The room smelled of disinfectant layered over old iron, a combination Elias Mercer had learned never truly faded no matter how obsessively the floor was scrubbed. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, steady and cold, casting shadows that didn't move unless he wanted them to. The chair was bolted into the concrete, metal legs sunk deep, and the man bound to it had already reached the stage where struggling no longer made sense.
His breathing had thinned into short, desperate pulls of air. Each one sounded louder than the last because Elias had made sure there was nothing else left to fill the space.
Elias stood a measured step away, sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows, hands clean. He hadn't rushed tonight. He never did. Time was a resource like any other, and he had chosen the place carefully enough that it belonged to him for as long as he needed it. His attention lingered on the man's eyes, not his wounds. Eyes betrayed everything—fear always arrived there first, long before screams or pleas. They flickered now with frantic calculation, searching for a sequence of words that might still work.
There was none.
"Relax," Elias said softly, his tone almost considerate, the way one might speak to someone about to make a foolish mistake. "Tensing up just makes it worse. That part isn't even my decision."
The man tried to speak. Whatever sound escaped him collapsed halfway out of his throat, wet and shapeless. The ropes creaked as his body shifted, a meaningless gesture. Elias ignored it. Instead, he reached up and adjusted the angle of the overhead light, tilting it by a few precise degrees until the glare struck directly into the man's eyes. He took his time, correcting the angle twice, like aligning a crooked frame.
Pain was easy. Anyone could cause pain. Elias had learned early that pain itself was not the point—it was the pacing that mattered. The length of time it took for someone to stop pretending they were still a person with options. That moment, when they finally understood that no version of themselves survived this room, was the most honest thing he ever saw.
A phone buzzed once on the metal table beside him, vibrating against steel before going silent again. Elias didn't look at it right away. Timing mattered. When he finally picked it up, the screen washed his face in a pale blue glow.
Done. Payment cleared. No loose ends.
A faint breath escaped his nose, something close to amusement. People always said that. They liked believing the world was tidy when transactions were finished.
Behind him, the man in the chair made a thin, broken sound. Elias turned back, meeting his eyes again. For a moment, there was something like mild irritation on his face—not guilt, not regret, just the quiet displeasure of an interrupted process.
"You misunderstood something," Elias said, crouching until they were level, their gazes locked. His voice never rose. "This was never about information. That's what you kept getting wrong."
The man shook his head weakly. Tears slipped down his cheeks, collecting at the corners of his mouth. Elias reached out and wiped one away with his thumb, slow and deliberate, correcting the imperfection as if it offended him.
Then the world fractured.
There was no warning. No divine light. No voice announcing judgment. The air itself folded inward, as though reality had decided it was stretched too thin to continue pretending. Sound died first—the hum of the lights cut off mid-note, the man's breathing vanished, the room collapsing into a pressure so dense it pressed against Elias's skin and bones alike.
Elias straightened as the floor ceased to exist.
For a fraction of a second, gravity inverted. Concrete walls smeared into streaks of gray and white, then shattered completely. His body didn't fall or rise—it was seized. The sensation wasn't pain. It was possession. Sudden. Absolute. Like a hand closing around the world and deciding it no longer belonged to itself.
The man in the chair disappeared.
The room vanished.
The last thing that remained was Elias Mercer's outstretched hand, fingers still half-curled from a motion he never finished, suspended in empty black as the lights of the old world went out all at once.
The darkness did not fade gently. It tore open.
Light surged in without warmth, a flat, merciless white that had no visible source and no shadow to soften it. Elias Mercer felt weight return to his body all at once, his boots striking a smooth surface that felt neither stone nor metal beneath him. The air carried no smell, no humidity, nothing to mark it as real except the way it pressed against his lungs when he inhaled. Around him, space stretched endlessly in every direction, an impossible hall without walls or ceiling, filled with drifting figures suspended just above the ground before dropping one by one like discarded objects.
Sound followed a heartbeat later.
Screams erupted in layers—raw, unfiltered panic tearing itself from thousands of throats at once. People stumbled, fell, shouted names into the void, prayed in languages Elias recognized and others he didn't. Some collapsed immediately, curling in on themselves as if reality had finally decided to crush them personally. Others ran, despite there being nowhere to go, their footsteps slapping uselessly against the pale surface.
Elias remained where he was.
He straightened his coat out of habit, fingers smoothing nonexistent wrinkles, and slowly turned his head, taking in the scale of it. Tens of thousands—no, far more. The space was vast enough to hold cities, and it was full of humanity at its most honest. Fear stripped people quickly. Here, without social masks or consequences they understood, they revealed exactly how fragile they were.
"Where the hell are we?!" someone screamed nearby.
"This isn't real—this is a dream, right?!"
"I was driving—I was driving and then—!"
Elias watched a man clutch his head and retch, watched a woman claw at her own arms as if trying to peel herself awake. He felt no urgency to join them. Panic was inefficient. Whatever had taken him had done so with intent. That much was obvious. This was not chaos. This was collection.
The air trembled.
Not with sound, but with pressure, like the moment before a massive structure collapsed. The screaming began to fracture as something unseen pressed down on the space itself, forcing attention upward. Symbols ignited in the air, vast and translucent, forming a lattice of unfamiliar characters that rearranged themselves with mechanical precision.
Then the voice arrived.
It was not loud, yet it filled everything.
"Global Lord System initializing."
The words carried no accent, no emotion, no inflection. They were not spoken so much as imposed, sliding directly into the mind with perfect clarity. Around Elias, people froze mid-motion. Some dropped to their knees instantly, sobbing in relief at the sound of authority. Others screamed louder, as if the voice itself were an attack.
"All summoned entities have been successfully transferred.""Planetary integration complete."
Holographic panes erupted into existence before every individual, hovering at eye level. Some were translucent blue, others white, others faintly gold, their colors shifting as unreadable data poured across them. People swatted at the air, shouting as text followed their gaze no matter how they moved.
Elias's own pane materialized silently.
He did not touch it.
He read.
Designation: Lord CandidateWorld of Origin: EarthStatus: AliveTermination Clause: Active
A slow curve tugged at the corner of his mouth.
So this was not salvation. Good.
"From this moment forward," the voice continued, "all candidates will participate in territorial conquest and survival protocols.""Failure conditions include, but are not limited to: territorial loss, core destruction, and permanent death."
A man somewhere to Elias's left began laughing hysterically, loud and sharp, until it cracked into sobs. Another tried to punch the floating screen in front of him, his fist passing through it uselessly before he screamed in pain anyway, clutching his knuckles as if the system had punished the attempt.
"Each Lord will be assigned a rank.""Ranks reflect initial authority, resource allocation, and growth parameters.""Ranks range from F to SS."
The space erupted again.
"SS?! You mean like—like the top?!"
"I got F—what does F mean?!"
"Please—please—change it—I'll do anything—!"
Elias finally raised his hand and interacted with the pane, not swiping but pressing two fingers against it, firm and deliberate. The interface responded instantly, expanding, lines of text snapping into sharper focus.
Names, faces, data streams flickered across the space at large as ranks were assigned. Gold flared in some places, drawing desperate attention. Gray flickered weakly in others, followed by screams that carried a distinctly different flavor of terror.
Elias watched it all with professional interest.
There was a rhythm to it. A hierarchy being established in real time. The system was not random—it was sorting. Judging. Measuring something beneath the surface, something Earth had never had the decency to acknowledge openly.
His pane pulsed once.
Rank Assigned.
The letters burned brighter than the rest, clean and unmistakable.
Rank: B
A reaction rippled outward as if the space itself had noticed. Nearby panes flashed with envy, confusion, disbelief. Someone stared at Elias openly now, eyes wide, breath hitching, before quickly looking away as if rank were contagious.
Elias exhaled slowly through his nose.
Not the highest. Not the lowest. High enough to matter. Low enough to avoid immediate worship.
Perfect.
"Hero and unit assignment pending.""Territorial allocation in progress."
The voice paused—not for drama, but for processing.
All around him, people continued to break. Some shouted about fairness. Some begged. Some tried to organize, already clinging to the idea that cooperation would save them. Elias watched those people carefully. They would be useful later. Or dangerous. Often both.
The pane in front of him shifted again, its glow deepening as new data prepared to surface.
And somewhere deep within the system's endless machinery, something clicked into place around the name Elias Mercer, locking him into a role the world would never let him leave.
The pane hovering before Elias Mercer deepened in color, its pale glow shifting into something colder, heavier, as if the system itself were narrowing its attention onto him. Around him, the endless hall continued to fracture under human panic—shouting, crying, bargains hurled at an entity that did not listen—but for Elias, all of that noise receded into background static. The system had finished sorting the mass. Now it was dealing with individuals.
"Territorial allocation complete."
The words settled into his mind with mechanical finality.
"Lord Elias Mercer.""Rank: B.""Primary Territory: Ocean Domain."
The term did not come with imagery at first. Just the word—Ocean—vast and undefined. Somewhere nearby, a woman screamed in relief as her pane announced fertile plains. Elsewhere, a man collapsed when his territory was listed as barren wasteland. The system offered no commentary on fairness. It never had.
Elias tilted his head slightly, examining the next line as it assembled itself.
"Hero Assignment: Complete."
The air in front of him darkened.
It was subtle at first, like ink bleeding through paper, but the temperature dropped sharply enough that Elias felt it against his skin. Chains of light formed in midair, thick and angular, locking themselves around an emerging silhouette. The figure was enormous even while restrained, its outline distorted by overlapping sigils and suppression seals that pulsed in slow, hostile rhythms.
The face that emerged from the darkness was not monstrous in the way humans liked to imagine. It was sharp, regal, composed—eyes glowing with a restrained, intelligent fury that did not bother to hide itself.
"Hero: Demon Lord — Status: Sealed.""Restriction Level: Absolute."
Around Elias, people recoiled.
Someone shouted, "That's illegal—there's no way that's allowed!"
Another voice, shaking, whispered, "That thing is a disaster waiting to happen…"
Elias did not step back.
He met the Demon Lord's gaze calmly, studying him the way one predator studies another when neither is certain who has been placed in the cage. For a brief, almost imperceptible moment, the Demon Lord's eyes shifted—focus sharpening, interest awakening—before the chains flared brighter and forced his head forward again.
A thin smile touched Elias's lips.
So the system wasn't pretending anymore.
"Primary Unit Assignment: Siren."
The word resonated differently. The air trembled, not with fear, but with something lower, deeper—like pressure building beneath a calm sea. The space beneath Elias's feet rippled faintly, as though water existed just below the surface, waiting to be acknowledged.
"Unit Classification: Mental Warfare / Environmental Control.""Growth Parameters: Emotional Resonance."
Elias read the line twice.
Then he laughed quietly.
Not loudly. Not enough for anyone else to hear. Just a breath of sound, sharp with recognition. While others had been granted swords, shields, fire, or holy light, he had been given voices. Tools that did not need to kill the body to end a fight. Tools that could linger long after the war was technically over.
Perfect.
"Transfer sequence initiated."
There was no countdown.
The world snapped.
The endless hall shattered into shards of white, each fragment pulling away from Elias as gravity inverted once more. The screaming vanished mid-breath. The Demon Lord's chained silhouette dissolved into symbols that burned themselves into Elias's vision before sinking somewhere deeper, somewhere permanent.
Cold hit first.
Not the sharp cold of wind, but the suffocating chill of damp air heavy with salt. Elias felt his boots strike solid ground again—this time uneven stone slick with moisture. The sound of waves crashed into existence around him, violent and endless, accompanied by the distant cry of something that was not a bird.
Fog pressed in from all sides, thick and low, swallowing the horizon completely. The ocean stretched beyond the cliff's edge before him, black water reflecting no sky, no stars, only its own restless movement. The air tasted metallic, old, like rusted chains and drowned wood.
This was his territory.
A sound rose from below.
Not a scream. Not a call for help.
A song.
It slid through the fog in layered tones, beautiful and wrong at the same time, vibrating through bone rather than ear. The water below the cliff stirred, forming slow, deliberate ripples that moved against the natural rhythm of the tide. From the surface emerged a figure—then another—then more, pale forms breaking through the black sea as if answering an unspoken command.
She was the first to fully rise.
Long hair clung wetly to her shoulders, skin unnaturally smooth, eyes reflecting a faint, unnatural glow as they locked onto Elias. Her expression was unreadable—not submissive, not hostile—but attentive, the way a blade might be attentive in a steady hand.
The Siren opened her mouth.
The song softened, narrowed, focusing entirely on him.
Elias Mercer stood at the edge of his ocean territory, fog curling around his boots, the sound of the Siren's voice wrapping around his thoughts like a careful test of pressure. He did not move away. He did not command her to stop.
Instead, he listened.
And for the first time since the world had been taken from itself, Elias felt something settle neatly into place.