[citation needed] 18-year-old Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter for a living, which entails capturing individuals who are suspected of betting on Warcross, the largest internet game in the world, in which players access a virtual-reality world by wearing a pair of glasses—the Neuro Link— and battle on realistic terrains by using power-ups to take their opponent's Artifact (a gem).

This particular power-up sells for a hefty amount of money, which compels Emika to exploit a vulnerability in the code.

Emika becomes wary of one of her teammates, a wildcard called DJ Ren, who has set up a system of shields to encrypt his information.

Emika extracts a string of code from the shield, which Hideo suggests is related to the Dark World, a place where people commit crimes through Warcross and their fake persona.

Since the bets are so small, Emika believes them to be a set of coordinates that map out future attacks against Henka Games.

Hideo escapes unscathed from the attack; however, his colleagues suggest that he should leave Tokyo to avoid further incidents, which he downplays.

Nevertheless, he reveals that he has developed feelings for Emika and as a result, discloses that the disappearance of his younger brother, Sasuke, brought about the creation of Warcross and the Neurolink (Virtual Reality glasses), uncovering a hidden layer of Hideo's past.

When she arrives at her team's dormitory, her teammates Asher, Hammie, and Roshan are infuriated at her due to her actions and get into a heated argument with each other.

After its release, the novel appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list in the young adult category where it remained for 12 weeks.

In her list of the best science fiction books to read in September 2017, Everdeen Mason praised the novel for its quickly developing plot and entertainment value.

[4] Moreover, she argued that the novel transcends its young-adult billing, likening it to Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Ernest Cline's Ready Player One.

[6] In particular, she took exception with the romance between Emika and Hideo and the disclosure of Zero's identity, believing that these plot elements were too easy to foretell.

[6] It was announced in September 2020 that the book rights had been optioned for a TV adaption by Bruna Papandrea's Made Up Stories and John Cameron (Fargo, Legion).