Leon had always preferred Master Mode.
There was something honest about it. No forgiving damage values. No soft mistakes. Enemies hit harder, bosses moved faster, and the world itself seemed to resent your existence. It demanded precision. It demanded planning. It demanded respect.
And Leon had given it all three.
On his screen, the grotesque anatomy of the Moon Lord split apart in a burst of blinding light. The sky above the Lunar event slowly healed, violet fractures sealing themselves as if reality were stitching its own wounds. Stardust drifted downward like ash from a burnt constellation. The music faded. The arena he had constructed—layers of platforms, honey pockets, heart lanterns, campfires, bast statues—hung suspended in calm air.
He exhaled for what felt like the first time in ten minutes.
Summoner only. Master Mode. No swapping classes at the end. No overpowered fallback. And the weapon that had delivered the final blow was laughable to anyone who knew the game: the Finch Staff.
The weakest summon weapon in progression.
A bird.
A small, erratic bird from a Living Wood chest.
And he had just used it to kill a god.
The absurdity of it almost made him laugh. He didn't celebrate loudly. There was no shouting, no dramatic fist pump. Just a quiet satisfaction settling into his bones. Months of planning had gone into this challenge run. Perfecting movement patterns. Studying invulnerability windows. Understanding how whip tag damage stacked with summon AI behavior. He had mapped every attack pattern in Master Mode until they felt like choreography.
His character hovered in the air, wings folded. A tiny finch circled him lazily, pecking at nothing, unaware it had just achieved the impossible.
Then the screen flickered.
Leon frowned.
It wasn't the normal post-boss shimmer. The brightness sharpened instead of dimming. The pixels of the world began to stretch—not distort, not glitch—stretch, as if the image were being pulled forward through the glass.
His mouse didn't respond.
The cursor froze.
The white light intensified until it swallowed the arena, the sky, the interface. For a split second, he saw his own reflection in the monitor—dark hair falling slightly over his forehead, sharp features caught in the cold glow, eyes focused but confused.
Then the light came through.
It did not explode outward.
It folded inward.
The world vanished.
When Leon opened his eyes again, he was no longer sitting.
He was standing.
Grass brushed against his boots.
Wind moved across an open plain with a soft, restless whisper. The air smelled clean—almost too clean. Damp soil. Fresh leaves. Something faintly metallic beneath it all. Above him stretched a sky so vividly blue it looked painted, clouds shaped in rounded, almost stylized puffs drifting lazily overhead.
The colors were wrong.
Not wrong in hue—but wrong in texture. The world around him had dimension and depth, yet there was a strange sharpness to the edges of things. The trees nearby had trunks thick and straight, leaves clustered in layered blocks of green that looked as if they'd been placed deliberately rather than grown.
Leon slowly turned.
To his right, a small pond shimmered. The water reflected the sky like glass, its surface unnaturally still until a fish broke it in a clean arc. To his left, the land sloped gently upward into a forest of tall, evenly spaced trees.
Farther beyond that, he saw something that made his pulse quicken.
A hill shaped exactly like the start of every new world he had ever generated.
He looked down at himself.
He was not wearing his old clothes.
He stood at around six feet tall, lean but clearly athletic, built for endurance rather than brute strength. His body felt balanced, responsive. His skin held a warm tan tone as if he'd spent years under open skies. Dark brown hair fell just past his brow, slightly messy but thick, stirred faintly by the breeze. His jawline was clean and defined, not exaggerated but firm. His eyes—he caught a glimpse of them reflected in the pond—were sharp gray with a faint intensity to them, observant and calculating even when calm.
He didn't look like a caricature of a warrior.
He looked capable.
Practical.
The kind of man who moved with intention rather than flash.
He flexed his fingers. Strength answered. Coordination. No stiffness from a desk-bound life. His breathing was steady. His center of gravity felt lower, more stable.
A presence flickered at the edge of his perception.
Something light brushed against his shoulder.
A small bird landed there.
Leon froze.
It chirped.
He turned his head slowly.
Perched comfortably on his shoulder was a tiny brown finch with bright, alert eyes.
The Finch Staff had not been metaphorical.
It had followed him.
Understanding settled in like a stone dropping into still water.
This was Terraria.
Not a version of it.
Not a hallucination.
The sun's angle felt slightly exaggerated, as if time itself moved in a familiar rhythm. The terrain had that procedural symmetry he knew too well. Even the silence carried the faint expectancy of daytime spawns.
A rustle came from the forest edge.
A blue shape hopped into view.
Slime.
A small, gelatinous creature bounced forward with deceptively simple motion, its body compressing and expanding as it moved. Its eyes fixed onto him with blank hostility.
Leon did not panic.
Master Mode.
The thought came naturally.
He had beaten it.
But here, there would be no respawn screen. No safe reload.
Damage would matter.
He took a slow step back, analyzing distance. The slime lunged.
"Go," he muttered instinctively.
The finch launched from his shoulder in a sharp burst of motion, wings cutting the air with surprising force. It slammed into the slime's surface, pecking and darting away before the creature could retaliate. The slime rebounded off the ground, trying to align its trajectory toward Leon, but the finch harassed it relentlessly.
Leon moved—not running wildly, but stepping diagonally, baiting the slime's arc just as he had thousands of times before. Even without armor, even without buffs, spacing was universal.
The slime leapt.
He sidestepped.
The finch struck again.
After several exchanges, the creature ruptured into harmless blue gel that splattered onto the grass and dissolved.
Leon exhaled slowly.
Damage felt real. He could sense the weight behind the slime's jump. If that had connected fully, it would not have been negligible.
He knelt and touched the grass where the gel had been.
It felt solid. Tangible. Not pixels.
This world had rules.
And he knew them.
His gaze lifted to the horizon again. Somewhere beyond that forest would be a Desert. Beyond that, perhaps a Corruption or Crimson. Underground would lie Life Crystals embedded in stone. Eventually, a Dungeon sealed by an old man's curse. Eventually, Hell.
And eventually, if progression followed correctly, the Wall.
He stood.
"I start like everyone else," he said quietly.
No endgame gear. No celestial power. Just the beginning.
A faint awareness brushed against him—an instinctive understanding of inventory space that wasn't visible but was simply known. He reached behind himself and felt the presence of tools.
Copper shortsword.
Copper pickaxe.
Copper axe.
Starter loadout.
Master Mode meant higher enemy health, increased damage, tougher boss AI. He would need armor quickly. Summoner progression was fragile early. His first goals formed clearly: gather wood, establish shelter before nightfall, secure a safe spawn point, locate surface chests for potential early mobility items.
The finch returned to his shoulder.
It chirped again, softer this time.
Leon allowed himself a faint smile.
"I guess we're doing this again."
The wind shifted slightly, carrying a distant echo.
From somewhere far underground, something growled.
The world was alive.
And it was not designed to be kind.
Leon adjusted his stance and began walking toward the forest. Each step felt grounded. Intentional. The sun overhead moved with familiar pacing, not hurried but not idle.
Master Mode.
Real consequences.
Summoner path.
He did not feel fear.
He felt focus.
Because if this world truly followed the rules he knew, then it also followed progression.
And progression could be mastered.
Behind him, the place where he had first appeared was already indistinguishable from the rest of the field.
There would be no portal back.
Only forward.
Into a world he had conquered once as a player.
Now he would conquer it again—
as prey turned predator,
as summoner,
as Leon.