Raghu Kurman sat in a private box on the third floor of the Twin Towers Arena. An immense satisfaction swelled within him as he looked down at the crowd pouring in under the scorching sun.

Opening a bottle of eighteen-year-old wine, he poured it into a stemmed glass and swirled it. He didn’t drink, believing it would cloud his judgment, but he loved the aroma—a mix of sandalwood, dried citrus peel, and berries. That was the smell of success, and the smell of money.

"Dad, look, it’s Teacher Toto!" his eight-year-old son exclaimed, gripping the railing and staring eagerly below. "Why don’t we go sit down there? Wouldn’t we see better?"

"Oh, no, no, no. That’s where the lower class belongs. You should never be there."

Raghu stroked his son’s head. ’After all these years of struggle, wasn’t it all just to crush those people under his feet? Just like standing on the top floor of the Factory, trampling on those lower-class workers who could only sell their brute strength—those meek and subservient types who didn’t dare to fight back.’

"It’s the new Firepower Silver Lightning V!" his son said, pointing at the Shadow of Evil short film playing on the giant screen. "I want it! Buy it for me!"

"Alright, no problem. You can have whatever you want."

He doted on his child. Or more accurately, he doted on his bloodline.

’In his mind, the fact that he had clawed his way up from utter poverty proved the superiority of his bloodline, and he had a duty to see it passed down. And someone who inherited his superior blood, given even better conditions, would surely achieve even greater things. As for those lower-class people with their inferior blood, they were simply meant to be enslaved by his kind.’

’If it weren’t for his son’s love of Yo-Yos, he would never have shown up here. Of course, he quite liked Yo-Yos himself—especially the piles of Gold Coins his counterfeit Yo-Yos brought in. In his view, he made those counterfeits through his own skill, so he deserved the money. If Zog’s Toy Store couldn’t stop him, that was their problem. They deserved to be bullied. But if anyone dared to counterfeit his potions, they would die without a proper burial. That’s why the lower class was the lower class.’

Besides the various Yo-Yos, other advertisements were being shown on the screen.

This armory, that shipping company...

His intuition told him this was a good business. ’I need to figure out how to get my hands on this technology,’ he mused. ’It’ll be much harder than with the Yo-Yos, but the profits are sure to be much, much greater.’

As long as the profit was great enough, there was nothing he wouldn’t do.

Suddenly, the sky went dark.

Raghu looked up. It wasn’t dark clouds obscuring the sun, but a black Magic barrier covering the sky above the Arena.

’What an impressive display!’

He was stunned. ’To accomplish something like this with Magic, it would take either a large group of High Level Mages working in concert, or a Legendary Mage on site. Either way, it was a power he couldn’t afford to provoke.’

Then, two lines of text appeared on the screen.

"Holy Mountain Journey"

"Coming Soon"

Raghu was filled with questions. ’Is this also a Shadow of Evil? What does "Coming Soon" mean?’

The screen lit up, and a train appeared.

The tens of thousands of spectators burst into an uproar. Many recognized it as the "Voyager," which had only recently begun service.

’Does it need advertising too? Who in the Sutton Kingdom doesn’t know about this railway by now?’

Next came scenes of everyday life on the train: a school club on a study trip, a husband taking care of his pregnant wife, a father traveling with his daughter.

’When did they film this on the train? Shouldn’t the reporters have already reported on something like this? Those people are like sharks that have smelled blood; they swarm any piece of news, taking a bite first and asking questions later.’

The other spectators in the Arena also clearly thought these scenes had actually happened on the Voyager.

Some even began to brag about their own experiences riding the train, prompted by the images on screen.

Suddenly, the scene cut, showing the production process of a Healing Potion.

Raghu was all too familiar with these steps.

Seeing this, he realized the footage might not be real.

’If someone had entered the Factory and filmed this without his knowledge, that would be terrifying.’

The scenes began to cut back and forth between the potion-making process and the train, the frequency increasing as a rapid drumbeat started, making the audience tense up in anticipation of something big.

"THUD!"

With a dull thud, a passenger fell heavily to the floor, and the drumming stopped in sync.

The silence, paradoxically, created an even greater sense of urgency.

As everyone watched, the passenger slowly rose to their feet in an extremely bizarre posture. The moment their face was revealed, the entire arena erupted in sharp gasps and stifled cries of alarm.

Pale irises, bulging veins, dark red bloodstains—it didn’t look like a living person at all.

Before the audience could even react, the transformed passenger lunged at others. The frantic music started up again, so intense it was almost hard to breathe.

A series of images beyond anyone’s imagination flashed across the screen.

Mountains of piled-up corpses, a roiling tide of bodies, countless dead rising again as zombies...

It was a catastrophic scene, like a Demon invasion.

The audience, having never witnessed such a visceral visual assault, couldn’t process it. Screams and cries filled the entire Arena.

Raghu’s son was scared stiff, collapsing to the floor with a vacant stare.

Some people tried to find a rational explanation for the incomprehensible images.

"It’s Necromancers! It must be Necromancers! This is all the work of those lunatics! Undead Magic should be banned!"

"It has to be Demons! Someone made a deal with a Demon, and now they’ve come to collect! No one can escape, no one can escape..."

Others began to pray, hoping for help from the Deities.

Some went even further, starting to chant Spells to cast Magic, only to be blocked by an unknown source of Magic Power, which threw them into an even greater panic.

Just as the scene was about to descend into chaos, the sky suddenly brightened. The black barrier dissipated, and sunlight streamed back in, dispelling most of the fear.

The footage on the screen also came to an end, and several lines of text appeared.

"How will you survive?"

"The final battle for survival!"

"The thrilling disaster Shadow of Evil, *Holy Mountain Journey*"

"One week from now. We’ll be waiting."

"Stay tuned..."

The audience gradually quieted down. They realized this was the same kind of thing as those Yo-Yo short films the Half-Elves made, and they soon began to feel ashamed of their earlier loss of composure.

Raghu came back to his senses. Even for someone who had seen his fair share of intense situations, he couldn’t remain calm.

His merchant’s instinct quickly told him that the potential profit in this was likely far, far greater than he had previously imagined.

’I have to find a way to get my hands on it.’

’How on earth did they create these scenes? Even the best Illusionist, Lady Uman herself, probably couldn’t pull this off.’

More information appeared on the screen.

"A Zog Film Studio Production"

"Hm?"

Raghu narrowed his eyes. ’This Zog Film Studio... it couldn’t be related to Zog’s Toy Store, could it?’

He had initially been pleased to see his Healing Potions featured. *Holy Mountain Journey* was destined to cause a huge sensation, and his Potion Factory could have ridden its coattails.

But now, things weren’t so simple.

’But what could they possibly do to a Healing Potion?’

He couldn’t think of anything for the moment.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone in another box waving at him. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

He turned his head and recognized Elsa Stone—the toy store owner who, in his eyes, was just another spineless subordinate.

Yet here she was, waving at him with a smile full of mockery.

Seeing that he was looking, Elsa’s smile grew even wider. She brought her thumb to her throat and slowly drew it across.

’A threat. This was a blatant threat!’

But more infuriating than the threat itself was the fact that Raghu didn’t even know what he was supposed to be guarding against.

’What exactly did her threat mean?’