A young man stared at the view outside his room. A sad expression was etched onto his somber face, and he let out a long sigh. Outside, the rain was pouring down, washing away any trace of sunlight, even though it was only ten in the morning.
He turned on his computer. On the screen, a familiar game icon shaped like an "A" with a golden design immediately greeted him. Without hesitating, he clicked it.
This was the last day of the game Avalon. After today, his beloved game would shut down for good. For those unfamiliar, Avalon was an open-world MMORPG released in 2010. The game was nothing short of a miracle for the industry at the time. And why wouldn't it be? Avalon offered its players one hundred percent freedom. What other game could offer something like that?
On top of that, Avalon had a one-to-one map scale with Earth, and it wasn't empty, either—everything was crafted with incredible dedication. Its graphics were the best of their time, and what baffled other developers even more was that the game could be played even on low-spec computers. This was the combination that made it explode in popularity after its release.
The game Avalon was set in a world of European-style medieval fantasy called Monia, thousands of years after the Age of Gods had ended. The game also gave players the freedom to design and choose their race and class at the start. In Avalon, there were three main intelligent species players could choose from: Human, Demi-human, and Heteromorphic. These three main species had hundreds of sub-races, and players were free to pick whichever species and race they liked.
Additionally, the game offered hundreds of classes for players to choose from at the beginning, and each chosen class could be improved through the in-game leveling system.
Despite its many incredible features, the game was finally shutting down its global servers on July 12, 2025, after nearly two decades.
The loading screen on his monitor finally finished, and the game began. A character appeared, looking like a young man in his twenties with black hair, beautiful sky-blue eyes, and a pair of jet-black wings on his back. The character also wore black armor with elegant silver patterns.
That was his character in Avalon: a Level 100 Fallen Angel.
In Avalon, the level system was divided into three main categories—Race, Class, and Job—plus one special category: Sub-Class. Every character had a level cap: 60 for Race, 15 for Class, 15 for Job, and 10 for Sub-Class. The maximum total level a character could reach was 100.
His main species was Heteromorphic, and for his race, he'd chosen Fallen Angel. In his opinion, Fallen Angels were cool and had advantages over players of the regular Angel race. For example, players of the Angel race could only use magic or spells from the Holy attribute, even if their character had other elemental attributes.
That's a huge disadvantage, isn't it? Even so, the Angel race had an advantage that Fallen Angels didn't: if they used one of thefourteenWorld Class Items in Avalon, the item wouldn't disappear after use.
This was why many players preferred the Angel race.
The power of these fourteen special WorldClassItems was so immense that it was even said one of them allowed a player to ask for anything from the developers—yes, anything, like adding a new magic system or even changing the world map.
Yet, even now, as the game was about to shut down, that legendary World Class Item had never been found by any player.
He stared at the fourteen empty chairs surrounding the round table. Of the fifteen chairs, only his was occupied.
I don't get it. How could they just walk away from Avanheim, something we spent almost ten years building together! he complained to himself, staring at the sight he'd seen almost every day—empty and unchanged for the last three years.
For some reason, his friends had started quitting the game, one by one, starting around then.
No, I should've known, he corrected himself. We're not teenagers or kids anymore. Fifteen years is enough to change anyone. I was just an elementary school kid back then, and now I'm a man in my twenties.
He'd started playing this game in 2015, when he was only 11, while his friends were already working, in college, or still in high school.
I was probably the youngest one in Avanheim, since I faked my age.
In Avalon, you could change your voice however you wanted, and it would sound as clear as a real one.
"I know you're all busy with work and family," he whispered, his voice trembling with frustration. "But you could at least answer my messages or log in one last time!"
He was truly disappointed in his other guild members. Out of the fourteen of them, not a single one had replied.
He stood up from his chair and turned around. As he was about to step out of the Avanheim chamber, his gaze fell on the guild weapon stored in the corner of the meeting room.
"The Guild Staff of Avanheim. To make this thing, we had to spend so many resources back in the day. Some people even spent a ton of real money to buy a Limited Edition Divine-Tier Item. And now, they'd just abandoned it."
He looked at the staff, his gaze warm and full of nostalgia.
"Alright then. You can keep this guild company in the throne room until the very end."
He grabbed the staff, then walked out of the Avanheim Chamber.
The Avanheim guild had a few rules.
First, guild members had to be of a Heteromorphic species.
Second, guild members had to contribute to the guild's development.
And last, guild members had to be regular, everyday people.
And I, Rian Septiawan, alias Arthur Leonhart, as the Guild Master of Avanheim, will see this guild through to the very end, he murmured to himself.
His blue eyes now gleamed with all the determination he had left.