Accidentally made a mistake please go to the auxiliary chapter that is ch0 part 1 sorry Accidentally made it a auxiliary ch
They came from beneath. Rifts in space that shouldn't have existed. A twist in reality itself.
It happened exactly one year before the merge.
The System announced itself through an event that would forever be known as the Tutorial Calamity. Without warning, a violet ripple split through the sky of each world. A strange notification echoed into the minds of every living being capable of understanding language:
> [Tutorial Initiated: A Demon Realm Fragment has descended into each world. Objective: Defeat the Demon Lord. Reward: Entry into the Great Merge.]
The world trembled. The skies bled red. And in each of the four realms, a Small Demon Realm opened.
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In the Murim World, the response was swift and calculated. Centuries of cultivating internal energy, generations of warrior clans, sword sects, poison masters, and even the forgotten divine races—now known in the other worlds as Elves—sprang into action. The appearance of a Demon Lord in the Eastern Divine Peaks was devastating, but they were ready. Martial Artists unified their Qi under the ancient Warlord Alliance. It took them three months, thousands of lives, and the awakening of a long-forgotten clan heirloom… but they emerged victorious. The mountains still whisper of the battle scars left behind.
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In the Fantasy World, kingdoms that once bickered over borders now stood united. Mages, clerics, dragonkin, and swordmasters all bore arms. Magic cascaded across the sky, colliding with demon fire. The Demon Lord appeared in the ruined city of Arvalun, twisting the land into a grotesque nightmare. But here too, heroes arose. A young archmage detonated his own life force to seal the Demon Lord's core, allowing the elves to pierce it with their ancestral arrow. A cost was paid in blood—but victory was theirs.
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The Steampunk World reacted with ingenuity. Though twisted by magic, it was a world of gears, iron, and arcane circuits. Their Demon Lord emerged from a subterranean reactor beneath the industrial capital, Amberglaive. At first, nothing worked. Bullets bounced. Machines crumbled. But magic-infused artillery, airships run by spell engines, and mechanized sorcerers stood tall. In a desperate final charge, the Lord of Bronzeheart ignited the core of their last remaining mana-fusion cannon, blowing half the capital apart—but vaporizing the demon entirely.
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But the Modern World…
They had nothing.
No Qi. No magic. No ancient lineages. No spells or artifacts.
When the Demon Lord appeared in northern Russia, emerging from a tear in the sky above the tundra, the world fell into silence. Tanks failed. Jets melted in the air. Guns were meaningless. The military fought valiantly—but for every battalion sent, a city burned.
Humanity stood on the edge of extinction.
Then came the anomaly.
One in every ten million humans… began to awaken. The System's gift. A spark. A change. A notification:
> [You are eligible. You may now access Magic.]
They called them Players. The first ones were hunted, misunderstood, feared. But they were humanity's only hope.
With them, the tide shifted—barely.
It took seven months, the loss of nearly 30% of Earth's population, and the collaboration of every remaining nation… but the Demon Lord was finally slain in the ruins of old Moscow by the first true mage of Earth, wielding a spell that tore the sky open.
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And then… it ended.
The message came again.
> [Congratulations. Tutorial Completed. Initiating Merge… Welcome to Slot #7894.]
That was the last peace they knew.
A blinding pillar of light erupted in every sky—seen from every corner of every world. It pierced the clouds and reached into the stars.
When the light vanished, each world had changed. At the center of each realm… a colossal gateway stood, embedded into reality itself. It didn't just shimmer—it hummed, as if alive.
In the Modern World, it appeared in the Russian-Serbian border. A structure unlike anything humans had ever built: 500 meters tall, 300 meters wide, etched in otherworldly runes. It pulsed like a heartbeat.
When the first brave souls entered, they found a room.
Massive. Empty. Sacred.
A domed chamber over 1000 meters high. The distance between the gates from each world was vast—at least 100 meters—and the entire space was lined in gold and marble-white patterns, resembling celestial architecture.
It was their first time seeing the others.
Humans. Elves. Cultivators. Mechanized sorcerers.
And yet, amidst all this… were four giant gates, larger than the others, wrapped in black chains that radiated dread.
"Why are these gates here?"
"Why are they sealed?"
"What lies behind them?"
And that's when it hit everyone.
This wasn't the end.
This was just the beginning.
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To be continued…