Late at night, the crisp tapping of Noah's mechanical keyboard filled the room. The Wuthering Waves login screen, accompanied by piano music, bathed the dim space in deep blue light.
"...Symptoms of drowning... Strange."
The soft, hazy opening narration of Wuthering Waves flowed from his headphones. Noah's dark eyes were tinged with exhaustion, the corners bloodshot. He clicked the mouse without expression.
[Skip]
As a professional proxy player for Wuthering Waves, Noah had every line of the game's story memorized by heart. There was no need to sit through the dialogues scene by scene.
In the room, his long, distinct fingers flew across the keys. On the 24-inch monitor, the game's plot skipped forward in rapid bursts.
"...Shall we call you Rover for now? Is that okay?"
[Skip]
"Rover, welcome to Jinzhou City."
[Skip]
"Rover, the Tethys System is the Black Shores…"
[Skip]
One after another, Noah fast-forwarded through the story segments. His account level climbed steadily, and his resources piled up higher and higher.
"Rover, this is the land of Echoes—Rinascita."
[Skip]
"Rover, please defeat the final Threnodian and completely save the civilization of Solaris-3!"
[Skip…]
Wait—
He almost skipped past his own life.
What final Threnodian? Completely save the civilization of Solaris-3?
Noah rubbed his eyes in disbelief, staring hard at the utterly unfamiliar scene on the monitor.
The sky had been torn open into an inky vortex. Dark-red lightning flickered within thick, heavy clouds.
In the darkness, a pair of scarlet pupils suddenly appeared—like twin clusters of ghostly flame. That gaze seemed capable of piercing straight through the screen and into his heart.
"You still came, Rover. You, alone."
Thunder exploded in his headphones, painful against Noah's eardrums.
As the thunder rolled, those scarlet pupils drew closer and closer. The instant It stepped out of the rift, the monitor let out a high-pitched whine.
It was a twisted black shadow, wrapped in dark-red lightning. Every step It took devoured the light around It.
"Foolish. Blind. Overreaching!"
It stood in place and let out a spine-chilling peal of mad laughter. A ferocious wind howled behind It.
"What kind of plot easter egg is this? Or some bug the programmers accidentally left in?"
Outside the screen, Noah licked his dry lips. His heartbeat quickened slightly.
[Trial characters have joined the team]
A game prompt appeared. On the right side of the screen, six Rover avatars lined up neatly.
Beside each avatar glowed a different attribute icon, all shining brilliantly.
Spectro, Havoc, Aero, Fusion, Electro, Glacio.
Even under the overwhelming pressure of the final Threnodian, Noah's eyes lit up.
"Six attributes all in place—I'm teaming with versions of myself. How is this not invincible?"
On the screen, the final Threnodian stopped laughing. It began pacing slowly in the distance while a thick, long health bar appeared above Its head.
"I know you can't wait any longer. But today is the doomsday of both you and Solaris-3."
"Heh. Showing a health bar in front of a player—whose doomsday is it, really? Hard to guess."
Noah gave a small smile. He stopped hesitating. His fingers danced rapidly across the mechanical keyboard.
[Switch - Havoc Form]
"Quick battle!"
Under the variation effect, Rover flashed instantly to the final Threnodian's side, scythe in hand, striking directly at Its face.
Yet the final Threnodian seemed to have anticipated everything. It paced leisurely, always dodging the slashes by the narrowest margin.
"If you had brought Jué, Imperator, and the other Sentinels, it might actually have been troublesome."
"Unfortunately, you know very well what end They met…"
"And you will be granted the same fate!"
As the words ended, red light burst from the final Threnodian's eyes. Noah hurriedly made Rover release Resonance Liberation ahead of schedule.
"(Havoc) The end has come.!"
Critical damage numbers in the hundreds of thousands exploded like fireworks. Yet in that moment, the final Threnodian's figure completely vanished from view.
"Rover, I know your entire past."
"You have done enough for the civilization of Solaris-3—thwarting our Threnodian plans time and again."
"Even the hidden forces we cultivated in secret were uprooted by you, one by one."
"You want to shoulder this civilization alone, save every companion, become the savior of Solaris-3… Heh heh heh…"
A cold, metallic scraping laugh came through the headphones. Noah frowned deeply. He adjusted the camera, searching desperately for the final Threnodian—then his pupils suddenly contracted.
Low, rumbling roars echoed. Countless Tacet Discords materialized from the void, their wave-like pressure suffocating.
Common, Elite, Overlord, Calamity—every kind of ferocious Tacet Discord appeared, everywhere at once.
Noah's brow knitted tight. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he controlled Rover to draw the swift blade from its sheath and charge alone into the surrounding enemies.
Sparks flew brilliantly where blade met Tacet Discord claw, only to be swallowed instantly by darkness.
Relying on a professional proxy player's deep understanding of the game, Noah's inputs blurred into afterimages. Yet the Tacet Discords' attack patterns seemed precisely calculated, pressing him harder and harder.
Dodge after dodge, counter after counter, parry after parry—he danced on the edge of death's blade. Danger at every turn, yet Noah's blood burned hotter.
Like a lone boat in a storm, he resisted the might of the entire world with nothing but perfect micro-control.
"It ends now!"
That spine-chilling mad laughter rang out again, echoing endlessly in the dark space as though mocking Rover's overconfidence.
Six enormous blood-red eyes opened in the air above Rover. In that instant, every hair on Noah's neck stood on end.
He frantically clicked to dodge, yet three beams of blood light still pierced through.
In a single moment, Rover's health plummeted by half. Three of the six attribute avatars on the right side of the screen turned gray.
Fusion, Electro, and Glacio could no longer be used.
"Fuck!"
Noah slammed the desk, his wrist going numb from the impact.
"Rover, when you bear a great title and emerge victorious after fierce battles…"
"People will only see your victory as inevitable. They will never think about how cruel the struggle truly was."
"But when you lose while carrying that title, everyone forgets everything you once gave—they only question your failure now."
The final Threnodian's form grew countless times larger. It stood far away, Its scarlet pupils like twin blood moons hanging in the sky. Its voice was ice-cold.
"You are no god. You are merely this much. All your persistence is nothing but the futile death throes of Solaris-3's collapsing civilization!"
The final Threnodian raised an arm. In the dark sky, tens of thousands of blood eyes opened at once. Sharp, maniacal laughter resounded from every direction.
The horrifying scene made Noah's scalp crawl.
His hand trembled as he tried to make Rover dodge desperately, yet two more blood beams struck true.
The Havoc and Aero attribute avatars dimmed instantly. Only Spectro remained, barely holding on.
Behind him, countless blood beams still chased relentlessly.
The final Threnodian reached out and clenched a fist. A colossal dark-red lightning bolt—like a heavenly chasm—materialized and was gripped in Its hand.
It raised Its arm high. The scarlet lightning spear seemed to split the dark sky in two, its majestic power like divine punishment.
"Take your laughable defiance—and the Solaris-3 you cherish so dearly—straight to hell!"
The dark-red lightning spear hurtled toward Rover, then split into thousands mid-flight, becoming an inescapable rain.
Noah felt as though the entire sky was collapsing. There was nowhere to hide.
He clicked the dodge button frantically, only to realize with shock that he had lost control of Rover.
On the screen, Rover reversed the swift blade and plunged it into the ground. The Tacet Mark on the back of his hand and both eyes blazed with golden light.
Powerful resonance energy transformed into ancient, profound waves of light. Centered on Rover, they surged outward like a raging tide, illuminating the entire dark world.
In that instant—whether the lightning spear mere inches away, the blood beams from the eyes in the sky, or the countless howling Tacet Discords all around—everything froze.
Even the ferocious grin on the distant final Threnodian's face halted completely.
This was the most domineering power of Rover's Spectro attribute—[Time Stop].
"I want… to stay by everyone's side… to walk together from the past into tomorrow… but—"
But did Solaris-3's civilization truly have a tomorrow?
On the screen, Rover dropped to one knee, breathing heavily. Only the blade planted in the ground kept him from collapsing entirely.
Countless glowing cracks spread rapidly from the Tacet Mark on the back of his hand across his whole body, bringing searing pain.
Forcing such a massive Time Stop against so powerful a target as the final Threnodian had pushed him far beyond limits—into severe overload, overclocked.
"Where can I find… the power to defeat the Threnodians—Abby."
Abby flew out from the Tacet Mark, looking at the gravely injured Rover with deep worry.
"Do we really have to restart—go back to the past? Ah—your frequency has been polluted! Forcing a restart would be extremely dangerous—"
"No other choice. Come—resonate with me."
Rover exhaled heavily. The cracks from the Tacet Mark had already crept up to his throat. He gently pressed his shattered palm against Abby's body, channeling his final resonance energy—
"Threnodians cycle eternally—civilization remains unyielding."
The cracks crawled across Rover's cheeks. There was no trace of pain on his face—only those resolute golden eyes, shining brilliantly.