The glow of Kael Ardent's monitor was the only source of light in the cramped apartment, casting everything in the muted blue of half-finished spreadsheets.
The clock on the wall ticked with the kind of stubborn slowness only an unpaid hour could muster. He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the column of figures that stubbornly refused to balance, his cursor blinking like it knew something he didn't.
It was after midnight. Again.
The spreadsheet belonged to a company that had let him go six months ago. Yet, here he was — doing side contract work for one of their subsidiaries. He told himself it was for the money. Truth was, Kael hated leaving puzzles unsolved, even when those puzzles were made of someone else's data and none of his business.
He sipped lukewarm coffee from a chipped mug, eyes scanning the rows.
Something's off. The monthly variance is too clean.He leaned forward, running the pattern-recognition part of his brain like an overclocked processor. Then he saw it — a recursive entry looping back every thirty-seven days. Clever. Whoever had done this wanted it invisible.
He highlighted the anomaly and tagged the file with a note:
"Your system's bleeding credits. Look at the vendor contracts from cycle 184."
He sat back, stretching his spine until his shoulders popped. Another job well done. Another paycheck that would barely cover rent.
It was in the silence that followed — the quiet after the data stream had ended — that Kael felt it again. That gnawing emptiness. As though he was meant to be solving something much bigger than fraudulent accounts and forgotten invoices.
He pushed the thought away, as always.
A ping echoed from the monitor. Not his email client, not a work notification — a sound he'd never heard before. Sharp, resonant, with an almost metallic timbre.
Then the screen went black.
He frowned. Power outage? No, the lamp was still on.
The blackness deepened until the monitor seemed less like a turned-off screen and more like a window into something… elsewhere. A deep, starless void where distance and scale meant nothing.
Words began to form in pale gold script, like molten metal cooling in the air:
[Cosmic Employment System – Directive Transfer]Previous Occupation: Data Analyst (Mortal)Performance Grade: Pattern Detection: ExceptionalEligibility Trigger:Fulfilled Predictive Convergence Ratio ≥ 0.999%Transfer Approved.
New Occupation:King of the UniverseInitial Authority Level: 0.00% (Locked)Orientation Commencement: Immediate.
Kael read it twice. Three times.
Then he laughed. A hollow, sleep-deprived chuckle.
"Sure," he muttered. "I'm king of the universe now. Great. Do I get dental?"
The monitor didn't react to his sarcasm. The golden text remained, patient as stone.
A fourth line appeared.
Acknowledgment Required.Do you accept your transfer?[Yes] [No]
He hovered his mouse over the "No" out of pure stubbornness. Whatever this was — malware, a prank, his own brain misfiring — it was wasting his time.
But his hand wouldn't click.
Not because he was convinced. Not because he believed in any of this. But because deep down, some restless, foolish part of him whispered:
What if it's real?
The cursor slid to "Yes."
Click.
The room exploded in light.
Not blinding white, but a vast spectrum — colors that shouldn't exist, shapes that were both geometric and alive. He was falling without moving, spinning without turning. His apartment peeled away, not like something destroyed, but like a stage backdrop being carefully removed.
And there, in the infinite expanse, a structure rose.
The Tower.
It was impossible in every direction — a column of shimmering facets that pierced through not just sky but the very fabric of existence. Each "floor" was a world unto itself: oceans of molten glass, cities suspended in perpetual storms, forests growing upside-down under black suns. The Tower's sides were carved with glyphs the size of continents, shifting like waves.
At its base stood a figure.
She was tall, dressed in silver and black robes that shimmered as if woven from midnight itself. Her hair was the color of moonlight caught in water, and her eyes were endless — literally endless, each iris a spiral of galaxies.
"Kael Ardent," she said, her voice carrying the weight of a thousand echoes. "You have been selected."
Kael opened his mouth to speak, but the words tangled and died.
"You are the one the Crown chose," she continued. "By your hand, worlds will rise or burn. By your will, the laws of reality will bend. You will hold dominion over the Infinite Realms."
Kael swallowed. "You've… got the wrong guy. I do spreadsheets."
"A king's first lie to himself," she said with the faintest curve of a smile. "You see patterns others ignore. That is the foundation of rulership."
He shook his head. "This isn't possible."
"Possibility is irrelevant. Authority is not." She gestured toward the Tower. "The Babel awaits. Each floor you clear unlocks another fragment of the Crown's power. Refuse, and the universe will fall to those unfit to bear it."
The words hung in the cosmic air.
Kael wanted to protest, to walk away, to pretend this was a hallucination from too much caffeine and too little sleep. But the Tower… it called to him. Not with sound, but with that same pull he felt when facing a problem he had to solve.
And against all sense, he stepped forward.
The ground shifted, the void gave way, and the first door of the Tower opened.
That night — if such a word still applied — Kael Ardent left behind a world of spreadsheets and unpaid bills.
And somewhere in the unfathomable depths of the Infinite Realms, the universe itself took a sharp, curious breath.