Chapter 2: Rebirth of a Savior
The first thing Kelvin noticed when he opened his eyes was the weight of his own breathing. No cosmic void, no alien runes, no titanic beasts screaming across the hull of a silver spaceship wall. Just a ceiling fan creaking above his head and the muted hum of morning traffic leaking through the window.
For a heartbeat he lay perfectly still, as if movement might shatter the fragile reality around him.
Then the Status Window flickered into existence — the same blue interface that had once displayed numbers so absurd they terrified even him. Now it looked… pitiful. Mundane. Almost human again.
[Status Window – Kelvin Arven]
[Stat :F Rank]. [Abilities 🔒]. [Artifact 🔒]
Strength: 10 .... .....
Agility: 6 .... .....
Durability: 5 .... .....
Stamina: 16 .... .....
Perception: 8 .... .....
Willpower: 28 .... .....
Talent: — (🔒). .... .....
Kelvin sat upright so fast his bedsheet tangled around his legs. His fingers twitched, ready to summon weapons that no longer existed. All he got was nothing .
His pulse slowed as the truth settled in.
"It worked."
He had rolled everything back.
Blank Status Window + Rollback Restore.
All abilities reset. All stats goes back to a previous state. Only knowledge will be preserved.
He forced himself to breathe. Inhale. Exhale. The numbers on the Window were laughable like seeing a god in shackles. But Willpower 28. That one which was the highest. The only stat that mattered for what came next.
He swung his legs off the bed and grabbed his phone. The screen burned his eyes with a date he had not seen in decades:
October 6th, 2025.
Kelvin closed his eyes. He remembered the smell of scorched metal, Mira's scream, the alien's tentacles curling through the void. Then he opened them again. 2025. Early. Before the Great Cataclysm. Before everything.
"Good," he muttered. "This time I won't fail."
"What are you mumbling about?"
Kelvin blinked. The voice was warm, familiar. Turning his head, he saw Max — round-faced, hair disheveled,plumped body with glasses and crumbs of chips on his hoodie — slouched at the desk with a laptop open, gaming headset crooked around his neck. The faint glow of the screen reflected off his greasy fingers as he shoved another handful of snacks into his mouth.
Kelvin's stomach twisted. Max. Alive. Again.
In my first life Max had been the one who found me bleeding out in the ruins of a collapsed dungeon. In my second,I had dragged him into the rebellion, thinking I could protect him. Max had died both times because of my decisions.
Not this time.
"Just a bad dream," Kelvin said softly.
Max snorted. "Don't tell me you're having nightmares because of the dungeon yesterday."
Kelvin's head jerked as he thought. "Dungeon yesterday. Yes. The illegal ones, just starting to spawn across the planet. This was the very month humanity first awakened in masses. Yesterday's raid would be why his Status Window had opened at all."
He forced a laugh. "No. Not a nightmare because of that."
"Uh-huh." Max squinted at him over the laptop.
"What of you did you even sleep since then?"
"Yeah, something like that" Max lied automatically.
Max grinned and pushed the laptop toward him. " You gotta see this, bro. We've got our first S-Ranker from this country. First on the whole continent. Ninth in the world. Look—"
On the screen a photo filled the feed: a black, muscular man with long dreadlocks, sunglasses, and a predator's smirk. The caption screamed S-Rank Super Strength / A-Rank Iron Muscle. His arms looked like carved steel cables under dark skin, veins glowing faintly with mana.
Max whistled. "Those abilities would cost a fortune. Guy's basically Superman. He's gonna be a celebrity by tomorrow."
Kelvin's eyes narrowed. So this was the ninth S-Ranker. In my last life there had been only twelve total. I had trained forty-eight more myself. This time… I would create a hundred. Maybe more S-Ranks. No SSS-Rankers. Enough to hold the Earth while I go after the Admins directly.
But not yet.
First I have to get stronger.
"I've got plans today," Kelvin said.
Max raised an eyebrow. "Plans? School?"
"No. Not school." Kelvin closed the laptop gently but firmly. "Something else."
Max leaned back, smirking. "You're ditching again, huh? Lazy nerd."
Kelvin smiled faintly. "Fat Max."
The smirk collapsed. "Tch. Whatever." Max pushed away from the desk. "Don't touch my laptop, dude. I've got a raid later."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
When Max finally left the room, muttering about snacks and assignments, Kelvin exhaled slowly. His hands shook, not from fear but from the weight of all the memories. Max alive. This small dorm room intact. The faint smell of instant noodles instead of blood.
You're safe, he thought at Max's retreating back. And you're staying safe.
He pulled on a dark hoodie, stuffed max laptop into his bag, and scribbled a quick note.
Dear Max
I might not be back for two months. Please tell my parents and the teachers I'm doing an online program. Don't try to find me. Kel.
✌️😊
He left the letter on the desk.
Then he opened the window and jumped.
The drop wasn't far, but with only 6 Agility his landing was clumsy. He rolled, cursing under his breath, and vanished into the maze of student housing. Each step was a reminder of how weak he'd become. Muscles that once shattered mountains now ached under their own weight.
By the time he reached his old hideout — an abandoned maintenance room behind a shuttered cyber-café — his lungs were burning making him breath heavily. He collapsed onto a broken swivel chair and opened the laptop.
Step one, he thought. Information.
He created a Discord server under a new name, then a Twitter account, a Telegram channel, a Reddit throwaway. The server name: Rankers Survival journal.
He wrote the first pinned message himself:
Two months from now the Great Cataclysm begins.
50% of humanity will die.
If you want to live, follow these instructions.
He added dungeon coordinates, monster weaknesses, secret tips for clearing each level — things no one else could possibly know. He encrypted his real name, created a cipher only he could decode, and uploaded fragments of his "Survival Diary," a document he had written in a private code years ago.
In case I die or regress again, he thought. Someone else will be able to pick up where I left off.
Something kelvin has always done in his previous life's
He paused, staring at the words. In all the stories he'd read of other regressors, none had ever done this. They always tried to save the world alone and forget about their previous world forgetting it can affect timelines and come back to hunt them.
Kelvin closed the laptop, wrapped it in plastic, and buried it under a loose tile in the floor.
Step two: I need power.
He left the hideout and stepped into the open street. Morning light washed across the city, neon signs flickering over wet asphalt. Above the clouds a dark triangle floated like a second moon — its edges pulsing with faint green light.
The Pyramid Ship.
Even in daylight it dominated the sky, impossible to ignore. One of three orbiting Earth. The Admins' bait. The dungeons inside it were the fastest path to power but also the deadliest. Government PSAs still ran on every channel warning people not to look at it for more than thirty seconds. Not that it ever stopped the desperate.
Kelvin tilted his head back, staring at the alien monolith.
"In my first life," he thought," I didn't enter until a year after it appeared. Too late. Not this time."
He took an abandoned mob stick with two daggers he saw at a building on his way . Then looked up ate the pyramid
He let the seconds tick by. 5. 10. 20. At 30 the world around him rippled like heat haze. His body dissolved into motes of light.
Then he was gone.
The smell hit first. Metallic, like blood and ozone. Then the weight of gravity shifted and the air thickened with mana so dense it felt like liquid.
Kelvin opened his eyes inside the Pyramid Dungeon.
He stood on a vast stone platform floating above an endless chasm. The walls pulsed with alien glyphs, each one a promise of pain. Ahead, dozens of glowing portals shimmered like molten glass — gateways to the dungeon's different floors.
Around him were about thirty other people: students, thrill-seekers, mercenaries, a few older soldiers pretending to be civilians. Most looked nervous. A few were cocky. None understood what awaited them.
Kelvin scanned the crowd. So many young faces. So many who wouldn't survive the week.
His Status Window flickered again:
[Dungeon Entry Detected: Pyramid level 1]
Recommended Level: 10
Warning: Government PSAs Detected
Survival Rate for Unranked: 7%
Kelvin smirked. "Seven percent. Better than last time."
A boy next to him glanced over. "What?"
"Nothing," Kelvin said. "Good luck."
The boy nodded nervously.
Kelvin closed his eyes, centering himself. Without his old abilities he was weak, yes. But he had knowledge. He knew every trap, every spawn point, every hidden cache of loot. Knowledge was power. Knowledge plus Willpower 28 was survival.
And survival, he thought, is step three.
He took the mob stick and tied each dagger to the end of the mob stick
The alien glyphs above the first portal flared red.
Level One Begins.
Kelvin stepped forward into the light.
Inside the first floor the air was colder, damp with a faint smell of rust. The architecture was a maze of obsidian corridors lined with statues of creatures that hadn't walked Earth in millennia. Faint whispers echoed in the dark — the Dungeon's psychic sound, trying to erode the minds of intruders.
The other players hesitated, clustering together. Kelvin moved ahead, hood up, eyes scanning for the first trap.
He found it immediately: a patch of floor that seemed just slightly darker than the rest. In his last life, dozens had died here to the spike pit below.
"Stop," he said quietly.
A few turned to him. "Huh?"
"Don't step there." He pointed. "Pressure plate."
They blinked. "How do you—"
But he was already stepping around it, moving deeper into the maze.
+2 points
+5 points
+ 1 points
The group murmured behind him. Some followed his lead. Others scoffed and went ahead. A second later the plate clicked and the corridor erupted in a storm of metal spikes. Screams and Blood sprayed the walls.
Kelvin didn't look back.
Step four: Don't die.
He reached the first monster room without a scratch. The door slid open with a hiss, revealing a chamber lit by eerie blue fire. In the center, a beast crouched — all insectoid limbs and glowing eyes, carapace lined with shifting runes. A Level 5 "Chasm Stalker." Deadly for unranked humans. A tutorial mob for him.
Kelvin flexed his hand made double edged spear. Weak body or not, he knew its pattern. Three strikes left, leap right, vulnerable under the thorax.
His movement flowed like the ocean his relaxed body made it easier to slit the throat of the beast.
The Stalker screeched, lunging.
Kelvin ducked under its first swipe, rolled to the side (clumsy but functional), and drove the spear up under its thorax as it landed. The tip pierced the rune-lined flesh with a satisfying crunch. The creature spasmed, shrieking, then collapsed.
"Still got it," he muttered.
The Status Window chimed:
[Chasm Stalker Defeated]
+15 Points
Total Points: 60
Sixty points. Enough to start building his first ability. But not yet. Not here.
He moved on without stopping or taking a break, deeper into the Dungeon. Killing any beast that came in his way.
Above him, the Pyramid Ship pulsed once, as if watching.
Far away in their orbiting throne, the Alien Admins might have felt the tiniest ripple. A human anomaly entering their playground ahead of schedule. A ghost they had unknowingly killed twice.
Kelvin didn't care. Not this time.
This time, he had a plan.
This time, the hacker of the Status Window was already inside.
And the countdown to the Great Cataclysm had begun.