It began without a sound.
Not thunder. Not wind. Not screaming. Just... stillness. One breath held across an entire world, as if Earth itself paused in anticipation.
In a market square in northern Kenya, a woman mid-bargain looked up at the sky and furrowed her brow. In a Beijing subway, an entire train full of people turned their heads as if someone had just whispered their names. On a street in São Paulo, a man crossing against traffic stopped walking mid-stride, blinking, wondering what he had just forgotten.
All at once, across every city, town, mountain village, and island hut, humanity tilted its collective head.
Then came the light.
A colorless wave, pure and silent, washed over the horizon from all directions at once. It didn't shine or blind—it erased, reducing the sky to white. It swallowed clouds, shadows, buildings, even the sun itself, as if painting over reality.
People screamed, but no sound came out. They reached for loved ones, but their fingers dissolved into the light before they touched.
And then the voice.
Not from the sky. Not from any direction at all. It arrived like thought—deep, perfect, and cold.
"Lifeform: Homo Sapiens.
System reformat complete.
Environment: hostile.
Objective: survival.
Growth path: competitive.
You have been entered into... The Reaping."
The world reappeared.
Only it wasn't the same.
The sky above each continent was unfamiliar—pale green veined with silver light, an aurora that hung unnaturally still. Mountains had shifted. Rivers glowed faintly. And where cities had once sprawled in concrete and steel, there now stood colossal structures of impossible design.
Seven cities—one per continent.
Colossal. Alive. Not made, but grown.
Humanity reemerged not in their homes, but on wide, circular platforms suspended inside these alien cities. Platforms ringed with glowing script, surrounded by great vines and roots or metallic arches, depending on where you stood.
They called them later the Cradle Platforms.
But in the moment, there was only chaos.
A middle-aged teacher in Cairo shouted her students' names, only to realize she stood among strangers. A baker in Quebec clutched a rolling pin and hyperventilated as her hands passed through the invisible walls around the platform. An elderly man in Kolkata dropped to his knees, praying until his voice broke.
People screamed for phones. For governments. For explanations.
None came.
Children wailed. Adults turned to each other—some seeking comfort, others demanding answers. Panic spread not because of what had been taken, but because of what had replaced it. Floating windows hovered in the air before them. Digital, semi-transparent, personalized.
[Name: Registered]
[Species: Human]
[Level: 1]
[Stat Allocation: 0 points]
[Trait: None]
[Skill: None]
[Title: None]
Tens of millions saw the same message. Bland. Indifferent. Like a system onboarding a new user for a product no one asked for.
And when some tried to walk beyond the edge of the platform, they learned the rules the hard way. A young man in Istanbul sprinted for freedom and bounced back as if hitting a glass dome. Another in Moscow tried to punch a stranger in panic—his fist halted mid-air, frozen by unseen force.
No violence. No escape.
No explanation.
Just the System.
In every city, the reactions were different in flavor, but not in tone.
In Breakhold—the Sanctuary of Redveil—anger came fast. Military men shouted for order. Civilians demanded a chain of command. Small fights broke out, though none landed blows. One ex-officer organized ten people to start mapping the area. Another declared himself a "zone leader" and was laughed off the platform.
In Rivergate—Jinshu's Sanctuary—many turned inward. Meditation circles formed. Groups silently studied the interface, already analyzing stats and theorycrafting aloud.
In Serpentis, chaos reigned. People scattered within the platform's bounds, tried climbing the strange flower-like structures, screaming for help or gods or logic. A mother gave birth in silence beneath a glowing vine, and no one knew how to help.
And in Rudraak, people wept.
Not from terror, but reverence.
Because the city didn't feel dead or cold—it felt alive. Rooted. Watching. The great platform pulsed beneath their feet like a heartbeat, and to some, it almost felt... familiar.
Some knelt and prayed. Others sat quietly, waiting for someone to lead.
No one did.
But among the masses, some stood out—not visibly, not in strength or beauty—but in the way they didn't panic.
In every city, a few hundred or thousand individuals read the floating windows and frowned, not in fear, but in thought.
In Redveil, a young woman blinked twice and found her panel showing:
[Trait Acquired: Counterpressure – Your body naturally resists blunt impact.]
She looked around, quietly stepped back from the crowd, and whispered, "Okay. That's something."
In Karra, a child no older than ten found her stat panel read:
[Perception: 9 – Above Average]
She stared at the world and began pointing at things no one else could see. Her mother watched in silence, unsure whether to cry or believe.
In Rivergate, a teenager felt heat in his hands. His panel showed:
[Skill Unlocked: Ember Pulse – Level 1]
He closed his fist. The heat vanished.
None of these people were powerful. Not yet. But they were... different.
Touched by something. Seen by something.
And somewhere deep within the System, a hidden value ticked upward.
They didn't know yet that others had received more. That in each of the seven cities, one person had been marked by a deeper thread in the code. A designation hidden even from them.
Seven people.
Seven cities.
Seven anomalies the system called:
[SINGULARITY: Class Unknown]
But that was not now. Not yet.
For now, humanity had only one truth:
The world had ended. A new one had begun.
And every single person was, for the first time in history, exactly equal.
Level One. Zero Skills. No weapons. No rules.
Only The Reaping.
And what came next was survival.
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Question for you all:👉 If you were in the MC's position right now, what's the first thing you would do?
Comment your thoughts below—I'll be reading and replying to as many as I can!