Noah's lungs were screaming, his breath ragged and tearing at his throat, sucking in dust and the faint metallic scent of corrupted mana. He sprinted through the skeletal remains of the office floor, the shattered glass of monitors and windows crunching audibly under his sneakers. He glanced back and his eyes widened in sheer, mounting horror. There were easily ten of them now, maybe more, their black chitinous legs a unified, terrifying blur of motion, driving them forward.
"Ten!" he gasped, the sound echoing mockingly in the high-ceilinged space. "Why me? Why is my entire existence a video game difficulty spike that only activates when I'm unarmed and out of shape?!" The panic was rapidly escalating, but his mind remained strangely sharp. Then the primal fear shifted to focused action: "Oh, shit, George! How can I get to him when there's a whole angry, highly organized ant colony chasing me!"
He shouted an absurd apology into the crumbling infrastructure, hoping for a metaphysical reprieve. "I'm sorry if I kicked your kind's hive when I was a kid! I probably poured kerosene and lit it after, and for that, I am truly, deeply sorry! I promise never to mock an arthropod again!"
He skidded around a final corner and spotted a rusting, industrial service elevator—an oasis in the insect storm. He slammed the button for the top floor, but his heart seized and hammered against his ribs: a second wave of fifteen more ants surged around the corner toward him from another corridor. His hand hit the '9' button—the floor of George's forge—with the instinctual, lightning speed of a man facing imminent death. It was a reflex faster than Max Verstappen on a hot lap—a talent wasted on dodging rent payments and giant bugs.
The elevator door was agonizingly slow, nearly closed when the first, largest ant lunged, its massive head and clicking mandibles trying to squeeze through the closing gap. In a desperate, split-second flash of genius, Noah slammed his thumb on the bo staff's retraction button. The mana-steel staff instantly and violently shortened. The resistance of the far end, which was already wedged against the opposite wall of the elevator car, combined with the physics of the powerful retraction, created a kinetic spike. The metal tip acted like a piston, piercing and crushing the ant's dense head right as the reinforced doors slammed shut with a heavy CLANG.
A thick jet of foul-smelling green ant blood and viscous ichor splattered everywhere, covering Noah in the sickening fluid. He leaned against the wall, shaking, as he heard the muffled, furious thump-thump-thump and the screeching of the disappointed ant bodies outside, unable to reach their prey as the elevator ascended rapidly to the top floor.
The Crystal and the Sting
Arriving at the top floor, Noah cautiously peeked his head out from the elevator. The floor was eerily clear, silent save for the distant sounds of battle far below. He rushed out, adrenaline masking the fatigue, but his relief immediately evaporated. The heavy steel doors to George's specialized forge, which had been barely held by the low-rank Players, were now opened and warped, clearly ripped from their hydraulic hinges and slightly bent inward like aluminum foil. He feared he was too late—that George's crew hadn't made it.
He sprinted inside the cavernous workshop. The forge was empty, but it had clearly been in desperate use. Highly-polished, high-grade Artifact swords, axes, daggers, and light armor were clattered to the ground—abandoned mid-polish as the workers fled. The metallic forge itself was still intensely lit, casting harsh, orange light on the empty room. George must have been forced to flee moments before the heavy-duty breach.
Then Noah noticed the true source of the ants' violent frenzy. Hovering menacingly above a central workbench was a fist-sized, obsidian-colored, dark purple crystal. It pulsed with a disturbing, cold, black aura that actively leeched the heat and light from the air, contaminating the atmosphere. Near the crystal lay three figures—Player emblems visible on their singed clothes—all either unconscious or already dead, their faces contorted in agony, victims of the ambient, concentrated mana corruption radiating from the object. This was no ordinary loot; it was a cosmic cancer.
"Is this the crystal that one Player mentioned? The one that felt wrong? The source of all this ant activity?" he muttered, the hair on his arms raising from the palpable evil radiating from the thing.
He heard the rising, unified clatter of many ants coming up the staircase below—the entire horde he had foolishly lured was about to arrive. "This must be why the ants are kind of antsy, huh? A beacon, a corruption magnet," he gasped, realizing the true danger.
He raised his bo staff, the final, non-Player action of his life. He intended to destroy the crystal and eliminate the signal attracting the horde. He swung with all his remaining strength, aiming to smash the object of cosmic pollution into dust.
The crystal shattered instantly under the force, releasing a final, blinding, violet wave of dark energy that crackled across the forge.
Before Noah could even register the relief of his small, final victory, something impossibly sharp, thick, and brutally fast pierced his back.
"ARRRGHHH!" The sound was ripped from his core.
His eyes blinked twice, struggling to focus as he looked down. A massive, obsidian-colored, chitinous stinger—like a spear forged of nightmares—had punched straight through his body, emerging from his stomach in a grotesque spike. Blood erupted from his mouth, immediately splattering onto the still-glowing forge floor. He choked, looking behind him through blurring, panicked vision, and saw the perpetrator: a monstrous, segmented ant-like face, crowned with the wicked tail of a scorpion, which had just violently breached the thick metal wall of the forge to target its goal.
The beast, a clear B-Rank Elite, dragged his impaled body back toward its face, screeching in furious pain and rage as its prized crystal source vanished. Noah, realizing his brother and the others must have used the brief chaos to escape, smiled—a final, defiant, macabre grin, blood smeared across his teeth. He managed to lift both his bloodied, trembling hands and pulled a magnificent, defiant double middle finger toward the colossal, multi-faceted eyes of the creature.
"Go to hell, you oversized cockroach," he gurgled, the insult dissolving into a wet cough.
The monster, enraged by the insult, violently smashed him against the side of the searing forge wall. A sickening crunch of bone and metal followed, and a torrent of blood flowed from his stomach, soaking his tattered shirt. His vision started getting heavy, the vibrant orange light of the forge turning to thick, dark spots blooming at the edges of his sight.
Then, the thick metal wall beside him seared through, melting instantly into a cascading river of slag. The impossible heat was the only warning. The monster's giant head, which was about to consume Noah, was instantly hit by a focused beam of crimson Pyromancy. The B-Rank creature offered no resistance; its segmented face instantly vaporized, turning its head into a smoking column of grey ash that rained down around Noah.
You're late, you bastard, Noah thought, his final, faint thought of complaint—and grudging admiration—for his sister.
Through the shimmering heat distortion and smoke, a frantic, fire-enshrouded figure appeared: Mina, her skin glowing with barely contained power. Her face was a horrible sight—a mess of tears and smoke, twisted by sheer terror and fury as she took in his impaled, dying body. Her aura alone was enough to make the air crackle.
"George… is safe," Noah managed to whisper, ensuring his last communication before the darkness took him was a report, not a plea.
Mina screamed, a raw, inhuman sound. Tears mingled instantly with the furious heat radiating off her skin, turning to steam. "You idiot! You absolute idiot! I told you to stay away! This is a B-Rank! Why didn't you listen to me?!" She was simultaneously trying to incinerate the rest of the ant, stabilize the melted walls, and figure out how to transport her fatally wounded, Unawakened brother without killing him herself with her own heat.
Noah's vision finally succumbed to the beautiful, welcoming darkness.
Noah did not land in heaven. He didn't even land in a nice, peaceful coma.
He was, in fact, floating in the absolute void—the blackness of space, only devoid of even the comforting light of distant stars. The pressure was non-existent, the silence crushing. It felt like he was closing his eyes but wide awake, trapped in the oppressive, eternal dark of a realm designed to test the limits of sanity.
"Hello? Is this the end-of-service chat support? Because I have a complaint about my recent mortal injury," he shouted, his voice echoing once before dying instantly in the infinite, empty expanse. "This is supposed to be the time where a light appears in front of me, some angelic being judges my character, and I get ushered into heaven! Where am I?! Am I in hell? Because this is just depressing, not fiery." He muttered, the cold, isolating despair of the void starting to sink its teeth into his consciousness.
Then, he heard something close. A faint, wet, sickening sound, like the writhing of flesh—a thousand muscles shifting and grinding against each other in the silent dark.
His heart, or whatever cosmic equivalent he possessed, seized. He started to panic, the existential dread finally hitting home. "Uhhh… is someone there? I'm really not up for a terrifying cosmic encounter right now. Whatever you are, can you gulp me in one go, and not chew it? I'd prefer a quick, painless exit."
He looked around wildly. The sound was circling him, growing louder, closer, and yet there was nothing visible. The darkness itself felt alive and malevolent.
He turned back, and then his eyes widened in true, cosmic horror. A dark abomination—a swirling nexus of muscle, dozens of unblinking eyes, and pulsating, slimy tentacles—materialized from the abyss, rushing towards him and filling his entire field of vision. This was the primordial source of the corruption, demanding his very existence.
"AHHHHHHHHH!!" he screamed, throwing his hands over his face, waiting for oblivion.
The darkness, the abomination, and the crushing silence instantly vanished, yanked away like a tablecloth.
He instantly shifted from the terror of the void to a blindingly bright, painfully sterile room, shouting and sitting bolt upright in a hospital bed. He was hyperventilating, drenched in cold sweat, his body already fighting the massive trauma. The nurse attending to his IV line, a tired woman named Betty, shrieked in surprise, dropping her clipboard with a clatter.
Noah, still shaking, gasped for air, glancing down. He was heavily bandaged across his torso, alive, and in a clean gown.
Then, his terror evaporated, replaced by a grin so wide it hurt his healing cheeks. A shimmering, sapphire-blue, game-like interface—the kind he'd only seen his family use—suddenly flickered and appeared right in front of him, hovering above his hospital sheets. It was crisp, clean, and utterly beautiful, a System response to his brush with death.
[ Congratulations! You have Awakened! Player: Noah Chambers! ]
Noah's smile was manic, his relief overwhelming the pain and the sheer cosmic terror he'd just faced. He threw his fist toward the ceiling in utter victory.
"YEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!! HELL YEAHHHH!! Suck it, cosmic horror! I'm finally in the club!"
The nurse, Betty, stared at him, bewildered by the mix of medical emergency and triumphant screaming, before slowly backing out of the room. "I probably should call the mental hospital and security," she muttered to herself, clutching her chest.