Chapter 27: The Whole Server Finds Out

"We wouldn’t be in this mess if Kael were still here." The words hung there, and nobody moved to disagree.

If anything, the silence deepened into something like agreement, murmurs rippling through the group in low, careful tones.

"He’s right. Kael never missed a read in his life."

"Didn’t matter who we were up against he always had an answer before the fight even started."

"If he’d been standing here tonight, this wouldn’t have happened. Not a chance."

Ryan’s jaw tightened with every word.

Every murmur landed like a slap because if Kael would’ve won this fight, that meant only one thing about the man standing in his place.

"That’s enough."

His voice cracked across the group, sharp and too loud. Every head turned."We didn’t lose today because of tactics.

We lost because the stat gap was insurmountable full stop. Kael himself could’ve walked in here and it wouldn’t have changed a thing."

He drew himself up, chin high, voice climbing toward something that wanted badly to sound like authority. "And another thing Kael’s gone. He doesn’t captain anything anymore."

"There’s only one captain left standing here. Me."The murmuring died instantly. Nobody argued out loud.

But nobody’s face changed either a room full of people biting down on the same unspoken thought, none of them buying a word of it.

Cynthia stood at the edge of the group, arms crossed, and felt something uncomfortable settle low in her stomach.

Three years. Three years of Kael carrying this org without a single embarrassment like tonight’s.

She’d wanted him gone for reasons that had nothing to do with performance but she’d only felt safe pulling the trigger once she was sure Ryan could actually fill the gap.

Sure enough that trading a proven captain for a loyal one felt like an even swap.

Is the gap really this big?

She’d spent three years coveting Kael’s spotlight, resenting how much of the org’s identity rode on his name instead of hers.

The second Ryan started showing real promise, she’d convinced herself she finally had leverage a replacement obedient enough to keep, talented enough to justify the trade.

Watching her entire elite roster get erased by one solo player was making that math look considerably worse than it had this morning.

But admitting that out loud meant admitting she’d been wrong to force Kael out in the first place. And she wasn’t about to hand anyone that satisfaction least of all herself.

She swallowed whatever she actually felt and forced her voice level.

"That’s enough out of everyone. This conversation is over."

"The club will cover replacement costs for whatever gear you lost. Take the next two days, grind back the levels, and get your numbers where they should be." Her eyes flicked toward the shadows past the group.

"I’ll have people quietly digging into

Unrivaled’s background. Once we know who we’re actually dealing with, we’ll deal with him properly."

Easy for her to say.

Nobody voiced the thought, but it sat behind every face in the crowd all the same. Losing a level this early cost real time hours nobody was getting back, on a day when every hour mattered more than it ever would again.

They nodded anyway, murmured agreement, and scattered to get back to grinding. Cynthia dismissed the rest of the starters to log off for lunch, until only she and Ryan remained standing at the empty respawn point.

Ryan shifted, suddenly less certain of himself. "Cynthia, I"

"Don’t." She cut him off with a flat wave. "Log off. My office. Now."

"I am furious right now."

News like this didn’t stay contained for long.

It started small a handful of players scrolling the level leaderboard noticed something off.

Several of Ironclad’s top-ranked names had all dropped a level, simultaneously, within the same short window.

"Wait, check the leaderboard half of Ironclad’s roster just dropped a level at the same time?"

"No way. ...Holy crap, it’s true."

"Wipe on a boss raid, maybe? Rough way to start launch night."

"Rough? That’s karma with perfect aim.

They cut Kael Mercer loose and this is what happens the very next day? Couldn’t happen to a better bunch."

Then the real story leaked, and the forums detonated properly.

Not a boss wipe. A dozen-plus geared Ironclad players had gone hunting for Unrivaled specifically and gotten wiped out by him, solo, without taking him down once.

"WAIT. They went to GANK him and HE cleaned THEM out?"

"Ironclad’s a top-tier org. Their roster’s legit, whatever else you think of their management. A dozen professionals losing to one Beastlord solo doesn’t add up."

"There’s no version of this that isn’t insane."

"If it’s true, Unrivaled isn’t just good. He’s operating on a different tier entirely."

"Explains why every guild in the country’s throwing nine figures at him without blinking."

"At this point they could offer him the moon and it’d still look cheap."

Three server-wide announcements chimed in near-perfect succession, stacking on top of the chaos already tearing through the forums.

"Player DynastyHerald: The Crimson Dynasty extends a formal invitation to Unrivaled annual salary $200 million, terms fully negotiable. Join us and help build an empire worth remembering."

"Player EvertideHerald: Evertide Studios extends a formal invitation to Unrivaled annual salary $250 million. Let’s discuss terms in person."

The server went fully feral.

"Every single guild just raised their bid at once. That confirms it the fight actually happened."

"He soloed an entire pro roster and walked away clean. That’s not luck. That’s a completely different category of player."

"Called it days.okay, hours ago. Ironclad without Kael Mercer was never going to be the same org."

"A dozen people organized a whole ambush and got farmed by the guy they were hunting. That’s not just a loss, that’s humiliation with a bow on it."

"Ironclad’s been a joke since the second they let him walk."

Kael, sitting comfortably at the center of every single one of those threads, couldn’t have cared less.

He’d logged off just long enough to eat, then jumped straight back into the grind the moment his plate was empty.

With the Ring of Infinite Fortune still quietly warping every drop roll in his favor, Evolution Points kept stacking almost every kill sometimes two at once, when the luck really leaned his way.

Within the hour, his counter had climbed past another hundred.

He didn’t wait around to admire the number. He pulled up the General’s panel, selected Raise the Fallen, and locked in the next evolution.