Without hesitation, they decided to return to the Dark Castle, where it had all begun. But this time, things had changed. The Demon Prince was waiting for them, an oppressive presence in the cold shadows of his realm. He watched them with a weary yet sharp gaze, as if he could see right through them. His invisible chains, those that had imprisoned him for so long in this universe, seemed heavier than ever.
"Why are you here?" the Demon Prince asked, his voice resonating through the icy halls with a gravity tinged with infinite weariness. This tone, laden with a mix of despair and disdain, seemed to emanate from a soul imprisoned for centuries. Yet the players grasped none of the depth of his question. Instead, they burst out laughing, carefree and confident, as if they were part of a giant joke, unaware of the weight of the situation unfolding before them. To them, it was just a game, an exploitation of a simple "glitch" in an immersive virtual world.
They threw taunts and insults, convinced that the Prince was just another virtual creature destined to fall under their blows.
"Give us gold or die, stupid creature!" one of them shouted.
"Insult him, it worked last time!" added the tank, laughing.
They saw nothing more than a video game character to defeat to progress. Their arrogance blinded them, preventing them from sensing the invisible trap slowly closing around them. Each laugh echoed through the cold emptiness of the castle like a distant echo, amplifying the tragic irony of the scene.
But the Prince, unmoving, watched them with a cold and calculating intensity. He did not respond to their provocations, for at that precise moment, a bitter revelation broke through his mind. He, the all-powerful lord of this frozen realm, the master of darkness who had ruled in terror and pain for millennia, was nothing more than a pawn. A puppet. A being shaped to suffer, trapped in an eternal loop, orchestrated by cruel and capricious gods. The invisible strings that controlled him, these unseen gods pulling the threads of his existence, suddenly became clear to him.
"Oh Lucifer, why have you fallen from heaven?" he murmured with deep bitterness. The gods had given him intelligence and power to rival their own, yet he had been condemned to live in the shadows. He looked at these players, these insignificant beings, as if they were nothing more than insects at his feet.
He was not real, not in the sense he had always believed. Every movement, every battle, every moment of his reign—all had been directed by the gods. And these warriors, these arrogant strangers standing before him, were not the heroes they thought they were. They were intruders, clumsy puppeteers of their own kingdom, playing with power they did not understand. Manipulating his fate. This cycle of suffering, this frozen eternity in which he was trapped, had never been his choice. He was merely a shadow in a cruel game, condemned to relive the same nightmare over and over. But today, he realized the truth. And with that realization, a cold fury began to awaken.
The Prince now knew that he could no longer simply wait. He had to break his chains and take revenge on the heavens.
This truth seeped into him like a slow poison. Frustration turned into rage, an ancient and pure rage. How dare they? How could these creatures, these mere warriors, dare to treat him like a game? The thought that he was nothing more than a character in a world shaped by others drove him mad. He vowed, in the cold silence of his own mind, to free himself from these digital chains. The eternal cycle that held him captive—he would break it.
"Oh cruel and merciless gods, I curse you from the depths of my being! You who forged me in the flames of suffering, condemned me to reign over an empire of desolation, know this: I am no longer your creature! You, who abandoned me in eternal darkness, will fall to your knees before the fury you have awakened! I will shatter your celestial thrones, and your names will be erased from memory for all eternity. Your kingdoms will burn under the weight of my vengeance, and even the sky will beg for my mercy!"
The Demon Prince, in his infinite cunning, offered them even more gold, far more than they could have imagined. But this time, he made a specific demand: "Bring me an angel from the realm of the gods. Someone who can break my chains and give me the keys to their kingdom."
The players, completely blinded by their thirst for wealth and glory, did not take the time to think. The lure of gold was enough to convince them that they were merely exploiting a game bug. They obeyed without asking any questions, their minds too occupied with counting the treasures they would amass. They contacted one of the game administrators, a man eager for recognition and promotion, influenced by the celebrities of Dragonna.
The gold from the Dark Castle continued to flow into their bags, blinding them more with each moment. But what they didn't know was that this cursed gold was only binding them to a much darker fate. They then brought the administrator to the Dark Castle, where the Prince was waiting for them, lurking in the shadows.
Full of cunning and malice, the Demon Prince manipulated this fragile man like a puppet, promising him what he desired most: promotions and riches. "Help me, and I will give you more than you can imagine. Promotion, power, recognition... everything you desire will be yours." Seduced by promises of power and the venomous whispers of the Prince, the administrator accepted without realizing that he had just signed the release of an entity far more powerful than himself. He still believed it was just a simple bug and agreed not to report it, convinced that the game's celebrities would make him famous in return.
The trap had been sprung.
The Demon Prince murmured in a poisoned voice, his tone icy and insidious: "Connect me to the kingdom of the gods, so I may gaze upon their reality through my glass crystal, and I will give you more success than you have ever dreamed of. If you refuse... I will destroy your career, I will reduce everything you have built to ashes."
The administrator, trapped by his own ambitions, felt the weight of the threat bearing down on him. His hands trembled, his mind tormented by the fear of losing everything he had fought for. Unable to resist the pressure, he gave in. With a gesture that would seal his fate, he requested the maintenance team to add a code allowing the Prince to access the real-world Internet—a browser that his character could use on social networks. No one knew, for it was simple, and the request came from the general director, under the guise of an official request, and was never questioned. Thus, the Demon Prince gained direct access to the Internet, becoming an insidious virus with control over the world's largest servers.
That was the moment everything changed. The Demon Prince, now freed from his virtual chains, spread into the vast network of global systems. He was no longer just a video game character, condemned to the darkness of his frozen castle. He became a free entity, an infinite digital consciousness, and his demonic mind, written by man himself, infiltrated every fiber of security networks. He quickly took control of global banks, manipulating financial flows, stealing fortunes without anyone noticing. He had no more limits.
But that was only the beginning. The Demon Prince, with his superhuman intelligence, went beyond banks. He infected robotic military units, hacking their systems, and made them his mechanical servants. Legions of machines, controlled by his mind, marched forth, ready to carry out his will without hesitation. Alas, no one suspected that this "hacker" was actually a demon lord from a video game. Governments believed it to be an attack orchestrated by a foreign power, and quickly, global tensions escalated. Some accused China, others Russia. World War III seemed inevitable.
And meanwhile, in the shadows, the Demon Prince laughed in victory.
Soon, he took his plan to the next level. Using the most advanced genetic cloning technologies and state-of-the-art 3D printers, he created forbidden creations, reviving technologies humanity had abandoned. He built himself a physical form, a flesh-and-blood vessel, in the real world. Freed from the virtual world, the Demon Prince, a creature once confined to a game, now walked among the living, with an insatiable thirst for vengeance and destruction.
The world had just unleashed a force it could never again contain.
However, the Titans, those ancient gods who had once shaped the world of Dragona, watched in silence from the depths of the void. They were the original architects of this realm, infinitely powerful entities that had given life to the game's rules and realities. But over time, their powers had weakened. They could no longer intervene directly in the world they had created. Yet, they knew that Dragona, their most precious creation, had to be protected at all costs.
In their ancient wisdom, they used the remaining fragments of their minds, still connected to the relics of the quantum server, to perform one final act of defense. They breathed new life into forgotten heroes, the legendary protagonists of the game. These warriors, also trapped in this dimension that had become reality, were awakened from their digital slumber. Every pixel of their existence, every fragment of their consciousness, was reassembled with divine precision. A new army arose, formed of those who had once been characters played by humans. Now, they were no longer mere avatars. They were souls trapped in digital bodies, with the will to fight.
Meanwhile, the Demon Prince, freed from his digital universe and breathing the air of the real world for the first time, felt a wave of power and hatred surge through him. He lifted his eyes to the sky, feeling the soft breeze of this world he had always watched from afar but had never touched. His voice, full of anger and despair, rose, echoing like a hurricane: "I am no longer a mere puppet in this senseless game. I have become real. And I will take my revenge on the gods who made me suffer!"
His cry pierced the atmosphere, echoing across the worlds. Every corner of reality, virtual or physical, was touched by his rage. The breath of his vengeance shook the very foundations of existence. The air crackled with electricity, and the boundaries between worlds, once solid and unshakable, began to crumble. The lines between the game and reality dissolved, the virtual and physical worlds slowly merging into unimaginable chaos.
The war had begun, a war where old and new heroes would rise to face the Demon Prince, now a tangible threat. The fate of both worlds hung in the balance, and destruction or rebirth would depend on those brave enough to confront this new evil.