Only an hour ago, Lemigas had been a god.
"You better keep eyes peeled, chat. We're making history right now."
Still going by Ken, he sat hunched in his ergonomic chair, the glow of his three monitors painting his face in strokes of blue and white determination. On his secondary screen, the viewer count rapidly ticked past 500,000.
It was a high but expected number. After all, the entire gaming world was watching. No one wanted to miss Killjoy's legendary run.
Ken clicked his mouse repeatedly like a man possessed, double-checking his unit loadouts and formation for the hundredth time.
His party was optimized to perfection. He had two 7-Star and three 10-Star Diamond Heroes. Every single one of them were armored in Legendary-tier gear, and his team was united with an S-Rank Synergy.
It had taken a year of non-stop grinding to reach this point.
When Towers of Asturias released, it flipped the gaming industry upside down. The developers had boasted it was the most difficult game ever created, packing every single floor with a difficulty spike that rivaled the final bosses of other mainstream titles.
Most top-tier streamers had all rage-quit months ago, abandoning hopes of conquering all the Towers.
But not Ken.
To become the undisputed King of Asturias, he had abandoned every other title—and nearly every other aspect of his actual life—to focus entirely on TOA, determined to spite the developers who dared believe they could create an unbeatable game.
So far, he had achieved the impossible, clearing the Tower of Rot, the Tower of Echoes, the Tower of Iron, and the Tower of Genesis. Now, units prepared to challenge the final floor of the final tower: The Tower of True Desolation.
"Everything looks good, guys," Ken whispered into his microphone, trying to steady his anxious breath. "All that's left is to clear this floor and officially conquer this damn game! Units! Let's move."
[ Capricorn1 : No way he's really doing it? ]
[ 77Gummybear : $100 says he doesn't defeat the floor ]
[ Killjoyfan : Guys, no negativity! Come on, Killjoy! You can do it! ]
'Here goes...'
Ken deployed his elite Heroes into the final floor. He cracked his knuckles, ready to micro-manage every his party to victory. But whatever hopes they had before entering completely vanished in a dwindling second.
[ Fear has taken over your units! Their stats have reduced by 30%! ]
Ken's brows creased. '30%? But I haven't even seen the boss...' His eyes flashed wife. "...yet."
A glitching entity had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It moved like a ghost, jittering and vanishing as it slaughtered his entire party in what counted for three seconds.
"Retreat! Retreat!" Ken barked, violently mashing his keyboard. But dead avatars couldn't hear, let alone move.
In a matter of seconds, his elite Heroes, victors of every prior Tower, were all dead.
The entity that killed them glitched away, vanishing like it was never even there, leaving the final floor silent and soaked in the decimation it had just unleashed.
[ Your Heroes are all DEAD. ]
[ YOU FAILED ]
The screen turned grey, putting an end to Ken's months of grinding. His long anticipated Tower Run was gone.
Just... like... that.
BAM!
Ken slammed his fist onto the desk, knocking over his energy drink. "Are you kidding me?!" he screamed. "What kind of obviously scripted shit is this?! Was that a boss? Where the hell was the health bar?! What kind of boss was that?!"
He had crashed out completely, veins bulging in his neck as he ranted to the half a million people watching.
First, he kicked his main monitor, then punched his keyboard as hard as he could. The keys had hurt his fist, but the adrenaline rush from his anger left him numb. He picked up his second monitor and slammed it to the ground.
"What the hell just happened!!!"
[ Deeldo69: Here he goes again. ]
[ Lemondrink: We all saw this coming and we stayed for it anyway. ]
The comments were generally the same way. None of Ken's viewers were really surprised by his reaction. Besides, they had gotten used to it after years of supporting the streamer.
Ken considered himself a simple guy. He didn't care much about anything — not politics, movies, relationships or whatever trends kids his age engaged with.
The only thing Ken truly cared about was winning.
To be precise, Ken hated to lose. He was extremely competitive with every single thing. If he tried something and lost, he kept doing it over and over until he won.
After his pathological personality alienated his friends and ruined his relationships, Ken decided he was simply meant to be alone.
He rented an apartment and channeled this stubborn refusal to fail into a streaming career, playing popular video games.
Whenever he lost, he played and played until he won; if he lost again, he played and played.
Until he won yet again.
Over time, Ken stopped losing almost entirely. His obsession with victory skyrocketed him to the top of the leaderboards across every major video game.
His audience grew incredibly fast, drawn to his obsessive, never-say-die attitude. It was this exact obsession—sweating so hard he sucked the joy out of the game for anyone playing against him—that had earned him the moniker "Killjoy."
Ken was universally recognized as the biggest sweat on the internet.
This was why he was full on outraged about what just happened. Not only had he just lost after endless months of hard work, strategizing, and spending to build an invincible party, he had been cheated on.
"The devs are complete frauds!" he yelled, kicking his gaming chair. "They're not even hiding it at this point. They're so desperate to keep their game unbeatable that they wiped out my units on the last floor!"
Comments rolled in. Typically, his chat would say things to make him even more more angry, but after witnessing what had happened it was impossible not to speak out.
[ MageMain99: L script. Devs literally just pressed a delete button on his party. ]
[ AsturiaGod00: Boycott TOA! This game is an absolute scam! ]
[ GitGudScrub: Not even Killjoy could beat the dev's fragile egos. LMAOOOO ]
Ken leaned in to read them, but just as he did, one of the comments caught his attention.
[ UnknownWatcher: You're talking real tough for a guy who knows nothing about making games. Admit it you lost. ]
Ken's anger quadrupled. He grabbed his mic, almost choking the poor thing as he called the user out. "Shut up, UnknownWatcher! I never lose! I can tell that you work for the devs. Tell them that they are criminals! Better yet, invite me to your studio. I'll say it to their faces!"
[ UnknownWatcher: Hmm. You really want to confront the devs face to face? ]
Ken read the reply with rage in his eyes. "Hell yeah, I do!" he responded. "Let me come there. I'll even stream the whole damn thing to make sure everyone sees what pathetic hacks you all are!"
Once the words left his lips, he waited for a response, blood boiling. Moments later, it came.
[ UnknownWatcher: Okay. Wish you good luck. ]
Ken narrowed his eyes. Was that it?
Curious to uncover who this troll was, he moved to click the user's profile. But suddenly, a bright white light blasted on his face.
Ken recoiled, blinded by the radiance. He saw the space in front of him twist into a strange blue vortex, and before he could ask what was happening, he was instantly yanked inside, leaving half a million viewers staring at an empty chair.
[ Killjoyfan : Uhm... What the hell just happened? ]
For what felt like an eternity, Ken fell through a dark bottomless pit, screaming at the top of his voice.
The falling abruptly stopped, and so did his screams. Ken found himself floating weightlessly in the center of an ink-black space.
'What is happening?' he thought with a shuddering breath.
Ding!
A blue transparent screen materialized, dominating his vision. Written on the surface were words that Ken never expected to see in his entire life:
[ You have been summoned by an Architect to challenge the Towers ]
A euphonious, computerized feminine voice spoke the words on the screen. Ken felt the voice rather than hear it, like it was rumbling in his heart and echoing across the void.
[ Please, declare your name ]
Ken gazed at the screen for a long time, wide-eyed. Then, amused by it all, he rubbed his forehead and muttered aloud.
"Let me guess, I fell and hit my head, and now I'm imagining things."
[ Your name, 'Lemigasifelanhitmahedanowamemaginintings' is too long ]
[ Name shortened to Lemigas ]
"Wait what?"
[ Unit: Lemigas, you are being sent into the tutorial tower. Brace yourself! ]
Ken's heart seized with terror. "What the hell is happening???!!"
The next thing he knew, he was falling again, even faster than before, and now — "Woah!" Lemigas threw himself backward, landing hard in the mud — he was fighting goblins.
The goblin that attacked screeched, drool dripping from its yellow fangs as it raised its spiked club for a finishing blow.
'It's a Level 1 Goblin Scavenger,' Lemigas thought, analyzing the creature with bloodshot eyes. 'They may be the lowest level but they're very lethal threats for an unawakened unit.'
Lemigas knew this was particularly the case because so many of his summoned units in his own playthroughs had perished on this tutorial floor; only the few who miraculously survived ever managed to awaken their true power.
Dodging the goblin's attack, he scrambled backward through the mud, his expression caught between disbelief and fear. He didn't want to admit it before but there was no use lying to himself.
Somehow, he had entered the game he was just playing. Towers of Asturias.
He was starting as other chosen heroes did; an unawakened summoned unit with a potential to awaken if he survived. And if there was one thing he knew about this death game, it was that survival was never guaranteed.
His eyes darted across the clearing. Just like it was whenever he played the game, ten summoned units had been dropped to challenge the Tutorial Floor.
Seven of them were already dead.