LOUIE'S POV:
The world wasn't ending with a bang. It was being consumed, piece by piece. Five years ago, the first sky-islands fell, vomiting monsters over Tokyo, London, and Rio. Now, they were just part of the skyline—immense, jagged shadows hanging where the blue used to be. We called them Island Dungeons. I called them gravestones.
From the window of my cramped Seoul apartment, I watched the seconds bleed away on the clock. Plink… Plink… Each tick was a drop of water wearing down the stone of my resolve. It had been thirty days since the last island fell. In one hour, the Dungeon Break would begin. Another wave of horrors would wash over the world. This wasn't an apocalypse; it was a slow, agonizing surrender.
I was not an Ascendant. I possessed no celestial weapon that appeared from thin air, no glowing tattoos that hummed with power, no god-like System to guide my fate. I was a ghost in a world of newborn gods, haunted by nothing more than a Korean passport and the Filipino blood of a forgotten father.
Beside my laptop, a half-eaten cup of instant noodles had gone cold. The screen glowed with the sterile white of a fresh page, a canvas for another futile job application. The last rejection email was still open in another tab, its polite, impersonal font a gentle blade twisting in my gut: Your profile does not align with our current needs. It was a corporate way of saying I was already dead and just waiting for a monster to make it official.
With a sigh that felt like it carried the weight of my entire life, I closed the laptop. My parents' savings, the last tangible piece of their love, were almost gone. The world had found a new way to divide itself, a new caste system forged in the fire of falling islands. The Ascendant Classification System dictated who lived and who was left behind. At the bottom were the Weapon Users. Above them, the rare and powerful Travellers, who returned from other dimensions with supernatural skills.
And at the very top, the twelve System Users. The new gods of our broken world.
South Korea, my mother's homeland, was a Supreme Nation because it was home to two of them: Novela, who could manifest powers from fiction, and Kang Min-jae, the Alpha Ascendant, a hero who could nullify the abilities of anyone weaker than him. Their presence made this nation a fortress.
My father's country, the Philippines, was a Peasantry Nation. Its strongest protectors were mid-level Weapon Users, a global mockery. It didn't matter that my father's bloodline was rumored to come from a land of ancient shamans. It didn't matter that a mysterious hero, an Ascendant with a voice so ugly it could kill, was whispered to hail from its shores. The world saw only weakness. And as the son of a Filipino, I wore that weakness like a shroud.
The ground trembled. A low, guttural vibration that started in the distance and grew into a violent shudder. The ramen cup rattled against the table. The bone-deep dread of a Dungeon Break settled in my gut. The tremors were not the sound of an ending, but the frantic, desperate death throes of a world that refused to just die.
I sank to the floor, my back against the cold, peeling wallpaper, and wrapped my arms around my knees. A part of me, the small, terrified part, screamed to run. But the rest of me, the vast, exhausted emptiness, just wanted to let go. I closed my eyes, listening to the symphony of the slaughter begin—the shriek of tearing metal, the percussive blast of Ascendant skills, and the rising tide of human screams. They were too close. This part of Suwon—this slum of half-bloods and immigrants—was a sacrificial zone. An unspoken policy to let the monsters purge the 'unwanted' before risking the lives of valuable Ascendants.
A grim, tired smile touched my lips. Maybe this is for the best, I thought, the memory of my parents' faces a faint, painful warmth. Maybe I can just follow them.
A high-pitched shriek, raw and sharp with a child's terror, cut through the din. "Mom, please don't die!" The voice, thin and desperate, came from the apartment next door.
The words were a hammer blow to my chest, shattering my stupor. They threw me back five years, to a street filled with rubble and the coppery scent of blood. To the sight of my own mother's face, a mask of fear, as a beast from the first Dungeon tore her from my life. An ice-cold hatred, a rage I had buried under years of helplessness, surged through me. I hated the monsters. I hated this world. I hated the gods who had left us all to die.
I was a coward, but I wasn't a monster. Not yet.
"I should at least save someone before I die," I muttered, the words a bitter promise to the ghost of my mother.
I stumbled to my feet and threw open the door. The hallway was a ruin of shattered glass and splintered wood. A small boy, no older than five, cowered beside the mangled body of his mother. Standing over them was a goblin, its face a leering, grotesque parody of a grin. Its dagger dripped with my neighbor's blood.
Fear was a cold hand closing around my throat. The sight of the creature, the smell of the blood—it was my mother's death all over again. But then I saw the boy's tear-streaked face, his eyes wide with a horror I knew too well. The fear didn't vanish; it was burned away by a cold, cleansing rage. I had no plan. I just charged.
My shoulder slammed into the creature with a meaty thud. Its body was wiry and shockingly dense, its rough, leathery skin scraping against my own. We tumbled to the floor, a clumsy, thrashing mess of human desperation against monstrous efficiency. I flailed, trying to land a punch, to grab a limb, but the goblin moved with a fluid, predatory grace. It grunted, a wet, guttural sound, and twisted beneath me with contemptuous ease. The sound of the dagger sliding from its sheath was a soft shing that was swallowed by a wet, tearing noise as it plunged into my chest. The sound itself was the final violation, the definitive punctuation mark on a life of failure. A searing, white-hot agony exploded behind my ribs, followed by an invasive cold.
"Glrk..."
The goblin yanked the dagger free and glanced at my collapsing form with utter boredom. I was an obstacle, an insect. It turned back to the terrified child, its high-pitched cackle a sound of pure malice.
"No…" I rasped, my vision blurring, the world dissolving into a watercolor of red and grey. I wouldn't die like this. I wouldn't let another child watch his world end. I fought to stand, to lunge, to do anything.
But I was too late. The boy's final scream was cut short by the wet, crunching snap of the goblin's jaws closing on his neck.
I froze. The world became a silent, horrifying photograph. I couldn't save anyone. I was useless. Hatred, pure and absolute, was the last thing I felt. I hated the monsters, the dungeons, and the gods who valued strength over life. I fell to my knees, the pain a distant echo.
"I hate it," I whispered to the encroaching darkness. "I hate it all. I don't care if it's an evil god... please... give me the power to save the weak."
The world went black. Then, a voice, cold and clinical, echoed in the void.
[NOTICE: A desperate plea from a shaman's descendant has caught the interest of the three great fox spirits.]
[NOTICE: The three great fox spirits recognize you as one of the true protectors of this world.]
[NOTICE: Gumiho, Huli Jing, and Kitsune will use their remaining power to awaken your ancestors' bloodline.]
[NOTICE: Descendant of the Fox God has Awakened.]
[As one of the true saviors, an imitation system called Omega will be granted to you. Please use this power to save the world from the invasion of the Ascendants.]
A surge of energy, warm and thick like honey, poured through me. My lungs filled with a clean, deep gasp. The gaping wound in my chest knitted itself shut, the searing pain replaced by a faint tingling. The world snapped back into sharp, painful focus. The goblin, which had been cackling over the boy's body, now stood frozen, its beady eyes fixed on me with a strange, blank obedience.
[NOTICE: Passive skill 'Seduction' is active. One monster weaker than the user can be manipulated.]
My mind reeled, but my body moved with a new, instinctive purpose. I looked from the goblin to the glowing text in my mind.
"Kill yourself," I commanded, the words a desperate, hollow rasp.
The goblin's expression remained blank, but it raised its bloody dagger, turned the point toward its own throat, and drove it inward with a single, clean motion. Its head was nearly severed. The body collapsed with a wet, heavy thud.
[NOTICE: You have killed a goblin. You have gained experience points.]
[WARNING: Leveling up is not possible if a monster is killed using your passive skill.]
[NOTICE: Experience points converted to Omega Points.]
[EXPLANATION: Omega Points are used to level up your passive skills. Current Omega Points: 1. You require 99 more points for your passive skill to level up.]
I stood in the sudden, ringing silence, the smell of blood thick in the air. The boy was gone. I had failed him. But I was alive, remade by a power that answered my prayer a heartbeat too late. The ghost was dead. In its place, a monster born from a forgotten god's mercy now wore my face.