The countdown hit three minutes, and the sky above the lobby cracked again with a ripple of neon-blue light. Another massive hologram unfolded over everyone's heads, this time bigger than the first one. A new panel unlocked beneath it with a loud chime that echoed through the whole arena.

SECOND MODE REGISTRATION OPENED.

The message wasn't small or subtle either.

Big bold letters covered half the sky.

"THOSE WHO REGISTERED FOR MODE 1 CAN PLAY IT UNLIMITED TIMES."

"THOSE WHO REGISTER FOR MODE 2 CAN ALSO PLAY MODE 1."

"BUT MODE 2 IS ONE ATTEMPT PER PLAYER."

"AND MODE 2 REGISTRANTS CANNOT JOIN MODE 3."

The player base lost their minds.

Emotes exploded everywhere like fireworks.

People were screaming through their mic.

Random avatars jumped off the platform just for the hell of it, respawning seconds later.

Xavier scanned the details while the chaos continued.

Mode 2 was entirely different from the first one.

One server.

One massive player base.

A galactic arena that allowed up to one million players simultaneously, something no VR game had dared to attempt before because stabilizing that many minds inside a full-dive grid was a technical nightmare.

Yet the devs pulled it off in six hours.

Now that impressed him.

The mode had three phases.

All interconnected.

All depending on what players chose in the beginning.

At the start of Mode 2, every player had to select a side:

HEROIC

or

EVIL

The system would automatically maintain a 50:50 balance for fairness. Once the selection locked in, no switching, no quitting, no re-entering. This wasn't a casual arena match—it was a galaxy-scale scenario.

And as for Xavier… He wasn't a soldier or an assassin or some overpowered figure in this one.

The event page described him as:

"A normal teenage rising celebrity with zero combat ability. A VIP civilian target."

Which basically meant the entire galaxy was about to hunt him…

or protect him.

Depending on which side players chose.

If a player chose Heroic, their entire goal was to locate Xavier before the Evil faction did and escort him to a safe zone.

If a player chose Evil, they were tasked with tracking Xavier down, capturing him, and delivering him to a designated extraction zone.

But there were strict conditions:

Evil players were not allowed to hurt Xavier.

Not even one point of damage.

If his HP dropped by even one, the Evil faction would instantly lose Phase One and the Heroic side would win by default.

In other words, the entire Evil side had to pull off a perfect capture with a million eyes watching.

If Evil players succeeded, the mode would shift into Phase Two, which remained locked and blurred behind sensor bars.

If Heroic players succeeded, they would unlock a different version of Phase Two.

The event page scrolled smoothly under his gaze, shifting into the explanation for the second phase.

This time it got massive—bigger maps, bigger stakes, bigger chaos.

Phase Two was triggered only when the Evil faction managed to abduct him without landing even a single point of damage. If they pulled that off, the world would shift immediately. Xavier would be locked inside their base, tied into some VIP prisoner system. The Heroic side would storm the stronghold. The Evil side would defend it with everything they had—traps, barricades, snipers, drones, whatever the devs had squeezed into this insane six-hour development sprint.

If the Heroic side broke in and pulled him out, the mode escalated into Phase Three.

If they failed, the mode ended right there with the victory of evil faction.

Both routes eventually led to the mysterious Phase Three, but everyone already understood one thing—the event wasn't simple fan service. It was a full-on galactic war built around him.

Around protecting him.

Or hunting him.

Depending on which side a player felt like joining.

Xavier stood in the lobby watching thousands of players scramble toward the registration panel, some screaming they wanted to save him, others yelling about how they couldn't wait to chase him down.

It was simple, yet… the devs weren't interested in simple.

They wanted spectacle. And the last phase made that obvious.

Phase Three flipped the rules.

This time the good players had to escort Xavier out of the map, fighting their way through a massive pursuit led by the Evil faction. And the cruel twist was written right in the description:

"Phase Three: Evil players are permitted to cause damage to Xavier."

They couldn't kill him outright.

The system would force a chase, not an instant execution.

They had to corner him, stop him, or break his HP bar before the good team reached the escape point.

Victory conditions were crystal clear:

If they killed him,

or stopped the escort long enough,

the Evil side won.

If the good team managed to drag him across the entire map to the evac ship,

Heroic victory.

It was surprisingly well-designed for something built under ridiculous time pressure, and Xavier had to admit the devs were insane—in the good way. They'd basically turned him into the galaxy's most valuable hostage. A million players would be scrambling around the entire map trying to chase him, protect him, kidnap him, rescue him, or murder him depending on their team.

He actually laughed under his breath.

He didn't even have to fight.

He didn't have to do anything.

He could hide, wander, lure people around, pretend to be terrified, or just walk straight into the Evil faction's hands if he felt like pushing the mission forward. He was a non-combatant in this mode. The only thing he needed to do was survive until the phase changed.

And then he saw the small note at the bottom of the event page.

"FIRST PLAYTHROUGH WILL FEATURE THE REAL XAVIER."

"ALL SUBSEQUENT RUNS WILL USE A CUSTOM AI MODEL."

"IF XAVIER IS ONLINE, HE MAY CHOOSE TO JOIN ANY FUTURE RUN."

Of course the devs did that.

They had no choice.

He had nine hundred seventy-five million fans, most of whom were VR gamers who practically worshipped him. There was no world in which a million-player server could satisfy all of them. Even with this temporary expansion, it would take almost a thousand playthroughs to let everyone participate—and no dev studio on Earth, Mars, or any moon had enough manpower to run that safely.

Limiting it to one run per player was the only fair solution.

For something built in six hours, this was genuinely impressive.

They'd gone out of their way to make it fun, fair, and balanced.

Even Xavier appreciated the effort.

The last seconds ticked down.

10…

9…

8…

The entire lobby trembled.

A blinding light tore open the sky above the arena, swallowing the holograms and players in a surge of energy.

7…

6…

5…

Players were cheering, laughing, spamming emotes, shouting across the comms.

The atmosphere felt charged, electric, like a world-wide festival about to kick off.

4…

3…

2…

1—

The world shattered around him.

The full-dive system ripped him out of the lobby and threw him into a brand new environment.

He opened his eyes slowly.

He was lying on a massive bed inside a luxury hotel suite—his suite, according to the event story.

The room was bright, expensive, styled in some futuristic blend of chrome, glass, and soft ambient light.

He could hear city traffic outside the tall windows.

Somewhere in the distance, a siren blared.

Then faded.

And just like that,

the second mode had begun.

He was the galaxy's most hunted celebrity.

And a million players had just spawned outside, ready to tear the map apart to find him.

Suddenly, a quest appeared in his vision.

[The evil faction is looking for you. Change locations within 5 minutes and meet up with the members of Heroic faction.]

Xavier looked at the quest and then he thought, 'I am the event. So I don't have to follow rules or the quest guidelines. Should I just do opposite of what they ask me to do? Surely, that would be more entertaining.'