Chapter 1: Ethan

“GOD SLAIN!”

That was the message that burst across Ethan’s gaming screen.

The message that made him spring to his feet, arms raised toward the ceiling, drunk on victory, as he shouted at the top of his lungs:

“I DID IT!! I beat the game without getting hit even once! I crushed this damn game!!”

Ethan laughed—pure joy, pure pride.

He had just cleared one of the hardest Souls-like games ever made… without taking a single hit.

That alone was reason enough to celebrate.

But there was a second reason.

The flood of chat messages pouring in, one after another, praising the insane achievement he had just pulled off.

Viewers: 3,591

VenusPanties:

That marathon was insanely long, but I enjoyed every single moment! Congrats!

SquareDick:

Holy shit… the perverted gaming addict actually did it. Guess difficulty means nothing to our Moon! Hahaha!

MrTrashKim:

Another legendary run, as always. Take these $300 straight from my paycheck—you earned them!

Congratulations rained down on Ethan, and his smile widened on its own.

“Thanks, everyone. I seriously couldn’t have done this without you guys. Uh—and thanks to Mr. Kim for the three hundred bucks. I really appreciate the support… though I’d appreciate it even more if you’d stop using these damn usernames. I’m struggling just to read them on stream.”

*SquareDick donated $1.*

“Oh—there you are again, you bastard! I swear I’m banning you this time!” Ethan grumbled, prompting the entire chat to explode with laughter.

BlackRose:

We all know you won’t ban him. He’s one of your biggest supporters.

SquareDick:

Say whatever you want, but you’ll always need SquareDick! Hahaha!

Staring at the scrolling messages, Ethan finally gave in.

His viewers knew him too well.

After years of uninterrupted streaming, he had built a loyal fanbase .. people who followed him through every brutal game, every masochistic challenge.

The Moon You.

That was the name of the channel that gathered these strange souls together.

Its owner was famous for his exaggerated reactions .. and for his love of games so punishing that casual players avoided them like the plague.

That love eventually led him to the Souls-like genre.

A genre defined by suffering, precision, and relentless challenge.

As he kept chatting with his viewers, Ethan did what he always did at the end of every stream—talk, joke, and collect as many donations as possible. It was how he survived.

Occasionally, massive donations would come in, making him jump out of his chair.

But for the most part…

His viewers loved messing with him by donating a single dollar—just to force him to read their depraved usernames out loud.

“One dollar?” Ethan scoffed. “Do I look like some filthy beggar to you? Keep your money in your damn pockets!”

VenusPanties:

No need to pretend now—we all know the truth. And we still love you anyway! Long live The Moon You!

BlackRose:

Says the underwear lover. But honestly… why does Moon only play hard games? 🙂

SquareDick:

Maybe he’s a sick bastard who enjoys being tortured. Pray for his future wife.

MrTrashKim:

I hate to agree with SquareDick, but… maybe it wouldn’t hurt to diversify the content a bit?

Listening to their warped opinions, Ethan chuckled softly.

“Guys, I just like games that give me a real challenge. But I appreciate all your feedback. I’ll be putting up a poll soon so you can choose our next game—so keep notifications on!”

He fiddled with the stream controls as he spoke.

“I’m ending the stream now. I haven’t slept in three days because of this cursed marathon. Get some good rest yourselves .. and stay safe!”

With a wide smile, Ethan finally ended the Stream.

A marathon that had lasted over seventy hours.

Ethan.

Or The Moon You, as his viewers called him.

He had always been cheerful—someone who knew how to lighten the mood. Naive, upbeat… so much so that his audience loved teasing him endlessly.

They thought they understood him.

But appearances could be deceiving.

The moment the stream ended, Ethan’s smile collapsed as if it had never existed.

His face became empty. Hollow. Colorless.

Leaning back in his gaming chair, the triple-monitor setup was the only source of light in his dark, lifeless room.

“And here comes that disgusting silence again…”

He stood up and walked heavily toward his bed, positioned in the corner of the room.

Letting his exhausted body fall onto the mattress, Ethan lay there and allowed his consciousness to drift.

The apartment was quiet.

Painfully empty.

His room held very little—just his streaming setup, a bed, and a simple wardrobe.

He lived alone.

Rarely interacted with people.

Aside from those strange viewers online… he barely spoke to another human being.

Ethan felt overwhelmingly sleepy.

He hadn’t slept in days. The silence, the stillness—everything should have helped him drift into sleep.

And yet…

For some reason, he couldn’t close his eyes that night.

“Ah… this damn insomnia again…”

He got up and dragged himself to the small kitchen, pulling a certain medicine from the fridge.

Swallowing several pills meant to help him sleep, Ethan let them slide down his throat .. then returned to his bed .

In moments like this—

in silence like this—

the dark thoughts never stopped surfacing in Ethan’s mind.

Relentless overthinking, born from a past he had never managed to bury, resulted in a vicious insomnia that denied him sleep altogether.

“That’s exactly why I did that damn marathon… but it doesn’t seem to be enough anymore.”

Staying awake for days, playing nonstop—burying himself in games and in those strange viewers—had always been Ethan’s way of running from reality.

But in the end, reality always caught up to him.

Sooner or later.

And with it came those dark thoughts and memories, creeping back into his mind piece by piece.

“What is it that defines a person’s worth in this world?”

“Wealth? Bloodline? Talent? Achievements? Appearance?”

Ethan had pondered that question for a long time.

In truth, it had countless possible answers.

“I have none of them.”

Whatever the answer was, Ethan was certain it didn’t apply to him.

As he tried to fall asleep, his mind dragged him back through his past—replaying his life from beginning to end. It was a dangerous phase of overthinking he had fallen into recently, one that had taken a heavy toll on both his health and his life.

No matter how hard he searched his memories, Ethan found himself wondering whether even a single good thing had ever happened to him.

His mother had died from illness shortly after he turned three.

His father remarried almost immediately, having children with another woman.

Raised in a toxic environment, Ethan had always been far beneath his siblings.

His looks were painfully average.

He had no talent that set him apart from his peers.

A failure who always gave up halfway—so much so that he couldn’t even finish school. He was expelled early after repeating the same year over and over again.

And that failure became the excuse his father needed to throw him out of the house, cutting all ties and focusing entirely on his new family.

Still young, Ethan found himself wandering the streets, with no hope left in life—except for a small sum of money his mother had left him before she died.

Money he never knew how to use properly.

He fell in love with a girl.

At the time, she seemed like an angel to him.

So he poured everything he had into her—only for her to betray him in the end, leaving the moment she had drained him of every last cent, exploiting his naivety.

With no other options left, Ethan was forced into brutal manual labor—jobs that shattered both his body and his spirit.

And as if that weren’t enough, he discovered that he carried the same chronic illness that had taken his mother’s life.

From every direction—

from every angle—

it felt as though life itself had surrounded Ethan, slowly crushing him.

After spending years trapped in poverty, he no longer expected anything good from life.

The world appeared dark to him.

Yet, in one corner of it… Ethan found a place where he could escape reality—if only for a moment—forgetting the miserable existence he had been cursed with.

From a young age, Ethan had been obsessed with games.

Like any other child, he loved them.

And as the years passed, that love only deepened—until they became his only refuge.

“I loved them. I was good at them. I mastered them… I surpassed others through them.”

For Ethan—the failure who had never been good at anything in life—

there was only one exception.

“They were the only place where I felt… alive.”

And that was what pushed him to become The Moon You the world knew today.

It felt as though games had saved his life—granting him a reality he could finally be proud of.

Yet the shadows of his past never stopped chasing him.

His endless failures carved a deep inferiority complex inside him .. one that drove him to desperately try to achieve something in life.

That was why he gravitated toward brutally difficult games—games other players avoided.

They were the only things that gave him the sense of accomplishment he craved.

Remembering the questions his viewers often asked—wondering about his strange obsession with the hardest Souls-like games—

Ethan forced a faint smile and closed his eyes.

“I wonder, guys… would you still support me if I showed you this pathetic side of me?”

Another symptom of overthinking.

And in the end…

He remained awake for several more hours, until his body finally gave in—collapsing into sleep, utterly exhausted by fatigue and insomnia.

Yet thanks to those games—and their fictional worlds—

Ethan had managed to keep living.

Unaware that those very same games would soon turn his life completely upside down.

That they would become the turning point of his story.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep