He wasn't in his chair anymore. He was on a rainswept cliff, the wind whipping his face. He looked down. Armored boots. Gauntlets. A sword heavy and humming with a trapped lightning bolt. He was Sir Cador. And this wasn't a game. This was the memory of the game.

She laughed, a sound without humor. “The MegaMod. The Obb data you spliced in. You didn't just unlock weapons, little player. You unlocked the loop. This is the 1,155th time you’ve stood there. The mod broke the cycle. Now I remember. Every. Single. Slaughter.”

Kael felt the game’s programming screaming in the back of his mind. Press X to attack. Perform a heavy combo. Use the infinite rage potion. The mod had given him everything. But it hadn’t given him a button for mercy.

“You came,” she said, her voice not a monster’s snarl, but a dry rustle of leaves. “You always come, Cador. How many times have we danced this cliff?”

Horror, cold and absolute, dripped down Kael’s spine. He’d beaten this game a dozen times. He’d executed her, performed a fatality, and watched her pixelated corpse dissolve into loot. A hundred times. A thousand, across all playthroughs.

“Thank you, player Kael,” she said. “You’ve found the rarest cheat code of all.”