First thing he did was go to his vault, and retrieve an inventory full of items and gear, before going through the poorer parts of capital city to find a poor-looking hermit in the slums. With gold teeth.

Lord of Darkness found him, and asked him “Excuse me, kind sir, I’m looking for a buyer for some rare items”. This instantly got the hermit’s intentions. “I’ll buy the lot for the hefty sum of 10 silver” the hermit suggested, eyes shining at all the wealth. This NPC, named Argent was known for scamming people, and the total sum of all the items and armour Lord of Darkness brought was well worth over 200 gold. Yet he agreed anyway, as he didn’t want to inflate the economy and the sum itself would barely make a bump in Argent’s seemingly endless pockets.

[System’s Announcement]: Player “Lord of Darkness” is the First Player to gain the achievement Argent’s Coin: Obtain a coin from the NPC Tycoon Tyrant, Argent. +15T

Seeing that, Lord of Darkness knew that that wealth wouldn’t end up back in circulation and went to the city bank to make a withdrawal. He took out all his personal savings, a total 5000 gold coins, a massive amount for a single player, and went to the daily auction house. He saw a sleek, black, one-handed sword, and immediately bid his 5000 coins on it. He would see if anyone outbid him tomorrow, though it was unlikely. Who on earth would bid 5000 gold on a sword worth 1 gold, at most?

[System’s Announcement]: Reminder that in 3 hours, the game will be closed for a massive update, for a total of 5 days.

This was one of the reasons Lord of Darkness wanted to reset – in private, System told him some of his plans for the update. Previously, it was very hard for new players to progress in the game, called PLAYGROUND, most playing for only a few days to a few weeks, barely reaching level 5, if at all. And those were just the lower levels, imagine how much work they had to do to reach level 20, or 10 even. The new players just simply wouldn’t be able to reach the old. The plan for this update was simple – Add a second continent, with an ocean that you cannot cross, with all new dungeons and everything, and a second round of new players. Everyone would be new, and everyone would have a fair chance. System could also charge a large sum of money to old players to create a second account, capitalism at its best. Lord of Darkness’ friends tried playing PLAYGROUND a few years back, but failed due to the steep difficulty curve, and Lord of Darkness’ level meant he couldn’t return to the starting towns to join them, besides, this videogame was a bit realistic so he kept it quiet from his family.

He received a private message from System, telling him that the learning effects of Oblivion were implemented, if he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. Lord of Darkness immediately headed towards the second-hardest solo dungeon, The Labyrinth. He went and asked System to record and broadcast his run, until his death. System agreed.

[System’s Announcement]: Livestream of “Lord of Darkness” run through The Labyrinth. Includes an upcoming Dungeon Wipe Spell.

This was a huge shock to most of the players. System rarely, if ever broadcast player playthroughs, and the announcement of a Dungeon Wipe Spell was insane. Everyone tuned in.

Lord of Darkness was at the entrance of The Labyrinth, at the difficulty select screen. This was all normal, until he pulled a scroll from his bag, “Hell’s Blood”, and used it on the door. The rim immediately turned a bright blue with similarly coloured burning flames coming off. Lord of Darkness started receiving fire damage, so he stood back a bit, to allow the viewers some time to react, before he charged the doors, and entered the dungeon, upon which, he was immediately jumped by twenty or so level 50 monsters. In a level 45 dungeon. At the entrance. Viewers were shocked.

Lord of Darkness activated several of his skills, one which reduced cooldowns, and another that could teleport him to anywhere in a range of about 50 meters. With some (but not much) breathing space, he also chugged a cooldown-reducing potion and a healing potion and activated one of his skills that transferred damage taken to his mana supply. It was clear to everyone that he expected trouble and was willing to expend a lot of mana on this.

Using the teleport spell, with a new cooldown of 2 seconds, he quickly teleported through the dungeon, not barely dodging most of the monster’s attacks. The experts and guild masters watching were amazed at the difficulty of this dungeon, and how swiftly Lord of Darkness was navigating it. It would be a huge challenge for them in the future.

Lord of Darkness finally reached the boss. While it entered the cutscene, the players saw him take out a spell book, and looked at the boss, the ugly thing, before speaking two words:

Learn ≪Oblivion≫