent spot of the Spiritnet’s homepage.

In an instant, all eyes focused on the top of the list.

[ID: Ghost]

[Rank: Diamond I]

[Win Rate: 94.7%]

[Matches Played: 78]

[System Overall Rating: S]

It wasn’t Yak, the martial arts tournament champion. Yak was in second place with a win rate of 89%.

What shocked all the mecha enthusiasts and military analysts even more was a line of small text the system had added after the player name "Ghost."

[Average Control Latency: 0.21 seconds]

This number was like a bombshell, setting the entire network ablaze.

0.21 seconds!

That was infinitely close to the threshold for an elite "Unicorn" pilot!

A player piloting a mass-produced Zaku with limited performance, relying only on basic control sticks and pedals, had actually achieved stats approaching those of an ace pilot?

"This is impossible! The system must have made a mistake!"

"Who is Ghost? Is he some unit’s secret weapon?"

"I’ve checked all public military records. There’s no ace pilot named Ghost!"

"Could it be... he’s qualified to be drafted directly to pilot a real Unicorn?"

「Cybertron, main control room.」

Allen watched the roiling public opinion on the light screen, his expression neutral.

"Jarvis, pull up the backend data file for ’Ghost’."

[Player ID: 73514]

[Real Age: 15]

[Spirit Core Level: Four]

[Emotional Threshold Analysis: After experiencing virtual ’death’, his negative emotion (fear, frustration) rebound speed is 4.1 times the database average. Mental resilience index exceeds 99.7% of individuals in the current database.]

Allen’s fingertips tapped gently on the light screen.

’A 15-year-old kid, with no systematic training, reached this level on talent alone.’

’That terrifying mental resilience, in particular... he’s a born warrior.’

’He’s like a diamond in the rough. Thrown into the high-pressure furnace of the Spirit Realm, he immediately began to shine with the most dazzling light.’

"Interesting."

Allen narrowed his eyes, the corners of his mouth curving into a slight smile.

"Mark him as a high-priority observation target."

「Seven days after the Spirit Realm went live.」

While all the players were still slaughtering each other in the Arena over leaderboard rankings, a system announcement once again set their emotions ablaze.

[Limited-Time High-Difficulty Dungeon "Flesh and Blood Great Wall" Is Now Open.]

[Mission Objective: Survive.]

[Special Reward: Those who survive for more than thirty minutes will unlock test-drive access to the ’Unicorn’ mecha.]

Unicorn!

That one word instantly ignited everyone’s greed.

Of the one hundred thousand players, over eighty-seven thousand flooded into the dungeon at the first possible moment.

The miner, Cole, was among them.

「Scene change.」

The salty sea breeze, the charred smell of severed limbs, the deafening roars...

Cole found himself standing on a defensive line built from countless mecha wrecks and congealed flesh and blood.

The beam rifle in his Zaku’s hands was already overheating, and its armor was covered in scratches.

Around him were hundreds, thousands, of identical Zakus, forming a great wall of steel.

And before them was a boundless, black tide of Heart Eaters surging forward.

"For Aiselan!"

A stranger’s roar echoed over the public channel.

Then, the battle erupted.

With 30% pain feedback, every claw that struck the armor sent a real jolt through the cockpit.

Cole fired frantically, mechanically repeating the motions of shooting, retreating, and shooting again.

Seven minutes later, he watched as a friendly Zaku next to him was pounced on by three elite Heart Eaters. Amid the piercing shriek of tearing metal, it was ripped apart, piece by piece. The explosion from its cockpit bathed his monitor in red light.

Fifteen minutes.

At the edge of the horizon, three massive, mountain-like silhouettes strode through the waves and slowly made landfall.

—The King of Heart-eaters!

Despair, like the cold ocean water, instantly drowned everyone.

The defensive line formed by the players collapsed in an instant under the charge of the three kings, as if it were made of paper.

Cole’s Zaku was thrown into the air by the shockwave from one of the kings as it charged past, and he crashed heavily to the ground.

He struggled to get up, only to see a giant foot come crashing down on him.

"No—!"

His vision went completely dark.

Cole ripped off his helmet and shot up from his worn-out cot.

He gasped for breath, drenched in a cold sweat, his hands trembling uncontrollably.

The images of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, the screams of his comrades being torn apart before his eyes, and the bone-deep helplessness and terror just before the giant foot crushed him... it all felt so real.

He suddenly remembered the real coastline defense battle from three years ago.

He finally understood what kind of Hell the kingdom’s soldiers, who piloted the Golem Legion and stood on the front lines against the Beast Tide, faced every single day.

Just one simulated game had left him nearly breathless.

Cole slowly calmed himself. He just sat there, stunned. After a long while, facing the empty room, he slowly raised his right hand in a solemn military salute.

At the same time, in every corner of Aiselan, countless players took off their helmets after "dying."

Some broke down sobbing, some vomited uncontrollably, and some sat in stunned silence.

Video clips documenting the horrific scenes from the "Flesh and Blood Great Wall" dungeon began to circulate on the Spiritnet.

There was no epic background music, no flashy editing—only the raw, suffocating despair.

However, to everyone’s surprise, the video didn’t incite panic. Instead, it stirred an unprecedented emotion.

"A salute to all the soldiers who guard our borders!"

"I finally understand what our peace was bought with."

"Next time, I swear I’ll last thirty minutes in there! I’ll show those monsters that we Aiselans never surrender!"

「Golden Stone City, Royal Palace.」

William watched the spontaneously formed "Salute to the Heroes" movement on the Spiritnet and the rapidly climbing number of military enlistment applications. He raised his red tea, took a light sip, and a satisfied smile spread across his face.

"The money invested in Lord Allen’s game... this is definitely the best deal I’ve ever made."

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