And just like that, the system pulsed one final time before beginning to fade.
> "Manual control transferred."
A low tremor shook the white room.
The ground didn't crack—but the air did.
Splinters of light webbed across the atmosphere like someone had taken a hammer to glass. Each fracture hissed with static. The once-silent void now trembled with energy far beyond anything Ethan had felt before.
"W-Wait—what?!" Ethan's voice cracked. He spun around, his grip tightening on the still-warm handle of his cleaver. "You're just gonna throw me out like that?! That's it?! No countdown or warm-up?!"
The floating panels flickered—failing to respond.
He took a step forward as the room shimmered violently, edges fraying like the corners of a burning photo.
"Hey! I've still got questions!" he barked. "What happens now?! Where am I landing?! Am I being born again? Like—through a family or just poof, dropped somewhere?"
The cracks deepened.
Light spilled in through them like water forcing its way through glass.
Ethan flinched.
He could feel it now—gravity tilting, space warping.
"And my friends! Dianna, Sid—are they here too?! Are they okay?!"
> "Shutting down support interface…"
"No! Don't you dare shut down! Just give me—!"
The entire room convulsed.
Time folded inward.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of shattering light.
Then—
> "Your friends…"
"…are waiting on the other side."
"Good luck."
And the room collapsed.
---
A blinding white overtook everything.
When the light dimmed, Ethan was no longer standing in a room. He was kneeling—in soil.
Real dirt.
The scent hit him first. Damp earth, moss, rotting wood, and something ancient. Vines coiled around crumbled towers. Massive tree roots split through stone pillars like the bones of a forgotten god.
The sky was barely visible through the thick canopy above, dappled with green-gold light. He stood at the heart of a city lost to time—not in ruins, but reclaimed. Every wall was choked by nature. Every street overrun by root and bloom.
The wind carried strange bird cries, and somewhere in the distance, something enormous let out a low, rumbling growl.
Ethan stood slowly, heart pounding.
"…Well, damn," he whispered.
World No.34 had arrived.
And just like that his new life began.
----
Ethan stood knee-deep in moss, breath caught in his throat.
The world around him was alive—not just thriving, but overflowing. Vines the width of tree trunks wrapped around skeletal towers. Flowers as big as his head pulsed with bioluminescent glow. Above, birds he didn't recognize soared between canopies hundreds of feet high, their cries a strange harmony of melody and menace.
Everything breathed here.
The ruins of what was once a city—skyscrapers swallowed whole by roots and decay—felt ancient, sacred, untouched. Every step echoed through broken stone and tangled flora. He turned in slow circles, jaw slack.
"Holy hell…" he whispered. "This place is—"
A low rumble cut through the air.
It wasn't thunder.
Ethan froze. The growl was deep and guttural, like the earth had growled from its stomach. And yet, it flowed seamlessly into the ambiance—blended with the wind, the bird calls, and the distant waterfall crash. If he wasn't listening, he might've missed it entirely.
He stepped cautiously beneath an arched root, pushing aside dangling moss.
Then he saw them.
Not one—but many. Beasts. Watching from the shadows.
One had the body of a panther—but where fur should be, twisted bark and red muscle were stitched together in uneven patches. Another walked on six spindly legs like a skeletal dog, its eyes milky and blinking in slow, disconnected rhythm. One winged creature perched on a broken traffic light, resembling a featherless owl with gaping teeth instead of a beak.
They looked at Ethan.
They acknowledged him.
And then—they turned and left.
No aggression. No interest.
He exhaled slowly, tension bleeding from his shoulders. "Guess I'm not on the menu…"
Then he saw it.
A shadow moved at the corner of his eye. He turned—and froze.
Looming partially behind the curved wall of a collapsed building, its entire frame nearly blending with the overgrowth, was a creature at least 40 feet tall.
Its body was unnaturally stretched, gaunt yet massive—like something that had grown too fast, too wrongly. Thick cables of flesh hung from its limbs, swaying gently. Its face—or what passed for a face—was a stretched veil of skin stitched crudely over jagged protrusions, with dozens of eyes pushing against the surface like trapped marbles.
It hadn't moved.
But it was staring directly at him.
Ethan's gut turned to ice.
The creature's head tilted.
And then—without a sound—it began to run.
Fast.
Too fast.
"OH SH—GO GO GO!" Ethan turned on his heel and sprinted.
His boots crashed over mossy stone and broken tile. Vines whipped his arms, bark tore at his legs. He slipped through tight ruins, squeezed through bent beams, and ducked under fallen scaffolding. The monster chased in dead silence, its limbs crashing down like pistons with no warning. It didn't howl. It didn't roar.
It just pursued.
Like death itself.
Ethan didn't dare look back—until he had to.
He vaulted over a stone ledge, whipped his head around—and it was still there, its hulking mass twisting through collapsed alleyways, eyes still locked on him from behind that skin-thin veil.
Then he turned a final corner.
And stopped.
Something leapt from above with a terrible screech.
Not at him—but at the beast behind.
Ethan threw himself to the ground as a second creature—larger, bulkier, hungrier—pounced.
It was hideous. Its flesh was made of layers, like stacked muscle torn open. Dozens of mismatched jaws lined its sides like shark gills, each one gnashing independently. Its front limbs were grotesquely muscular, ending in claws that looked more like rusted scythes melted into bone.
It tackled the veiled giant, and for the first time, Ethan heard the original beast scream—a high, distorted wail like tearing metal through water.
The two monsters clashed violently, ripping into each other with animalistic fury.
Ethan backed away slowly, his legs trembling.
His cleaver-axe hybrid weapon felt small. His courage, smaller.
He slumped behind the base of a cracked statue, heart hammering in his chest.
His breath came in shallow gasps. "What the hell is this world…"
Beauty. Horror. Wonder. Death.
And he had barely taken ten steps.