The countdown hung over the city like a second sky.
Thirty-meter holo screens floated between glass towers, their light bleeding into the evening haze. On every surface, in every feed, on every channel, the same logo pulsed: a stylized tower of dark stone, its peak splitting a ring of stars.
Eternal Sword Tower.
The words curved around the tower symbol as if the world itself had wrapped around it.
Bucharest. Tokyo. São Paulo. New York. Johannesburg. Millions of people watched the numbers tick down from 00:59:59, a slow devouring of minutes toward a point everyone had started calling, without irony, "Ascension."
News anchors talked over looping trailers that had been dissected frame by frame for months. Influencers shouted over each other on streams, theories piling on theories. Stock tickers slid along the bottom of screens. Betting lines scrolled beside hashtags.
#FirstFloorClear
#TowerDay
#SwordOnlyMMO
#NoCastersNoCry
In one small apartment on the ninth floor of a refurbished concrete block, the sound of the countdown was muted to a low murmur. The holo screen was on, but its light only brushed the edges of the room, falling across a cheap sofa, a scarred coffee table, and a wall where a single katana mount sat empty.
Alexis stood beside the table, looking at the device that would take him into the Tower.
It was deceptively simple: a matte-black frame that looked like a cross between an ergonomic gaming chair and a medical scanner. Padded supports. Integrated biometric bands for wrists and ankles. A neck rest with embedded gel nodes. Thin cables ran into a thin, polished circlet hanging on one arm of the frame, its inner ring lined with silver contact points.
CROWNLINK v3.0
NEURAL-AUG REALITY INTERFACE
STATUS: IDLE
The tiny, blue letters were etched along the circlet.
"Dad would have hated this thing," Alexis muttered.
He ran a hand through his hair, fingers pausing at the faint scar along his temple. Old surgery line. Old accident. Old life.
On the holo screen, a host was shouting with rehearsed excitement about "true augmented reality" and "full physical agency." Alexis tuned it out. He had read the technical white papers months ago. Neural-augmented reality. Thought signals were mapped into an overlay that hijacked sensory input. Not total disconnection like the old VR rigs that had needed sealed pods and nutrient drip rumors.
This was different. You were still in your body. You still moved.
The CrownLink just moved you somewhere else at the same time.
The apartment door opened behind him.
"You are not seriously going in without eating," came his sister's voice.
Alexis turned. Elena leaned in the doorway, dark hair pulled into a loose bun, a food container in one hand, annoyance in her eyes. She looked like she had come home just to argue with him.
He glanced at the clock in the corner of the holo: 00:17:43.
"I'll eat inside," he said.
"You cannot 'eat inside' a game, Alex. That is not how stomachs work."
"There is food in the game," he said. "It affects stamina."
"Game food," Elena said flatly.
"Last week, you forgot lunch three days in a row because of exam prep. I am not letting some megacorp's fantasy murder maze finish what the university started."
He smiled despite himself. "You practiced that line."
"On the tram," she admitted.
Then, quieter: "Are you sure about this?"
He looked back at the CrownLink.
There were things he could say. About the scholarship tied to EST's competitive ladder. About the contract he had signed to stream his run, the small stipend wired to his account, their rent covered for six months if he made it past Floor 3 before the first global competitive season ended. About the way his heart had been empty since the accident ended any hope of real-world competition.
He said none of it. He simply nodded.
"I need this."
Elena stared at him for a long moment, then stepped into the room and set the container on the table with a tiny, resigned thud.
"Fine. Then listen to me." She pointed at the CrownLink.
"You remember the company's legal notes, yes?"
"'Mild to moderate pain feedback, adjustable between zero and thirty percent,'" he recited.
"'Fatigue simulation tied to neural and cardiovascular load. Do not exceed recommended session durations. The Tower may induce stress reactions, fear responses, and emotional strain equivalent to real combat scenarios.'"
"Exactly." Her eyes softened.
"Please do not try to prove something to some stranger online by killing yourself in there."
"Dying just locks you out," he said.
"You respawn. It is not permanent."
"That is not the same as safe."
He knew that. The death penalty breakdowns had been everywhere: currency loss, exp loss, and possible lockouts if you pushed too hard. People argued whether it was ethical. Others argued that was the point.
Meaningless victory was no victory at all.
He chewed his lip. "I will be careful."
"You will be alive," she corrected.
Then she stepped forward and hugged him, suddenly and tightly.
"If you feel anything wrong, you jack out. I do not care if a dragon is watching."
"No dragons on Floor 1," he said into her shoulder.
"They start later."
"Then start later." She let him go, exhaled, and straightened.
"Eat at least three bites, then become a legendary idiot. That is my final bargain."
"Yes, ma'am."
She watched as he sat, pried open the container, and forced down more than three bites. Only when she was satisfied did she step toward the door.
"I have a late shift," she said.
"I will watch your stream on my break. Do not embarrass me."
The door closed behind her.
For a moment, the apartment was very quiet.
On the screen, the countdown reached 00:12:00. The host stopped talking. The feed switched to a rotating composite of cities around the world, all under the same falling numbers.
Alexis set the empty container aside and wiped his hands on his jeans. His heart had picked up a little. Not fear, exactly. Something between hunger and vertigo.
He picked up the CrownLink.
It was lighter than it looked. The metal was cool under his fingers, the inner contacts gleaming faintly. He sat down, letting the frame's supports take his weight. The chair adjusted automatically, humming as it matched his height and posture.
A soft tone chimed inside his ear as the circlet settled over his brow.
CROWNLINK v3.0: CONTACT ESTABLISHEDBIOMETRIC SCAN… OK
NEURAL LINK CALIBRATION… 87%… 94%… 100%
WARNING: PAIN FEEDBACK LEVEL SET TO 12%
CONFIRM? [YES] [NO]
A translucent window bloomed into his vision, floating in the air just above the coffee table. It glowed faintly blue, the edges clean and simple. It did not feel like a screen. It felt like something occupying space, as real as his own hand.
He focused on the [YES] node. There was a subtle mental "click," like the sensation of deciding to move a finger.
CONFIRMED.
WELCOME, USER: ALEXIS
Underneath, a new prompt.
CONNECT TO: [ ETERNAL SWORD TOWER (EST) ]
He exhaled, suddenly and sharply.
"Here we go," he whispered.
He confirmed.
The world went white.
Not darkness. Not absence. A flood of pure, depthless light that washed over his senses, gently tearing his awareness away from the weight of the chair, from the faint hum of the fridge, from the city's distant noises.
Then the light collapsed into a single shape.
A tower of stone and shadow, rising from a plane of nothing. Its base vanished below sight, its peak disappeared into a sky that was not a sky. The texture of its surface shifted if he looked too long, edges crawling like old carvings rearranging themselves.
He had seen the logo a thousand times. This was not the logo. This felt old.
[SYSTEM]: INITIALIZING PRIMARY WORLD INSTANCE…
[SYSTEM]: LOADING CORE PARAMETERS…Time Ratio: 12 hours real = 24 hours EST time. Combat Protocol: Melee Only. Resurrection: ENABLED. Penalties: ACTIVE.
More text scrolled past, precise and clinical.
Then:
[SYSTEM]: YOU ARE ENTERING: ETERNAL SWORD TOWER
[SYSTEM]: STAND BY. SYNCHRONIZING SENSORIUM…
The Tower rushed toward him.
For a heartbeat, Alexis felt as if he were falling, his stomach lurching even though he knew his body remained seated in the apartment. Air tore past his ears. Light stretched and folded.
Then:
He was standing on a stone.
Cold air blew against his face, carrying scents he had not experienced in any sim before: sap, wet soil, the faint musk of animals. The sky above him was a high, muted blue, the sun filtered through wispy clouds. The sound of wind in leaves mixed with something else.
Voices. A lot of voices.
He stood on a broad stone platform that overlooked a sprawling city. Walls of dark granite encircled clusters of low buildings with tiled roofs, their chimneys already sending up thin smoke. The city was built in rings, streets radiating out from the platform like lines from a dropped stone.
Beyond the walls, the world was green. An endless forest rolled to the horizon, broken only by the occasional rocky outcropping or glimmer of water. And there, farther than seemed fair, was the Tower itself: a rising column of impossible height, its base half-sunk into distant hills, its upper reaches vanished into clouds.
He knew he was seeing only the lower portion. The rest of it would be above the sky. That was how every trailer described it.
The difference was that now he could feel its weight, like pressure behind his eyes.
All around him, people blinked into existence.
One after another, avatars coalesced from motes of light on the stone platform. Some were already talking, voices high with excitement or awe. Others stood very still, eyes wide, one hand touching the air as if they expected it to crack.
Avatars did not look heavily stylized. No glowing wings, no cat ears, no neon armor. Bodies and faces were constrained to realistic proportions, based on scanned data. They looked like people, dressed in rough, starter leathers or simple cloth tunics, some with basic training weapons already belted at their sides.
Far from him, on the other side of the platform, a young woman materialized. Black hair that fell to her shoulders, sharp cheekbones, eyes that scanned her surroundings without lingering in any one place too long. She flexed her fingers, as if testing that they were, in fact, her fingers.
Lyra did not know yet that someone would later say her name and never quite stop saying it. For now, she was just another small figure in the crowd, standing slightly apart, weighing exits.
Alexis did not see her. Not yet.
A chime sounded above the noise.
A translucent banner unfurled in the sky, visible to everyone on the platform and, for a few seconds, everyone in the real world who was watching.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT]: WELCOME, ADVENTURERS.
THE ETERNAL SWORD TOWER IS NOW OPEN.
FLOOR 1: "GREEN VEIL FRONTIER" INITIALIZED.
GLOBAL PLAYER COUNT: 21,448,391 ONLINE.
THE TOWER DOES NOT WELCOME THE WEAK.
There was a moment of stunned silence as people read those words.
Then the platform exploded into motion.
Laughter, shouting, arguments. People waving at each other, forming small clusters, shouting language after language into the air.
"Party up here, EU server, we need one more tank!"
"Can you believe this rendering? Look at that forest, man!"
"No casters? Seriously? Not even a heal stick?"
"Hey, stream chat, spam 'ASCEND' if you hear me, we are in, baby!"
System windows flickered open around faces. Status panels. Option menus. Tutorials.
A soft tone chimed in Alexis's ear.
[STATUS WINDOW AVAILABLE. OPEN? Y/N]
He thought yes and felt the same mental click.
A rectangular window snapped into view in front of him, translucent and lightly tinted.
[ ALEXIS ] Level: 1 HP: 300 / 300 ATK: 12 DEF: 10 Energy: 100 / 100
Attributes:
Strength: 2
Stamina: 2
Resilience: 2
Agility: 2
Enlightenment: 2
Critical: 1
Luck: 1
Automatic Bonuses:+150 HP, +2 ATK, +2 DEF, +15 Status Points per level.
Equipped Gear:
Weapon: Training Sword (D-grade)
Armor: Worn Leather Vest (D-grade), Cloth Pants (D-grade), Basic Boots (D-grade)
Jewelry: None
Titles: [None]
He focused on the training sword's entry.
[Training Sword (D)] ATK: +5 Durability: 50/50 Tier: D (Common)
Description: A basic, unbalanced training blade. Better than bare hands. Slightly.
He snorted.
D-grade. The bottom of the heap. Above that, the charts in his head continued: C, B, A, S, SS. He could hear a hundred theorycrafters already screaming on their streams about optimal paths to B gear.
A new window nudged into his peripheral vision.
[TUTORIAL]: Welcome to the Eternal Sword Tower. Movement: Your body. Dodging, blocking, and striking are performed through physical motion and guided by neural-aug mapping. Remember: Stamina is shared between life and action. Exhaustion kills as surely as a blade.
He lifted the training sword experimentally. The weight pulled at his shoulder, heavier than he expected for a starter weapon. Not unrealistic heavy. Just honest.
He took a short practice swing.
The air hissed. The motion felt smooth, the balance a little off-center. His stance adjusted automatically, but it was subtle. He could tell the system was helping, nudging muscles, but not enough to make him feel like a passenger.
"Holy shit," someone nearby said. "You feel that? The follow-through?"
Alexis glanced over. A guy a few years older than him, shaved head, scars along his knuckles, was cutting the air with a basic axe. His swings were heavier, shoulders rolling in a pattern that screamed "contact sports" even before he grinned and said, "Okay, if this thing has real collision, top ladders are going to break people."
Another voice cut over his head, laughing.
"Relax, Hercules, you cannot punch your way to Floor 100 on day one."
The name stuck in Alexis's mind. Not because of the joke. Because he recognized it from pre-launch leaderboards and sponsor lists: a handle associated with FPS and fighting game tournaments. Spotting someone like that here, on the same platform, made the scale of this place sink in.
Everyone was here.
He closed his status window with a thought and took a step forward. The stone under his boots felt solid. His balance shifted as if he had simply walked across his living room floor.
The path off the platform led down into the city through a wide arch. Above the archway, carved into the dark stone, words in a language he did not recognize glowed faintly. As he watched, they bled into letters he could read.
FLOOR 1 CITY: GREEN VEIL GATE
The moment he crossed under the arch, another window appeared.
[SYSTEM]: NEW LOCATION DISCOVERED.
"GREEN VEIL GATE" – FLOOR 1 CITY.
Respawn Point: UNBOUND.
Would you like to bind here? [YES] [NO]
He did not hesitate. [YES].
A faint warmth passed through his chest, gone almost as soon as he noticed it.
Somewhere else on the platform, Lyra watched her own window.
She had taken longer to move than most. While others cheered and jogged toward the city, she had simply stood and scanned.
The crowd. The exits. The way the platform was built so that anyone leaving had to pass under one of three arches. Natural chokepoints. Good for guards. Good for bandits. Future bandits, she corrected herself. The game had been live for only five minutes. No one could have set up yet.
She did not trust that.
When the binding prompt appeared, she accepted it, then flicked through menus, eyes narrowed.
Appearance settings. Voice overlay. Friend list. Streaming options. Pain feedback. She dropped hers to eight percent. Enough to matter, not enough to scramble her focus.
She flicked open her status.
[ LYRA ] Level: 1 HP: 280 / 280 ATK: 11 DEF: 9 Energy: 100 / 100
Attributes:
Strength: 2
Stamina: 2
Resilience: 2
Agility: 3
Enlightenment: 2
Critical: 2
Luck: 1
She nodded to herself. The pre-signup questionnaire had leaned her toward agility and precision profiles. Felt right.
Her starter weapon was a short sword and a knife at her belt. Both D-grade. Both barely better than street scrap steel.
She lifted the knife, tested the weight, then flipped it in her hand. The system nagged her with a tiny red icon about "unsafe motion for beginner level." She ignored it.
The crowd pressed toward the city. She went with them, drifting along the edges where the flow was thinner.
Above them, the system spoke again.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT]: TUTORIAL MISSIONS NOW AVAILABLE.
FLOOR 1 PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:
– Learn basic combat.
– Hunt low-tier monsters (D–C grade).
– Explore Green Veil Frontier.
– Discover villages and outposts.
– Prepare for the Floor 1 Dungeon.
REMINDER: PROGRESSION TO HIGHER FLOORS REQUIRES DEFEAT OF UNIQUE FLOOR BOSSES. FLOOR 1 BOSS: DATA HIDDEN.
Lyra's lips curled. Data hidden. Of course. They wanted the early days to be frantic, experimental. People are pushing blindly.
Streams were going to be chaos.
She wondered how many of them would underestimate pain.
The streets of Green Veil Gate were already crowded. NPCs moved among players, their faces distinct, their gazes unsettlingly present. A blacksmith hammered at a glowing strip of metal on an open forge, the ring of metal sharp in the air. A woman stirred a pot at a stall, steam curling up, carrying the smell of something thick and savory.
Lyra walked past, and a prompt flickered.
[NPC]: MARA, STREET COOK
"Hey there, first-timer. You look like you could use something warm. First bowl is on the house if you bring me two wolf pelts. Deal?"
[ACCEPT] [DECLINE]
The wording was friendly. The eyes were not. They weighed her the way older dealers in her neighborhood had weighed potential clients: profit, risk, use.
Lyra accepted.
[SYSTEM]: NEW MISSION ACQUIRED.
"Warm Meal, Cold Woods" [D]
Objective: Obtain 2x Wolf Pelt from Green Veil Forest.
Reward: Basic Stew (Stamina Regen), 35 Silver.
A second later, three nearby players got the same prompt and accepted with laughter.
"Pelts for soup," one of them said. "At least it is not rat tails."
"Rats are probably on Floor 2," another replied.
Lyra moved on, following the flow toward the city's outer gate.
In another part of the city, under the shadow of a half-finished stone tower that would someday hold guild offices, a cluster of corporate reps and sponsors stood in a private spectator space, their real bodies in secure lounges, their sensorium linked to a filtered view of the launch.
One older man, suit sharp even in a virtual overlay, watched the crowds stream through Green Veil Gate's streets. His gaze flicked to certain profiles as flagged by the system.
[USER: HERCULES] – PRIOR COMPETITIVE RANK: A-CLASS
[USER: ZEKER "ZEKKER"] – FPS WORLD CIRCUIT
[USER: ASHLEY] – STRATEGY LEAGUE CHAMPION
[USER: KLEIN] – REGIONAL SWORDSPORTS FINALIST
And dozens more, a storm of talent.
"This will reset the entire competitive ecosystem," one rep murmured.
"Or expose who was always just good at memorizing recoil patterns," another said.
"Do you think the violence concerns will stick?" a third asked quietly.
The older man smiled without humor. "They will scream about kids and pain feedback, then make highlight compilations when someone pulls off a perfect parry in a losing fight. The Tower will be too big to ignore either way."
On the lower streets, Alexis reached the main gate.
The city wall was thick, stone fitted together without mortar, as if grown. Above the gate, a row of guards in simple armor watched the crowd. They looked like NPCs, but their eyes tracked specific people, lingering on loud troublemakers and groups with too many heavy weapons.
A guard stepped forward as Alexis approached, a window appearing over the man's head.
[NPC]: SERGEANT HALVER
"First time beyond the gate, kid?"
Options appeared in Alexis's vision.
[1] "Yes." [2] "No." [3] Ignore him.
He hesitated, then selected [1].
The guard snorted.
"At least you are honest. Listen up. The green out there is not a training yard. Wolves run in packs. Goblins set traps. You think you can just swing that toy sword until the experience flows in, you are going to crawl back with your guts hanging out."
His gaze hardened. "If you are lucky enough to crawl back."
A new window slid into place.
[SYSTEM TUTORIAL – FIELD DANGERS]:
Low-tier monsters (D–C) can overwhelm careless parties.
Stamina loss applies when: Running, Dodging, Blocking, Striking
When Stamina is low, attacks slow and movement drags.
Death Penalties (Floor Context):
– 10–15% carried Silver lost.
– 2% carried Gold lost.
– Chance of dropping unbound inventory items.
– Minor EXP loss.
Respawn: Green Veil Gate (Bound).
Double Death Rule: 2 deaths within 12 hours real = 24-hour lockout. Repeat that cycle within 7 days = 48-hour lockout.
The guard's voice continued under the text, as if reading from the same script.
"This place is full of idiots who think 'respawn' means 'no consequences,'" Halver said.
"The Tower has teeth. It will not kill you, but it can waste your time, strip your pockets, and break whatever pride you walked in with. Go out there like fools, you make the monsters' job easy."
Alexis felt a small chill.
"Got it," he said.
"Good. Now go earn a real blade."
The gate opened.
Beyond it, the world of Floor 1 unfurled.
Trees rose in a dense line, trunks thick and bark rough, leaves a deep green that shifted with the wind. A path, half-mud, half-trampled grass, ran into the forest, already marked by the boots of the first wave.
As he stepped onto the path, a new window appeared in the corner of his vision.
[FLOOR 1 PRIMARY MISSION – PERSONAL]:
"First Blood in the Green Veil"
Objective: Defeat 5x low-tier monsters (D-grade).
Bonus Objective: Avoid HP falling below 50%.
Reward: 50 EXP, 45 Silver, 1x D-grade Material Pack.
Somewhere to his right, hidden by the crowd, Lyra's prompt was almost identical, with a different wording and an optional stealth bonus.
Monsters waited in the trees.
Wolves with mottled fur that would be tagged [Forest Wolf (D)] when targeted. Goblins with crude spears, their eyes too intelligent for comfort. Vines that would lash when someone brushed them without care.
The Tower watched them enter its first floor.
Not through cameras. Not through code alone. Through something older, sunk deep in the stone and the roots and the thin wind that threaded through the canopy.
It listened as millions of hearts beat faster.
It tasted fear and anticipation in the neural currents. Hunger for glory, for survival, for escape, for meaning.
It had seen all of this before.
Above the Green Veil forest, unseen by any player, sigils shifted along the Tower's hidden facets. Old patterns, waking.
Deep below, in floors no one had yet named, something turned as if in its sleep, reacting to the first mass influx of human minds in centuries.
On screens around the world, viewers leaned closer as the first combat encounters began. The first wolf charge. The first clumsy parry. The first player to scream when their arm took a glancing bite and the pain feedback translated into a sharp, unexpected ache.
On one café screen, Elena watched her brother's perspective from behind her counter as she served coffee to people pretending not to be just as interested.
She listened to his breathing as he squared up to his first wolf, hands shaking just a little.
In the Tower, Alexis tightened his grip, set his feet the way his old coach had taught him before everything went sideways, and raised his sword.
The wolf snarled, hackles lifting.
A tiny prompt flickered in the air above it.
[Forest Wolf (D)] HP: 120 / 120 Threat Level: Low (Pack Behavior)
[SYSTEM]: TIP – ATTACKING HEAD-ON INCREASES RISK. FLANK WHEN POSSIBLE.
He exhaled, centered himself, and sidestepped instead of charging.
Somewhere else among the trees, Lyra lowered herself into a crouch behind a bush, eyes tracking another wolf as it circled a distracted player. She rolled her shoulders, feeling the coil of her own body, the readiness in her legs.
If she timed it right, she could take the creature from its blind spot. Not heroic. Not flashy.
Effective.
On the highest levels of the Tower, where no player had yet set foot, there were floors carved in cold stone and sealed with unreadable symbols. For a heartbeat, faint lines of light traced those symbols, as if acknowledging new pieces on an enormous board.
Then the light died.
On Floor 1, Green Veil Frontier, wolves lunged, steel rose to meet them, system windows flared with small, first achievements.
[SYSTEM]: MONSTER DEFEATED – Forest Wolf (D)
You obtained: – x1 Wolf Pelt (D) – x1 Wolf Fang (D) – 15 Silver
First blood had been spilled.
The Tower smiled without a mouth, without a face, without mercy.
And the story began.