The rain didn't stop for three days.
It was the kind of cold that sank into your bones, that made you wonder if the sun had been a lie all along. The city had gone quiet—too quiet for a Friday night. No drunk laughter. No traffic. Just the sound of water and the occasional flicker of neon signs struggling to stay alive.
Kael Ardent didn't mind the quiet.
He sat on the edge of a half-collapsed rooftop, hoodie drenched, legs swinging over a four-story drop. His phone was dead, of course. Everything electronic had been acting weird since the "merge." First, the news channels went off-air. Then GPS went haywire. People started whispering about dungeons appearing, monsters crawling through broken windows, and random people awakening "Player Status."
Kael? He got nothing.
No pop-up screen. No magic. Just the same broken body and the same empty feeling in his chest. He wasn't jealous. He was pissed.
Because deep down, Kael knew something was wrong.
The moment the world changed, something woke up inside him—but it wasn't a power. It was a silence. Like someone hit the mute button on a scream that had been echoing in his soul for years.
That night, something finally snapped.
A scream tore through the sky—not human. The kind that made dogs bark and babies cry. Kael looked up.
A rift had opened right above him. Right there, in the sky. Glowing purple cracks like veins tore reality apart. And something was falling through.
No. Someone.
The figure crashed into the street below like a meteor, the impact shaking the entire block. Kael didn't think—he jumped.
His legs burned as he landed hard, but he didn't stop. The air was buzzing, the ground split like dry paper. He sprinted toward the crater.
Inside it was a body—mangled, armored, barely alive. Not human. Not demon either. The thing opened its eyes… and looked straight at him.
Kael froze.
"Vortexborn," it whispered. "Protocol Override… Transfer complete."
And then the world blinked.
Like someone hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete on reality.
A screen flashed in front of Kael's face for the first time.
[ERROR CLASS DETECTED]
Welcome, Vortexborn Kael Ardent.
Initializing corrupted system…
Warning: You should not exist.
Kael stared at the screen, cold rain still slamming against his back.
He blinked once. Twice.
Then he grinned.
"Well, finally."