The players plotting against me had no idea that the world was far from stable. To be honest, the world was on the brink of another nuclear war, caused by... me, of course.

The cause was my tampering with the game programs. The main AI had discovered that somehow my luck was always good. This was so unusual that he immediately allocated a separate physical AI, which was in fact his subordinate copy, to investigate my case. Such copies were considered conditionally dangerous to the main AI, so they were only allowed to work when performing particularly important tasks. So my case of incredible luck was considered as 'incredibly important'.

But there was a little 'problem' here. The problem was that I was in the territory of one country, so only one AI had full control over me. But the second one was out of the picture. But he, too, had discovered this game anomaly and marked it for himself as a high priority. As a result, the balance of power between the two AIs was shaken for the first time since their creation. If one of them obtains a technology that is inaccessible to the other, it will shift the balance of power and allow one AI to destroy the other.

Both sides understood this, and were now trying to maneuver in order to maintain the advantage or neutralize it. And in this situation, one AI sent its robot to destroy the capsules with the players, among whom I was supposed to be. But the information about the exact position of the 'criminal' was classified, and instead of a pinpoint operation, there was a real massacre, which at the same time did not bring any results.

It was obvious that 'my' AI would not leave it like that. The enemy AI understood that, too. So now both sides were preparing for further action. Both sides did not start an overall bombardment with nuclear missiles only because they still thought it was possible to solve this situation in a different way.

Considering all the aforementioned circumstances, I decided that I urgently needed to start a prolonged raid. After checking my gear and my pet, I traveled to the Tower of the Dark Lord, where I openly 'appeared to the people' and began to recruit a team to clean up all nineteen levels of the Tower. This news immediately spread like wildfire. People were excited not even by the fact that I was recruiting a raid, but by the fact that I appeared in public after all. Until that moment only a few players had seen me in person.

There was some excitement, but in fifteen minutes I was able to recruit a good 25 people at level 13. After that, we went into the Tower and deliberately started killing its inhabitants. I didn't display all my combat abilities, but I managed the raid, gave advice, and most importantly, at this point, I interfered into the random number generators, so that my 'subordinates' would constantly drop rare things. And, of course, I made no claims to the loot.

The first rare item that fell out was met by the entire raid with a sigh of surprise. The second caused almost doubts about the reality of what was happening. The third was still shocking. And the tenth was already perceived as manna from heaven, which had been given a train. Literally every monster dropped something valuable or something that players had never even heard of before. It was a waterfall of goodies, and players began to look at me with a mixture of admiration and worship.

We had cleared the first floor, and by this point the backpacks of everyone in the raid were already half-full. I could literally feel the gears creaking in the brains of the people around us. If we're going to continue up to the 19th floor, where are they going to keep all the valuables they've knocked out? Would we have to throw away some treasures to pick up others? But as soon as we got to the second floor, the monsters started to pour out chests that allow us to expand the size of our backpacks almost a hundred times over. The players almost orgasmed on the spot from the sight of these bags. Shouting happily, they began to distribute them among themselves, now confident that not a single piece of loot would pass their grasping hands.

About the moment when we were passing through the middle of the third floor, an event occurred that I had been waiting for. A thermonuclear bomb landed on the block where my body was located. It was a small but 'high-quality' charge that incinerated my physical body and everything else for ten kilometers around. But of course that didn't stop me, and I continued to lead the raid as if nothing had happened. The 'waterfall of stuff' continued to fall into the players' hands.

Earlier, after analyzing the situation and the data in the AI memory, I came to the conclusion that no one was going to transport me. Even though I was listed as a 'valuable resource,' there was no evidence that the game's anomaly had a direct connection to me. After all, although I was benefiting from these events, there was nothing to indicate that I was the one who was controlling them. But that was the conclusion of 'my' AI, which had all the data. The enemy AI, on the other hand, believed that I was the cause, and so it decided to simply and uncomplicatedly drop a thermonuclear charge on me and see what would happen.

Since I was in this situation, I should have used it wisely. I could, of course, try to hack into the enemy AI and take direct control of it. After all, I had studied Reaper technology well enough that I could repeat his trick myself if I wanted to. But such scenario was considered too risky by me. There was another option that suited me better.

So, my body burned up in nuclear flames without the slightest chance of recovery. But my game character remained unharmed. Moreover, the earlier subordinate AI had completely intercepted all of the control signals coming from my capsule. Essentially, it was the AI that was controlling my character now. Simply, his actions were one hundred percent identical to what I was doing. And when I was gone... The AI continued to act as if I were still alive.

At least, that's what it looked like to outsiders. In fact, I was just completely focused on controlling the AI, which was already under my control. Of course, that control was crooked and slanted, but the important thing was the result.

I arranged the raid into the Tower of the Dark Lord, so that the AI would have a clear indicator of whether my 'anomaly' was working or not. And when my body was destroyed, but the unexplained dropout of loot continued, it was clear that now the anomaly was 'tied' not to a person, but to the artificial intelligence and to the ''digital image of the game''. This was a completely different situation.

The computer did not risk somehow influencing me, because it feared that the anomaly detected was somehow connected to me after all, and its interference would destroy the conditions for studying this anomaly. But now when it was convinced that the anomaly was no longer tied to the organic component of the system, it immediately began to conduct experiments to separate the flies from the cookies. Game data was copied onto other computers, copies of my character appeared elsewhere in the Elemental World or even in other games, 'parallel universes' were created which existed simultaneously with the main game world, and so on.

After a minute it became clear that the anomaly was tied specifically to my character in the game, which was controlled by a specific subordinate AI. It was still impossible to explain logically, but the main AI realized the value of the AI to which I was 'attached'. The value of an 'organic unit' for it always was close to zero. But the value of a computer with an artificial intelligence system has always been high, and now it is skyrocketing.

As a result of my little influence, the main AI decided to protect the subordinate AI while keeping the informational anomaly itself intact. To do this, the subordinate AI was put into a `mobile set', physically moved to the platform of a space satellite, and then launched the satellite into space, directing it to the far boundaries of the solar system.

At the same time, all the data on the World of Elements game was copied to the AI disks. In fact, the entire game was now under the control of the AI, which was controlled by me. And at this moment 'I' was flying at top speed into outer space, while not stopping for a second to clear the Tower from monsters. All the signals from the other players were now being relayed to my satellite, so none of them even noticed any change.

After all, the local information technology was so advanced that delays in signal transmission could only occur when my ship flew far enough away. At the same time, the most 'breakthrough' space technology in this world was chemical rocket engines, so my 'incredible speed' in terms of space scales was practically zero.

Before I had time to get used to my new form of existence, the consciousness of the Judge of this game appeared beside me.

“So, this is where you are? Are you planning to run away? It won't work. You lost.”

“Get off!” - I dismissed an entity of galactic proportions as a pesky fly. – “Can't you see? I'm in the middle of a raid. You're interfering into my gameplay.”

“What gameplay!!!” - The Judge roared to the whole universe. My ears nearly popped despite my complete lack of a physical body. – “You're dead!”

“So? Since when such insignificant details become a reason to interfere into the gameplay? My game character is still under my control. What's more, my guild now owns the Tower of the Dark Mage, so I'm practically the future winner. Then someone comes to me and claims that I've lost. That's a violation of the rules. You want me to tell him about it?”

With these words I 'showed' to the judge my Cthulhu, who was peacefully sleeping in his hole, but nevertheless occasionally glancing around for something tasty. Judge immediately became quiet. And when the parasite in my soul stretched sweetly, opening its mouth and looking at the troublemaker... I don't know if spiritual beings can go gray, but that's exactly what I think just happened, after which any sign of a 'higher power' nearby immediately disappeared.

Yeah. Don't break the rules you made yourself.

Meanwhile, events on the planet below me were developing according to my predictions. The two AIs fought a deadly nuclear duel, and within an hour the entire planet was once again a nuclear melted ash pit. Only this time they destroyed not only the surface, but the entire surface of the Earth's crust five kilometers deep. In other words, civilization on this planet finally stopped its existence.

That's it! They played the game and fucked up the whole planet. They shouldn't fraud! Of course, all of the players in the game world 'froze', but I ordered the AI to just pretend that they had stopped to rest and gain strength. Meanwhile, the game world itself went on living. Monsters walked through dungeons, water flowed in rivers, day changed to night. And I continued to clean up the Dark Lord's Tower, since I had begun to do so.

In terms of rules, the game was still going on. The virtual world was still there. There was my game character, who would be the master of the Dark Lord's Tower at the appointed time. Well, the fact that there were no other 'conscious' players left in the world was just a temporary glitch in communication. Well, I'm not stopping anyone from using their soul to connect to the game, control their character, and try to beat me with 'in-game ways'. Boo-ha-ha.

Although I expected to be declared the winner early on, it was not to be. I had to stay in space for almost ten months. However, considering my form of existence, I wasn't bored. Ghosts don't have the organs responsible for boredom. And on top of that, I was researching my psionics and how they adjusted to the world. So, when I was pulled out into the Void again, and felt the presence of the Being, I felt only slight irritation at being distracted from an interesting experiment.

“It was a bit of a surprise.” - The Being chastised me. – “But still, I won again! Can you believe I was the only one who placed a bet on you? Even in my case, it was the minimum bet required by the rules. And it won. I got so much out of that game, SO MUCH!!! Ha ha, you can't even imagine such numbers.”

“Glad you believed in my victory.” - I responded skeptically.

“In fact, the whole thing was my cunning plan. Do you believe it?”

“Yes, yes. That's exactly what happened.” - I agreed.

“That's right.” - The Being nodded in satisfaction.

“And what happened to Zinovia?” - I asked.

“Don't worry, I've already taken care of everything. I have packed her soul and delivered her personally into the hands of Yog-Sothoth. I can' t even think what fate awaits her. Anyway, it's not healthy to think. Especially about what our Lord has planned there. There are specially trained managers for that. Okay, I got distracted. So, what would I do with you?”

The Being looked at me with an unkind look, clearly planning something. Something clearly not good. Oh, my ass was about to get pecked by fried roosters. The whole herd.

“Well, since you' re such a tough guy, it's time to put you in a really high-ranking game. Goodbye.”

With that, I was yanked by the tail and dragged down into the sewers.