Chapter 1: City Of Overlords

On the rooftop of a forty-story skyscraper, a man sat alone in his luxurious penthouse.

Everything around him spoke of wealth, and he himself wore an all-black suit with a crimson tie—each thread worth more than most people earned in a month.

In his hands was a remote control, his eyes fixed on a sixty-four-inch 8K display. The game graphics were so vivid, so lifelike, that reality and fiction blurred at the edges.

The game was called City of Overlords.

Samuel had played nothing else for five years straight.

His fingers were numb. His back ached from the chair. His eyes felt as though they were coated in sand.

Only the sound of buttons clicking and the game’s ambient noise filled the rooftop. The wind howled through the city below, but up here, there was only silence and the glow of that massive screen.

His character sat in a dimly lit office—a middle-aged man with a revolver in one hand and a cigar burning between his teeth.

\[Survival Time: 1,952 days, 9 hours\]

Among the thousands of characters he had created and deleted over the years, this one was his masterpiece. His pride.

The game had one rule above all others: if your character dies, they’re gone forever.

No resurrection. No second chances. Permanent deletion.

The average player’s character lasted thirty days before being wiped from existence.

’Enough time to realize what you’ve lost,’ Samuel thought, watching his character breathe smoke into the digital night.

"Boss."

A man in a black suit stepped through the rooftop door, but Samuel didn’t even flinch.

"You don’t have time to sit here."

Samuel’s eyes remained fixed on the screen, but his jaw tightened imperceptibly. The tension in that small gesture was enough—the man in the suit immediately lowered his gaze and took a step back.

’Time,’ Samuel sighed silently. ’The only thing I’ve never been able to steal enough of.’

Samuel was the most wanted mafia boss in the world. Governments across continents had his face plastered on their walls. Millions of dollars were being offered for his capture, dead or alive. Thousands of lives had been lost at his hands as he built his empire.

He had been born an orphan and knew nothing about his parents or family. Hunger had been his first teacher and his only constant companion.

When he was no more than twelve years old, starving on the streets with nothing but rags and an empty stomach, he had killed a man for a single piece of bread.

The gang members watching from the shadows had seen something in that desperate child—something primal, something dangerous.

One of them had brought him to their leader.

That was where it all began: a starving child with nothing to his name.

He rose through the ranks with blood on his hands and hunger still gnawing at his bones. He killed anyone who stood in his way, crushing resistance before it could even form.

Eventually, he became the most powerful mafia boss alive.

He conquered territories. He eliminated rivals. He built an empire that spanned continents.

And yet...

’And yet I still can’t even clear the final stage,’ Samuel thought bitterly, watching his character on the screen prepare for what might be the final mission.

The game mocked him in ways the real world never could. In City of Overlords, money meant nothing. Power meant nothing. Only survival mattered.

In the real world, he had everything.

In the game, he was always running out of time.

"Boss, the police have triangulated your location. We need to move now."

Samuel’s character raised the revolver on the screen, checking the bullets inside with methodical precision.

He did not move from his chair.

The man in the suit shifted nervously, sweat beading on his forehead. "Boss...?"

"Tell them I’m not going anywhere," Samuel said quietly, his eyes never leaving the screen.

The man hesitated for a few moments before rushing out of the room.

Even if he died, he would at least take ten men down with him.

That was the promise Carl had made to himself.

---

Ten minutes later....

The sirens grew louder.

Red and blue lights began flooding across the rooftop, casting dancing shadows that flickered across Samuel’s face.

...But Samuel’s entire focus was on the game.

On the screen, his character moved through the dimly lit streets of the game’s final district.

Bam—!

Thud—!

The rooftop door burst open.

Armed officers poured through, their weapons raised as they shouted orders that Samuel could barely hear over the game’s ambient soundtrack. His ears were ringing. The noise was too much. Too real.

They formed a semicircle around him, keeping their distance—uncertain, perhaps, of whether this legendary figure might do something unpredictable.

Among them stepped a man in a formal suit, older than the rest, with sharp eyes that had clearly spent years studying Samuel’s files.

Captain Morrison.

"Samuel Chen," Morrison called out, his voice carrying across the rooftop wind. "It’s over. Put down the controller. You’re surrounded."

Samuel’s character entered a showdown with the game’s final boss—a figure shrouded in darkness, its name unknown and its motives unclear.

Samuel still did not move.

"I said it’s over!" Morrison stepped forward, his patience wearing thin. "Your empire has collapsed. Your organizations are being dismantled as we speak. Your associates are being arrested across every continent. There is nowhere left to run."

Samuel’s character raised the revolver. The showdown began, with gunshots echoing through the digital night.

"I see. So, Carl is dead, isn’t he?" Samuel muttered to himself as he continued playing the game.

...Morrison didn’t say anything.

"Tell me something, Captain," Samuel said, his voice eerily calm. "In all your years hunting me, did you ever wonder why I kept expanding? Why I didn’t just disappear into some island paradise with my wealth and live out my days in peace?"

Morrison narrowed his eyes. "That’s what I came here to ask you."

Samuel laughed—a sound that seemed almost genuine, almost human. It was a sound the captain had never heard from this man before. His chest shook once, as though his body were remembering how to do this.

"Because," Samuel continued, his eyes still locked on the screen, "I was still that starving child. No matter how much I took, no matter how much power I accumulated, I was still hungry. Do you understand? Hungry for more. Always more."

On the screen, his character took a bullet to the shoulder. His health began to drop.

"And do you know what I discovered, Captain? That hunger never ends. Success doesn’t cure it. Power doesn’t satisfy it. You just keep chasing it until..."

His character took another bullet. Then another.

"...until you run out of time."

Samuel finally turned to look at Morrison, and for the first time, the captain saw something in those eyes that made him pause. Not malice. Not defiance. Something else entirely.

His hands felt light. Empty. As though they belonged to someone else now.

"I came up here to finish one last thing," Samuel said, turning back to the screen. "One last goal. I’ve been trying to clear this final stage for five years. Five years. Do you know why I couldn’t do it?"

Morrison said nothing, waiting.

"Because I was too scared to lose," Samuel whispered. "Every time I got close, I would pull back. I would restart. I would create a new character and begin again rather than risk permanent failure. And you know what that means?"

His character’s health bar was now critical. Red. Flashing.

"It means I’ve been running from this moment my entire life. Not from the police. Not from justice. From the simple fact that everything ends. That you can’t keep playing forever."

On the screen, his character made a choice Samuel had never made before. Instead of retreating, instead of restarting, the revolver came up—not aimed at the final boss, but at himself.

At the same time, Samuel’s hand moved toward his suit jacket. He could feel the gun there. Its weight. Its reality.

The trigger was pulled on the screen.

The screen went black.

\[CHARACTER DELETED\]

Samuel slowly set down the controller. His fingers were still shaking.

The officers tensed, their hands tightening around their weapons.

"I’m done, Captain," Samuel said as he stood up from his chair—not to flee, but to surrender. "I’m ready for this to end."

His legs were stiff. He could barely feel them after spending five years in that chair.

But as he turned around, Morrison’s eyes widened.

Samuel was smiling. Not a smile of defeat or resignation, but one of... relief? Peace? It was as though he were finally allowed to stop.

"However," Samuel continued, his voice dropping to barely a whisper, "I don’t think your bullets will find me. The only one who can take me down is ME!"

His hand moved.

He pulled the gun from his jacket.

Morrison shouted something. The officers moved. It was all too slow. All too late.

Samuel placed the barrel beneath his chin.

Before anyone could do anything—

BAM—!!!!

The gun fired.

The next moment, his body went limp and hit the marble floor.

Samuel Chen, the mafia lord, was dead.

Or was he?