Lucas Kane died eating a peanut butter sandwich.
Not in battle, not saving anyone—just choking to death in his dorm because his idiot roommate thought peanut allergies were "probably exaggerated." The last thing he heard was that his voice cursing his roommate.
Then total darkness.
___
The golden light burned behind his eyelids.
Lucas gasped awake, hands flying to his throat—but there was no swelling, no pain. Just crisp and refreshing air filling his lungs and the scent of wild grass. He sat up fast, heart hammering against his ribs. His fingers dug into damp earth, the soil cool and real beneath his nails.
A vast field stretched around him under a sky so blue it looked painted. The grass swayed in gentle waves, dotted with strange flowers that pulsed faintly, their petals shifting colors like a mood ring. In the distance, a monstrous castle in a kingdom speared the horizon, its black stone walls streaked with pulsing crimson veins that throbbed in time with Lucas's quickening pulse.
"What the actual hell...?"
A flicker in his vision. Lucas flinched as glowing text materialized before him, the letters shimmering like heat haze:
[Player: Lucas Kane]
[Level: 1]
[Class: F (Locked)]
[Skills: Pinky Torch]
[Health: 100/100]
He swiped at it. The screen wobbled like disturbed water but didn't disappear. When he tried to stand, his legs nearly buckled—his body felt different, lighter but somehow weaker, like he'd been sick for weeks.
"Okay," he muttered, running hands through his hair. They came away clean—no grease, no product. Even his calluses were gone. "Either I'm dead, dreaming, or my roommate drugged me." A sharp pinch to his arm confirmed this wasn't a dream. "This has to be like all those litRPG comics."
That left dead—or something worse.
Experimentally, he held out his palm. "Pinky torch?"
A pathetic red spark sputtered to life above his little finger, its light barely strong enough to cast shadows. It lasted ten seconds before fizzling out with a sound like a deflating balloon.
Lucas stared. "Wow. It's literally weaker than a matchstick." His voice sounded strange too—clearer, younger.
A rustle in the grass to his left.
He turned just as a rabbit the size of a bulldog burst from the undergrowth. Its fur was an unnatural shade of blue, eyes gleaming with unsettling intelligence as it lunged at him with claws extended.
"Shit—!" Lucas rolled aside, but the creature's claws grazed his neck. Pain flared sharp and bright, blood welling in three parallel lines. The coppery scent filled his nose, too real to deny. He kicked out blindly, his heel connecting with its ribs. The rabbit squealed but didn't retreat, its nostrils flaring as it circled him.
"Pinky torch!"
The tiny flame hit the rabbit's twitching nose.
It sneezed.
Then lunged again, this time aiming for his throat.
Lucas braced for impact—
"Fascinating. A spawn with no class... and less survival instinct."
A shadow fell over them. The rabbit froze mid-leap, ears flattening against its skull, before bolting into the grass with a terrified squeak.
Lucas looked up, scrambling backward.
A man loomed over him, draped in tattered robes that shimmered unnaturally, the fabric seeming to shift between solid and liquid. His face was hidden beneath a deep hood, but violet light seeped from the shadows where his eyes should be. At his belt hung a small orb—no, not an orb. An artifact, its glass-like surface swirling with what looked like liquid code, numbers and symbols flashing beneath its surface too fast to read.
"You're wearing starter armor," the stranger mused, reaching out to tap Lucas's bronze chestplate with one long finger. The metal rang strangely under his touch. "Useless for you... valuable for me." His lips curled beneath the hood, revealing teeth that were slightly too sharp. "Trade it for an upgrade?"
Lucas glanced down, only now noticing the armor encasing his torso. Since when was he wearing this? The plating gleamed with unnatural polish, etched with symbols that made his head throb if he stared too long. They seemed to squirm beneath the metal's surface.
The stranger's artifact pulsed in time with the castle's distant glow, its light deepening to an ominous red.
Everything about this screamed trap. But the memory of those claws sinking into his neck—the very real pain outweighed caution. His eyes darted to where the rabbit had disappeared. How long until something bigger found him?
"...Fine," Lucas said, hating how his voice cracked. "But if this kills me, I'm haunting you first," he added knowing his threats were as empty as it could be.
The man's grin widened, stretching further than humanly possible. He lifted an artifact, its surface now boiling violently. "Oh, it won't kill you." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Probably."
He snapped his fingers as the armor disappeared off Lucas. Before Lucas could react, the stranger pressed the artifact to his left arm—
White-hot agony erupted through his ribs. Lucas's scream tore from his throat as the artifact melted into his skin, fusing with his sternum in a burst of golden light that seared his vision white. His back arched off the ground as notifications flooded his mind, the words burning themselves into his retinas:
[LEVEL UP! 1 → 10 → 100 → 1000→]
[WARNING: OVERFLOW DETECTED]
[CLASS EVOLUTION: ERROR]
[LEVEL: 999999999…]
[CODE 404: UNDEFINED ENTITY]
The stranger recoiled, his hood falling back to reveal a face that was... wrong. His features shifted like a corrupted image, one moment human, the next something with too many eyes. "Oh. Oh no." He stumbled back, hands raised in a warding gesture. "That wasn't supposed to—"
The ground trembled violently, cracks splitting the earth in jagged lines. Lucas's chest burned, the artifact now embedded in his sternum, its surface swirling with chaotic energy. In the distance, the castle's crimson lights flared like warning beacons, their pulse frantic now.
A horn bellowed across the fields—deep, resonant, and dripping with hostility. It wasn't just sound; Lucas felt it in his bones, in the artifact now fused to him.
The stranger's form flickered like a dying hologram. "You need to run. They'll have felt that." His voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"Who's 'they'—?" Lucas gasped, clutching his searing chest.
But the man was already dissolving, his body unraveling into strands of violet light that vanished into the wind. His final words echoed strangely: "The ones who maintain... the System..."
Alone, Lucas staggered to his feet. His Pinky torch flickered to life above his finger—except now, it wasn't red.
It was violet.
And it wasn't a candle-type torch.
A five-foot pillar of flame erupted from his hand, heatless but blinding in its intensity. The grass around him blackened and withered in an instant, the fire spreading in a perfect circle before winking out just as suddenly.
Somewhere in the distance, the horn sounded again. Closer this time. Then another joined it. And another.
Lucas swallowed hard, his mouth dry as dust. The artifact in his chest pulsed in time with his racing heart.
Lucas didn't hesitate. He ran.
The golden grass whipped against his legs as he sprinted toward the distant kingdom, each breath coming in ragged gasps that burned his throat. The artifact embedded in his chest pulsed with every pounding heartbeat, sending waves of unnatural warmth through his body that alternated between comforting and terrifying.
A storm was gathering behind him - not just any storm, but a swirling mass of darkness that devoured the landscape as it advanced. The once-vibrant field was being consumed by an inky blackness that roiled like living smoke, tendrils lashing out to snatch at anything in its path.
To his utter disbelief, the giant blue rabbit from earlier was running alongside him, its powerful hind legs propelling it forward in great bounds. Its nose twitched frantically as it shot Lucas what could only be described as a panicked look—seeking for some kind of assistance.
"You again?" Lucas gasped between breaths. "Now you want to be friends?"
The rabbit's ears flattened against its back as another horn blast shook the air, this time much closer. The sound was wrong - deeper than any horn had a right to be, vibrating in Lucas's bones and setting his teeth on edge.
When he risked a glance over his shoulder, his blood turned to ice.
The pursuing darkness wasn't just following - it was herding them. Tendrils of shadow flowed like rivers around the edges of the field, cutting off potential escape routes and funneling them toward the castle. The grass where the darkness passed withered instantly, turning to gray ash that rose in ominous plumes.
A particularly thick tendril lashed out, missing Lucas's heel by inches. Where it struck the ground, the earth itself seemed to rot, collapsing into a sinkhole of swirling blackness.
He wasn't even aware that he was running faster than the rabbit. "Move!" Lucas shouted, though he wasn't sure why he was warning the rabbit. Instinct, maybe.
The kingdom gates loomed ahead, their massive iron frames etched with the same strange symbols as his armor. As they drew closer, Lucas noticed with dawning horror that the crimson veins in the castle walls weren't just decorative - they were pulsing faster now, as if excited by their approach.
The rabbit suddenly veered right, its powerful legs carrying it toward a smaller postern gate barely visible in the castle's foundation. Lucas hesitated for only a second before following - the main gates suddenly seemed less like sanctuary and more like a gaping maw.
They were twenty feet from the smaller gate when the ground before them erupted.
A knight clad in obsidian armor rose from the earth, its faceless helm turning slowly to regard them. In its gauntleted hands, it held a sword that seemed to drink in the light around it, the blade's edges wavering like a heat mirage.
[ERROR DETECTED] scrolled above the knight in dripping crimson letters.
The rabbit didn't slow down. With an earsplitting shriek that sounded nothing like any rabbit Lucas had ever heard, it launched itself at the knight's visor, claws extended.
What happened next blurred in Lucas's adrenaline-fueled perception:
The knight's sword arcing down...
The rabbit twisting midair to avoid the strike...
A spray of dark liquid as its claws found purchase in the armor's joints...
Lucas didn't stay to watch. He dove for the postern gate, his hands scrambling at the rusted iron handle. To his shock, it gave way with a groan of protesting metal, revealing a dark passage beyond.
Another horn blast, so loud it made his vision swim. The rabbit disengaged from the knight and came streaking toward him, its blue fur now matted with something dark and glistening.
Lucas didn't think. He grabbed the rabbit by its scruff as he tumbled through the gate, feeling surprisingly strong muscles bunch beneath his fingers. The moment they cleared the threshold, the gate slammed shut behind them with a finality that echoed through the stone corridor.
Darkness. Silence. Then...
The artifact in Lucas's chest flared to life, casting a sickly golden yellow glow that illuminated the narrow passage. The walls were lined with... bones. Not neatly stacked, but fused into the stone itself as if the castle had grown around them.
The rabbit shook itself free of Lucas's grip and sat back on its haunches, pink eyes gleaming in the eerie light. As Lucas watched, it raised one paw and began meticulously cleaning the dark substance from its claws.
"You're not really a rabbit, are you?" Lucas whispered.
In response, the creature's mouth twisted into something too sharp, too knowing to be animal. Then it turned and began hopping down the corridor, pausing only once to look back at him.
The message was clear: Follow or stay. Your choice.
Somewhere deep in the corridor, something answered the artifact's glow with a pulse of its own. The walls trembled. Dust rained from the ceiling.
Lucas took a deep breath and followed the not-rabbit into the darkness, his boots kicking up centuries of dust that glittered like crushed code in the artifact's eerie glow.
Where am I? Why me? He scratched his already messy hair, cursing his roommate's name—
Then froze.
A voice crackled through his skull, sharp as broken glass:
Lucas gasped as the words burned across his vision in fractured, glitching text:
[PRIMARY USER: [VOIDMARK] ]
[ARTIFACT INTEGRATION: 87% COMPLETE]
[UNAUTHORIZED ESCAPE ATTEMPT]
[WARNING: SYSTEM PURGE IMMINENT]
The text stuttered, then reformed:
"DO YOU REMEMBER THE SHATTERING? DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU HID BEYOND THE SEAL?"
The artifact erupted with light, this time brighter. For one searing moment, Lucas saw:
- A faceless figure chained in darkness, its limbs fused with glowing code.
- The same symbols on his armor etched into its prison walls.
- And someone whose face he couldn't see clearly, watching the faceless figure.
Then... BOOM!
The ceiling exploded. Knights in crimson-trimmed armor dropped through the hole, their visors reflecting no faces—just the same scrolling [ERROR DETECTED] text.
The not-rabbit moved faster than physics allowed, slamming into Lucas's legs just as a knight's blade would have taken his head. As they crashed into the bone-lined walls, the rabbit's form flickered—
—and for half a heartbeat, Lucas saw a girl with rabbit-ear tattoos and eyes full of stars.
Then darkness took him.