The King of the Iron Bastion stood above the battlefield, surrounded by his nobles.
Together, they looked down at the monstrosity standing before the fortress.
Its body was covered in crimson armor made of living flesh, with dark veins running beneath the surface.
Jagged spines jutted from its shoulders and back, while thick tendrils twisted around its limbs.
Its head floated separately above its shoulders, a hollow black void filled with hundreds of pale eyes.
In one hand, it held a crooked staff lined with sharp protrusions.
It looked less like a living creature and more like something that should never have existed.
The nobles watched in silence, their expressions filled with disgust and contempt.
The King of the Iron Bastion narrowed his eyes.
“What a wretched monstrosity.”
Beginning of the story 🙂
Seojun Kim strolled through the glowing streets of Seoul, headphones tucked over his ears, his hands buried in his hoodie pockets.
Holographic billboards floated above the sidewalks, advertising every kind of virtual reality game imaginable.
Racing simulators, fantasy adventures, alien survival games.
Some displayed realistic battlefields, while others showed entire worlds that players could explore with almost complete freedom.
Most people barely glanced at them anymore.
Seojun was no exception.
He had spent years testing VR games, and flashy advertisements rarely impressed him.
Then he noticed something different.
A massive billboard displayed a logo against a dark background.
IMMERSIA
Beneath it, the title of the franchise’s newest installment slowly appeared.
Immersia: Kingdoms & Hellgates.
Seojun stopped walking.
The promotional artwork showed an enormous gate standing between two vastly different landscapes.
On one side were sprawling kingdoms, fortified castles, and armies gathered beneath colorful banners.
On the other stretched a desolate wasteland filled with twisted forests, jagged cliffs, and the silhouettes of enormous monsters.
The gate separating them had been shattered.
Its remaining sections were covered in faint markings, barely visible beneath the promotional lighting.
Cracks spread across its surface in irregular patterns, forming shapes that looked almost deliberate.
Seojun narrowed his eyes.
The gate looked less like something that had simply broken and more like something that had been forced open.
At the center of the artwork stood a lone hunter, facing the wasteland.
Above the hunter, something enormous loomed in the distance.
Its silhouette was difficult to make out, but its size was unmistakable.
Even the surrounding monsters looked insignificant beside it.
Seojun pulled out his phone and took a screenshot.
“What’s your deal?”
Of course, the billboard didn’t answer.
He examined the image for another moment before slipping his phone back into his pocket.
Maybe the markings were decorative.
Maybe the enormous creature was a final boss.
Maybe the developers had hidden a secret in the promotional material.
Whatever the explanation, the advertisement had accomplished its purpose.
He was interested.
And when Seojun Kim became interested in a game, he rarely left it alone.
By the time Seojun arrived home, he had already decided what he would stream that evening.
He tossed his hoodie onto a chair, booted up his computer, and checked his equipment.
His headset connected, his microphone activated, and his streaming software loaded.
Thousands of viewers were already waiting.
Seojun activated the stream.
Within seconds, the chat flooded with messages.
Viewer1: JUNX IS HERE!
Viewer2: FINALLY!
Viewer3: WHAT ARE WE PLAYING TODAY?
Online, Seojun was known as JunX.
He had built a sizable following through unpredictable gameplay, clever strategies, and an unusual willingness to experiment with mechanics that other players ignored.
He wasn’t always the best player in every game he touched, but he was good at finding things other people missed.
That reputation had made him one of the more popular game testers and streamers in his circle.
He adjusted his microphone.
“All right, everyone. Today, we’re talking about the next game I’m planning to cover.”
The chat slowed slightly.
Viewer1: NEW GAME?
Viewer2: PLEASE DON’T BE ANOTHER RACING GAME.
Viewer3: BRO HAS BEEN PLAYING EVERYTHING LATELY.
Seojun grinned.
“It’s called Immersia: Kingdoms & Hellgates.”
The chat immediately erupted.
Viewer1: IMMERSIA?!
Viewer2: WAIT, THEY’RE MAKING ANOTHER ONE?
Viewer3: ISN’T THAT THE VR SERIES WITH THE CRAZY WORLD GENERATION?
“Yeah, that one.”
Seojun opened the official trailer.
“From what I’ve seen, it’s a twenty-player game divided into two factions. Ten players begin in the kingdoms, while the other ten start in the wasteland. Both sides have their own objectives, and the winner is determined by how well they complete them.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Sounds simple until you see the scale.”
The trailer began.
Massive kingdoms appeared across the screen.
Fortified cities stretched along mountain ranges, enormous castles overlooked sprawling settlements, and magical towers rose above defensive walls.
Armies of NPC soldiers marched through the streets.
Merchants moved between crowded marketplaces, while distant airships traveled between enormous structures.
The kingdom side looked like an entire fantasy civilization brought to life.
Then the camera passed through the shattered Hellgate.
Everything changed.
The wasteland stretched toward the horizon beneath a dark red sky.
Jagged cliffs surrounded forests filled with twisted trees.
Strange plants covered the ground, and enormous creatures wandered through the ruins of forgotten structures.
Some monsters resembled enormous insects.
Others were masses of tentacles and armored flesh.
A few looked almost like trees until they began moving.
The camera swept across the landscape, showing hunters fighting creatures many times their size.
Then the footage slowed.
Something enormous stood beyond the broken gate.
The Behemoth.
Its body dwarfed the surrounding landscape.
Even from a distance, its silhouette was large enough to obscure part of the horizon.
The creatures nearest to it moved away.
For a brief moment, the Behemoth stood motionless, its enormous head turned toward the shattered gate.
Then the footage cut to another scene.
Seojun paused the trailer.
His chat exploded.
Viewer1: THAT BEHEMOTH LOOKS INSANE!
Viewer2: WAIT, THE HEROES GET A KINGDOM AND THE OTHER SIDE GETS THAT?!
Viewer3: I WANT TO SEE JUNX SOLO THAT THING.
Seojun laughed.
“Yeah, that’s the point. I don’t know shit yet.”
He rewound the footage and watched the Behemoth’s appearance again.
The creature hadn’t attacked anything.
It hadn’t even moved toward the camera.
It had simply looked at the gate.
“That’s weird.”
He paused the image.
Maybe it was a scripted moment intended to make the monster look intimidating.
Maybe the developers wanted players to wonder whether it would become a raid boss.
Still, the scene had caught his attention.
He took another screenshot.
“I’m keeping an eye on that thing.”
The trailer continued.
Hunters battled monsters in the wasteland while knights defended castle gates.
Players explored ancient ruins containing strange crystals, fought enormous creatures, and uncovered structures buried beneath the earth.
Some of the ruins appeared older than the kingdoms themselves.
The footage showed a crystalline object floating inside a circular chamber.
Its surface glowed faintly, illuminating markings carved into the surrounding stone.
Before the camera could reveal more, the scene changed.
Seojun leaned forward.
“Hold on. What was that?”
He rewound the footage.
The chamber appeared again, but the camera moved past it too quickly to reveal much.
“Okay. So we’ve got a giant monster, strange crystals, and ancient ruins.”
He tapped his desk.
“Either this game has a ridiculous amount of hidden content, or the marketing team knows exactly how to get people interested.”
The chat filled with speculation.
Viewer1: SECRET BOSS CONFIRMED.
Viewer2: CRYSTALS ARE PROBABLY THE MAIN OBJECTIVE.
Viewer3: THE BEHEMOTH IS DEFINITELY THE FINAL BOSS.
Viewer4: JUNX IS GOING TO SPEND SIX HOURS LOOKING FOR THAT CHAMBER.
Seojun pointed at the screen.
“First of all, that happened once.”
Viewer4: THREE TIMES.
“Secondly, those were important discoveries.”
The chat responded with laughing emotes.
Seojun shook his head and continued watching.
When the trailer finally ended, a final announcement appeared.
The game would debut at the International Game Expo in a prerelease tournament featuring popular creators from around the world.
Twenty players would enter the game live while the world watched the battle between kingdoms and hunters unfold.
Seojun leaned forward.
“A worldwide creator tournament? And they’re letting us play before the official release?”
He smiled.
“Okay. Now I’m interested.”
For the next several minutes, he discussed possible strategies with his viewers.
Some wanted him to play defensively in the kingdoms, while others insisted that he should choose the wasteland and hunt monsters.
Seojun already had a preference.
He just needed to understand how the tournament worked.
A couple of weeks later, the official tournament rules began spreading online.
Seojun sat at his computer, scrolling through his phone while the announcement played on another screen.
The tournament would last three in-game days.
Each day would run for twelve hours, with a thirty-minute break every four hours.
Seojun stared at the announcement.
Twelve hours a day.
Three days.
Thirty-six hours of gameplay.
He leaned back in his chair.
“Who the hell is going to watch people farm monsters for four hours straight?”
His chat agreed.
Viewer1: I’M NOT WATCHING SOMEONE CUT TREES FOR HALF A DAY.
Viewer2: BRO, YOU WOULD.
Viewer3: JUNX WOULD SPEND SIX HOURS LOOKING FOR A SECRET BOSS.
Seojun pointed at the screen.
“First of all, I have a reputation to maintain.”
Viewer2: YOUR REPUTATION IS GETTING LOST IN CAVES.
“That’s called exploration.”
Viewer3: YOU GOT LOST IN A TUTORIAL CAVE.
“That’s called finding content the developers didn’t intend for people to find.”
He crossed his arms.
“Anyway, there’s more.”
An announcement interrupted the stream.
The event would host sixteen simultaneous competitions at the same venue, with different groups of creators competing across multiple games.
Seojun blinked.
Then he nodded.
“Okay. That solves the boredom problem.”
If the audience could switch between competitions, viewers wouldn’t have to watch a single group of players for the entire event.
For the contestants, the format meant that every moment of the tournament could be broadcast to an enormous audience.
It was a clever setup.
He returned to the game’s official page and looked at the promotional artwork again.
The Behemoth stood at the edge of the shattered Hellgate.
Seojun enlarged the image.
There was something odd about the markings on the gate.
They didn’t resemble the decorative runes usually used in fantasy games.
They formed patterns around the fractures, almost as though the cracks themselves were part of the design.
He couldn’t make much of them from a promotional image.
Still, he saved another copy.
The developers had shown the gate repeatedly, yet they had barely explained anything about it.
There was no history of the kingdoms, no explanation of where the wasteland came from, and almost nothing about the origins of the monsters.
Maybe the information would be available in-game.
That was fine with Seojun.
Discovering things for himself was half the fun.
He closed the image and opened his notes.
At the top of the list, he wrote two things.
Investigate the Behemoth.
Find out what the Hellgates actually do.
He leaned back and smiled.
“Let’s see what you’re hiding, Immersia.”
He had no idea how long either task would take.
But he intended to find out. keep on reading and you will get to twist and a wider lore on the world and it’s world building also give me reviews pretty please and comment 🙂 or just say anything that I could improve on and keep on readingggggggg