The Ash-Crowned Dragon, Graum, was defeated two days ago.

It had been two years since the official launch of the game.

It was the first confirmed large-scale colored monster—the Ash-Crowned Dragon, Graum.

The massive cross-world raid event had already come to an end.

More than 410,000 players had registered to participate.

During the final battle phase, multiple battlefield instance zones were created, each capable of accommodating up to 5,000 players.

Among them, the First Battlefield achieved the fastest kill.

The raid that earned the fastest clear across every battlefield—and claimed the World Last Attack—was completed by the elite attackers of the largest progression clan, Astra Regalia, better known as Astrega.

Their record clear time was 3 hours and 26 minutes.

The official livestream peaked at over 180,000 concurrent viewers, and immediately after the boss was defeated, the forums crashed three separate times.

The massive dragon wearing a crown of gray let out its final roar before collapsing amid a sky-splitting burst of light.

Even now, days after the raid ended, that footage still remained near the top of every video site.

Countless clips capturing only the World Last Attack had been uploaded, and replay videos from progression players, along with strategy analyses, were still appearing one after another.

The in-game forums were still buzzing with discussions about the performance of the World Last Attack rewards, equipment crafted from Ash-Crowned Dragon materials, the DPS rankings from the final phase, and just how incredible Astrega’s members had been in leading the fastest clear.

Tonight, once the clock struck midnight, the reward exchange period would finally end.

I no longer had enough event points to exchange for any of the major rewards.

Normally, there would be no reason for me to return to that battlefield.

Even so, I logged in and headed toward the remains of the Ash-Crowned Dragon battlefield.

VRMMO—Chroma Realm Online.

Players simply called it CRO.

In CRO, you create your character by choosing one race and one starting class.

The starting classes consisted of three apprentice roles—frontline, midline, and rearline.

I had started as a Hume Midline Apprentice.

After completing my first class advancement, I had become a Hume Scout.

The Scout line specialized in daggers and bows, along with skills like Detection, tracking footprints, and disarming simple traps.

It was an exploration-focused class that worked well for solo players, and I genuinely enjoyed wandering through unfamiliar places.

It wasn’t a class known for overwhelming damage, though.

At Level 50, a second class advancement became available.

I was only Level 44, so I still had a little way to go.

Classes, races, skills, levels, stats, monsters, raids, clans, livestreams, forums, rankings—

This game had everything.

My in-game name was Zan.

My real name was Amatsuki Zan.

People often told me my name sounded ridiculously strong.

The truth was, though, I wasn’t a progression raider, a famous streamer, or someone known for testing game mechanics.

On weekdays, I had university lectures and a part-time job.

There were also plenty of days when I helped with the household chores.

Because of that, I almost never made it to major events on time.

By the time I could log in, the event boss had usually already reached its final phase—or had already been defeated.

Even if late participation was allowed, players who joined early almost always earned far more contribution points.

Joining halfway through never got you onto the rankings.

You never gathered enough limited materials.

In the end, you were left with only enough points for ordinary rewards, never the featured prizes in the exchange shop.

This major event had been no different.

I had barely managed to join the final phase of the Ash-Crowned Dragon Graum raid.

But the instance I entered was already well into the closing stages.

The raid’s shared HP gauge was almost empty, and a world announcement had already appeared across the sky declaring that the First Battlefield had achieved the fastest clear.

The dagger skill I threw probably hit the very edge of one of Graum’s wings exactly once.

That was all.

Even so, simply participating earned me part of the standard completion rewards.

I also received a few commemorative event materials.

But there was never any chance I’d make the rankings.

Of course not.

I was always someone who experienced only the fading warmth of an event after it had already ended.

It used to frustrate me.

While everyone else excitedly talked about how insane the final phase had been, wondered which healer had saved the raid at that critical moment, or praised how impossibly durable Astrega’s tanks were, all I could do was nod along after watching the clear videos days later.

But somewhere along the way… my feelings had changed a little.

I’d come to like the event grounds after everything was over.

In the deserted battlefield, the teleport gate was slowly losing its glow, and the supply tents had already been folded away halfway.

Only rows of wooden stakes remained at the temporary camp, while empty healing potion bottles lay scattered beside the supply crates.

Once the reward exchange period ended, the gray hills where the victory music had already fallen silent would become a closed instance area.

It was a temporary battlefield that would return to the normal field after the next maintenance.

At the height of the event, tens of thousands of players had filled battlefield after battlefield with excitement.

Then suddenly, the place that had once held all that energy felt strangely artificial, as though everything was quietly being packed away as if nothing had ever happened.

I liked that quiet emptiness left behind after the excitement had faded.

Past events had mostly been seasonal quests or town defense battles.

Once they ended, everything immediately returned to the normal map.

Hardly any soldiers or event staff ever remained behind.

This event was different.

It was the first massive cross-world raid event held since the game’s official launch two years ago.

The temporary base, supply stations, teleport gates, and wounded soldiers’ tents had all been built on a scale unlike anything before.

Once the reward exchange period ended, would that enormous instance area really disappear without leaving a single trace behind?

Of course, the entire event had been created by the developers.

The Ash-Crowned Dragon, the First Battlefield, and Astrega’s World Last Attack were all parts of a carefully designed large-scale raid event.

Still, Chroma Realm Online could be strangely meticulous in unexpected ways.

A town resident you had rescued might greet only the players who completed that particular quest.

A merchant would choose a different route if the bridge couldn’t be defended.

After an event ended, a single unfamiliar name might quietly appear in the tavern rumors.

I had no idea whether those were scripted by the developers or simply connections the game created on its own.

But because I didn’t know… I wanted to see them.

Even if the event itself had been planned from the beginning, everything that remained after it ended never felt completely fake to me.

Thinking about that, I made my way toward the Ash-Crowned Dragon battlefield instance.

I wasn’t going there for rewards.

I wasn’t going there for progression.

I simply wanted to breathe in the air that remained after everything was over.

At least… that was the plan.