The city was alive with noise — a chorus of light and sound woven into chaos. Digital billboards blazed like miniature suns, their holographic ribbons sweeping across the mirrored faces of skyscrapers. From every screen, every corner, every street, the same message thundered across the world.
> "The epoch-making online experience Eternal Ascendancy has officially been announced for launch!"
"Midnight tomorrow," shouted one anchor over the din of the crowd, voice barely audible above the roaring masses. "The world is already losing its mind—!"
Another reporter chimed in before she finished.
> "Sources confirm that Eternal Ascendancy is the first 100% neural-synchronized virtual reality platform! Government funding, direct federal investment—yes, you heard that right!"
"And players are receiving state-issued subsidies just for joining! Folks, this is unprecedented!"
Cameras cut to a churning sea of people — tents, neon wristbands, portable heaters glowing in the cold night. A reporter, breathless and wide-eyed, thrust his mic toward a man at the head of the line.
> "Sir, when did you start queuing?"
"Three days ago!"
"Three days—by the stars!"
The feed stuttered, the noise flattening into static.
Adrian Cross turned away from the television, the flicker of screens painting restless color across his penthouse walls. He crossed to the floor-to-ceiling window, the vast city unfurling below him in a pulse of neon and steel. For a moment he simply stood there — silent, still — as though listening to the heartbeat of civilization itself.
Then he drew in a slow breath and let it out.
> "Reborn," he whispered. "I'm really… reborn."
A half-laugh escaped him, half disbelief, half awe. His reflection in the glass looked the same — twenty-something, sharp eyes, no lines of age — but behind those eyes burned the memory of apocalypse. He could still see it: the sky split by fire, the gods descending through ruptured heavens, the cities of man turned to dust and ash. The final moments before the end of all things.
And now he stood here again — a full day before Eternal Ascendancy went live.
It wasn't just a game. He knew that now.
In his previous life, the world had hailed Eternal Ascendancy as the pinnacle of human invention — an entertainment platform so advanced it blurred the line between imagination and reality. Players became gods, forging divine realms, gathering believers, shaping existence itself.
Fantasy, they had called it.
Until the day fantasy devoured the real.
When the skies cracked and the so-called "servers" merged with reality — when the avatars of gods became flesh — humanity had learned too late that Eternal Ascendancy had never been virtual at all.
The game was real.
The domains were real.
And gods — ancient, infinite, alien — walked among them.
Earth, the Blue Star of mankind, had been the last to awaken to that truth. While mortals elsewhere ascended and built empires in the divine realms, humanity clung to disbelief. The governments denied, the scientists rationalized. And then the first Main God appeared.
Adrian had seen it — the fall of the Blue Star Pantheon, the annihilation of every ascended being Earth had birthed. One Main God from another realm had erased them in an instant.
He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke curl upward, his reflection wavering in the glass. His face was young again, but his eyes carried decades.
> "It all makes sense now," he murmured. "No wonder it felt so real. No wonder we lost."
In that first life, he had been one of the privileged — heir to a corporate dynasty, born into money and ease. While the world queued for the Domain Connectors, he'd been drinking on yachts, laughing at headlines, thinking himself above it all. He didn't log in until a month after launch. A single month — and that single delay had doomed him.
Despite his natural talent, he had reached only Rank Nine: a demigod, trapped beneath the ceiling of true divinity. He had fallen before igniting his godfire.
> "One step late," he whispered. "That's all it takes."
Now he had been granted a miracle. A second chance — a full day before the beginning, armed with knowledge no one else possessed.
His reflection hardened into resolve.
> "This time, the Lord God won't be my limit."
He could still remember that being — the one beyond comprehension, the power that even Main Gods feared. Compared to that, becoming a god was nothing but the first step.
He turned toward his desk. Resting there in its cradle was a sleek band of silver: the God's Domain Connector. A neural-link marvel, capable of interfacing directly with the divine simulation. To the public, it was an expensive VR toy. To Adrian, it was a key — the bridge between worlds.
He lifted it from its cradle, feeling its subtle hum in his palm. In his first life, he'd been given one before launch. He had left it sealed in the box for weeks, dismissing it as a gadget.
That negligence had cost him eternity.
> "Not this time," he said softly. "This time, everything changes."
The broadcast behind him continued to drone — government announcements, promotional videos, interviews with scientists who pretended they understood what they had built. Adrian's smile turned cold.
> "They knew," he muttered. "The government knew exactly what this was."
After the invasion, the surviving demigods had pieced together fragments of the truth: Eternal Ascendancy had not been created by humans at all. It was an interface — a test designed by something beyond comprehension, meant to find mortals capable of wielding divinity. Humanity had never been the author of its own miracle. They had been the experiment.
And the government had hidden it.
The first true god born on Blue Star had been one of their own — a military commander, uplifted to protect the regime. But when the invasion began, that god had vanished. Coward or casualty, it hadn't mattered. Humanity's gods had fallen, and the world had burned.
Adrian's hand clenched around the Connector until his knuckles went white.
> "This time," he vowed, "I won't be anyone's pawn."
He began to pace, calculating. Warning the world was pointless — no one would believe him. To survive what was coming, he needed proof. Power. Authority. And in this world, only a god could speak and be heard.
> "So I become one," he murmured. "As soon as possible."
He grabbed his datapad, opened his financial accounts, and began the process of liquidation. Within minutes, he was on a secure call with his family's investment division.
"Sell it," he said flatly. "Everything."
"Sir?" the broker stammered. "Everything — the holdings, the subsidiaries, the—?"
> "All of it," Adrian cut in. "I want full liquidity in twenty-four hours. I don't care about losses."
By that evening, the city's financial networks buzzed with rumors: Adrian Cross has lost his mind. Friends called, partners pleaded, his ex sent a long, worried message asking if he was dying.
He ignored them all.
When the transactions settled, three hundred million credits rested in his personal account. Not his full inheritance, but more than enough.
He spent it within hours — security drones, defense turrets, self-sustaining power cores, combat vehicles, encrypted servers, and a life-support capsule system. When the skies cracked again, he would not be caught unprepared. He didn't expect to stay human for long, but while his mortal body endured, it would be untouchable.
By nightfall, he had relocated to the outskirts of the city — his family's old villa, empty for years, its halls still echoing with ghosts. As the automated security grid hummed to life, casting a soft blue perimeter glow, Adrian leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
For the first time since his return, he allowed himself to breathe.
> "Recharge, refocus," he whispered. "Eternal Ascendancy, here I come."
---
The Next Day
At exactly twelve noon, the world held its breath.
Across the planet, millions of players sat in darkened rooms, silver bands gleaming against their skin. Neural filaments unfolded like strands of light, linking flesh and consciousness. A single resonant tone pulsed through every mind — a chord that seemed to hum from the heavens themselves.
Adrian sat in silence, eyes closed, heart steady.
A chime sounded in his thoughts.
> "Welcome, Player. Eternal Ascendancy AI is at your service."
"Verifying player identity… Adrian Cross. Identity confirmed. Name locked — cannot be changed."
"Generating divine designation…"
"Randomization complete. Player's god-name: Korrhaz the Bloodfather."
"Assigning divine domains…"
"Primary: Gnolls (0.1%). Secondary: Slaughter (0.001%)."
"Binding initial believers… Primary believers: Gnolls."
Light burst within his mind, weaving a cosmos of symbols — ancient yet digital, sacred yet mechanical. Runes spiraled across his consciousness like stars being born.
Adrian didn't flinch. He had seen all this before. The so-called "randomization" that players cursed as luck was nothing of the sort. The system wasn't random — it read the soul, aligning domains to essence.
> "Still the same," he murmured. "Gnolls and Slaughter… so be it."
The voice of the AI rang out once more, smooth and ethereal.
> "Registration complete. Final step: extract the Talent of God. Upon extraction, you will enter your Divine Realm."
Adrian's lips curved faintly. This was the moment of truth — the one fragment of real control before the game's laws took over. In his past life, he had drawn a mediocre C-rank talent, barely enough to crawl through the first ages. This time, things would be different.
He opened his eyes.
Before him, suspended in a void of light, hovered a massive wheel — a sphere etched with living runes, spinning in slow, perfect rhythm. It radiated both warmth and gravity, as if containing the heartbeats of a thousand stars.
Adrian approached, the light reflecting in his eyes.
> "Let's see what destiny thinks of me this time."
He reached out, fingertips brushing the wheel's surface. It pulsed beneath his touch — alive, aware. The world around him began to dissolve, light cascading like falling water, space bending inward until there was nothing but brilliance.
And as that brilliance consumed him, Adrian Cross — reborn heir, fallen demigod, would-be Lord of Slaughter — stepped once more into the realm of gods.