423 Lost Paladin Online

Imagine this.

You were an orb. Let's say a miniature Earth. And you were suspended in the middle of a ruined temple, while exactly seventy-seven maxed-level Paladins screamed into their microphones and tried to beat a Martial God I had personally designated as a tutorial boss.

It was absolute and unfiltered chaos.

From my vantage point, everything happened at once. Skills detonated like fireworks. Divine auras overlapped and clashed. Buffs stacked, expired, and were reapplied in frantic loops. Somewhere in the mess, a rooster sprinted in terrified zigzags across the marble floor, spamming heals, shields, and blessings with reckless abandon.

"PROTECT YOUR SUPPORT, YOU USELESS—"

Feng Wei's foot came down.

The rooster vanished in a spray of light and feathers.

I winced internally.

A scythe and an axe converged on Feng Wei from opposite sides. The scythe was elegant, cursed, and timed to perfection. The axe came down with enough raw force to crack mountains. Feng Wei stepped between them as if strolling through rain, twisted his shoulder, and drove a fist straight into the chest of the massive Asura wielding the axe.

The shockwave alone sent three players flying.

The Asura roared, grabbed Feng Wei around the waist, and locked his arms, bellowing something incoherent about grapples finally working this time.

They did not.

Feng Wei's aura detonated outward like a collapsing star. Players were flung, stunned, crippled, or outright erased from existence. Health bars evaporated. Sparks bottomed out. Ultimates fizzled halfway through activation.

They regrouped.

They always regrouped.

Chains of skills followed from crowd control layered over debuffs, to taunts overlapping, Heaven Path shields snapping into place just in time to save someone who immediately overextended again. They coordinated flanks, baited counters, tried traps, zones, and formations I hadn't even considered.

It didn't matter.

Half an hour later, the temple was silent.

Seventy-seven defeated players lay scattered across the arena, their avatars dissolving into motes of light one after another.

Feng Wei stood at the center, not even breathing hard.

"That was impressive," he said calmly, looking around at the empty battlefield. "A multiplicative power structure almost on par with Wukong's clone technique."

I remained an orb.

Maintaining seventy-seven external anchors, each one drawing on the Source through me, was… difficult. I could feel the strain, the inefficiencies, and the places where my control slipped and compensated automatically.

A week had passed since the beta of Lost Paladin Online began.

The first time my friends challenged Feng Wei, they lasted five minutes.

The second time, they swore loudly enough that Feng Wei tilted his head and asked, quite politely, what a "skill issue" was. At least, in his own words.

They tried again.

And again.

They refined strategies, optimized builds, abused mechanics, and invented new slurs in at least six languages. They were shocked to discover their voices carried directly into the game world, and even more shocked when Feng Wei responded.

He critiqued their timing.

He corrected their formations.

He explained, mid-combo, why what they were doing would never work.

By the end of the week, they managed to last fifteen minutes.

Of course, they still lost. And yet, when they logged out, they were buzzing.

"This is insane," someone said.

"I've never played anything like this," another added. "I mean, proximity chat is not that revolutionary, but this time, that really spooked me…"

Feng Wei floated beside me now. "I've already given you my approval," he said. "There was no need for this."

I didn't respond immediately. When he first saw me summon my players, he had been convinced. He said it plainly that I was ready. I had found a path only I could walk.

But I didn't feel ready.

Not even close.

"At the very least," I said quietly, "I have to beat you."

Feng Wei turned toward me.

"This decision," I continued, "is too big. The longer I stay here, the more danger I put the Hollowed World in. I know that. But if I leave without certainty and proof, I'll probably regret it later, knowing I lost, when I could've done more."

He studied me for a long moment and said nothing.

I invoked the words.

"Divine Word: Raise."

Light bloomed.

Avatars re-formed. Armor reconstructed itself. Weapons returned to hands still shaking with adrenaline and rage. Voices flooded the temple again almost instantly.

"Okay, okay, THIS TIME—"

"STACK LEFT, STACK LEFT—"

"WHO PULLED—"

Yggdra the rooster reappeared in a flash of green light and immediately began shouting.

"PROTECT ME THIS TIME!" he screamed. "IF I DIE AGAIN I'M TELLING KAREN YOU'RE ALL SISSIES!"

Someone yelled back something obscene.

Someone else laughed.

They charged.

From a systems perspective, the math was… not great.

The beta had started with six players. It ballooned to seventy-seven after relentless begging, threats, and promises to Karen. She'd known from the start how ridiculous this tutorial boss was, and she'd spent days messaging management—me—asking to either nerf the boss or increase player capacity.

The boss couldn't be nerfed.

And my capacity capped at seventy-seven.

I imagined how absurd it must have looked from her side: impossible constraints, unreasonable refusals, and a boss who functioned less like a raid encounter and more like a natural disaster.

To her credit, she adapted frighteningly fast.

She was still more shocked, I suspected, that I had somehow become her boss.

The battle raged again.

One of the players stopped.

Robin lowered her bow as she walked past the others and approached me, the orb. She tilted her head, squinting. "…Okay," she said aloud, voice echoing in the temple. "What's the deal with this orb? Why do we have to protect it? Is there something we are missing?"

Robin poked the orb with the tip of her bow, trying to interact by hitting me.

"Hey," she said. "Does this do anything?"

It tickled.

I would have laughed if I still had a mouth.

Of course, she couldn't hurt me. Not even a little. Still, curiosity clearly got the better of her, because she poked me again. And again. Then she punched me, lightly at first, then with increasing enthusiasm, as if expecting a hidden health bar to appear.

If I had nerves, I would have complained.

What Robin did not know was that the players themselves were already touching me in a far more intimate way.

By nature, every player avatar was made of my quintessence. The same substance I used to construct bodies for my Six Path Souls. The same substance that regenerated me endlessly from the Source.

In simpler terms, all of them were my clones.

Stolen novel; please report.

Not perfect ones. Not equal ones. But extensions all the same.

There was a reason I could only maintain six true clones at my own level of strength. Six souls, six anchors. That was my hard limit. I could not cheat it, bend it, or outgrow it through brute force. Souls were not numbers you could inflate.

So how was this possible?

Robin tilted her head, then began casting skills on me.

A probing arrow. A low-tier debuff. Something meant to reveal hidden properties.

"Uh," I muttered internally. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish?"

She didn't hear me, of course.

Through weeks of experimentation, dying, reforming, and living as the Source, I had come to understand something fundamental.

A soul possessed a unique quality that transcended dimensions by nature.

Using Divine Possession, I wasn't creating new souls. I was projecting theirs. I allowed their consciousness, intent, and sense of self to anchor onto my constructs via immersion with the game as a medium. Their avatars were vessels; their souls supplied the autonomy.

That was the key.

That was why it only worked on players who truly played and was immersed.

If someone treated the game as a distraction, a product, or a time-waster, their soul never fully crossed the threshold. They became dead weight, lag, inefficiency, and noise. I imagined this was the only reason why LLO in the past was unable to succeed as a game, despite the amazing NPCs.

Corvus walked over, scythe resting on his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" he asked Robin.

She glanced back at him. "Testing it. This orb's gotta be important. Bet it's the real objective. You know, like one of those hidden quest items that unlocks the win condition."

Corvus hummed thoughtfully and suddenly swung his scythe at me.

The blade passed through harmlessly, leaving only a ripple of light across my surface. Great. Now there were two of them.

They experimented for a few seconds more, stacking skills, arguing about mechanics, and trying to brute-force answers out of something that fundamentally could not respond the way they expected.

Behind them, Feng Wei continued to slaughter them.

The team was wiped out again shortly after, their focus split, formation broken, and momentum lost. One by one, they fell, light scattering across the ruined temple floor.

As their avatars dissolved, Robin stared back at me one last time before vanishing.

"…Definitely important," she muttered.

When the players were resurrected again, the Temple of the End filled with noise almost instantly. "Stick to the strategy!" Arthur barked, her female avatar planting her sword into the stone as if it would anchor her authority. "For the love of god, stick to the strategy! Or do you want me sticking something else on you? Strategy, people! Strategy!"

They actually had a decent one.

Everything revolved around the rooster, Yggdra.

Every single player had picked up some form of resurrection skill. Individually, the cooldowns were punishing and borderline cruel. But chained together, sequenced properly, and with Yggdra's cooldown-recovery skill cycling through them like a lunatic conductor waving his baton, they could stretch their collective survival far beyond what the system intended.

Corvus leaned toward Arthur and spoke quickly. "Robin thinks the orb's the objective… or have some hidden mechanic we don't know yet."

Arthur blinked. "The orb?"

Three pairs of eyes turned toward me.

Shortly after, they started hitting me. Oh, the others joined them too.

I endured arrows, scythe slashes, axe swings, necromantic curses, pyromantic explosions, and everything they could throw at me. From the outside, it probably looked like ritualistic bullying of a helpless quest item.

Soon, Martial God Feng Wei was completely ignored.

Every single beta tester clustered around me instead, unloading skills with manic enthusiasm.

Feng Wei stood there, arms crossed, utterly confounded.

"…Huh," he muttered.

The players gossiped among themselves through proximity chat, voices overlapping but never overwhelming, the system filtering noise with eerie elegance.

"See? Boss isn't even attacking us."

"Yeah, yeah, that's always how it goes. Hidden mechanics."

"This is definitely right. No way this orb's just decoration."

I drifted there silently, absorbing the chaos.

I remembered Karen talking about the AI breakthroughs. About natural language models. About proximity chat that understood intent, filtered tone, and smoothed chaos. She had said, half-joking, that true VR wasn't that far off anymore. Sometimes, I really was tempted to just go back to Earth. I wondered if that was even possible for me.

Anyway, Fanarys tried to blow me up.

Nothing happened.

Ivan roared and brought his axe down with a full combo chain, sparks and shadows erupting everywhere.

Still nothing.

These fools.

They doubled down, convinced that if brute force didn't work, more brute force surely would. It was almost endearing.

Feng Wei finally looked at me and spoke directly into my mind with Qi Speech.

"What are you doing?"

"Ignore me," I replied flatly. "Just think of me as being an idiot…"

That was when a rooster cleared his throat.

"Everyone, stop."

Yggdra stood a short distance away, feathers ruffled, staff planted firmly against the stone. For a rooster, he radiated authority.

The players hesitated.

Fanarys scoffed. "What are you on about now?"

Yggdra sighed and said, "We've tried, what, dozens of skills on it already? And that's not even counting the ones we saw during character creation. At this rate, we'll be here forever."

A pause.

Slowly, realization began to spread.

"Didn't David say something?" Yggdra continued. "About a specific skill?"

Ivan groaned audibly. "Ah, crap. I didn't pick it."

Arthur cursed under her breath. "Me neither."

Corvus shook his head. "Nope."

Robin raised her hand sheepishly. "Uh… same."

A few more voices echoed the sentiment.

I could almost hear the rooster's soul leaving his body.

Yggdra turned, scanning the group. "Alright. Who here actually took Divine Possession?"

Hands popped up.

Roughly a third of them.

"…Sheesh," Yggdra muttered. "It took us that long to figure this out?"

One of the players acted first.

Divine Possession activated, and their avatar froze mid-motion before collapsing like an empty shell. Their presence vanished from the field, leaving only a lifeless body behind.

"Oh—shit," someone said over proximity chat. "It worked."

Another followed, and then another.

One by one, they used Divine Possession, their corporeal forms dropping to the ground like discarded armor while their souls surged into me. The sensation was immediate and overwhelming, like dozens of hands gripping my spine at once.

Yggdra swore. "This better not end in a cinematic."

I winced.

By bestowing their souls upon me, they were lending me their strength. Their intent and expectations were important. If this turned into a cutscene where they just stood around watching, I'd never hear the end of it. I had to pull my weight and perform. If nothing else, it was for the sake of giving them a game worth remembering.

The problem was simple.

I had no script.

So I improvised.

A quest notification flared into existence for every remaining player:

[Emergency Objective: Protect the Possessed.]

[Failure Condition: Loss of any allied body.]

Immediately, panic turned into purpose.

I reached outward, seized the forest I had conjured earlier, and dissolved it back into raw quintessence. The land shuddered as I reshaped it, summoning a nerfed Ezekiel, far weaker than the real thing, but imposing enough to inspire awe.

From the ground, holy skeletons rose in ranks, shields and spears clattering into place as if answering a long-forgotten call.

And then, I manifested fully.

The Lofty Jade Proposition robe embraced my form as I appeared in the center of the players, my presence anchoring the battlefield. Cheers erupted around me, raw and unfiltered. The Hollow Star rested upon my head, pouring quintessence into my body without restraint, making all of this possible.

It worked better than I expected, which meant that I could probably do the same with the Six Path Souls.

Feng Wei stepped into a stance, muscles coiling, and aura tightening as the army surged forward.

The skeletons ignored him completely and rushed the players instead.

My players shouted, rallied, and repositioned. Tanks moved instinctively. Supports covered blind spots. DPS unleashed everything they had. The battlefield came alive in a way no scripted encounter ever could.

Feng Wei turned toward me, disbelief plain in his eyes.

"What are you planning?" he demanded through Qi Speech.

I smiled faintly.

"This place is called the Temple of the End," I replied. "Isn't it?"

My robes ignited.

They burned away into light, reforming into armor I knew better than my own skin. The helm enclosed my face. The Hollow Star flowed seamlessly into the crown-piece, merging as if it had always belonged there.

It looked like the Wandering Adjudicator.

But not quite.

The armor was white, pristine, and edged with quiet divinity. The cape was no longer green, but ethereal gold, trailing behind me like a promise rather than a warning.

This was the ideal armor Gu Jie had made for me.

Dave had worn the prototype.

What I wore now was the real deal.

With the power lent to me by the players' souls, I tore through whatever restriction had sealed my pocket dimension. I felt the law-based suppression fracture and give way. Feng Wei was a Martial God, once a Ruler of Laws, now regressed into an Ascended Soul. The force restraining me had always been legalistic in nature.

And laws, I had learned, could be rewritten with brute force.

I reached into my pocket dimension and drew Silver Steel.

The longsword sang as it emerged, divinity humming along its edge. I raised it, its light reflecting across the battlefield, across the players fighting desperately to protect one another.

I spoke, my voice carrying without effort.

"From this moment on," I declared, "this place shall no longer be the Temple of the End."

I leveled the blade.

"It shall be known as the Temple of Beginnings."

I drove Silver Steel into the ground.

The impact rang through the Temple like a bell struck by the heavens, and I cried out to my players.

"My Paladins," I shouted, my voice carried by faith and quintessence alike. "This is a different world. You will face trials beyond your reckoning, and foes that transcend your imagination. But remember where you started. Remember your origin. Preserve my legacy. Our legends may be lost, but they will find their way back to us."

The players stood their ground. Some stopped moving entirely.

"We will forge a new path," I continued, feeling something new take root inside me, something warm and dangerous. "We will journey the stars and whatever endless worlds await beyond them. And we will be victorious!"

From the tip of my sword, I unleashed Heavenly Punishment.

The ground beneath Feng Wei tore apart as if the world itself screamed. From below, an enormous golden sword erupted upward, cleaving reality as it surged toward him. Feng Wei's eyes widened just a fraction as he reacted instantly, bringing his hand down in a devastating arc.

The golden blade split in two.

But it did not disperse.

The severed halves detonated into a towering pillar of light, engulfing him in radiance that shook the Temple to its foundations.

I felt Faith gather, something primal. It was the players' trust, their excitement, and their willingness to follow. I drew it in without hesitation.

The speech worked, I thought grimly.

With Divine Speed, Zealot's Stride, and Flash Step, I vanished.

I reappeared before Feng Wei in a heartbeat, my Divine Spark roaring as I swung Silver Steel down in a blazing Divine Smite. He met me head-on, fists colliding with my blade, dark and white sparks exploding outward with every exchange.

We clashed again and again.

Sword against fist. Law against faith. Each impact cracked the air itself.

Then Feng Wei stopped.

He caught my blade between his palms, his expression weary rather than afraid.

"You've done well," he said quietly. "There's no need to continue."

My sword trembled as it slid forward, its tip piercing his abdomen.

That angered me.

"Fight me!" I shouted. "Don't you dare stop now!"

He spat blood and laughed bitterly. "I'm tired. I just want to go."

His eyes met mine, unflinching.

"Finish it. Annihilate me. Reduce me to dust until there's nothing left."

I didn't ask his story. I had learned what curiosity could cost. I knew I could take everything from him with Divine Possession from his memories, his pain, and his truth, but I didn't want it.

Some endings deserved silence.

"Farewell," I said softly. "And… thank you."

I invoked my Immortal Art.

"Godslayer."

Silver Steel burned with blinding radiance as I stepped back, raised the blade overhead, and brought it down in a perfect vertical arc. I layered the strike with Holy Sword, my divine spark igniting along the edge in incandescent brilliance.

In that moment, I understood.

Mastery of the Source meant mastery of the spark.

The blade fell.

A trench ruptured behind Feng Wei as the arc of light burst forth uncontrollably, carving through law and flesh alike. His body disintegrated quietly, scattering into fine dust that drifted away on an unseen wind.

Feng Wei was gone.

I exhaled.

Just as suddenly, the world changed.

The reason the Sun and Moon—the Wardens—had not intervened finally became clear. Feng Wei had been hiding us, using the same laws that had sealed my power to blind them.

With him gone, the veil lifted.

Above us, the Sun and Moon bloomed into colossal forms, one masculine, blazing with unbearable heat, the other feminine, cold and luminous, their gazes locking onto the Temple below.

A voice among the players broke the silence.

"Ah, shit," someone muttered. "We gotta fight the sun and moon now?"

Another groaned. "What's next? Outer space?"

A pause.

"…Please don't jinx us."

I almost broke character right there.