Inside the simulation chamber of Owl Esports' in-game headquarters in COD:VR, the world around Jin warped and stretched like a living machine. Steel catwalks snapped into place overhead. Broken towers materialized from digital dust. Floating platforms drifted through the neon-stained void like pieces of a shattered battlefield searching for where they once belonged.
The Advanced Module—the same program rumored to make even veteran pros quit mid-session—booted up with a low, predatory hum.
Jin stood at the center of it, breath steady, yet eyes burning.
He wasn't unprepared. But he wasn't satisfied either.
He flexed his fingers, tightening the gloves that is currently equipped in his avatar. His avatar's armor flickered, calibrating to his rising stress levels. A shrill warning pulsed across his HUD in angry red.
WARNING: Player's Stress Exceeds Recommended Limits. Proceed?
The message blinked three times, as if begging him to reconsider.
He didn't.
The glow from the warning cast hard shadows across his jawline as he stared it down. His fingers hovered—just long enough to show he understood what he was about to do.
Then he tapped YES.
No hesitation. No second thought. Just the sharp, decisive click of someone who refused to accept the limits placed on him—whether by the game, by others, or by himself.
The chamber reacted instantly.
Gravity lurched. Metal groaned. Platforms spiraled upward, locking into new positions like aggressive puzzle pieces. Wind—artificial, code-driven, yet somehow menacing—whipped past his avatar's coat.
A mechanical voice echoed overhead:
"Calibration overridden. Beginning extreme configuration."
Jin lowered into a stance, shoulders rolling back, gaze sharp and unblinking as the first wave of targets crawled out of the darkness.
A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth—brief, bitter, and gone just as fast.
If this module was designed to break the unprepared…
He'd make sure it shattered first.
The world snapped into brutal clarity.
Gravity lurched sideways, then settled with a heavy thud. The air vibrated with electric distortion, each pulse rattling the metal below Jin's boots. The simulation twisted itself into a vertical combat tower—an infinite spiral of platforms clawing upward into shadow.
Jin didn't wait for the program to finish rendering.
He launched himself forward.
Blades of hard-light sliced through the air—AI drones, dozens of them, igniting into existence with a scream of servos. They swarmed him immediately, darting like metallic hornets hungry for blood.
Jin dropped low, rolled under the first barrage, and snapped his rifle up in a tight spinning shot. A cluster of drones burst into cascading sparks, fragments raining down like digital ash.
His breathing stayed sharp. Controlled. Almost too controlled, like he was holding something inside that threatened to break loose.
"Too slow," he hissed under his breath, eyes narrowing. Drumstickkk would've cleared that wave before the drones even finished spawning.
Another formation screeched in from above.
Jin's boosters flared to life, kicking him upward in a burst of blue flame. He landed on a floating platform, pivoted instantly, and unleashed a burst-fire volley downward. Each shot punched through a drone's core with surgical precision.
Perfect execution.
But the frustration simmering in his eyes told the truth—perfection wasn't enough. If anything, every flawless hit only highlighted how far he still felt from the impossible bar he was chasing.
Outside the simulation chamber, the comm panel flickered to life.
Astra:"Jin, what the hell—four hours straight? Take a break before you collapse."
Nox:"Bro, your vitals are redlining. You keep pushing like this, the neural feedback's gonna cook your—"
Jin didn't even look toward the panel.
"Mute."
Their voices cut off mid-sentence, swallowed by an eerie, immediate silence.
The chamber responded to his isolation like a living beast sensing blood in the water. The tower rumbled as platforms shifted into new, more dangerous configurations. Drones reassembled themselves with heavier plating. The hum of the simulation deepened, adapting to every reckless input Jin fed it.
After clearing another wave, Jin dropped to one knee, breath heaving like his lungs were fighting the simulation itself. Sweat slid down his avatar's temple—an echo of the real him, clenched jaw and trembling muscles hidden behind the visor in the physical world.
A flick of his wrist opened a holographic side window.
A grainy playback appeared.
Drumstickkk — Season 11 Tournament Finals.
Jin dragged the timeline back with shaking fingers.
Frame…
By frame…
By frame…
He watched Eddie's movements in microscopic detail.
The subtle pivot of a heel.
The recoil corrections too precise to be human.
The seamless transitions between stance, cover, aim—flowing like instinct carved straight into muscle memory.
Every frame was a needle, threading itself deeper into Jin's chest.
"Ordinary," he whispered, the word cutting raw. "I'm still… too ordinary."
It tasted like rust.
Like failure.
He rewound the clip.
Again.
And again.
And again, until the images began to blur, until every motion of Drumstickkk felt like a reminder of everything Jin wasn't.
The simulation chamber sensed his unraveling.
Difficulty spiked without warning—AI aggression protocols kicking in. Drones spawned in brutal clusters, overlapping formations. Sniper units materialized on narrow pixel bridges above, scopes glowing like cold red eyes. A dormant mech below stirred awake, engines rumbling with lethal intent.
Jin didn't step back.
He leaned forward.
"Come on," he growled, shoving off the ground and sprinting straight into the storm. "If he survived with the old meta… I'll master it. Then break it. Then surpass everything they call 'legend.'"
Gunfire ripped through the tower like a steel tempest.
Jin dove beneath a wall of laser rounds, boosters igniting in a burst that launched him upward. He twisted mid-air, landing a perfect headshot on a sniper—clean, surgical, flawless.
No thrill touched his face.
Only hunger.
And something darker flickering behind his eyes.
The chamber's AI blared, voice rigid:
USER FATIGUE CRITICAL.
FORCED LOGOUT INITIATED.
"No." Jin slammed a command override into the console, teeth clenched. "Again!"
The environment detonated into a hard reset—bright neon fracturing, collapsing, then reforming around him. Platforms rebuilt themselves with an angry hum. The mech reloaded. The drones screamed back to life.
Jin stood on shaking legs, neon distortions flickering at the edge of his peripheral vision. His breath came uneven, but his stare was sharpened to a blade's edge.
Behind the exhaustion, behind the drive…
A fissure had opened.
A small one.
A silent one.
But cracks always start small.
He raised his head toward the frozen frame of Drumstickkk on the display—Eddie mid-motion, eyes calm, posture unbreakable.
Jin's own gaze hardened, a storm gathering in the depths.
"This ends when I surpass you," he whispered.
His hand tightened on his rifle.
"Or when nothing of me is left."
Then—without hesitation, without fear, without balance—he stepped back into the simulation.
Alone.
Relentless.