MrBoness

-- WSA 2025 Entry --

“Five… Four… Three… Two… One…”
As the countdown towards the new year went on to the last second, Miles looked up to the sky, just as everybody else did.

In the middle of the crowded street, Miles for once felt like he belonged. Being a teenage gamer, living with his parents, and trying to build a life as a streamer, he did not feel like leaving his room every day.

But there, in the middle of that crowded street, with everyone around him paying attention to the sky, the countdown on the digital billboard, and mostly anything else but him., Miles felt like a ghost.

A welcomed ghost, but a ghost, after all.

With a smile on his unseen face, he looked up as the countdown reached one, and everybody sang in unison.
‘HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

But Miles’ eyes widened as he watched in utter horror, and curiosity, even, hovering above him, a holographic screen with a few lines of text written in it.

All around him, although he did not pay much attention to it, a few other people seemed to experience the same situation.

[Updating home-world 39515’s version]

[Version 20.25 update brings a lot of fun and games with the new and improved survival mode]

[Do you want to convert your previous avatar to home-world 39515’s latest version?]

[Yes] [No]

“Survival… Mode?” Miles’ lips quivered.

Before he could think of anything else, though, the people around him began to scream…

Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game

The Maw trembled beneath Miles' feet, the earth groaning as if it were a living thing, ancient and hungry.

The whispering voices of the Maw grew louder, closer, their demands pressing into his mind, twisting around his consciousness. They were urging him, calling him deeper, pushing him into the heart of the abyss.

And yet, despite everything, it was not the voices that truly made his skin crawl. No, it was the creature that now loomed before him, towering above with an aura of dark majesty.

The Revenant that had almost killed him and Kurt back then.

It stood over him, its grotesque body an unholy fusion of bone, flesh, and rusted metal. Jagged horns crowned its skull, and its hollow eyes burned with a malicious intelligence that sent a chill down his spine. Miles felt the oppressive weight of its gaze, as if the Revenant could see straight through him, through his thoughts, his fears, his every weakness.

Ch112. The crowned tyrant