Marcus Hale was having a perfectly normal day. Which, in hindsight, was probably the universe's way of greasing the tracks before shoving him off a cliff.
The late afternoon sun hung lazily in a haze of smog and amber, casting long, distorted shadows across the cracked pavement of the convenience store parking lot. It was that specific kind of humid Tuesday where the air feels like a damp wool blanket, clinging to your skin and smelling faintly of hot asphalt and old exhaust. Marcus stepped out of the air-conditioned sanctuary of 'Dave's Quick-Stop,' the bell above the door giving a pathetic, rusted clink behind him.
In his right hand, a thin plastic bag strained against the corners of a box of instant noodles. It held the holy trinity of bachelor survival: sodium-heavy ramen, a gallon of lukewarm spring water, and a family-sized bag of extreme-nacho chips.
Dinner of champions. Or at least, dinner for a man who didn't have the soul left to wash a frying pan.
Marcus paused, rolling his shoulders until his spine gave a series of rhythmic, satisfying pops. At six feet tall, he carried a frame that most gym rats would pay thousands in supplements to achieve. His shoulders were broad, his forearms corded with the kind of functional muscle that doesn't come from bench presses. It came from five years of "The Grind"—hauling heavy-duty crates, wrestling malfunctioning pallet jacks, and playing Tetris with industrial machinery at a local warehouse.
He didn't "work out." He just endured.
He popped the seal on the chip bag, the scent of artificial cheese dust wafting up like a chemical greeting. He crunched one, looking up at the sky. The clouds were tinged with a bruised purple hue.
"Man… today was brutal," he muttered to the empty lot.
It hadn't been one big disaster; it was a thousand tiny cuts. His alarm hadn't gone off. The breakroom coffee tasted like battery acid. Then, the crowning glory: his favorite forklift, 'Old Bessie,' had finally blown a hydraulic seal, spraying him with lukewarm oil.
He sighed, the sound heavy with the exhaustion of the working class. "At least tomorrow can't possibly be worse."
The universe heard that. The universe, it seemed, took personal offense to such statements.
The Precision of Fate
High above the Earth's protective embrace, where the silence of the vacuum reigns supreme, a stray fragment of the cosmos was finishing a journey billions of years in the making.
It was a jagged piece of chondrite, barely the size of a golf ball. By all laws of probability, it should have been swallowed by the sun or pulled into the crushing gravity of Jupiter. Instead, it caught the edge of Earth's atmosphere.
The air began to scream as the rock hit the thermosphere at seventeen thousand miles per hour. It didn't just fall; it became a needle of pure kinetic energy. Most debris of this size would have shattered into dust. But this fragment was dense, iron-rich, and possessed a stubborn, singular trajectory.
Back on the pavement, Marcus was still chewing. He was still looking up. He was completely unaware that he had just become the target of the most statistically impossible "hit" in human history.
The meteor fell. Through the stratosphere. Through the clouds. Through the humid, stagnant air of the suburbs.
Thunk.
Marcus didn't feel pain. Pain requires time for nerves to fire. He didn't have time. There was a sound like a suppressed gunshot—the sound of a golf-ball-sized rock liquefying a human skull and continuing its journey three feet into the asphalt below.
Marcus froze for exactly half a second, his hand still reaching into the chip bag. Then, the light in his eyes didn't just dim; it was deleted.
The Great White Nowhere
Marcus opened his eyes.
That was his first mistake in logic. He didn't have eyes. Or a head. The last thing he remembered was the salty tang of a nacho chip. Now, there was nothing but a vast, echoing void of bleached light.
He tried to sit up, and his consciousness obeyed. He was floating. There was no floor, no ceiling, and no horizon. Just pure, sterile white.
"…Okay," he whispered. His voice didn't travel; it just existed inside the space. "Either I hit my head really hard on that forklift…" He reached back to touch his skull, expecting gore. His hand met smooth, unblemished skin. "...or I'm dead."
A soft laugh rippled through the space. It wasn't a mocking sound. It was the kind of laugh a mother gives a toddler who has just discovered that water is wet. It was warm, melodic, and vibrated in Marcus's very marrow.
"Correct."
Marcus spun around. Standing behind him was a figure that defied every law of biology and scale.
She was gargantuan, standing easily ten feet tall, draped in a gown of shimmering gold that seemed woven from captured starlight. Her hair was a cascading waterfall of golden-blonde that glowed with its own internal sun. Her eyes were twin emeralds, radiating a light that felt both terrifyingly powerful and unnervingly comforting.
Marcus stared. His mouth hung open. "...Huh."
The woman tilted her head, her emerald eyes sparkling with genuine curiosity. "You seem calmer than most mortals when they discover they've died. Usually, there is more… screaming."
Marcus scratched his cheek. "Well… it depends. Are you an angel?"
She smiled, and for a second, Marcus felt like he was standing too close to a heater on a cold winter night. "Something like that."
Marcus nodded. "Okay, cool. Then I definitely died. No way Dave's Quick-Stop has an employee lounge that looks like this." He crossed his arms. "Alright. I guess I should ask the big question. How'd I go out? Car crash?"
The woman shook her head.
"Plane crash? Lightning?"
"No."
Marcus frowned. "Okay, now I'm curious. What was it?"
The goddess covered her mouth with a delicate, massive hand, trying very hard to remain professional. "You were struck by a meteor."
Silence filled the white void.
"...A meteor," Marcus repeated.
"Yes. About the size of a golf ball."
Marcus stared at her for a long, quiet minute. He thought about his six-day work weeks and his oil-stained shirt. "You know what? Statistically, that shouldn't even be possible. The odds of that hitting me specifically? It's insulting."
The goddess laughed then—a full, bell-like sound. "You are entirely correct. The odds were… astronomically small. You are, quite literally, the unluckiest man to have lived in your century."
She stepped forward, her presence weightless. She reached out, and though she didn't touch him, Marcus felt a wave of warmth wash over him, smelling of ozone and wildflowers.
"Because your death was so… let's call it an 'administrative error' by the cosmos… I have decided to intervene. I am giving you another chance. I oversee a realm where mortals can start again, unburdened by the mundanity of your previous life."
"A second life?" Marcus asked. "Magic and dragons and all that?"
"Precisely. A world of monsters, ancient mysteries, and infinite opportunity. And I will not send you empty-handed. You may choose one Talent—a permanent trait of your soul—and one Starting Ability."
Marcus's eyes lit up. "Oh. Oh, this is gonna be fun."
The goddess watched him, looking genuinely pleased. "What does the unluckiest man in the universe want?"
Marcus didn't even have to think. "Simple. If I only get one talent, I want something that breaks the system. I want a 100% Drop Rate."
The goddess blinked. "A… greedy choice. You wish for the world to yield all its treasures to you?"
Marcus shrugged. "If I'm going to be out there fighting monsters, I don't want to do it for 'chance.' If I kill it, I want its stuff. All of it."
The goddess nodded slowly, a slow, delighted smirk touching her lips. "Very well. A contract with the physical world. If you overcome a challenge, the reward is absolute."
She raised her hand, and the white void was flooded with molten gold light.
[Talent Granted: SSS Rank – 100% Drop Rate]
Marcus felt a strange new weight to his soul—a magnetic pull. "Nice. Alright, now for the ability. If I died because the universe decided to lob a rock at my head… I think it would be poetic justice if I could do the same thing to everyone else. I want the ability to call down Meteors."
For the first time, the goddess looked genuinely surprised. Then, she threw her head back and let out a laugh so powerful it made the white space ripple like water.
"Poetic indeed!" she shouted, her voice echoing like thunder. "You wish to wield the very instrument of your demise! Marcus Hale, you are truly a creature of spite."
Golden light exploded again, hot and smelling of scorched earth.
[Skill Granted: S Rank – Meteor]
Marcus pumped his fist. "Oh, this is going to be awesome."
The goddess stepped closer, her massive form looming over him one last time. She placed a gentle, glowing hand on his head. The warmth was incredible—like a mother tucking a child into bed.
"Go then, Marcus. Be the anomaly. Be the rock that shatters the pond."
The white void began to dissolve.
"Wait!" Marcus shouted, his voice fading. "I should at least know who I'm talking to! You never told me your name!"
The goddess smiled. It was the most beautiful thing Marcus had ever seen—full of ancient, motherly wisdom.
"My name…" she whispered, her voice a thousand overlapping echoes. "...is Lucifer."