The front door creaked open and slammed shut behind him. He kicked off his sneakers by the mat and dropped his keys in the bowl, the clink echoing through the house. Another shift done, another paycheck already spoken for. His shoulders ached, his back screamed, and the thought of rent made him grimace harder.
"Twenty-seven years old, working full time, and still not able to afford my own fucking place," he muttered, trudging down the hall.
The kitchen light spilled under the door, the TV humming in the background. He ignored it, didn't even think about entering, and instead headed straight for the only place that felt like his: the bedroom.
One click, and his computer's hum filled the silence. His two monitors glowed to life, washing the cramped room in pale light. He sank into his chair, letting the weight of the day bleed out as the familiar startup chime played.
After only two clicks, bold ornate letters appeared:
Antediluvian Eternus
His lips curved faintly. Home.
No chat spam. No forced story rails. No one telling him what to do, or when to do it. Just him and the vast supercontinent, Chiterra.
"Best damn game ever made," he muttered. "Singleplayer games all the way."
The save menu loaded. His cursor hovered over familiar names: Orix the Destroyer. Fleyah the Wise. Frank. Each had their own story—Orix had once united the orc hordes, Fleyah mastered every spell in existence, and Frank… Frank was just Frank. Characters that all lived more interesting lives than he ever could dream of having.
"If only real life was as fun as this," he chuckled. "Can't even afford my own place here, but in this game, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want."
His finger lingered over his characters, each with over three thousand hours poured into them. Safe. Familiar. But something tugged at him, insistent.
New Character.
The button pulsed faintly. He sighed—and clicked.
The menu dissolved into the character creator. Rows of sliders and portraits stretched before him, a digital reflection of endless promise. Thousands of hours waiting to be born.
Classes scrolled across the top: Warrior, Mage, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, and more. Races lined up below: elves with perfect cheekbones, humans gleaming in silver, dwarves draped in ornate craftsmanship.
He snorted.
"This run won't be so basic. This run will be… more interesting."
The cursor slid past all the shining heroes, lingering on the outliers. Hideous options no one picked unless they wanted to troll screenshots—ashen skin, jutting horns, skeletal frames cloaked in shadow. Demons. Blightcasters. Hollowborn.
One in particular caught his eye: a love child between angel and demon, born not living but undead, doomed from the start. Cursed to walk the world alone. Power grows by what you destroy.
Just flavour text, no actual in-game mechanic. He muttered to himself.
The cursor slid over the Forsaken option, and the screen shifted.
A lone figure stood against an endless plain of grass, sky vast and blue above. The body was tall and lean, sculpted like a statue carved from ash and shadow. The skin was corpse-grey with a faint green undertone, fissured with glowing seams that pulsed between ember-red and ghostly silver-white, as though fire and holy light warred beneath the surface.
Two horns jutted from its brow—not smooth or regal, but fractured, half-crumbling, with veins of dull gold and silver running through the breaks. Once they might have been majestic, but now they looked like a broken crown.
The wings were ruined things—skeletal frames draped with shreds of scorched feathers, clinging as if out of spite. They didn't spread with power; they hung as grim reminders of what was never meant to be.
Jewelry clung to its hands and arms—rings and bands of gold blackened by decay, corroded ornaments fused into the skin as though he'd been buried with them and clawed his way back out.
When the model turned, its eyes flared in the light. Not a single color, but two: one ember-red, burning like a coal; the other pale, almost silver, glowing with cold judgment. Angel and demon both, glaring out from the same face.
A tattered cloak whipped around it, frayed and torn, trailing like smoke. The figure stood on a grassy rise, staring out over a silent horizon dotted with broken ruins—the picture of a cursed wanderer.
The description pulsed beneath the figure:
Forsaken—the undead child of angel and demon, cursed to walk alone. Neither heaven nor hell will claim them. Their power grows not by what they build, but by what they destroy.
He leaned back in his chair, a grin tugging at his lips.
"Ugly as sin," he muttered. "Perfect."
As for class, Forsaken had its own path—something resembling a warlock, but closer-range, weapon in hand, drawing power from its cursed heritage.
[Enter name: … ]
His cursor hovered over the empty name field.
"Name, huh…" he muttered, fingers drumming lightly on the desk.
Normally he'd throw in something dumb, some half-joke handle just to get started. But staring at this one—the horns, the ruined wings, the cracks of fire and light crawling across its skin—it felt wrong to saddle it with a meme tag. This wasn't a pretty elf or a shining knight. This was… something else.
A thought stirred.
If a demon and an angel had a kid… who would it be?
The names came unbidden. Lilith—the first demoness, mother of monsters. Michael—the warrior archangel, the Sun's sword. Two names, oil and water, never meant to mix. And yet, looking at the figure on screen, it felt like that was exactly what had happened.
He smirked. "Lilith. Michael. Yeah… this thing's their bastard, alright."
He typed slowly, letters filling the field: Lirael. A little of her, a little of him. Neither heaven nor hell—something in between.
The name pulsed beneath the avatar. It fit. Disturbingly well.
Race: Forsaken
Class: Forsaken
Name: Lirael
Confidently, he clicked Start.
At the bottom, the loading text crawled slowly:
Populating cities… Seeding dungeons… Rendering terrain…
He smirked.
"A whole new start. The entire weekend off. Perfect."
The bar crept forward. He slouched back in his chair.
From downstairs his mother screamed, "Groceries! In the car!"
He groaned.
"Seriously? Right now?"
"Don't make me ask twice!"
He muttered as he dragged himself up.
"Can't I even get one moment for myself…?"
One last glance at the rotating avatar—then he left the room. The game kept loading behind him.
Outside, the evening air was cool. The car sat across the street, its frame catching the amber streetlight. He popped the trunk, hooked his fingers through the plastic loops of two grocery bags, and hauled them out.
Sirens.
Distant at first, then sharper, closer. He frowned.
Headlights tore around the corner. A truck barreled toward him, grill wide, chrome flashing under the streetlight. Behind the wheel—just a glimpse—a ski mask, eyes wild. Police cruisers followed, lights strobing red and blue across the houses.
His breath caught.
The bags slipped. Cans clattered across asphalt.
"…shit."
Impact.
White-hot pain. Then—nothing.
Black.
Not the darkness of closed eyes, but something deeper—an emptiness without weight, without sound. He tried to breathe. Nothing. Tried to move. No body to command.
For a heartbeat—or maybe a lifetime—there was only the void.
Then light.
White letters bloomed in the dark:
[ World Loading Complete ]
The words seared themselves into his mind. Absurd. Terrifying. He couldn't laugh, couldn't scream. Only drift, as the silent march of letters crossed the void.
Then—sensation.
Grass brushed against his skin where he lay. The warmth of sunlight spilled across his shoulders. A breeze tugged gently, carrying the smell of earth, green and alive.
He looked down.
Hands flexed—nails black, unnaturally long, adorned with tarnished gold jewellery. Lirael.
A guttural sound tore from his throat, not human. It startled him as much as the voice in his head.
He sat up straight and looked ahead—
Endless rolling hills of green, swaying like a living sea. A sky unmarred, clouds drifting lazily overhead. No animals. No people. In the distance, ruins half-sunken into the soil.
It was beautiful.
The Forsaken starting zone. Silent Plains.
It wasn't just a game anymore.
He was here.
Chiterra. Antediluvian Eternus.