Chapter 0: Fake Beta Test

[The One Who Devours the World NG+10, No-hit Barehanded Clear (The Darkest Light Mod)]

[Video]

With this, I’ve finally managed a barehanded no-hit clear run of The Brightest Darkness 4 with The Darkest Light Mod on every boss. The hardest part was having no deflection and needing to dodge each attack one by one. If you have any questions, leave a comment.

[Comments]

How is this even possible?

I can’t even keep up just by watching, and someone managed to beat this?

Is this guy insane?

How many hours of gameplay? Around 10,000 hours?

Barehanded no-hit clear in vanilla is insanely tough, but doing it in The Darkest Light Mod is just ridiculous.

I stretched out my back, a groan escaping from my mouth. The notifications for the comments didn’t stop, but I ignored them.

I picked up the phone from my desk and flung myself onto the bed. My head sunk deep into the pillow. Ignoring the comments notification accumulating on my phone’s top bar, I browsed through The Brightest Darkness overseas communities.

‘Am I the first one to clear The Darkest Light Mod barehanded with no hits?’

The game I just posted a video of, ‘The Brightest Darkness 4’, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

With its challenging difficulty that could be called insane, it had a huge fan base worldwide, especially the 4th installment which achieved enormous success.

Thanks to that, all sorts of veteran players flocked to the community. They would only acknowledge accomplishments that were borderline absurd like clearing the game blindfolded or with their feet.

The original game was already infamous for its difficult and crazy levels. After holding onto it for a decade, the veterans naturally raised the bar even higher.

But ‘The Darkest Light’ Mod, or ‘The Darkest Light’, was fundamentally different.

It was the final boss level of enemy enhancement mods, which polished and unified hundreds of haphazardly scattered mods.

The target players were veterans who had nothing else to do in the game and had experienced every kind of exploit imaginable. The mod’s ruthlessness was beyond any imagination.

It came out when my gameplay time was around 10,000 hours. From the first boss in the tutorial zone, I was utterly helpless.

“Can they seriously expect anyone to beat this?” I would often grumble. The game was replete with insidious patterns and instant death traps that would spring into action with a gleeful declaration of “Ignorance equals death!” These, along with the widespread attacks, forced me to endure a barrage of curses for quite some time.

However, after struggling my way through countless playthroughs, my skills eventually peaked at a no-hit, bare-handed clear at the highest difficulty. Before I knew it, my playtime in the game had surpassed 30,000 hours.

“What should I do now?”

Once the feeling of accomplishment had worn off, a sense of emptiness quickly set in. Having accomplished what I had been aiming for over the years, I suddenly felt directionless.

“I wonder when they’ll finally release the fifth installment.”

Had there been any information about the release of the fifth installment, it would have provided a bit of solace. The first installment of the game came out 19 years ago, followed by the second 17 years ago, the third 15 years ago, and the fourth a decade ago. But since then, there had been no news of a fifth.

Four years after the fourth installment, a trailer with the logo for the fifth installment was released, and then another six years passed. Fans of the series were on the verge of giving up hope, and I was one of them.

Figuring I should sleep on it, I was about to shut off my phone when a different kind of notification caught my attention.

Pulling down the notification bar, amidst a slew of comment alerts, one email stood out.

“What’s this?”

The preview was filled with English text. It was an email from overseas. Initially, my brows furrowed, suspecting it to be spam.

A quick glance at the content revealed the sender spewing nonsense about this and that, prompting me to dismiss it as spam. However, I paused at the sight of a particular word.

Opening the email fully, I read it carefully from the start.

“The Brightest Darkness 5… Closed Beta Test?”

The email was essentially asking me whether I was interested in participating in the Closed Beta Test for the fifth installment of the game. If so, I was instructed to click on the attached link.

“What?!”

Surprised, I found myself sitting upright. The fifth installment of the game? For real? My instincts were screaming at me to click on the link, but I barely managed to regain control of my faculties.

My finger, which had been hovering over the screen, began to tremble.

“Could it be a hoax?”

Right, there’s no guarantee this isn’t spam. If I get tricked and click on the link without thinking, there could be repercussions.

I steadied my nerves, mobilized the wisdom of the masses, and started typing on my smartphone with shaky hands.

[Hey, I just got an email from the game devs. What’s the deal?]

[Picture]

Just received an email about a CBT invitation for Brightest Darkness 5. But I can’t tell if it’s a scam or not. Damn it.

[Comments]

“Is it really from the ‘The Brightest Darkness’ development team?”

Doubting it, I checked the email address. Unbelievably, it was indeed from the company that had developed the ‘The Brightest Darkness’ series.

Worried that I might have been fooled by a clever use of uppercase and lowercase letters, I turned on my computer and meticulously checked each character. It really was the official email.

‘If it’s official, I should apply first and think later. I have nothing to lose. I must seize this opportunity, genuinely.’

Filled with exhilaration, I clicked on the link.

And just like that, I was drawn into the monitor.

Author’s Note (Postscript)

The game ‘The Brightest Darkness,’ as featured in the novel, takes inspiration from Sekiro + Dark Souls 1, 3 + Elden Ring + Skyrim.

Merging these masterpieces together, it can’t be anything but an exceptional game.