The last thing Jason remembered was working overnight at the office. He had been putting the finishing touches on the game he had developed. The room had been quiet, the only sound being the soft clicking of his keyboard and the distant hum of the air conditioner. His coffee had gone cold hours ago, but he kept sipping from it anyway. Even though his body was exhausted, his mind had been fully alert. He had been waiting for the final test to finish compiling. He had known this game would be a hit, not just because he believed in it, but because he had built it from the ground up with everything he had.
For three long years, Jason had poured his life into the project. He had developed the core framework, written the behavioral logic, and designed thirty percent of the main characters himself. His AI models had been the foundation of the game's most ambitious feature. These were living avatars with responsive minds. Each character could adapt, learn, and interact in ways that felt startlingly real. The world he had created was massive, complicated, and more advanced than anything the company had ever released.
He had worked in the background while executives took credit for the direction. He had seen others come and go, but he had stayed. Now that the game was finished, he had been eagerly awaiting his paycheck. He had not seen it yet, but he was confident it was coming. The game had already generated buzz before launch. The stock had risen within days of the early access release. He knew what they had on their hands. This game had the power to make the company rich. It could change the industry.
But that had been hours ago, or maybe days. He did not know how long it had been. Because now, he was standing in the middle of a damn battlefield.
It was not just any battlefield. This was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen. The ground beneath his feet was covered with the bodies of the dead. Blood soaked the soil, and broken weapons lay scattered among shattered armor. In front of him stood two massive figures in black armor. Their presence was suffocating. Jason did not recognize these men, but they seemed to recognize—and fear—him.
Before he could collect his thoughts, the system inside his head began to display things. He had been hearing it since he woke up in this strange place. It spoke in a flat, emotionless voice, feeding him information about his surroundings, his status, his objectives. He could not turn it off. It was as if the HUD from a video game had been implanted into his mind, and now it controlled the way he saw everything.
Just as Jason tried to focus on the situation in front of him, a voice interrupted his thoughts. It was cold and menacing.
"You are lucky," the knight on the right said, his tone void of empathy. "You have the honor of dying by the secret spell of the Dramos Clan. Rejoice, and witness true power."
Jason could not move. He watched as the black knight pulled out a red pill and swallowed it. Immediately, the air around them grew heavier. The temperature dropped, and an unnatural pressure built in his chest. Jason could feel something coming, something monstrous.
The knight's armor began to crack. Then it broke apart completely, falling to the ground in jagged pieces. Jason's eyes widened as the man's body started to change. Bones twisted and flesh morphed like oversized clay. His size increased rapidly. The transformation was grotesque, like watching a man melt and reform into something hideous. Within seconds, the knight was gone. In his place stood a monstrous centipede, six feet wide and thirty feet long. Its many legs scraped against the battlefield with sharp, metallic clicks. Its eyes glowed, and its mandibles opened wide in a screeching roar.
Jason could not believe what he was seeing. The creature lunged toward him. The attack was sudden and violent. The ground split open as its body crashed down, throwing dust and bodies into the air. But somehow, Jason had already moved out of the way.
He did not understand how he had dodged the attack. His legs had moved on their own. His body felt different. It responded faster, reacted before his thoughts even finished forming. He leaped, rolled, and twisted through the air, dodging another strike with unnatural grace.
The centipede roared again and began attacking with more speed. Its many legs crashed down in rapid succession, crushing corpses and gouging the earth. Jason darted between the blows, each step more confident than the last. Despite the chaos, his body obeyed him with flawless precision. Even with all this, he was still scared out of his wits, surely he wouldn't die here today, right?
Then something else caught his attention. A brief flash of silver light appeared to his left. Jason's blood turned cold. That sword. He knew that sword. How could he not? He had just seen it cut off a man's head. The second enemy had moved while the centipede kept Jason distracted. Now, Artimus was attempting to finish the job with a surprise attack.
Jason barely dodged the blow. As he twisted in midair, he realized something shocking. He had moved like a spider, with a sudden burst of agility and precision that no normal human possessed. Just like the two black knights had done earlier. Humans were not supposed to move like that. But then again, humans were not supposed to turn into centipedes either. Maybe he was some kind of monster, just like these two knights.
Jason landed and crouched low, staring at the monster in front of him. His body felt powerful. His reflexes were beyond anything he had ever known. He began to wonder if he was strong, not just fast. There was only one way to find out.
He charged forward, aiming straight for the massive centipede. The creature was not prepared for a counterattack. Jason had no sword, but he trusted his fists. Punches and kicks, that was the only way he knew how to defend himself back on Earth. He clenched his fist and launched a punch.
The impact was immediate. A large piece of the centipede's segmented body exploded outward, as if struck by a wrecking ball. Chunks of flesh and exoskeleton flew into the air. Jason stumbled back and looked at his hand in disbelief. There was no pain and no injury. His skin was still flawless—zero scratches. He had shattered the creature like it was made of clay.
The centipede let out a horrible cry and twisted in pain. Its tail swung violently, slamming into Jason and sending him flying across the field. He landed hard, crashing into a pile of corpses. The smell made him gag. Blood and decay filled his nose. It didn't hurt as much as he had expected. He pushed himself up, his face now filled with anger.
Jason sprinted forward and launched a flurry of punches. Each blow landed with incredible force. Segments of the centipede's body broke apart with every strike. The battlefield trembled beneath his feet. His fists became weapons more destructive than swords; his two knuckles were like twin steel hammers.
He did not care if the system had assigned him a mission. He would have fought to survive either way. He refused to die here, and this was a kill or be killed battle. He refused to go down without understanding what had happened to him.
Artimus, seeing his ally being torn apart, turned to escape. But Jason was already in front of him. The centipede's body finally fell to the ground behind them, shaking the earth as it collapsed. Jason was so fast that before the creature could fall, he was already onto his next target.
Jason stood between Artimus and his escape. The knight reached for his sword. But to Jason, he looked no different than a snail. Jason punched him once. The impact shattered Artimus's skull. The knight dropped instantly, his armor crumpling as if it had been hollow.
Jason looked at his hand again. "Since when did the human skull become so soft?" he wondered. Weren't human bones harder than steel? He glanced at the dead bodies, no remorse. This was his first time killing another human being, wasn't he supposed to feel guilty or something? But now he felt… indifferent, as if he had seen millions of dead bodies before. More questions filled his mind, he asked himself the main questions that had been building since the fight began. Who was he now? Where was he? Why was he so strong? And why had those knights been so afraid of him? How did they even know who he was? None of those answers came. Jason looked around the battlefield. The fight was over and that annoying system had gone quiet. The wind carried the scent of blood and death. He took a slow breath and tried to calm himself. Hopefully all of this was a dream, he would surely wake up.
Jason's eyes scanned the battlefield and settled on a distant cliff in a random direction. He could use that cliff as a point to scan the battlefield better. The world around him was unfamiliar. However, something inside him told him he had to keep going. Maybe if he kept moving forward, he would find the answers. Maybe then the dream would end.