The earth shakes. A great struggle between two powerful forces is occurring. One would lay their eyes upon the battle and compare it to the stories of old, of the struggle between a knight and a dragon. One was once like one of us, an ordinary person who was tempered into a blade, and the other is the raw power of nature given form.

Except the force of nature isn't a dragon.

And that person is no hero.

"████████████████████!"

The giant rages. He is trying to deal with an annoyance, no, a threat to his existence. What is he? A demon? A force of righteous glory? No one is this strong. No, no one is supposed to be this strong.

"██████████████████! ███████!"

Pain assails the titan. There is no logical processing of the current situation. No, that isn't what was given to him. Only raw emotion, and the recognition of pain. It is like he is blinded- no, his is literally blinded by his rage. And if only he could see the light- the shining light that people reach other for, the light that is meant to be admired but never obtained.

"██████████████████!"

He lashes out in front of him, desperately trying to find the source of his suffering. The earth crumbles beneath his fist as if a bullet had been shot through glass. No hero should come out unscathed when faced with such an overwhelming force that not even humans should behold in their lifetime.

"Trace, on."

"███████████████!"

The giant doesn't need sight to know that there is a pure light, a light whose warmth he feels upon his skin. And just like that, his thoughts stopped, for the battle has ended in his defeat.

10 Burst Points awarded.

The Unlimited Burst Field.

In the modern world, there are Social Cameras stationed at every visible part of the city, to the point where a 3D image is able to be created just off of this very expensive fisheye lense. The streets, the schoolyard, your living room,

The Brain Burst Application takes all of the data from the Social Cameras, and uses them as a blueprint for a stage in the Unlimited Neutral Field.

To start with, Brain Burst is a program that can only be given to you by a person who owns the program, and each person is only limited to inviting one player. You start at Level 1, are given 100 BP, or Burst Points, and you are told that you can spend these Burst Points with one very specific command: "Burst Link." What's the catch? When you hit 0 BP, the application will automatically uninstall itself from your Neuro Linker, and you are never able to reinstall it ever again. Every time you use the command "Burst Link," you expend 1 BP. How do you earn more BP? You Battle. You will engage in a Battle with another player that comes up in the Match List, and if you win, you gain more points. If you lose, you lose more than the BP you spent using "Burst Link," you lose anywhere from 5 to 20 BP for losing that battle.

When you are put into a battle, the area around you is converted into an ingame stage, like a stage you select in a fighting game. And the entire world is converted into a giant stage for the Unlimted Neutral Field.

There is a difference between a Battle, and an Unlimited Neutral Field Session. A Battle is the most common way for a Burst Linker to gain Burst Points. Usually resulting in a net gain or loss of 10 points, two players will duke it out between each other for 30 minutes in acceleration, condensed into a single second in reality. This game is grounded in PvP, or Player vs Player nature, and was designed as such.

But once you have played for awhile and reached Level 4, you unlock a command different from "Burst Link," the command to activate the program and accelerate your thoughts.

With "Burst Link," you spend 1 BP, or Burst Point, and spend a single second in accelerated thought. Burst Link converts that 1 second into 1800 seconds, or 30 minutes. In this state, you can access your actual programs in an accelerated state, giving you enough time to cheat on a test, think of an answer when asked confronted with a difficult conversation, analyze a situation if things get hairy, or, do the original function, and challenge another player to a Battle.

Once you hit Level 4, things change a very considerable amount. The command "Unlimited Burst" is unlocked, where you spend 10 BP for an Accelerated session in Brain Burst with no time limit. Here, you can battle other players you run into, defeat them, and pick up the BP that they drop.

But this field houses a different type of player: Monster Hunters.

Brain Burst is not just purely a PvP game. No, it also has it's PvE, or Player vs Environment elements, where players can come together to fight against something of a force of nature. Monsters spawn at various points of the map, and they harbor the strength equivalent anywhere from 10-30 players. But they give a smaller reward than you would think. It's not like an MMO where you get some Legendary Sword drop from killing it after this grueling boss. No, Monsters usually drop one single card for 10 BP, and nothing else. There are rumors that sometimes, a Monster can drop materials that can be given to an Non-Player Character, or NPC for short, and crafted into an Enhanced Armament, an external and tradable piece of equipment between players. It's anywhere from Weapons, Armor, maybe even an accessory like a necklace.

Gradation Air is a Monster Hunter, but not the kind that you see in the regular Raids of players.

Specifically, his legion fell apart, without a single trace left. So he's a Solo Monster Hunter, something only talked about in rumors.

No one but the veterans really know much about him, nothing personal, only that you would be stupid to ever challenge him on the Matching List, and that his kill count for Monsters is ridiculous, the urban legend saying that he took on five Goliath's by himself since he's so good.

People say that he used to be a really good 1v1'er, one whom you would never forget a duel with if you ever got into a fight with him, that is if you were lucky enough.

Ever since his Legion disbanded, for some unknown reason, he's been on the Unlimited Neutral Field exclusively. He's one of the most mysterious and notorious players in the game, sort of like the Batman of Gotham or some shit. Everyone knows about him, but knows nothing about him at the same time. Even the Kings hold him in high regard, and there just seems to be a common rule when it comes to him.

Don't talk to him.

Under no circumstance, don't get into a fight with him.

Stay a good 800 meters away from a Monster Grounds if you have the feeling that the cries of agony are any of his doing.

And for the love of god, you had better run away if you see shining green lightning in the sky.

According to the rumors, people say that his Burst Points should be somewhere in the multiple millions, but the devil's advocate to that rumor is that any Burst Linker worth their Acceleration would never have anything above 100,000 BP if they were that involved in this community, and that there's no way that anyone would have a Monster kill count above 10,000, otherwise the 6 Legion's would step in to try and step in for the sake of neutralizing a threat that could potentially be a bigger threat than a war for Level 10, only achievable by killing 6 other Level 9 players.

He's no longer a contender of this PvP game to become the very best and renowned Burst Linker in the game. He just spends his days fighting meaningless battles against meaningless monsters for some meaningless, but not so meaningless, points.

Everyone can't help but ask three questions...

What the hell happened to him to change his avatar's color?

What does he do with all those Burst Points?

And why do the veterans refuse to say why he's called "The Faker?"

Public Info on Gradation Air from the Information Broker

Gradation Air

Level 8

Red Cloak/Black Undershirt and Pants/Silver Helmet

Attack Type: ALL

Tier: S

Tips against this player:

"Retreat on sight."