A transparent timer hovered above the arena’s center, counting down the time until the award ceremony began. The blue dome of magical energy that once kept it separate from the rest of the players was gone. Despite this, no one from the audience jumped from the stands into the tiled arena below, leaving it a vast space that echoed with their chatter.

“You’re sure about this?” Synopse asked Makaroth, huddling into him with Lilya so that other members of the Sages of Destiny guild around them couldn’t overhear their conversation.

Makaroth nodded. “I’m sure. I’ll be handing over guild leadership to you.”

“That’d be pointless,” Synopse smiled and shook his head. “If you’re deleting your character and starting over, I’m going with you.” Synopse’s smile grew as the two looked each other in the eyes.

Makaroth couldn’t help but reciprocate the smile. “Thanks for sticking with me through all of my bullshit.”

“Eh. It wasn’t easy, but I managed.” Synopse shrugged.

“Finally!” Liyla broke off their conversation by shouting to someone down the aisle where they were sitting. Synopse and Makaroth turned to see Calikgos approaching them. “Maybe you can talk some sense into Makaroth,” Liyla asked him as he got closer, eying an empty seat next to Synopse.

“Talk some sense into him about what?” Calikgos asked impatiently.

“Makaroth’s decided that after the award ceremony, he’s going to accept defeat in his bet with his son,” Lilya explained.

“You mean the bet where you delete your character if he surpasses you?” Calikgos confirmed, looking suddenly very serious.

“Yeah…” Makaroth sighed back at him. “I know you’re here from VGN, so I just want you to know how much I appreciate what you and the network did for me.”

“You’re on contract. Makaroth is a character that is owned by the network, even if you’re playing him. You can’t just delete.” Calikgos replied.

“I already looked into the clauses. He’ll have to pay a fine…” Synopse replied.

“I’ll pay it. Money isn’t as important to me anymore.” Makaroth replied with an apologetic look in his eyes towards Calikgos.

Calikgos eyed him carefully, dropping all emotion from his face momentarily. “Give me one second,” Calikgos said before logging out of the game world.

“He took that surprisingly well…” Synopse commented, returning to gauge Makaroth and Lilya’s reaction to his disappearance. Neither looked calm, though, and they exchanged confused looks instead. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” Makaroth began, but Lilya interrupted.

“I thought he’d put up more of a fight than that. He got furious about Seraxus and Yumily," Liyla spoke timidly.

Before another word could be exchanged, Makaroth’s vision suddenly went black. The game world around him faded away, and a few seconds later, an office simulation formed around him. A sizeable plain office with a brown wooden desk on the far wall and bookshelves lining the walls behind it. There were chairs and potted plants mixed about, and behind the desk stood two figures.

Just as Makaroth finished forming into the office simulation with his in-game avatar, he saw Lilya and Feng’s avatars forming on either side of him. Ahead, he recognized the figure standing off the side of the desk as Calikgos, glaring forward at them. Beside him, a blurry mass of shadows took on the silhouette of a human sitting in the chair, with pale green eyes.

“The hell?” Feng spoke first, confused while looking around the simulation. “How’d you force me out of the game into here? This is an office simulation, right?” Feng clarified.

“Your sim-boxes were provided VGN. As part of your contract, we can override your active simulation, modify your account, or remove you and block your access from the sim-boxes. Using non-approved VGN sim-boxes while under contract results in a fine of up to 1 million USD.” The man in the chair explained, his voice husky.

Lilya caught a sharp breath. “What?”

“You were so desperate to become famous that you overlooked a lot of the fine print. Fortunately, I was fair and kept my end of the contract without taking advantage of your naivety. I only wanted to build a powerful network that could fully leverage Averon’s title. I knew it would take over the globe and wanted to be on top of it. I chose you all to help me accomplish that mission.” The silhouette continued to speak, standing up from the chair.

He began pacing behind the desk and avoiding looking at them. Calikgos moved to get out of his way while Feng, Lilya, and Makaroth exchanged looks with one another.

“It was not easy to prop you up. You, along with Yumily, Seraxus, Daehyun, Skar, Jensora, and many more. When I found you all, you had determination and eagerness, but you lacked the know-how, skill, and resources to be seen among the countless other networks and streamers already existing.” He stopped and turned to face them, crossing his arms.

“To be honest, what I did with you all was a miracle. We achieved my dream of becoming the number one network, and you could all enjoy wealth and fame because of it. I thought we were all getting along. I began to trust you too much, so I let you take the reins when you had a little feud with your son.” He pointed at Makaroth. “I let you use company resources to settle the feud. It was a compelling story at first and brought in more viewers. More sales, more publicity, it was all great.

"But you just. Kept. Failing.” He shook his head while Calikgos shook his head disapprovingly. “Even with Calikgos watching over you, you made blunder after blunder. Completely uncharacteristic of Makaroth. I've even begun to question if you ever really wanted to beat him in the first place?" The silhouette paused for Makaroth to give a response, but Makaroth lowered his head to avoid eye contact. This got a sigh from Lilya.

"Still, I knew I had to let you see it through, so I didn’t stop it. And now, here we are.” He paused again before turning and waving his hand at the bookshelves behind his desk, causing multiple floating streams to appear of Seraxus, Serenity, and Aegis.

“You have cost me my number one performing musical streamer and the number one performing PvP streamer. You have lost me complete control of the top 10 streamers list, allowing your son to take both your and Feng's place in popularity with his pathetic, worthless streaming network…”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I di-” Makaroth tried to reply.

“YOU’VE DESTROYED OUR IMAGE!” The silhouette slammed his fists on the desk angrily, causing Makaroth, Feng, and Lilya to all jump or flinch. This was followed by a few tense moments of silence before the silhouette stood upright.

“And now, Calikgos tells me you plan to delete your character despite the fines because you lost your bet with your son. Further damaging what I’ve built over the past year due to your selfishness, correct?” He asked sternly, eying Makaroth while Feng nervously looked towards Makaroth.

“I…” Makaroth hesitated, swallowing the saliva in his mouth. “I appreciate all you’ve done, but I need to do what I can to repair my relationship with my family while I still can. If I don’t keep this deal, I don’t think my son will ever forgive me.” Makaroth replied without making eye contact.

“I see…” The silhouette replied before he began pacing again. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”

“What?” Makaroth looked up with a raised eyebrow. “No offense, but you can’t stop me.” He shook his head. “I’ll pay the fines for breaching the contract and whatever other fees you are owed. You will still have rights to my character's image and past footage…”

“What good is all of that when your image is in its current state?” The silhouette asked patiently.

“I know I’ve put you in a difficult position, but I also know that you didn’t get us all to the top streamer positions using legitimate methods. I don’t know how you did it, but I know it wasn’t something you’d like brought into the light. I’m not blind or stupid. None of us is. We all know you cheated,” Makaroth motioned to Feng and Lilya, who quickly and shamefully lowered their heads. “Owning the top 10 wa-”

“Are you trying to threaten me with something?” The silhouette asked aggressively, stepping around the desk towards Makaroth.

“What? N-no. I’m just saying, we know we didn’t earn our spots fairly in the top 10.”

“You didn’t earn your spots at all. I DID. Do you understand? You are all NOTHING WITHOUT ME!” The silhouette roared furiously at him, stomping to face off directly with Makaroth, who refused to back down and glared at him.

“I told you. I appreciate what you did, but it’s in my best interest for my future to step down now.”

“No. I’ll tell you what’s in your best interest. You’ll stay and fix the mess you made. Repair your image, destroy your son, and reclaim the number one spots. I can replace Yumily and Seraxus, but I need you to repair your image yourself.”

“Don't you get it? I am fixing my mess and repairing my image!” Makaroth shouted back at him with his fists clenched. "The only reason he started playing this game in the first place," Makaroth motioned to Aegis' live stream, "is because he wanted to beat me. What do you think he'll do if I stay? He's going to keep coming after us, and the public is completely on his side after that show he put on out there," Makaroth switched to pointing at Seraxus' stream, the others following his finger to watch what the players were currently doing.

"You're saying that if you quit, he'll quit too?" Calikgos asked to clarify.

"I doubt he'll completely quit outright, but... He wants to study to be a doctor. He doesn't want to play this game forever; this was all just him getting back at me for leaving his mother. He thinks I remarried and abandoned him," Makaroth sighed with a defeated tone.

Hearing this explanation, the silhouette paused, deep in thought.

"If I may," Feng spoke up by clearing his throat. "This father-son conflict was interesting at first, but I believe if we force it to keep going, it will only continue to paint me, VGN, and the other streamers in a bad light. I think it's best if we let Makaroth leave." Feng said in Makaroth's defense, surprising Makaroth. Makaroth turned to look at him, and Feng gave him a nod of respect, which Makaroth returned quickly.

"Hang on..." Liyla realized, "Your family doesn't know our marriage is for the contract? They think it's real?"

"No, well..." Makaroth mumbled back nervously.

Liyla rolled her eyes at him in frustration. "No WONDER they're so pissed off at us! They think I'm some homewrecker, don't they? Damnit, Makaroth, how stupid can you be?"

"I thought it'd be easier to leave them behind that way. That they'd hate me enough and forget about me."

"Well, you got the hate part right." Liyla scoffed at him.

"Alright." The silhouette spoke loudly to silence their discussion and draw all eyes back onto himself. "I'll allow you to resign without any issues if you can guarantee your son will not cause any more problems for us."

"I can't guarantee it, but I can't imagine why he would. As long as you guys don't do anything to piss him off." Makaroth stifled a laugh.

"You'll still be paying the fines for breaking the contract." The silhouette spoke.

"I'm okay with that."

"And what about you?" He turned to Lilya. "Will you be resigning as well?"

"And get more involved with this hot mess? No thanks." Lilya raised an eyebrow at him while motioning to Makaroth.

"You'll presume leadership of the Sages of Destiny, and you, Feng," the Silhouette turned to him, "Will become the new face of VGN."

"Haven't I already been the face?" Feng grinned proudly. The silhouette sighed and tapped his fingers on the desk while pondering momentarily. "Calikgos, keep them in line this time. And Makaroth," he paused to point at him aggressively. "If anyone from your family gets in our way again, including you, we will not be holding back. VGN will be number one." The moment he finished speaking, Makaroth's vision went blank as light swirled around him, and he was transported back into the Shattered World simulation.

The sound of the audience's cheers filled his ears quickly, and he felt the stone vibrating through his feet as the world around him came into focus.

“Whoa, there you are. Where did you guys go?” Synopse asked them curiously but picked up on Lilya's angry look, which contrasted heavily with Makaroth's slight grin.

“Just sorting out some last-minute details.” He looked to Calikgos, who was gazing at him sternly.

The award ceremony will now begin!

The arena announcer's voice carried through the stadium as the timer at its center reached zero, and everyone in the stands erupted in cheers.

“It’s finally stabilizing.” Nicholas let out a sigh of relief from his office simulation. On top of a display of Aegis’ livestream floating in front of him, he had thousands of graphs and charts monitoring various in-game analytics. Samantha was present, doing calculations and presenting him with information as he requested.

“Yes. It appears player behaviour is responding to player Aegis's victory. His ideologies and the ideologies of the in-game deity Eirene are having a positive impact,” Samantha explained.

Nicholas fell back into his chair and let out a massive sigh of relief. “Good.” A loud, cheering Andrew appeared in his simulation, jumping up and down before his voice had loaded correctly in.

“HELL YEAH!” Andrew bellowed, unable to contain himself. “It worked, a player actually saved our ass. I should’ve never doubted you. Nerf? Pah, who needs a Nerf to the sword when we’ve got kids like that, huh?!” Andrew hopped around while hijacking the hovering display screens in Nicholas’ office to pull up Aegis’ moment of victory for them to rewatch.

Seeing Andrew’s childlike joy was contagious, and Nicholas' big smile grew.

‘You’re not getting past my shield.” Aegis said in the clip before casting his final shield projection to stop Seraxus’ charge strike into Pyri.

“SO DAMN BADASS!” Andrew squealed like a schoolgirl.

“It was a pretty cool moment.” Nicholas agreed. “He took advantage of a lot of game mechanics to pull that off, but in the end, proved that Samantha’s design was working fine all along.”

“Oh, come on, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Samantha’s lucky. This kid saved her ass big time.”

“No way. You don’t think Samantha had this planned the whole time?”

“You’re going to tell me Samantha knew that kid could beat Seraxus like that?” Andrew raised an eyebrow at Nicholas, to which Nicholas could no longer hold a straight face, and broke into laughter.

“Okay, okay, I admit it, that kid saved our ass. But that’s what this game was always meant to be about. That’s how I want all players to be.”

Andrew raised a brow. “Spiteful towards their fathers?”

“Well, not exactly like that.” Nicholas rolled his eyes while Andrew chuckled playfully. As he did, Mike’s body appeared inside the simulation near them, looking somewhat serious at first, but when he saw the expressions on their faces, he quickly adjusted.

“Where’ve you been? How are the servers running?” Nicholas asked him.

“They’re running fine.”

“I checked in with maintenance and IT to find you and tell you the news, but they said they hadn’t seen you,” Andrew added.

“Yeah.” Mike nodded as he looked up at the clip of Aegis defeating Seraxus on display. “Yeah, I had some personal things to take care of.”

“Oh. I hope everything’s okay,” Nicholas asked him with concern.

“Yup. No problem. Everything’s going to be fine now.” Mike nodded back.