Sarnav's feet pounded against cracked asphalt as he ran, weaving between overturned cars and chunks of debris. Behind him, the creature from the rift was still rampaging, its alien shrieks punctuated by the sounds of destruction and human screaming.
He didn't look back. Looking back was what got people killed in horror movies and cultivation novels alike. The protagonist who turned around to gawk at the monster was the protagonist who got eaten.
Keep moving. Keep fucking moving.
The crowd around him had devolved into pure chaos. People were running in every direction, trampling each other in their panic. Sarnav saw a woman go down, disappearing under a wave of bodies. He saw a man climb over a car, only to slip and crack his head against the hood.
Natural selection in real-time. The strong survived. The slow died.
Sarnav was not going to be slow.
[DISTANCE FROM RIFT CREATURE: 847 METERS]
[CREATURE TRAJECTORY: NORTHWEST]
[HOST TRAJECTORY: SOUTHEAST]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: DECREASING]
The system's calm analysis was almost comforting in its clinical detachment. The monster wasn't chasing him specifically. It was just rampaging, destroying everything in its path, and Sarnav happened to be running in the opposite direction.
Small mercies.
He kept running until the sounds of destruction faded to distant thunder, until his lungs were screaming for mercy and his legs felt like they were made of lead. Only then did he slow, ducking into the shell of what had once been a convenience store to catch his breath.
The front windows were shattered, glass crunching under his feet as he stepped inside. The shelves had toppled like dominoes, spilling snacks and drinks across the floor. Someone had already looted the register.
Sarnav leaned against a wall, gasping for air.
Status.
[STATUS]
NAME: Sarnav Kish
REALM: Awakened (F-Rank)
CULTIVATION PROGRESS: 0 / 10,000 Essence
CONDITION: Exhausted (Minor Debuff: -10% Physical Stats)
STAMINA: 23%
Twenty-three percent. He'd burned through most of his reserves. And he still had at least two kilometers to go.
As he grabbed a water bottle from the floor and drank, his eyes drifted back to the quest notification still hovering in the corner of his vision.
[QUEST: SURVIVE THE FIRST NIGHT]
[BONUS OBJECTIVE: RESCUE FAMILY MEMBERS (0/1 COMPLETED)]
Zero out of one.
Not zero out of two.
One.
Sarnav's stomach dropped.
"System," he said quietly, his voice hoarse. "Why does it say one family member? I have two parents."
[QUERY ACKNOWLEDGED]
[FAMILY STATUS SCAN INITIATED...]
[MOTHER - MYTHILI KISH: ALIVE. LOCATION: KUALA LUMPUR HIGH COURT COMPLEX, BASEMENT LEVEL 2]
[FATHER - VIKRAM KISH: STATUS UNKNOWN. LAST KNOWN LOCATION: PRIVATE RESIDENCE, BANGSAR. SIGNAL LOST AT TIME OF IMPACT.]
[NOTE: "UNKNOWN" STATUS INDICATES INABILITY TO CONFIRM LIFE SIGNS. THIS MAY INDICATE DEATH, UNCONSCIOUSNESS, OR INTERFERENCE.]
Status unknown. Signal lost at impact.
Bangsar. That was on the other side of the city from their family home. Why would his father be in Bangsar in the middle of a workday?
Sarnav knew why.
His father's mistress lived in Bangsar. Everyone knew, even if nobody talked about it. His mother knew. Sarnav knew. The household staff probably knew. It was the family's open secret, festering like an untreated wound for years.
"He was with her," Sarnav said flatly. "When the asteroid hit. He was with his fucking mistress instead of..."
He stopped himself. Took a breath.
It didn't matter. It didn't matter where Vikram had been or who he'd been with. What mattered was that his mother was alive, confirmed alive, and Sarnav knew exactly where she was.
The courthouse. Basement level two.
Two kilometers. Maybe less now.
He could make it.
Shop, he thought, pulling up the system store. He had 100 Harmony Points from the welcome bonus. Enough for supplies.
[HARMONY SHOP]
[CONSUMABLES - F-RANK ACCESS]
- Minor Stamina Pill: 50 HP(Restores 50% Stamina)
- Minor Healing Pill: 100 HP(Heals minor injuries)
- Basic Ration Pack: 25 HP
- Clean Water (1L): 10 HP
Buy one Minor Stamina Pill.
[PURCHASE CONFIRMED]
[HARMONY POINTS: 100 → 50]
The jade-green pill materialized in his hand. Sarnav swallowed it without hesitation.
Warmth flooded through his body. His aching muscles relaxed as energy surged back into his limbs.
[STAMINA: 23% → 73%]
[EXHAUSTION DEBUFF REMOVED]
Better. Much better.
Sarnav grabbed a few more water bottles and energy bars from the wreckage, storing them in his inventory, then stepped back outside.
The journey resumed.
The streets were a nightmare.
Every hundred meters brought fresh horrors. Collapsed buildings. Burning cars. Bodies that nobody had time to move, that nobody would move for days or weeks or maybe ever. The infrastructure of civilization had crumbled in an afternoon, and what remained was chaos.
Sarnav saw people looting. Saw people fighting over scraps. Saw a group of men dragging a screaming woman into an alley.
He kept walking.
Don't stop. Don't get involved. Mom is waiting.
It wasn't heroic. It wasn't noble. Every instinct he'd cultivated from years of reading webnovels screamed at him to intervene, to save the innocent, to be the protagonist.
But protagonists in those stories were strong. They had power, had abilities, had something that let them fight against the darkness.
Sarnav was F-rank. Barely above human baseline. If he stopped to play hero every time he saw someone in trouble, he'd die before he made it three blocks.
And then who would save his mother?
Forgive me, he thought, not looking at the alley as he passed. The woman's screams followed him for another fifty meters before they cut off abruptly.
He didn't want to know what that meant.
[MENTAL STATE: STRESSED]
[NOTE: PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO TRAUMATIC EVENTS MAY AFFECT CULTIVATION EFFICIENCY]
[RECOMMENDATION: FOCUS ON OBJECTIVE. PROCESS EMOTIONS LATER.]
"Thanks for the advice," Sarnav muttered. "Real helpful."
[YOU'RE WELCOME, HOST.]
[SARCASM DETECTED BUT IGNORED.]
Despite everything, Sarnav almost smiled. The system had personality. Snarky, detached, but not entirely unsympathetic. It reminded him of the AI companions in some of his favorite novels.
He kept moving.
The awakened were everywhere now.
Not the majority. Most survivors were still baseline humans, just as confused and terrified as everyone else. But Sarnav spotted them as he walked, his system helpfully identifying each one.
A teenager whose skin had turned bark-brown and rough, like living wood. E-rank, Plant Affinity.
A middle-aged woman levitating small objects around her with visible concentration. F-rank, Minor Telekinesis.
An old man whose eyes glowed faintly gold, staring at things nobody else could see. E-rank, Spirit Sight.
And others. Dozens of others. Some hiding their abilities, some flaunting them, some clearly not even aware of what was happening to their bodies.
The world had changed. In the span of a few hours, humanity had been divided into the awakened and the unawakened, the powerful and the powerless.
Sarnav wondered what that would mean in the days and weeks to come. When the initial chaos settled. When people started organizing, started forming groups, started fighting for resources and territory.
Cultivation world rules, he thought. The strong dominate the weak. Might makes right. The old order is dead.
His father had been part of that old order. Wealthy businessman, well-connected, untouchable in the world that was. None of that mattered now. Money was just paper. Connections were just names. Power was the only currency that counted anymore.
And Vikram Kish, for all his wealth and influence, had been baseline human.
Was, Sarnav corrected himself. Was baseline human.
He still didn't know for certain. The system said "unknown," not "dead." There was still a chance, however slim, that his father had survived.
But Sarnav's gut told him otherwise.
The courthouse came into view forty-five minutes after he'd left his office building.
It was still standing. One wing had partially collapsed and cracks ran up the facade like varicose veins, but the main structure held. The Malaysian flag still flew from the pole out front, tattered and singed but defiant.
There were people gathered outside. Survivors, mostly court employees and people who'd been there when the asteroid hit. Some were injured, being tended to by others. Some were just sitting on the ground, staring at nothing.
And there were bodies. Lined up neatly on the grass, covered with whatever fabric people could find. Jackets. Tablecloths. Someone's batik sarong.
Sarnav's heart clenched.
Mom. Where's Mom?
He pushed through the crowd, ignoring the protests of people he bumped into. His eyes scanned every face, every figure, searching desperately for the one person who mattered.
"Mom! Mythili Kish! Has anyone seen Judge Mythili Kish?"
A woman looked up at him. Court clerk, maybe, based on her clothing. Her face was streaked with dust and dried tears.
"Judge Kish? She was helping coordinate in the basement. Last I saw, she was..."
"Where? Where exactly?"
The clerk pointed toward a service entrance on the side of the building. "Through there. Stairs to basement level two. She was organizing the survivors, making sure everyone..."
Sarnav was already running.
The service entrance was propped open, the door hanging off one hinge. Emergency lighting illuminated the stairwell in that same eerie red glow he'd seen in his own building. He took the stairs three at a time, his enhanced stats making the descent easier than it should have been.
Basement level one. People huddled against walls, some crying, some praying. Not his mother.
Basement level two.
He burst through the door and into a large open space that had probably been some kind of storage area or archive. Now it was packed with survivors. At least a hundred people crammed into a space meant for half that many.
And there, in the center of the room, directing people with the calm authority of someone who'd spent decades commanding courtrooms, was Mythili Kish.
She looked like hell. Her normally immaculate hair was disheveled, her professional suit torn and dusty. There was a cut on her forehead that someone had bandaged with what looked like a strip torn from someone's shirt. But she was alive. Standing. Giving orders.
"Mom!"
Mythili's head snapped toward the sound. Her eyes went wide.
"Sarnav?"
He crossed the distance between them in seconds, pulling her into a hug that was probably too tight, that was definitely unprofessional, that he absolutely did not care about.
"You're alive," he breathed into her hair. "Thank god. Thank god you're alive."
Her arms came around him, holding him just as tightly. He felt her shake, felt the façade of calm she'd been maintaining crack just a little.
"My boy," she whispered. "My brave, stupid boy. You came all the way across the city in this chaos?"
"Had to find you. Had to make sure you were okay."
She pulled back, her hands coming up to cup his face. Her eyes searched his features, cataloging every detail, looking for injuries.
"Are you hurt? What happened to your building? How did you..."
"I'm fine. Building collapsed but I got out. I'm fine, Mom. I'm okay."
[QUEST UPDATED: SURVIVE THE FIRST NIGHT]
[BONUS OBJECTIVE: RESCUE FAMILY MEMBERS (1/1 COMPLETED)]
[PARTIAL REWARD UNLOCKED: +1,000 HARMONY ESSENCE]
[FULL REWARDS AVAILABLE AT DAWN]
One out of one. Not one out of two.
The system had known. Had known from the moment it generated the quest that there was only one family member to save.
Sarnav held his mother tighter.
"Mom," he said quietly, so only she could hear. "Have you heard from Dad?"
The way her body stiffened told him everything he needed to know.
"I've been trying to reach him," she said, her voice carefully controlled. That judge's voice again, the one she used when she was forcing herself to stay professional. "His phone goes straight to voicemail. I called his office, but the building... Sarnav, the whole Bangsar area..."
She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
Bangsar had been closer to the primary impact zone. If the destruction here was bad, there would be nothing left.
"He wasn't at the office," Sarnav said. The words came out flat, emotionless. "He was in Bangsar. I checked."
Mythili's expression flickered. Something complicated passed through her eyes. Grief, yes, but also something else. Something that looked almost like resignation.
"I know," she said softly. "I've always known."
They stood there in silence for a moment, mother and son, surrounded by chaos and death and the end of the world as they knew it. Mourning a man who had betrayed them both in different ways. Mourning the idea of a family that had never really existed.
Then Mythili straightened, her spine stiffening with resolve.
"We need to focus on survival," she said, her voice stronger now. "There are over a hundred people here who need leadership. Clean water is running low. We have injured who need medical attention. And I've heard reports of things. Creatures. Coming through tears in the sky."
"Dimensional rifts," Sarnav said. "I saw one. There's a D-rank predator loose somewhere northwest of here."
Mythili stared at him. "How do you know that? How do you know any of that?"
Sarnav hesitated.
How much should he tell her? The system, the cultivation, the harem mechanics... some of that was definitely not appropriate conversation material for one's mother. At least not yet. Not until he understood it better himself.
"I awakened," he said finally. "When the building collapsed. I got abilities. Information."
"Awakened." Mythili's eyes widened slightly. "You're one of them? One of the people with powers?"
"Yeah. I think I might be able to help. Protect you. Protect everyone here, eventually."
She studied him for a long moment with that sharp judicial gaze that had made hardened criminals squirm on the witness stand. Then she nodded slowly.
"We'll talk about this more later. For now, I need you with me. Whatever abilities you have, we're going to need them."
She turned back to the crowd, raising her voice.
"Everyone! This is my son, Sarnav. He made it across the city to reach us, which means movement is possible if we're careful. For now, we stay here until..."
The building shook.
Not an aftershock. Something else. Something that made the walls groan and the emergency lights flicker.
People screamed. Some tried to run, though there was nowhere to go.
[WARNING: DIMENSIONAL ENERGY SURGE DETECTED]
[PROXIMITY: 200 METERS AND CLOSING]
[RIFT FORMATION IMMINENT]
[THREAT LEVEL: D-RANK MINIMUM]
"No," Sarnav breathed. "No, no, no..."
The ceiling cracked. Light poured through, but it wasn't sunlight, wasn't any natural light. This was purple-black, sickly, wrong. The same color as the rift he'd seen earlier.
A tear in reality was forming directly above them.
And something was coming through.