Luca realized then that he hadn't just downloaded a game; he had opened a gate. And in this version of Vengeance, the tower defense wasn't happening on the screen—it was happening in his hallway.

He looked back at the monitor. Vez’nan was grinning now, pointing a staff directly at the "Uninstall" button, which had been replaced with a single word: .

"The Dark Lord has no need for thieves," a voice rasped from the speakers, cold and uncomfortably clear.

Luca tried to exit, but his keyboard was unresponsive. On the screen, the map of Linirea didn't show the usual path of conquest. Instead, it was a satellite map of his own neighborhood. A single tower—a —was already constructed directly over his house.

The code pulsed green on the monitor—a jagged, unofficial download link for . For a seasoned gamer like Luca, the Cyrillic characters in the title and the strange, glitched font were warning signs, but the lure of playing the latest installment for free was too strong. He clicked "Descărca."