The city wasn't built. It was grown—a vast, vertical forest fused with stone and bone, pulsing with amber light from root to canopy.
Towers formed from bark and mineral spiraled into the sky, arched together with vines that glowed faintly with Reaplight. Wide, branching roads wove upward and inward like living arteries, and the sky above was a canvas of green mist laced with silver.
The city breathed. Rudra could feel it. Every step he took echoed on living wood. The scent was earthen, wet, electric—like the moment just before a monsoon hit the ground. Profiteers drifted through the lower terraces—humanoid, elegant, vaguely alien—garbed in living robes or bark-plate, their expressions distant but not hostile. They did not speak unless spoken to, and even then, their answers were short, always wrapped in riddles or refusals.
Around them pulsed the first structures:
the Quest Hall, shaped like a lotus in bloom, each petal a chamber;
the Forge Grove, where roots formed weapon molds above low fire-pits;
the Reapwell, a place of healing where coiled ferns hummed low and meditative.
No signs pointed the way. No welcome was given. But the purpose was unmistakable.
This was a city of survival.
Nothing here was free. Not food. Not weapons. Not shelter. Everything required Reaplight. Everything required effort. This was not a place to live—it was a place to grow, or rot.
Rudra stopped at the edge of a stair formed from coiling roots and looked back once. The Cradle Platform behind him was almost empty now, its once-sacred glow already fading. The sky above Rudraak trembled faintly, a flicker like distant heat mirage bending light into spirals.
He exhaled slowly, his posture unchanged, his mind now quiet.
The rules were clear. The test had begun.
And Rudra Vira—farmer, soldier, and now Sovereign Seed—took his first step into the city that would either crown him… or consume him.
The Reaping did not end with the system's broadcast. That was only the overture.
Across all seven Sanctuary Cities—scattered across the newly reshaped continents—something else was unfolding. Not for the masses. Not for the millions struggling to understand their stats and strange surroundings.
But for a select few.
Roughly one in every ten thousand humans—those who had received even a flicker more than the average person—felt it. A shift. A murmur beneath the system's interface, like some unseen thread tugging at the edges of their awareness.
And for the seven Singularities, it was more than a murmur. It was a summons.
They came alone, or they came in silence. Pulled not by force, but by a subtle compulsion—half instinct, half alignment. Somewhere deep in their core, a beacon had awakened.
In each of their cities, a structure responded: a sealed obelisk, black as obsidian and humming with threads of Reaplight. One by one, the seven approached. None had to be told. None spoke of it later.
As they touched the stone, their minds were flooded.
Not with visions, not with images—but with understanding.
The Reaping wasn't the game.
It was the training ground.
A prelude. A cocoon.
Humanity had been given a single generation's grace—an enforced protective phase. The cities would shield them. The system would allow growth. Death would only come beyond the borders.
But that phase would not last.
In five years—or perhaps sooner—the walls would drop.
And the world wouldn't be the only thing watching.
They learned of the Worldscore—a hidden metric tracking each continent's strength, coordination, and survival rate.
They learned of the Threshold Events—escalating trials that would strike at milestones of growth.
They learned that Reaplight wasn't merely a currency. It was attention. Proof-of-struggle. A power source that fed something else.
Each of the seven saw slightly different pieces, colored by their path, their city, their latent power. But the core was the same: this was not just a transformation. It was an auction.
The Profiteers weren't the creators. They were merchants. Middlemen. And someone far beyond this world wanted to know: could humanity survive if given the tools?
The answer would come not with time.
But with blood.
And there was more.
Within the depths of the obelisks' transmission, the Monarchs learned of a rare privilege bound to a heavy cost.
They—unlike the rest—were not tethered to their home sanctuaries. Through the city's dormant teleporters, now silently active only for them, they could travel freely across any zone within their own continent.
No terrain or dungeon was barred. Distance no longer restrained them within their homeland. The system offered them unlimited, free traversal across the continent's scattered waygates.
But this freedom came with its weight: in each thirty-day cycle, they could not remain within the safe zone of a city for more than three days total.
Should they linger, the system would revoke their rights, strip their access, and lock their advancement. There was no workaround. No bargaining.
The choice was simple—hunt or fall behind. It was the system's way of shaping them into what they were intended to become: weapons honed not in comfort, but in chaos.
For the million or so enhanced humans, the knowledge came more slowly—in fragments.
Their panels updated. New headers appeared: "Cycle One Objectives," "Local Dungeons Surveyed," "Combat Growth Forecasts."
Some began receiving directed quests, nudging them toward roles—Tank, Scout, Controller, Harvester. Not fixed classes, but strategic affinities shaped by how they fought, moved, and survived.
A few gained access to faction menus, where choices of city allegiance, guild formation, and territory control were previewed.
And one or two—quiet, hidden—saw the faint outline of something darker:
[Apex Initiation Pending…]
They were not Monarchs.
But they would still rise.
The seven Singularities left their cities at different times.
Some walked through portals that weren't open to others.
Some vanished from crowded halls with no sign they'd ever been there.
Some simply stepped into the wilderness—unguarded, alone, and smiling.
None of them spoke to the world before they left.
And the world, in its ignorance, did not know that their departure marked the true beginning of the Reaping.
Not the game.
Not the survival.
But the contest.
And Rudra Vira—unaware of the others but quietly burning—had just begun his own path.
The crown wasn't forged yet.
But the ashes had begun to gather.
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First glimpse of the system! 🖥️What's the first stat you'd max out if you were the MC? Strength? Speed? Luck? Comment your choice!