The New Suchi Arena, the start of the workshop’s fourth fascinating day.

The in-game sun shone bright, and the students were logging on in plenty, yet there was to them a frazzled, ticking energy sort of like meth addicts one week into a sleepless binge.

The training session ‘today’ was beginning quite bizarrely. The Tyrant had closed out the previous one, had praised his students’ hard work etc, had told hem to savour their sweat-earned rest. Then, only few hours later, he'd reappeared to start the next set of lectures.

According to him, the day's workshop had been too slow to tire him out properly. The hours of teaching, the hours of trouncing the world’s top duellists – all this had not worn his wits dull enough yet to relax them on a pillow. So, he’d decided to teach the fourth session back-to-back, after which he’d take a siesta.

Was this a joke? Was this another of his Post-Maximalists avant-garde insults, a sort of trashtalk via obnoxious workshop scheduling?

“Nope,” The Tyrant, organising his staff in preparation, replied to a trainee shrieking such questions in despair. “I’ve got too much energy left. Duelling is relatively low effort.”

Whatever the motives hidden within his evil heart, the tactic seemed to be working superbly.

With sworn complaints, the peoples of planets Earth and Saana were rousing their aching minds from bed. Tens of thousands of family meals were cancelled, children weeping as they were forced to stomach fast food. Unwalked puppies across the globe received apologies and sighed permission to gnaw the couch. In China alone, the doors of two dozen dance clubs had to close due to a mysterious wave of night-shift workers across the industry calling in sick. Another pandemic? No, just a demonstration of the horror when one tyrannical teen has monopolised all the secret duelling knowledge.

This session in particular, the trainees were unwilling to miss.

The fourth day, beginning so oddly, had promised to be his lessons’ main pay-off.

Those before had merely conditioned them to the parts of his system, its ‘tools’. Now, The Tyrant would combine them into his advanced strategical combat. The extended back-and-forths built upon the manipulation of 'combat’s flow’, the countering of an opponent dissected to their ‘Inducible Fatal Habits’, the trick K.O.s secreted within ‘spatiotemporal disparity windows’, the all-weapon juggle unlocked after taming the multitude – the mechanics behind this magic and more, he was finally to expose, to clarify, and to gift.

No one could stand to skip this. Especially not after sinking in so much effort. Imagine, all the whacky jargon they'd bothered to cram into their neurons, wasted!

Thus, millions of trainees, with no other choice but to oblige his wicked whims or be left in the forgotten dust of the arena, were returning to Saana, returning to their loveless beatings. Thus, regathering at his stadium, they stared now at his arena, their sleep-stolen eyes fixed on him in confusion, anguish, and rage.

“There’s really no ulterior motive.” The Tyrant continued his deceptive insistence. “It’s 2050. Live attendance isn’t necessary. If you’re tired, go to bed and watch the recordings later. If anything, that's optimal. You can skip my practise 1v1s to focus on the lessons.”

Several hours later, the lessons skipped to focus on the practise 1v1s.

London Tremor—our Channel 5 intern rising from the ashes of scorn like a fanny-pack phoenix—was in the crowd live-streaming HF beating up a Tier-0 amateur.

“What about," he paused to yawn, "what about the gear disadvantage?” he said to a stream guest, only half-observing the bout playing out as blurrily as the rest. “Some competitors have ordered special full-coverage suits to nullify most of his attacks.”

Joining him, alongside a squad of weapon-touting skeletons, was one of the stars of the scene: TadashiZ. A Japanese-American Bloodmancer of The Company and a semi-pro duellist, this apex genius had reached all the way to the 1v1's final bracket stage at the previous Autumn tournament.

London—as he’d questioned several of the pros, their numbers multiplying in the zone by the hour—had been interrogating for HF’s potential defects.

From a journalistic angle, the teen trashing everyone already had been somewhat unfortunate, spoiling the whole event by killing its suspense. Might HF not have a secret match-up counter? Were there any outlandish competitors who could make for a wild card rival? For London, any minor fault was as precious as gold, valuable even if simply to produce the illusion of HF needing to break a sweat this weekend.

The Bloodmancer TadashiZ boredly mined his nostrils for his own gold. “Popped through the eyeslots…shoved off for an edge elim - they’re just asking to get embarrassed harder. Boss T's boasts were true. He’s The Invincible Cripple.”

London Tremor hid a disappointed frown, reminding himself of the blessing of getting any interviews at all as an intern. The Saana League pros he'd spoken to, having been PR-trained, at least attempted to entertain his fancies. These antisocial creatures of the 1v1 in contrast offered him nothing but non-committal grunts and defeatist snot.

To the idea of HF’s ‘invincibility’, his competition quickly surrendered, to the truth beyond the irony.

One could view his self-bestowed title, 'The Invincible Cripple', as a parodical, tongue-in-cheek reclamation of the cripple insult to his reaction speed, or as a cringe weeaboo reference to some samurai manga about reaching the pinnacle of duelling and becoming Invincible Under The Sun. Alongside these silly points, however, it'd also been a simple declaration of fact. Remarkably, throughout his entire saga, no player had ever dealt him a deathblow. Due to The Strategy’s reliance on rare Legendaries, he’d always taken precautions to avoid the prohibitive cost of dying and gifting his ‘tools’ to his opponents.

This impressive invincibility streak remained unbroken to the present. For most of this instalment, HF had been protected by his anonymity. Then, after entering the public this week, in the thousand-plus duels he’d racked up, he'd still astonishingly avoided a single death. He’d certainly lost many fights, especially when clowning around. However—and this had been one of the clearest indicators of him clowning around—no one had managed to kill him. Each defeat had been precisely calibrated, HF always leaving a cushion against that last fatal clip.

Being apparently immortal was fantastic for him and A Thousand Tools, but for an aspiring journalist trying to hype up the news? London Tremor really did think HF’s original underdog triple redemption arc would’ve been much more compelling. This story's ending had been thoroughly spoiled.

“No chance.” The guest Bloodmancer flicked a glob of boogers. “Those claiming otherwise are delusional. It’s gonna take years before any of us match this. The only wild card here is Him. He could throw with flaky bullshit like this.” The man waved with annoyance at the duel on stage as part of this rescheduled workshop. “If he doesn’t turn up. Even then, he’s probably shameless enough to delay the whole event.”

“Not probably,” added a second pro nibbling a sandwich beside them - the world’s number 11. “Mayo weaselled in his bud an exclusive exception to the tourney rules for no-show disquals. For any scheduling conflicts.” The duellist chomped another bite. “Across the 15 tournaments.”

“But he has a clear Achilles heel,” London Tremor pushed again. “The reaction speed: The Cripple. All it takes is one flick of the sword to slip through the juggle.”

The Bloodmancer winced at this naivety. “Wrong.”

The pro didn't elaborate, disdaining to explain the obvious, unable to anyway if he had desired due to the mind-breaking of the crazy lectures - what an insane day.

But, for those at their level, they’d grasped the problem instantly from the first public duel with Ramiro. The Tyrant’s evasion couldn’t be beaten. His skills in this allowed him to stay at the mid-range in perpetuity, and, there, he dominated with his mutant aim, almost every shot of his sticking a vital. Without a God’s buff for themselves, the pros couldn’t even force enough pressure for him to resort to the final weapon juggling defence. His usage of the technique against themselves had been nothing but an arrogant flex. If you were fighting him melee, he’d gifted you the chance out of sheer boredom.

London Tremor, not comprehending this, tried to probe an answer from the second pro, but their mouth was silenced by sandwich.

In the stream chat rolling past the intern’s vision, his viewers were growing frustrated. Having been telling him to leave this point for a while, they were demanding he ask for play-by-play commentary.

London was less persuaded by their irritation than he might’ve been a few days before. A journalist should be a little hated, he’d realised. A fire takes friction to start, and someone has to play the foil - that was one good lesson to steal from Oliver. Maybe...London finding anything commendable in the prick might be a result of sleep deprivation.

“So that’s it.” The intern brushed the rest of The Winter Open from his palms dismissively, hamming up his antagonism. “You’ve all lost. 15 tournaments, the winner of them already decided. Let’s pack up and pray his promise to retire before the next wasn’t bait.”

The Bloodmancer, well-versed in aggression and hearing the infantile falsity, laughed. His thoughts then, through a loose, dream-like association, skipped to a totally different insight.

“15 tournaments?" said the pro. "Hmm…”

The second pro, picking up the other's tone of doubt, squinted curiously at The Tyrant hammer-caving in his opponent’s novice skull. “True. Hah. Maybe I’ll watch it.”

At this cryptic exchange, London Tremor’s interest spiked.

The story, he thought suddenly, the missing friction...

He tried to get the pair to elaborate. But both pros, sharing a chuckle, ignored him and walked off to resume practice, the Bloodmancer skeletons rattling and creaking behind them.

While they left, the mystified intern stood in a quiet, brewing astonishment as a slight tremble quaked through the muscles of his hands and arms.

Throughout his body pulsed a powerful sensation of approach, a sensation of the dawn and its returning warmth. He felt the onset of some HF-like vision. His oracular gaze was cascading out twenty-billion-steps into tomorrow and beholding in one all-synthesising instant the divine possibilities neglected by the plebian mass, that shimmering visage of the golden future hidden in The Beyond…

“Bloody hell,” London whispered to himself, blinking to regain his senses, his chat complaining at his blinking screwing up the view.

Man...he was super sleep deprived...

It was to be in this mood of insomniac hallucination that the intern would watch a bizarrely-attired black woman take the challenger stage next.

An Earthfriend, she appeared at the arena draped in heavily-worn robes, tattered and sun-bleached from many travels. Knotty, dirt-smeared dreadlocks coiled on her head, and the exposed skin of her face, arms, and legs was caked with a pink dust of chalk mixed with Suchi’s blood-red clay. Her hands clasped a wooden staff carved in the shape of two interlocking serpents.

At first glance, she seemed to be some kind of crazy hobo roleplayer. On second glance and third glance, London wiping his eyes in between, this initial impression didn’t change.

As this lady progressed through the crowd, she waved her snake staff and shrieked a hysterical proclamation. “Citizens of Saana, with two hearts split in twain, long have you gazed with Desire’s eyes across The Barriers of Solitude! Weep no more, my divided loves! I am The Third Gate and The Last, and soon The Key will swing me open! The hour of The Breach is nigh!”

London, listening to this mad prattle, didn’t think it remarkable initially, several costumed roleplayers having challenged HF in character. However, after the lady’s wailed message, a strange chorus responded from around him.

A cry first resounded from a vampire with sparkling skin and crimson eyes. “Retreat, my prophetic queen! The Tyrant’s blood flows icier in the veins than mine! He’ll drain you for the pure fun of it! He’ll drain you dead!”

Another distressed call soared from a girl on the arena’s other side with one wooden leg and a pirate hat. “Arrrrrrgh, me lady, that shimmering land-lubber be speaking the ghostly truth! Less mercy hath this shadow-hearted fiend for his own kin than Captain Blackbeard for a ship of The Crown’s red-coated scoundrels! Away, me love! Set sail to less contested seas!’

Elsewhere, werewolves howled in terror and gangster rappers spat their lyrical woes. Every costumed oddball in the stadium seemed to add their own warning, crying for the homeless lady to step down from her doomed challenge.

London Tremor—incredibly lost, pinching his cheek—asked his streamchat for the cause of the stir. They’d witnessed several LARPing freaks get demolished by HF, yet none of those episodes had entailed a fraction of this anguish.

He flinched when a duellist standing next to him answered, the question having been spoken out loud.

“I’m too out of it to recall the username," they said, "but that lady’s ‘The Third Gate’. She roleplays a desert mystic. Wanders around prophesying an apocalyptic merger with Saana and the real world.”

“Basically the queen of the Virtual Realists,” added another duellist, yawning. “Hardcore. As awful as Justinian. Never drops character. Ever. I’m surprised she’d self-delete to respawn here.”

“Respawned…” remarked the first duellist with curiosity. “Right - her level’s reset. Guess those rags are brand new.”

London Tremor examined the tattered outfit. If the roleplayer'd artificially aged her clothing, he couldn’t tell. The wear was very authentic looking.

“The Third Gate..." he said, his brain struggling to grasp something. "Why does that title sound so familiar?”

Gate, he thought...Gate...Gates...Gates...Gates...Heaven—

“HAH!” A sharp laugh erupted a short distance away.

London, spinning at the sound, blanched in abrupt terror. "What the fuck?!"

Like a monster ripped from a nightmare, a hunchback was hobbling through the crowd towards him. Half-man, half-creature, it emerged even more dishevelled than the homeless lady, its armour drenched in wet blood that dripped with each forward step. Its movements were grotesque and lurching, one red-stained leg dragging in the dirt.

London sought confirmation from his neighbouring duellists and his streamchat, all of which seemed to be seeing the same thing.

The hunchback, reaching the group, panting at the effort, cracked a smile of mad eagerness, excited to finally find an audience with which to share its research. Four of the front teeth were missing, the mouth filled with blood.

This man—and he was a man—while the rest in this stadium were merely sampling the preliminary warmth of this endless night, had advanced further to its later stages of pale-browed fever. For the past 59-IRL hours, he’d been binge-watching Cripple lore recaps, doing a deep dive into The Tyrant’s history that'd granted him a musty, fey air. On his features were now imprinted a vague trauma from his psychological journey. His face spasmed nervously, like a conspiracy theorist who’d connected the dots to realise the ‘moon’ landing had to be faked because the moon wasn’t a solid object but the slow-blinking second eyeball of the Egyptian God Ra-Horakhty.

As for the physical trauma, the hunched spine and the blood, those were just sparring wounds. He'd been on transit to the stadium's infirmary.

“But why, you ask, does that title, The Third Gate, sound so familiar?" The injured truth-glimpser intoned, addressing any who’d dare open their ears to the universe whispering through his lips. "Because The Second Gate..." he exposed another bloody-mouthed grin, "...has already creaked open before us!”

Groaning, he flung a broken arm to point to the arena, to the one now cloaked in the mask of The Tyrant.

In an insane yarn, the hunchback proceeded to teach London and the others some of the deepest lore behind this enigmatic everyman-turned-duellist. He revealed to them a fraction of the arcane knowledge confined to the dusty annals of His myriad sagas and the manifold epithets amassed across them, ‘The Tyrant’ being merely the latest in a sequence of mighty names now long forgotten to gaming history…

A brief history of Saana’s Second Gate.

The Second Gate…yes, dear comrades in the confidential, for a minute, that had also been His title…