New Cascadia was a ghost wrapped in steel and fog. The city's skyline jutted into a permanent gray sky like broken teeth, its towers hollowed by decades of rot. On the crumbling 43rd floor of one such tower, Cassian Drayke moved like a shadow, avoiding the flickering eyes of SynapseCorp's patrol drones. His biometric band pulsed dimly on his wrist: Heart Rate 68. Stress: Elevated.
Inside his apartment, the only sounds were the low hum of two battered VR pods and the soft mechanical rasp of air filtration units straining to keep the poison outside at bay. His sister, Mira, lay inside one of the pods, her body pale and still. The display on her pod read: Neural Activity: Irregular. Early-Stage NeuraFade Detected.
Cassian's stomach twisted. She was only nineteen. Already the tremors had started. Soon her memory would blur, her muscles would lock—and then she'd stop waking up entirely. SynapseCorp called it "VR fatigue." He knew better. They'd created the plague by tethering human biology to their neural interface, and now they used it to cull the weak.
He knelt beside her, brushing a strand of hair from her temple. "Hold on a little longer," he whispered. "I'll find a way."
Cassian had once believed in Vitality. At seventeen, he'd built it as a bridge—a game that rewarded players for improving their real-world health, linking biometrics to stats. He wanted to make people stronger. Healthier. Free.
Then SynapseCorp came.
They'd offered investment, infrastructure, and promises. Instead, they framed him for theft, stole the game's code, and erased him. Vitality became a weapon of compliance. Now, anyone with advanced NeuraFade was quietly "disconnected"—killed with a system-administered neural pulse. Cassian barely escaped with Mira. But hiding wouldn't save her.
Only war would.
He stepped into his own pod, the electrodes snapping to his skin. The world went black—and then bled into color.
---
In Vitality – Whispering Woods
The forest shimmered with unreal beauty. Towering trees with emerald leaves rose over soft, glowing moss. Bioluminescent spores drifted in the air like embers. Cassian emerged as The Architect, a towering figure in obsidian armor, his face hidden behind a jagged black mask veined with flickering blue light—the Obsidian Veil.
A relic of his own creation from Vitality's earliest days, the mask granted him three powers:
1. It masked his true stats from all players and SynapseCorp admins.
2. It rendered his actions invisible to tracking systems.
3. It allowed him to see the detailed stats and hidden functions of other players and monsters—a power no longer available in the official build.
Though the world saw only a Level 1 avatar, Cassian's real stats were monstrous: Strength 90. Agility 85. Endurance 88. Years of real-world training kept him far above even elite players, most of whom had never set foot outside their VR pods.
He approached the quest board at the forest's edge. A beginner mission blinked:
Hunt the Crystal Boar – Reward: 500 Gold, +10 Reputation.
He accepted.
---
The boar's tracks led him deeper into the woods, where the light dimmed and the trees thickened. Then he saw it—a creature of glass and muscle, with tusks like daggers of crystal. The mask lit up:
Level 3. Strength 30. Endurance 40. Item: Shardstone Tusks (+20% Attack Power, Crystal Barrage Ability).
The boar charged. Cassian dodged sideways, rolling and slashing across its flank. The blade connected—flesh and glass split—dropping the beast's health by 20%. It roared, launching a flurry of crystal shards in every direction.
He moved like water. No wasted effort. Every dodge precise. Every strike lethal.
When the boar finally fell, its body pixelated into light, leaving behind a glowing chest. But as he stepped forward, voices echoed from the trees.
"That's our kill, rookie."
Five players emerged. Sentinels of Dawn. SynapseCorp-sponsored bullies. The Obsidian Veil flared—revealing their stats and gear. They weren't pushovers. But they didn't know who they were dealing with.
Their leader, IronClad, grinned beneath a gleaming warhammer. "Hand it over, or we'll take it."
Cassian's voice distorted through the mask. "Try."
The fight was brutal. Fast. One moment he was parrying a hammer strike, the next he was hurling a rogue into a tree. His superior agility and training closed the stat gap. One by one, the Sentinels fell. Only IronClad remained, gasping on the ground.
"Who… are you?"
Cassian stepped forward, his mask's blue veins flaring. "The Architect."
He took the chest—and their reputation.
---
From the trees, another watched.
A rogue in dark leathers. Her tag read StarViper. Through the Veil, he read her stats:
Level 5. Agility 60. Strength 40. Item: Shadowcloak (+5% Evasion).
She stepped into view. "Nice moves," she said. "Sentinels are bastards. You looking for a partner?"
Cassian said nothing.
Then: "Maybe."
---
End of Chapter One