The lukewarm, sludge-bottom instant noodles were officially the last decent thing to happen to me in 24 hours. And they weren't even decent. They tasted like chicken and sh**ty despair.
I stared at the damn cup, perched on the edge of my mattress in my Chicago studio. The neon sign across the street kept strobing that nasty, cheap red light right over my textbooks. Pathology 101. Right. Like I needed to study human diseases when the f***ing gods of Olympus were dropping in for tea.
Rent was three months late. The landlord was texting me pictures of eviction notices with sad-face emojis. I was broke. I was exhausted. And I should've just sold the Golden Fleece when I had the chance. But no, I had to be a lore-hound.
I glanced at the closet door. The white, hollow-core portal to Arcadia. That was the former name of the game. For three years, that door had been my secret life. I was a broke pre-med dropout trying to survive on Ramen and caffeine, but on the other side? Level 99 Swordsman, Bane of Tartarus, a certified God Slayer.
I treated it like a job. A brutal, mandatory overtime job. I solved the puzzles, I figured out the combat loops, and six months ago, I killed the main quest boss—a giant, seven-headed Hydra guarding the dimensional core. I quit right after. Why? Because the stupid gold coins wouldn't pay my real power bill. I chose reality.
"Worked out great, didn't it, Kai?" I muttered, shoving a spoonful of salty paste into my mouth.
Then the phone went off. Not buzzing. Vibrating. A violent, continuous rattle on the floor. It wasn't a call. It was a digital scream.
I picked it up. Alerts. News feeds. Everyone was losing their minds.
IS THIS A PRANK?
CHECK THE NEWS!
LOOK UP!
A cold, ugly feeling crawled up the back of my neck. That specific feeling I only ever got when a massive, high-level creature was about to drop its Aggro onto me. But this wasn't from a monster. It was from the atmosphere.
I walked to the window.
The sky was supposed to be a pathetic orange mess of city light pollution. Tonight, it was violet.
But not pretty violet. This was the color of a fresh bruise, angry and churning, twisting into geometric shapes that made my eyes hurt. It hummed. Not a noise, but a deep vibration that went straight into my skull.
"No f***ing way," I whispered. That color was straight out of the Tartarus expansion zone.
The streets below were a mess. People were spilling out of bars, screaming, pointing. Cars were just stopped, abandoned in the intersection. They thought it was the end of the world. They were right, but they had the genre wrong. This wasn't a biblical apocalypse; this was an MMORPG server merge.
Then the sound came. Not an explosion. A massive, echoing DONG. It flattened the air. Windows blew out. Car alarms started shrieking in a terrified symphony.
And then, the text.
It wasn't on my phone. It was plastered right onto my retinas, a translucent blue overlaying my entire vision. I blinked. It didn't move.
[System Initialization...]
[Syncing with Earth Dimension (Sector 86)...]
[Synchronization Complete.]
My heart went from zero to a thousand. I gripped the window sill. "The UI. It's the goddamn game interface." But it was wrong. Too sleek. Too terrified.
Down below, the screams changed. People were clawing at their faces, convinced they were hallucinating. They didn't see the text, maybe just the outline of it, enough to make them think they were insane. Good. Less competition.
[Global Announcement]
[Welcome, Citizens of Earth.]
[Due to a Critical Error in the Dimensional Barrier, the realms of 'Earth' and 'Mythos' have initiated an irreversible merger.]
[The Tutorial Phase has been skipped. Period.]
[The Great Game has begun.]
I stumbled back, tripping over a laundry pile. "Skipped? You're skipping the orientation? What the f***k kind of update is this?" The tutorial was essential. It taught you what a Mana Potion was. It taught you that a Level 1 player shouldn't engage a Level 10 Goblin.
Skipping the tutorial meant they were throwing billions of clueless, screaming civilians into a world where Level 50 Gorgons were about to spawn in Central Park.
Idiots.
The text scrolled again, the blue color gaining a frantic red edge.
[Initializing Mana Atmosphere... (WARNING: Mana Density Spike Detected)]
[Unlocking dormant Skills for all sentient beings...]
[Generating Monsters based on local population density...]
[WARNING: High-Level Boss Detected in the Vicinity.]
"Vicinity?" I spun around, scanning the four walls of my tiny room. The air was thick, heavy, tasting like a thousand car batteries short-circuiting—mana. My lungs greedily sucked it in, and muscle memory snapped back. But I felt... empty.
[ERROR. ERROR.]
[Player ID: KAI_ZEN detected.]
[Anomalous Data Found.]
[Player has completed Achievements: 'Slayer of the Hydra', 'Champion of the Arena', 'Conqueror of the Ten Hells', etc.]
[Attempting to calibrate Level...]
[Calibration Failed. Resetting to Level 1.]
[Retaining Memory Data.]
"You are f***ing joking." I clenched my fists. "Three years of grinding! Gone! This is a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen! You can't just delete my character!"
I was weak. Back to zero. The strength I'd had to chop down ancient trees with a single swing? Gone. The magical mastery? Reduced to a trickle. I was a level 1 weakling in my pajamas again.
But then, the small, quiet window popped up. Gold, not blue. Private.
[Unique Trait Activated: 'The Veteran']
[Privilege Granted: Skill 'Fusion Synthesis' (Rank: ???)]
My cynical mind perked up. Unique. Fusion Synthesis. I'd never heard of it. The old game was rigid. This was a cheat code. A glitch in the new system. Maybe that "Critical Error" wasn't so bad after all.
Before I could enjoy my tiny win, a roar, loud enough to be felt in my intestines, shook the building.
The wall where the closet door stood began to glow, cracking open with the searing light of magma.
The Boss. It wasn't in the city. It was here. The breach point was my apartment.
The door—the symbol of my escape and my financial ruin—exploded into a thousand splinters.
Stepping out of the smoke wasn't a Minotaur. It wasn't a Cyclops. It was a man, seven feet tall, in black bronze armor, his eyes burning blue. I knew that smug, ugly face.
"No," I choked out, stumbling back.
"Thanatos. You're supposed to be in the Ninth Circle of Hell, you asshole."
The figure looked down. The red HP bar floated above his head, an ugly scarlet banner of doom.
[Thanatos, The Minor Death God]
[Level: 45]
[Status: Vengeful / Glitched]
Level 45. I was Level f***ing 1. My weapon was a bowl of cold chicken soup.
Thanatos smiled, a terrible, skin-stretching thing. "The little rat. Thought the door was closed, did ya?" He conjured a shadow scythe.
"The game never ends," he roared. "It just waits for the update! And you, you get the patch notes first!"
He swung.
I didn't think. Instinct, three years of pure, adrenaline-fueled habit, saved me. I dropped and rolled under the swing, the scythe shearing my mattress in half and letting a fresh blast of chaotic night air through the shattered window.
I scrambled up, grabbing the nearest thing from the counter. A cheap, serrated steak knife.
[Item: Dull Steak Knife]
[Damage: 1-2]
"Oh, f***k off, System," I hissed. This was insulting.
Thanatos laughed, stepping over the wreckage. "Where's the legendary gear now, little God Slayer? Just a knife? Pathetic."
Kai's brain was cycling through scenarios. He couldn't scratch a Level 45 god with a kitchen knife. But the Skill. Fusion Synthesis.
I grabbed a bottle of cheap cooking oil. [Item: Vegetable Oil].
I saw the frayed wire from the lamp Thanatos had clipped, sparking live current on the floor. [Environment: Live Electricity].
"System!" I screamed, throwing the items up. "FUSION. NOW!"
The gold window flared. My mana—that pathetic little bar—vanished instantly. My head felt like it was splitting in two, but the three items dissolved into a blinding sphere of light.
They reformed into a jagged dagger, humming with blue electricity, oil dripping from the hilt and burning with a smokeless flame.
[Fusion Complete.]
[New Item Created: The Voltaic Arsonist's Shiv (Rare)]
Thanatos actually paused. A Level 45 god hesitated because he sensed something new.
I didn't waste the two seconds. I dove forward, a low, ugly sprint, and jammed the electric, fiery dagger right into the gap behind his kneecap. A known weak point from the old lore—gods still need to walk.
CRACK-BOOM.
The shockwave threw me against the kitchen wall.
Thanatos screamed, a truly pathetic, shocked sound, falling to one knee as lightning turned his antique armor into a deep fryer.
[-150 Critical Hit!]
[-15 Shock Damage!]
[Status Effect Applied: Paralyzed (2 seconds)]
I didn't check the damage. I didn't gloat. I turned and sprinted out the demolished door, running as fast as my Level 1 legs could carry me into the chaos of the transformed world.
I made it past the first boss, Level 1, in my pajamas. This whole thing was going to be a complete sh**tshow.
Two hundred and forty-two chapters left. Let's f***ing go.