Leonidas crashed into reality with the force of a meteor, his senses reeling from the abrupt transition. Breath flooded into his lungs with a gasp as he felt distantly aware of being unceremoniously dumped onto cracked and uneven ground. The familiar coarseness of bitumen lay beneath him. He took a moment to gather himself, disoriented, and with his mind struggling to keep pace with the abrupt shift in existence.

The last remnants of the portal's energy fizzled out behind him, and the only reminder it had ever existed was the familiar tingle of energy on his skin—just like when he’d first transmigrated to Elatra.

Wait? Portal? What? I… didn’t I die in Requiem Ultima?

Leonidas groaned and forced his eyes open, blinking back bleariness and squinting against the harsh, unfamiliar light. The air was thick with the scent of salt and decay sitting heavily in his lungs. It was a stark contrast to the crisp, clean breezes and revitalizing air of Elatra. The sound of waves crashing against the shore filled his ears, accompanied by a distant, haunting chorus of shrill howls and monstrous roars.

That, of course, was his first clue that something was very wrong.

“Well that doesn’t sound good…” he muttered.

Slowly, painfully, Leonidas pushed himself up to a sitting position, surveying the devastation surrounding him.

He was in Miami, he knew immediately, or at least what remained of it… The city was a shadow of its former self.

Its once gleaming skyscrapers had become jagged skeletons of steel and glass—sights he once recognized were little more than macabre offerings to the long-ago rampage of some horrific natural disaster. The first filtering rays of the dawning sun cast through the skeletal remains of what had once been a marvel of human engineering. They were ominous when they came; like bloodied bands of light seeking to expose him.

A monolithic obsidian obelisk, the size of which reminded him with heart-palpating clarity of the Abyssal Spires raised by Azrageth, pierced the skyline toward the heart of the city. Its surfaces crawled with strange, pulsating white and blue runes and sigils that he couldn’t discern—though unlike the Abyssal Spires, the passive aura of the structure didn’t fill him with instinctive dread.

Small miracles, I guess? What the hell is going on?

His eyes moved away from the obelisk to his surroundings.

The streets were cracked and destroyed in multiple places with craters, both large and small, pock-marking the wide roads at random. Abandoned and overturned cars, their frames twisted and charred, lined the streets or lay abandoned and crashed through the glass or into the solid wall of ominously empty buildings.

Everything from mopeds, to mobility scooters, to broken motorcycles or bicycles, and even bloodstains littered the landscape.

“Okay. Seriously. What the fuck is going on?” he demanded of the air.

The moment he did, a screen appeared in front of him as if summoned.

---

“Integration… trial? Okay. Wait. System? So this—oh you’ve got to be shitting me.”

He glanced back at the screen, his eyes widening in disbelief.

“Wait, does that mean I have a character sheet?”

As if summoned, a second screen appeared immediately.

Name: Leonidas Achilles Romulus Paendrag

Age: 25 | Race: Human | Sex: Male

Core Name: N/A | Core Stage: N/A

Class: N/A | Level: 1 | Rank: Novice

Health: 100 | Mana: 66 | Stamina: 58

Affinity: N/A | Archetype: N/A | Discipline: N/A | Ambition: N/A

STR: 13 | AGI: 11 | DEX: 15 | VIT: 10 | END: 16 | INT: 16 | WIL: 18 | CHA: 13

Skills: N/A

Titles: N/A

Traits: N/A

0 / 1,000 XP

 

0 Attribute Points

0 Skill Purchase Points

0 Skill Upgrade Points

0 Skill Evolution points

---

He read over the provided information, taking note of the plethora of “N/A” markers interspersed across his sheet. According to the window that had popped up, he’d been awarded a Class, Title, Trait, Experience, and something called Aetherium—but he couldn’t see any of them reflected on his sheet.

Unless, perhaps, he needed to claim them? That was…

“Okay. Pause. Fuck. Just… okay, let’s just get rid of this for now—” he swiped a hand, and the character screen vanished.

Leonidas took a moment to steady his racing heart, and let a few calming breaths move through his body.

One of the things he noticed most poignantly was that he felt heavy in a way that he hadn’t for years. After his first few months on Elatra, and after cultivating his Core, he’d become as close to a force of nature as any human could be.

Weariness, sluggishness, and weight had become distant memories once receiving the power of the Hero. He’d been able to outpace, outfight, and even out-think knights with decades more experience and power than him—and do so with little more than the initial strength he’d Cultivated after his immediate transmigration to Elatra.

Now that he’d returned to Earth—or whatever version or hellscape it was that had replaced the Earth he’d known—he felt distinctly less than when he’d been the Hero of Elatra. In fact, even being aware of his weight was in and of itself a marker of his degeneration in power. With a flex of his will, and a pang of anxiety, he confirmed that he could neither use Magic, nor access his repertoire of Sword Skills.

He couldn’t even feel his Core or Mana Channels any longer.

Something was very, very wrong.

The System screens had been the first hint, of course, but the fact he’d seemingly retained none of his previous abilities was even more concerning, and left him feeling suddenly far less secure in his ability to survive whatever nightmare he’d been transported into.

Another roar, closer this time, snapped him out of his brooding rumination.

As if to punctuate the true danger of his circumstances, an immense shadow fell over him, and he looked up to see an indefinable mass soar overhead—large enough that it cast a shadow over the entire city block, even from a solid altitude. It was massive enough, in fact, that it made the dragons he remembered from Elatra look small.

“Focus on the now, Leo. Focus on the now.” he muttered to himself.

He then gained the wherewithal to vacate the street—and instead beelined for what looked to be a now-destroyed clothing store a few yards away, vaulting over a ruined Mercedes that had smashed through the double-paned glass of its entrance.

The screen, helpfully, moved with him without any kind of bob or hover-motion, as if it were glued to the exact point in space in front of his eyes.

Useful, he supposed, and in keeping with ‘System Lore’ as he thought of it.

When he entered the ruined building, Leonidas took care not to step on too many pieces of breakable glass, trying to be quiet. He was wearing shoes, thankfully. Looking closer, he realized with a start that they were the same ones he had on when he’d first transmigrated. That detail unnerved him even more, but for now, he focused on picking his way through the shattered glass without incident.

He quickly found his way behind one of the counters, hunkered down, and returned to considering his situation while frowning at the screen.

Leonidas’ eyes moved over the screen in a more assessing manner as he noted its appearance. The design itself was markedly edgy, given the blood-like red combined with the sharp and angular adornments. The implication of it, of course, was even more chilling.

Earth, if indeed this was his Earth, had somehow become the site of something he’d only read about in books: a System Apocalypse. He had thought the entire concept pure fiction, made up by bored writers desperate for a way to control their going-nowhere realities through escapist fantasy.

Hell, his own parents had indulged in the genre for that very reason.

Yet, there was a System screen in front of him.

It was very, very real.

He then remembered that first system message, particularly the part about nominating five people to join him in a starting location.

“Okay, first things first: Who do I want to bring with me to a safe zone?”

While initially an obvious enough answer, the fact was that he had no idea how long the System Apocalypse had been going on—nor the status of the people that immediately came to mind. First steps? Confirming if the people he immediately considered the most important were even alive.

“I want to nominate Reginald Paendrag, Maryanne Paendrag, and—” He sighed before saying the final name, with a mix of once-shared frustration and remembered mutual lamentation. “—Kairi Paendrag. To specify, I’m nominating my parents and my sister.”

The System Screen in front of him remained where it was, and another smaller one appeared overlapping it.

Target: [Reginald Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

Target: [Maryanne Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

Target: [Kairi Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

You will forfeit [2] Player nomination slots.

Confirm Selection?

[Y] | [N]

---

Leonidas read over the new screen silently, and then sighed at the end and immediately tapped the [N] option. The screen vanished immediately, and Leonidas returned to his brooding. Forfeiting two slots for teleportation, he reasoned, was wasteful at best and borderline sadistic at worst. He had no scope of reference for how bad things must have been, and every life he could save was one less person that fell victim to the insanity that had overrun the Earth.

The fact his family was confirmed to be alive let him breathe a sigh of relief, and realize that he was very much in fact on Earth. That was something, at least, though he wasn’t entirely sure it was reassuring as much as it was not a negative.

Family alive? Good. System Apocalypse? Still fucking awful.

“Who else do I nominate…” he muttered while staring at the screen. He thought about Lyara and Caricus, of course, or even Bjorn—but the three of them had their own lives in Elatra, and as much as he already missed them and the fantasy paradise—comparably, at least, given Earth’s makeover—he couldn’t justify bringing them into the hellscape his homeworld had become.

That left only two options, really.

“I want to additionally nominate Artur Paendrag and Gwendolyn Paendrag.”

The smaller screen reappeared, and this time when he read it, he smiled.

Target: [Artur Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

Target: [Gwendolyn Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

Target: [Reginald Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

Target: [Maryanne Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

Target: [Kairi Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

Confirm Selection?

[Y] | [N]

---

His grandparents, parents, and sister were all alive and well, at least as far as he could tell.

His mother’s parents had died before he’d known them, but his father’s had been an integral part of both his life and his sister’s from the day they’d each been born, and it was heartwarming to know that both his pops and g-ma, as he called them, still lived despite the madness clearly affecting the Earth.

The System’s acknowledgement also meant that they could be safely teleported without issue, whenever he decided on where it was he actually wanted to begin his return on Earth. That internalized question, of course, gave him pause. Where would be safe?

There were a few possible places, but anywhere that wasn’t well-defended was likely already overrun, and he’d seen enough of humanity’s worst nature during the war against Azrageth to know that large ‘safe’ civilian centers weren’t necessarily much better than dangerous ones, even for a more ‘enlightened’ reality like modern day Earth.

If the planet had undergone a System Apocalypse, he’d need somewhere defensible and not too crowded. Somewhere he could reliably find a way to both hunt whatever manner of monsters had invaded the planet and Cultivate.

If Elatra had been a tutorial, then it stood to reason he was armed with a veritable bastion of knowledge on increasing his power. And, most critically, exactly what to avoid while doing so.

“Somewhere safe…” he muttered to himself while staring at the [Y] button. He would not press it until he was certain—just in case something like an arbitrary choice timer appeared. He’d read enough novels to be aware of the possibility.

Leonidas closed his eyes to think, massaged his temples in frustration.

“Somewhere safe… somewhere safe… somewhere safe…”

His eyes snapped open. It came to him instantly, and he almost laughed.

Without hesitating further, and with another roar—closer this time—to urge him on, Leonidas tapped the [Y] button.

1. Target: [Reginald Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

2. Target: [Maryanne Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

3. Target: [Kairi Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

4. Target: [Maryanne Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

5. Target: [Kairi Paendrag]

Status: [Alive]

All nominated Players will be given the option of Teleporting to your selected [Starting Location].

Please select your [Starting Location] now.

---

Well, that part was easy.

“I want to define the parameters for a starting location, and then have the System decide for me.”

Another System screen appeared immediately.

Please define your parameters for a suitable [Starting Location].

---

Leonidas opened his mouth to do just that, and another roar shook the area. This time, it was much closer, and he realized that perhaps he hadn’t sought shelter quite fast enough. He risked a glance over the counter, seeing the same shadow which had inspired him to find cover in the first place was now draped over the area, and appeared to be very much sticking to the area.

Another sound, this time a bass rumble that shook the building, followed the roar.

Leonidas suppressed a curse and made himself as small as possible, then all but whispered his answer.

“It needs to be safe from high-level monsters, have access to a fresh and clean water source, be defensible, have long and clear sightlines, have land good for farming, a nearby area to hunt monsters suitable for Players just starting out, and players at the middle of the pack…” he hesitated while thinking if he’d missed anything.

He realized he had.

“...and it needs to have access to a low to medium level dungeon, habitable domiciles, and potential crafting areas. That’s it. Those are the parameters!”

A crash sent another invective racing through his mind, and Leonidas risked another glance over the counter—only to all but slam back down, as silently as possible, the second he tried.

One massive, glowing blue eye had been sweeping the ruined entrance to the store the moment he’d looked, and had been looking away just enough that Leonidas was fairly certain he’d dodged being seen. The scary part, though, was that the eye in question was as big as a family platter dish, and glowed with power. The slitted pupil he’d managed to discern gave him all the extra information he needed.

That being: he needed to get the fuck out of his current location ASAP.

The sounds of the immense creature moving were bad enough, let alone the subtle tremors from that same motion, and Leonidas knew that if he stayed any longer he was likely to end his journey in record time—and not because he beat the game.

As if in answer to his concerns, one more System screen appeared before him.

---

Leonidas read over the prompt, and hurriedly pressed his finger to the affirmative option. The moment he did, a ping released like the world’s most obnoxiously timed cell phone text, and he clapped his hands over his mouth to keep from swearing at the top of his lungs.

The massive whatever-the-hell outside stopped moving at the sound.

System energy enveloped Leonidas in a sudden rush of power.

Moments later he vanished into darkness anew, just as the building exploded.

Only the frustrated roars of the unknown predator followed him into the void.