"Mother God… no…"
A hoarse, desperate roar echoed in the cramped dorm room of Riverdale University.
On a bright summer afternoon, sunlight streamed through the open window, scattering across the floor. A gentle breeze pushed at the blue-and-white curtains, making them sway softly like rippling waves.
On the upper bunk, a young man suddenly jolted awake. His chest heaved as though he had just surfaced from drowning. Sweat dripped from his forehead. Panic flooded his pupils at first, but slowly it shifted—into shock, then into doubt, and finally into disbelief.
Ethan White lay frozen in place, staring at his familiar surroundings. He blinked again and again, almost expecting the vision to break apart into ash. But it held firm. The room was real. The curtains fluttered in the wind. Sunlight warmed his face. His classmates' belongings were strewn about like always.
It felt ordinary. Peaceful. Fragile.
And yet to him, it was the greatest luxury in existence.
Because after the catastrophe began—after skies split and the world burned—peace like this had become nothing more than a faint memory.
In that broken future, Ethan was known as the White Devil Saint, a man whose name struck fear across the wastelands. Evolutionists whispered of his strength with awe. Yet despite his fame, despite the fortress city he had built with blood and iron, he had never stopped longing for this. Just once more, he had wished to live a single day untouched by doomsday.
And now—unbelievably—he was here again.
His last memory had been of ruin.
The wrath of the Dark Mother Goddess had struck without mercy. His White Devil City—his pride, his monument, his hard-earned legacy—was reduced to dust in a heartbeat.
And he, her so-called favored spokesperson, had been crushed like an insect.
Because signing a contract with a god was no different from stepping willingly into a tiger's jaws.
He should have died. He had died.
So why was he alive again? Was everything—cosmic wills, attributes, evolutions, gods, zombies, mutant beasts, dungeons—just a dream?
No.
Ethan rejected the thought at once. His hand went to his chest, trembling. Hanging there, against his skin, was something that had never existed before in his first life.
A tiny hourglass. Barely the size of a fingernail.
It shimmered faintly, the grains of sand flowing in a loop, ignoring gravity's rules.
Ethan's breath caught. "The… Time Hourglass."
He remembered it clearly. He had stumbled across this strange relic in a secret dungeon, deep in a twisted otherworldly ruin. Even then, the will of the universe itself—the so-called "System"—had failed to analyze it.
Its origin? Unknown.
Its function? Unknown.
Its power? Beyond comprehension.
He had kept its existence a secret his entire life, never daring to test it, never daring to reveal it.
And now, here it was—glowing faintly against his chest.
Could it be?
Had this relic dragged his soul back through time?
His thoughts whirled, but the longer he stared, the more convinced he became.
This was no coincidence.
If the hourglass had truly rewound his fate… then everything was about to change.
Because the end had not yet arrived.
He grabbed his phone from the desk. The screen lit up.
June 5th, 2023.
Ten days.
He still had ten days before the nightmare began.
Ten days before June 15th, 2023—the day the world collapsed.
The memory of it burned in his mind. A mysterious cosmic magnetic field engulfed Earth, rendering every weapon humanity relied on useless. Missiles, tanks, satellites, drones—reduced to dead metal.
Then came the arrival of the will of the universe. The System. Overnight, Earth became a trial ground.
Half of humanity convulsed, their bodies twisting into horrific forms. They became zombies—not the shambling caricatures of horror movies, but predators of terrifying strength. They moved fast. They struck hard. Some retained fragments of thought.
Among them, King-class zombies emerged, commanding their hordes and carving territories. Some even declared themselves rulers, establishing "Undead Kingdoms" that rivaled human civilization.
But zombies were only the beginning.
The magnetic field warped nature itself. Plants twisted into carnivorous monsters. Animals grew into towering, bloodthirsty beasts. The oceans boiled with leviathans.
Even the land changed. New mountains rose. Dungeons appeared out of thin air. Secret realms layered themselves over reality.
Earth expanded a hundredfold.
And through it all, the System gave survivors a lifeline. Evolution.
Talents. Professions. Levels. Skills. Equipment. Bloodlines.
The tools to fight, to grow, to survive.
But Ethan knew better than anyone. These gifts weren't the end of it.
The true threat came from beyond.
Otherworldly races hovered above the planet, eager to descend. Beings so powerful they could only be called "gods" reached their claws into the trial ground.
In his last life, Ethan had clawed his way forward. He had charmed, schemed, and bargained. The Dark Mother Goddess—vain, cruel, and obsessed with beauty—had chosen him as her champion. Under her shadow, his power had soared.
But it was borrowed strength.
And in the end, when he lost to another god's chosen, she had crushed him like trash.
Her fury had ended his life instantly.
Ethan's jaw clenched. In his last life, he had made endless compromises to survive. He had betrayed comrades, sacrificed dignity, even submitted as a pawn to an alien god.
For what?
To die like a tool.
Not this time.
Not again.
He curled his fists until his nails broke the skin. Blood welled up, but he didn't notice.
Only true strength mattered.
He thought of the great human evolutionists of the past—those history had called Emperors. Men and women who had climbed to the pinnacle of power. None of them had knelt before gods. None of them had begged for scraps.
They had fought. They had bled. They had risen by their own hands.
And when the final trials ended, they had stood unshaken before descending gods.
Some had even defied them.
Back then, Ethan had admired them. Envied them.
But now, reborn, he swore to stand among them. No—above them.
This time, his fate would be his own.
And if the chance came, he would drag the Dark Mother Goddess herself into despair. He would make her feel what it meant to be broken.
Exhaling slowly, Ethan opened his phone again and scrolled through the local news.
There it was.
Buried in the corner of Riverdale City's paper: a small article about several patients with mysterious illnesses.
Ordinary readers dismissed it. Doctors called it coincidence.
But Ethan's pulse quickened the moment he saw it.
This was the sign.
The first transformations had begun.
He knew the truth. The apocalypse didn't strike at random. The first wave of zombification targeted the weak. People with fragile genes, hidden illnesses, or poor constitutions. They were the first to fall when the cosmic field brushed Earth.
And right now, those unlucky few were already showing symptoms.
The world ignored it. The governments looked away. But Ethan knew.
This was the countdown.
The trial before the storm.
In his last life, he had only realized too late—there was a hidden trial period in the ten days before doomsday erupted.
And a person's actions during that time decided everything.
Those who showed courage, strength, and will awakened better talents. Some even awakened early, stepping into power before anyone else.
A small edge, in that nightmare, meant survival.
And now, Ethan had the chance to seize that edge.
His eyes burned with determination.
"Today," he whispered, "is the first day."
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