"Ahhhh… I'm so tired."
Jiang Chen's hoarse moan barely rose above a whisper as he collapsed onto his narrow dormitory bed.
Every muscle in his body screamed in protest, aching from overuse and sleepless nights.
His arms felt heavy, his legs numb, and even lifting a finger seemed like a monumental task.
By day, he was a first-year college student struggling to keep up with lectures, assignments, and exams.
By night, he transformed into a laborer waiting tables at a cheap restaurant until midnight, then rushing across half the city to work a graveyard shift unloading goods at a warehouse.
Two jobs, minimal sleep, and constant hunger had become his daily routine.
All of it was for survival. Sleep became a luxury, two hours a day, if he was lucky.
Tuition in the big city was merciless, and living expenses were even worse.
Rent, food, transportation… every coin he earned vanished almost as soon as it touched his hands.
There was no safety net for someone like him. No wealthy relatives. No influential connections.
Jiang Chen came from a poor family in a remote province, where his parents spent their lives bent over farmlands beneath the scorching sun.
Their hands were rough, their backs permanently hunched, and yet they never once complained when sending him what little money they could spare.
That was why he refused to give up.
He had big dreams… dreams powerful enough to keep him going even when his vision blurred from exhaustion.
He wanted to change his family tree entirely.
He wanted to rise so high that poverty would never dare touch his parents again.
He wanted to become filthy rich, to buy them a warm house, modern machines, and peaceful days where they could wake up without worrying about work or money.
As these thoughts drifted through his mind, his eyelids finally grew heavy.
The ceiling light flickered once before his consciousness began to sink into darkness.
Then…
A voice rang out.
Cold. Mechanical. Completely devoid of emotion.
It did not come from outside. It echoed directly inside his mind.
"World Level-Up Trials commencing on Planet Earth."
Jiang Chen's eyes snapped open.
Before he could react, the voice continued, unhurried and absolute.
"Prepare yourself in…
5…"
His heart began to pound violently against his chest.
"4…"
A strange pressure filled the air, as though the world itself were holding its breath.
"3…"
Across the planet, countless people froze in confusion and fear.
"2…"
Jiang Chen tried to sit up, but his limbs felt sluggish, as if gravity had suddenly increased.
"1…"
Bang!
A deafening explosion reverberated through the world, not through ears alone, but through bones and souls.
Buildings rattled, glass shattered, and the ground heaved violently as though Earth itself had been struck by a divine hammer.
Then… silence.
For three long breaths, everything stopped.
No wind.
No sound.
No movement.
And then, all at once, the silence shattered.
Screams erupted from every direction—panic, terror, disbelief.
Sirens wailed, alarms blared, and chaos swallowed the world whole as humanity realized, far too late, that the rules governing their existence had just been rewritten.
"Noooo! Get away from me!"
"Stop—stop!"
"Help! Someone help!"
The desperate cries of humanity echoed through the night as order collapsed in an instant.
From the ground below, skeletal hands burst through concrete and soil alike, fingers scraping and clawing as if the earth itself were rejecting them.
One after another, skeleton monsters hauled themselves into the open.
Their frames were bleached white and cracked with age, some missing ribs, others dragging broken limbs behind them.
Judging by their condition, they looked as though they had been dead for millions of years.
Yet they were horrifyingly fast.
They moved with unnatural agility, joints clicking and snapping as they sprinted toward the nearest living targets.
Their hollow skulls turned sharply, locking onto heartbeats, onto warmth, onto life.
The moment they reached a human, there was no escape.
Teeth sank into flesh. Bones pierced skin. Blood sprayed across the ground as screams were cut short.
What made the scene even more terrifying was what happened next… those bitten did not stay dead.
Their bodies twitched violently, veins bulging beneath pale skin as dark energy flooded their veins.
Seconds later, they rose again.
Zombies.
Their movements were jerky and unnatural, mouths hanging open as black saliva dripped onto the ground.
They attacked indiscriminately, lunging at anyone still breathing, spreading the infection at an alarming rate.
Panic only made things worse.
People tripped over one another, abandoning friends and lovers alike in their mad scramble to escape.
The campus and its surrounding, once sleeping and peaceful, had transformed into a living hell.
Jiang Chen stood rigidly by the window of his second-floor male dormitory, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief. His mind refused to accept what it was seeing.
A girl fell while running, her knee scraping against the pavement.
Before she could even scream, three skeletons were on her.
A security guard tried to fight back with a baton—he didn't last five seconds.
A group of students barricaded themselves inside a convenience store, only for the windows to shatter moments later.
His breathing grew erratic.
"…This can't be real," he muttered, his voice trembling.
Then a skeleton abruptly snapped its head upward.
Its empty eye sockets locked onto Jiang Chen's window.
His heart nearly stopped.
"Fuck!" Jiang Chen swore violently as he staggered back.
Fear finally jolted his body into motion.
He spun around and sprinted for the door, slamming his shoulder into it before yanking the handle hard. Locked.
He twisted the lock again, just to be sure, then dragged a desk and shoved it against the door with shaking hands.
Only then did he dare to stop.
The dorm room felt unbearably quiet in contrast to the chaos outside. No roommates. No laughter.
No footsteps in the hallway.
Friday night.
Everyone had gone out partying.
The realization hit him like a punch to the gut.
He was alone.
His hands trembling uncontrollably, Jiang Chen fumbled for his phone and quickly dialed his parents' number back in the province. The line rang once… twice…
Nothing.
"No signal?" His face drained of color. "No… no, no…"
He tried again. And again.
Still nothing.
Just as despair threatened to swallow him whole, a sharp pain stabbed behind his eyes.
A blinding flash of blue light exploded in front of him.
Jiang Chen cried out and instinctively squeezed his eyes shut, stumbling backward until he crashed onto his bed. His heart hammered violently as sweat poured down his face.
When he cautiously opened his eyes again, he froze.
Translucent panels floated silently in the air before him, glowing with an otherworldly light. They looked unreal—like something pulled straight from a game.
***
Name: Jiang Chen
Level: 0
Race: Human
Class: None
***
The words were crystal clear.
They were real.
Cold sweat soaked through his clothes as a terrifying realization settled into his bones.
The world hadn't just changed.
It had become a game.
"…Am I… supposed to survive this?" Jiang Chen whispered.
Outside, the screams continued.