I couldn't tell how long I'd been walking—minutes, hours, maybe days? The cold messed with your head like that. The storm was over, but it hadn't left peacefully. It felt like the wind had teeth, and each gust was trying to bite through my skin.
My jacket was already half-frozen, my fingers stiff, and my legs were so numb I wasn't sure if I was walking or just leaning forward and hoping for the best.
This was supposed to be a "tournament," right?
Why the hell did it feel like I was already dying?
There were no rules. No instructions. No idea of where I was or who else had entered. I didn't even know what kind of monsters might be crawling around this frozen wasteland. The most terrifying part?
No one did.
Earth didn't have mana. We didn't have magic academies or ancient bloodlines. We had nukes and Netflix. None of that mattered here.
I was just a sixteen-year-old kid from Florida, freezing my ass off in the middle of a battlefield the 400x the size of a damn planet.
And then—I heard it.
Thoom.
It was soft at first. Like thunder rolling underground.
Thoom. Thoom.
Closer now. Louder.
I turned. I shouldn't have. Every instinct in my body told me to run, but there was nowhere to go.
Out of the icy mist emerged something that shouldn't exist. Something that made my brain hesitate just trying to process it.
It was like a man… if a man had been sculpted out of glaciers and nightmares.
He stood at least three stories tall, his body jagged and sharp, formed entirely of thick, ancient ice that shimmered with a pale blue glow. Cracks ran along his limbs like veins, each one pulsing with light.
And those eyes. Two burning orbs of deep frozen energy, locked on me.
"Identified: Weak participant. Purging," he said. Not with words from his mouth, but directly into my mind. Cold and final.
I had no idea what he was. He could've been a robot, a mutant, a god. But I later learned—he was something called a Primordial Titan. A race from a world where ice covered continents and strength determined who got to live until the next sunrise.
He didn't see me as a person. I was just an insect in his way.
I turned to run.
Too late.
His fist came down like a falling building. I dove, rolled, scrambled like a wild animal. The ice shattered behind me, exploding into a geyser of frozen shards.
"No," I gasped, stumbling. "I can't die. Not now. Not like this—"
Another swing. This time it clipped me. I was tossed like a rag doll, skidding through snow and smashing into a frost-covered boulder. My side screamed in pain. Warm blood painted the white snow beneath me.
I couldn't move. Couldn't think.
Was this it?
All the chaos, all the madness—and I didn't even make it past the first damn day?
No.
Something deep inside me refused.
It wasn't courage. It wasn't pride.
It was survival.
I wanted to live. I wanted to breathe another second. See another moment. I wanted a chance to become something more.
And the world responded.
A pulse exploded in my chest, like a second heartbeat awakening. My vision blurred. My skin burned—not with cold, but with power.
The Titan raised his arm for a final blow—
—and I moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
I dodged his strike by inches and slammed my fist into his arm. I don't know how or why it worked—but the point where I hit cracked. Not just the ice. His armor. His body.
He stumbled back, surprised. That made two of us.
I could feel it—my body shifting. Cells reorganizing. Bones reinforcing. I wasn't just healing. I was becoming something else.
Something more.
My wounds closed. My muscles tightened. I didn't sprout wings or breathe fire. But my balance, my strength, my instincts—they all sharpened. Like I'd just evolved to survive this moment.
Endless Evolution.
That was the buff I'd chosen.
And now I understood it.
I didn't get stronger just because I wanted to win.
I got stronger because I refused to die.
The Titan came again, slower this time, cautious.
But I wasn't the same.
I slid beneath his swing, kicked off the snow, and drove a spike of broken ice into the glowing cracks of his chest. He roared, staggered back, and for the first time—I saw fear in those burning eyes.
It took everything I had. Every last drop of strength, speed, and instinct my evolving body gave me. But when I finally drove that shard into the core of his chest—
—he fell.
Cracks rippled across his entire body before it exploded into thousands of ice crystals, glittering and evaporating into the wind.
Silence returned.
I stood there, panting, trembling.
I was alive.
I looked at my hands. They weren't normal anymore—not entirely. But they were still mine.
Before I could think, a voice called out from behind a nearby frozen ridge.
"Hey! You okay?"
I turned quickly, wary.
Two figures approached—a guy and a girl, both older than me by a few years. The guy had a spear made of glowing bone. The girl held a curved blade wrapped in white flame.
They weren't smiling.
Just cautious.
Just like me.
"That thing was a Titan. You took it down?" the guy asked, eyeing me up and down.
"Guess I did," I said, still catching my breath.
"What's your name?" the girl asked.
I didn't answer right away.
Because even I didn't know who I was becoming anymore, I didn't know how I would keep evoling.
"...Zavier," I finally said. "Zavier King."
And just like that—my journey truly began.