Darkness without stars.
A chamber that was not a chamber, suspended in the void between universes. No floor, no ceiling, no walls — only the sensation of standing inside an infinite black ocean where no ripple ever reached a shore. Two presences hovered there, vast and faceless, yet close enough to whisper. Their words were thunder without sound, lightning without light.
> First Voice (female, sharp as glass):
"It's impossible for him to escape the Matrix of the Multiverse. And you would give him the chance to protect it? Are you insane?"
Her tone sliced through the dark like a blade of cold light.
> Second Voice (male, low and endless):
"No. It is his fate."
The male presence did not move, but his words carried the weight of collapsing stars. The void trembled.
> First Voice:
"Fate? What about it?"
> Second Voice:
"The Creator left it blank. A void in the weave. A hint of the future. That is why I want to make him the next—"
The female energy recoiled, her form flaring with cold, blinding light.
> First Voice:
"What? Are you mad? It could be an error."
> Second Voice:
"The Creator does not err. What you call mistakes are lessons for us to earn. The energy on our Earth is already fracturing. Universes are collapsing one by one. We have to act."
> First Voice:
"But that does not mean you can shatter the laws of Death and Time in our universe!"
> Second Voice:
"I have shattered nothing. I found a loophole."
Silence stretched. A ripple of light crossed the void like a heartbeat echoing in nothingness.
> First Voice:
"But—"
> Second Voice:
"No more 'but.' It has already begun."
Her light dimmed, then steadied. She exhaled a sound like wind through galaxies.
> First Voice:
"Very well. If I cannot change your mind, my husband, then I will follow you. I will give that boy an essence of my own energy, as you have done."
> Second Voice (softly):
"Even so, our essences alone may not be enough. I pray the Creator will help us this time…"
> First Voice:
"Then I will pray with you."
The two currents entwined, their combined glow spilling out into the dark, weaving invisible threads toward a distant world.
Far below, on a small blue planet, a boy stirred in his sleep.
---
Rivan woke with a start.
"What happened? Was that just a dream?" His voice cracked in the empty room.
He sat up on the narrow bed, sweat cooling on his skin. The last remnants of the dream still clung to him — a man and a woman made of light, talking about him, talking about fate and a multiverse he could barely imagine. He rubbed his temples, muttering.
"So? Nothing happened! Hah! Sigh…"
The walls of his house were thin. Cold air seeped through the gaps, carrying the scent of trees and wet soil. He pushed himself to his feet and walked to the window. Outside, the sky was clear, full of stars like scattered salt. The dawn wind rolled through the village, brushing his face.
Rivan was sixteen. A boy in a forgotten village of West Bengal, a bit far from Kolkata. The village's name was Madhavpur, though even the locals rarely remembered it unless they had to. A cluster of brick houses, green fields, and a single main road. That was all.
He had no siblings. His father had left when he was a baby. His mother worked long hours in another town. He stayed with an uncle who barely noticed him.
He wanted to be an animator. Not an engineer, not a government clerk — an animator. He had grown up on anime, especially One Piece. The idea of creating something that moved, that breathed, fascinated him. But dreams like that were expensive, and in Madhavpur they were considered foolish.
"Let's not go into the past," he murmured to himself. "Let the past rest."
He slipped out of the house barefoot. Dawn was just waking. Roosters crowed in the distance. The villagers would soon wake up to fetch water, sweep courtyards, and light stoves. But inside Rivan, something churned.
His emotions were a mess. Anger. Tears. A sudden urge to smile. Everything tangled like storm clouds. He didn't know why.
And then, unbidden, one thought surfaced: I wanna die.
He stopped walking. The thought sat there in his mind, heavy and cold. He squeezed his fists.
Above, the sky darkened. Clouds gathered from nowhere, boiling over the horizon. Thunder rolled like distant drums.
A bolt of lightning struck a tree near him. The crack split the air. Sparks flew. A burning leaf, torn from a branch, floated down in front of him. He reached out without thinking.
The leaf turned to ash midair. The wind carried the ashes into his eyes.
He gasped and shut his eyes, but the burning didn't stop. Heat flared in his skull. Electricity crawled down his spine. His whole body went stiff, paralyzed, as if the thunder itself had entered his veins.
He tried to scream, but no sound came out.
He didn't know it, but the clock inside his uncle's house had frozen. Time itself had rewound. He was no longer where he thought he was.
A miracle was about to begin.
---
Rivan woke again.
Rain pattered on his face. Mud squelched under his palms. He was lying on the road, soaked. The tree that had been struck by lightning still smoked, but the air felt different — denser, humming.
"This… isn't a dream anymore," he whispered.
And then he saw it.
A text. Not on his phone. Not in the sky. Floating in the air like glowing letters of fire, invisible to everything except his eyes.
> [WELCOME TO RELAM LEVELING UP SYSTEM]
His mouth fell open. "What?? System?? Does that mean I am dead??"
No answer. Just the rain and his own heartbeat.
"Okay… System, what can you do?" he asked again, half expecting a robotic voice.
Still no answer.
A new window opened instead. A status screen like the ones from the games he'd played at the internet café, glowing faintly blue.
Status
Name: Rivan Lucia
Age: 17
Physic: 3
Mind: 2
Fate: Blank
Luck: Max
Latter: 1
Gift: 1
He blinked. "Rivan… Lucia?" he muttered. "Why Lucia? My name is just Rivan…"
The letters shifted. A second message unfurled beneath the status.
---
Latter:
> Whoever reads this is our successor. We are putting our hope on you because we are sacrificing ourselves to make this artifact.
First of all, I want you to calm down and accept that it is the truth whatever we are going to say after this. Our universe is a part of a huge multiverse. This multiverse is created by the real Creator. How? We don't know.
We are dutors, or deities, that were created to protect and operate this universe. There are many dutors. But now, after the Creator goes into hibernation for unknown reasons to us, some old dutors plan to make a game to play in every universe. This game was accepted by some universe dutors and already they played it. But we do not want to do it in our universe.
So we are sacrificing ourselves to create this artifact that can stand up against those dutors. That's it. Best of luck.
---
Rivan stared at the words. His heartbeat thudded in his ears.
"What is this? This is entirely different… no. Not entirely. Something is matching. The dream I saw — it told me about the multiverse. And it said the Creator is in hibernation because of that universe. But this… this 'dutor' stuff is new. They're dutors or deities?"
He rubbed his temples. "Ha! What am I getting into? And why is everything coming toward me? Is this my fate? Or is it because of my luck?"
The headache sharpened. He shut his eyes, breathing hard.
Another section blinked into view.
---
Gift:
> (???)
(The gift will be revealed only after you enter a new universe.)
---
He laughed weakly. "Now I need to travel to another universe. What am I? A god?"
The window flickered and vanished. The rain softened to a drizzle.
"Let's go to school. All waste of time," he muttered, pushing himself to his feet. His clothes were soaked, but he started walking anyway.
He went to school that day. He sat through classes. He stared out the window while teachers lectured. No one seemed to notice anything strange about him. The day passed like any other.
But he didn't know what would come after a week.