The refrigerator hummed for a moment before the light inside sputtered out. Again.
Raiven Arkos didn't bother closing the door. There was nothing inside but two cracked eggs and a bottle of spoiled milk he hadn't thrown out yet. The power had gone off three times today, and this was the final blow. The city's energy ration for bottom-tier districts had reached its limit.
His room was dim. A single screen glowed from his worn-out datapad, casting cold blue light onto the cluttered floor. Takeout boxes. Crumpled wrappers. Empty pill bottles. The smell of dust and old oil filled the air.
He tapped the screen, opening his email. He already knew what it said, but some part of him still hoped.
From: Saint Mercy General Hospital
Subject: URGENT—Final Notice
"We regret to inform you that your insurance coverage for patient Elira Arkos has expired. Treatment will be suspended until outstanding payments are resolved..."
Raiven shut the pad without reading the rest.
Elira was all he had left. His little sister. Fourteen. Bright, fragile, stuck in a hospital bed because of a condition no one could afford to name, let alone cure.
His breath caught in his throat. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. Don't cry. Crying solved nothing. He had no tears left anyway.
Once upon a time, he had a future. Sponsors. Followers. A seat in the national VR team. They called him "the Calm Reaper" back then.
Until someone framed him.
One glitch in a championship match. One anonymous report. One fabricated cheat log. The tribunal didn't even review it.
Banned for life.
Now he lived in a shoebox apartment in New Avalon's undergut, fixing neuro-links for drunk mercs and selling black-market modules to desperate kids.
But tonight… something changed.
A new message pinged in the corner of his screen. No subject line. No sender info. Just a blinking red dot and one line of text:
You still want in? One slot left. You owe me. —Rog
Raiven's heart skipped.
He hadn't heard from Rog in over a year. The guy used to mod games with him. A mad genius who never played fair but always knew how to win.
The message continued:
NOCTHERION. Closed Beta. Full-dive immersion. Real payout. $5k/week + bonus.
Access Code: R0GUE1
Raiven stared. It had to be a scam. A honeypot. Another trap set by companies to bait banned players.
But…
He opened a private window and typed "Noctherion" into the underground boards. Dozens of threads lit up.
"Next-gen VR sandbox."
"Magic-tech MMO with a real-world crypto economy."
"Rumors of perma-death mode…"
He scrolled until he found a clip—a five-second leak showing a player walking through a city of floating gears, railguns slung on their back, mana turbines humming in the air.
The game looked insane. It felt… real.
Raiven exhaled. He moved to the corner of the room, lifting a crate. Under it, covered in dust, was his old full-dive headset.
A relic. Discontinued. Illegal in some zones due to neural instability risks. He'd rewired it after his ban, modified the linkstream so it couldn't be traced.
It sparked when he plugged it in. He ignored it.
"You want in?" Rog had asked.
Damn right he did.
Raiven lay back on his cot, sliding the headset over his head. The padding crackled against his hair. His heart thundered.
No backup. No insurance. If the dive fried his brain, no one would know until the rent collector kicked the door in.
He pressed the side button.
Initializing full-dive neural interface…
WARNING: Firmware outdated. Risk level: HIGH.
System: Proceed?
His lips curled. "Yes."
Accessing server: NOCTHERION // Code accepted: R0GUE1
Entering restricted build…
The world dissolved.
Raiven's senses collapsed into a tunnel of light, sound, and static.
For a brief moment, he felt like he was falling without end—his body torn apart pixel by pixel, each fragment of his mind spinning into some cosmic forge.
Then—
Pain.
Not the usual buffer-dulled impact of spawn loading.
Real pain.
Raiven gasped, coughing up smoke. His limbs were bound. Chains burned against his wrists. The air stank of ash and molten steel.
He blinked.
He was kneeling inside a cathedral—or what remained of one. The vaulted roof had collapsed. Walls crumbled around him, scorched black. Statues of long-forgotten gods lay shattered across the floor.
Fire raged at the altar. Not natural fire—blue, flickering with runes and screaming faces.
And around him, six others knelt in chains. Players? NPCs? He couldn't tell. They didn't speak. Some twitched. One was already slumped, lifeless.
System Alert:
Welcome to Noctherion [Beta Shard: Forgemind Rupture]
CLASS SELECTION LOCKED
Prologue Event: Cursed Initiation
A shadow rose from the flames at the altar.
It wasn't human.
More machine than man, fused with jagged armor and a burning halo of gears behind its skull. Steam hissed from its joints.
Its voice was molten metal scraping stone.
"Another fragment... Another fool clinging to life."
The figure stepped forward. Raiven couldn't move.
"Why has the Hollow Forge chosen you, broken one? Are you worthy?"
He wanted to speak. Couldn't.
The figure lifted a massive weapon—half warhammer, half tuning fork—and brought it down toward Raiven's skull.
ALERT: LETHAL FORCE DETECTED.
No respawn available in current zone.
PERMADEATH ENABLED.
Raiven's eyes widened.
What the hell kind of tutorial is this!?
The weapon struck.
Everything went white.
Silence.
Then…
A whisper. It wasn't part of the system.
It came from inside his mind.
"Iron remembers iron…
Your will is the key. Rise, broken one."
You have been chosen by the Hollow Forge.
CLASS: [Warden of the Hollow Forge]
STATUS: Ghostflagged / Undead Core Stable
PERMADEATH OVERRIDDEN – DEATH CONVERTED TO SOULBOUND LINK
WARNING: You are now considered a WORLD THREAT.
Bounty set: 1,000 silver / 100 credits
Raiven's eyes snapped open.
He was standing.
Chains shattered around him. His skin glowed faintly with embers. On his back, a spectral rifle assembled itself, forged from ash and ether.
NPCs scattered, screaming.
The machine-priest dropped its hammer and backed away.
Raiven smiled for the first time in months.
"Let's begin."