Magic, Evil Gods, and the Fourth Calamity

July 9, 2045 AD.

In the hailed groundbreaking masterpiece "Under the Stars," Hua Kai Fugui is piloting a starship, engaging in a fierce battle with interstellar pirates.

At this point, more than ten days had passed since he ended the short but incredibly amazing closed beta test of "Otherworld Online".

For the past ten days, there has been no word from IE, and feeling bored, he can only entertain himself with the game "Under the Stars".

However, compared to "Otherworld Online", the realism of "Under the Stars" is still very rough. Neither the environment modeling nor the combat experience is as comfortable as in "Otherworld Online".

Hua Kaifugui felt like he was experiencing withdrawal symptoms because he hadn't been able to play a game of the quality of "Otherworld Online" for a long time.

Just as Huakai Fugui was reminiscing about that brief but incredibly real and wonderful experience from ten days ago, his private messages suddenly started ringing in the background.

The letter writer is like the wind in a pig's mouth.

"Hurry up and go to the official website of 'Otherworld Online'! We've been betrayed by that IE kid!"

Upon seeing this sentence, Hua Kai Fugui, who was piloting the spaceship, raised an eyebrow and his gaze fell on the words "backstab".

Did IE backstab us?

Did the game launch secretly without that kid notifying me?

With a powerful stomp, Hua Kai Fugui boosted the horsepower to its maximum, piloting the Heng Starship directly into the enemy ranks and detonating it. Then, without stopping, he exited the game and opened the official website of "Otherworld Online".

Compared to the previous website with only three lines of text on a plain white background, this website has made significant progress.

Not only has the background changed to a beautiful female knight confronting three guys who don't look like good people, but even the three lines of text use artistic fonts, giving it a distinctly Western fantasy style.

These three guys don't look like good people, why do they look so familiar!

Isn't this the character I, Lao Zhu, and Si Gu controlled during the closed beta?

Hua Kaifugui scrolled through the interface in confusion and saw a new promotional CG at the bottom of the official website.

This video is a live recording and represents the true performance of the game.

Curious, I clicked play, and a game CG that was a masterpiece of special effects, clearly made with a huge amount of money, slowly unfolded before me, a scene of blooming flowers and wealth.

The CG begins with a battle among the gods, during which the god of light falls.

The human camp, which originally worshipped the God of Light, was torn apart and divided up and absorbed by the chief gods of other races.

A thousand years later, in a human kingdom that still worships the God of Light, Princess Irene Celiado leads a team of thirty people on a pilgrimage to save the kingdom from crisis, attempting to bring back the fallen God of Light.

The scene then flashes by rapidly, highlighting the hardships the princess endured on her journey, before finally settling on the skeleton of a giant dragon.

The scene then pans down, and a series of sounds of weapons clashing can be heard.

The blonde, blue-eyed princess unfurled three pairs of wings of light from behind and engaged in battle with three humans who were shrouded in ominous black energy and dressed in extremely blasphemous manner.

At first, the princess was evenly matched with the three humans, but when the mountain-sized man launched a sneak attack, the princess was mercilessly knocked away and lost the strength to fight again.

The next scene shows the people in the princess's entourage shouting "Hope! Future!"

In order to protect the princess, he rushed towards the three evil humans without regard for anything else, but was mercilessly killed by them.

Seeing this, the princess broke down and desperately prayed to the nearly fallen god in her heart, willing to offer everything she had as a sacrifice.

The god who should have perished was moved by the princess's piety and actually reappeared in the world, summoning a long spear to instantly kill the three evil humans!

The scene then shifts to a thriving human capital, where NPCs and heroes from another world stroll through the streets. The image freezes, showcasing everyone's collective effort for humanity's prosperity and strength, and the title "Otherworld Online" and a line of text appear.

[On Sunday, January 11th, at 9:1 AM, the closed beta test 0.2 of "Otherworld Online" will officially begin. Only 100 players will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Register now!]

Looking at this promotional CG, Hua Kai Fugui was speechless for a moment. Although he understood what Lao Zhu meant by "backstabbing," he didn't know where to begin to criticize it.

Those three evil humans were the characters he, Lao Zhu, and Si Gu controlled during the closed beta test.

The princess of that kingdom was, of course, the member of the God of Light whom the hidden quest aimed to capture.

"In the end, we really were the bad guys! But we weren't this dramatic when we were playing the game!"

Also, it seems there's no explanation about the background of the three people we're controlling. Could there be something fishy going on here?

Hua Kaifugui pondered, showing no sign of being misled into playing the villain. He simply clicked on the official website's forum out of curiosity and discovered that a heated discussion was taking place there.

"Wow, this game is so realistic!"

"Heh, I bet it's just a bait-and-switch tactic, not even worth a penny of the 'Under the Stars' next door!"

"Is this game fun? Can I get a beta test spot?"

"It works great! My child's skin didn't react negatively, and the whole family feels very reassured after ingesting it..."

The forum is filled with all sorts of strange comments; some seem like paid trolls, while others are just plain trolls. The forum administrators, however, never show up, letting the messages pop up randomly.

Looking at the chaotic forum, Huakai Fugui lost the desire to post messages there, and decisively opened the QQ group and sent a message in the small four-person group created by IE.

"Blooming Prosperity: Hey IE, shouldn't you settle my performance fee? @IE"

The wind on the pig's mouth: "+1"

*Coo coo coo coo*: "Same as above!"

IE: "How's the pre-selection qualification for the 0.2 closed beta of 'Otherworld Online'?"

The wind above the pig's mouth: "You little rascal, you want us to work for free?!"

IE: "What if we add 1000 contribution points per person? And a 1.5x experience card (24 hours) per person?"

The wind blowing from the pig's mouth: "5000 contribution points!"

IE: "No, a maximum of 1000 contribution points, otherwise it will disrupt the early game balance!"

After some back and forth, IE's reward was set at 1250 contribution points per person and a 1.5x experience card (24 hours).

"Blooming Prosperity: Hey IE, is that game bug fixed now? Are you sure there won't be any problems with this 100-person closed beta test?"

IE: "Hey, Brother Hua, actually I only found out recently. The last time you guys disconnected, it wasn't really a bug."

"Otherworld Online" uses real-time calculations and evolution via supercomputers. The hidden quest you triggered during the last closed beta somehow prematurely awakened the faction boss.

Therefore, the program had to urgently interfere with the development of the game world and bring forward the content originally developed for the closed beta to the final closed beta...

In other words, the upcoming closed beta test will be a non-wipe test. All your in-game data will be retained until the servers are shut down!

"So, does that mean players can participate in and drive the development of this game? Like a real world?"

IE: "That's right!"

The wind above the pig's mouth: "Hey, IE, you said before that even a dog could make this game, and I thought you were just bragging! Turns out it was the truth! You dog-like game planner!"

IE: "..."