Seeing the golden bar, Leon smiled for the first time without a trace of irony. He knew exactly what it meant, the highest possible talent, SS-rank. Something so rare in the entire history of the Path of Immortality that most people dismissed it as myth, or exaggeration passed around as a story.
Very few beings had ever reached that level.
Every single one of them carved themselves into the future in ways no one could ignore, empires rising around them, wars decided by a single choice, worlds thrown off their course simply because someone like that had appeared within them.
Leon's smile lingered, faint but real, fully aware he was joining that circle now, not by accident, not by luck, but because he knew precisely what he was doing.
He looked up at the timer.
16.
15.
14.
Fourteen seconds left.
And then something in him twitched.
Wait…
The thought came suddenly, sharp and unpleasant, like a splinter driven under the skin, followed by an image.
Not the battlefield…
…but every moment someone had tried to force him onto his knees. A chain. A promise of power in exchange for obedience.
13.
12.
11.
10.
9.
Leon lifted his head, and pure hatred surfaced in his eyes.
"I will never join any god…" he said slowly. "And I won't become anyone's apostle."
In that same instant, the golden bar moved.
It didn't flow.
It didn't accelerate.
It exploded, surging forward at the speed of light until the gold vanished completely, replaced by a clean, almost unnatural white.
Leon went rigid.
He stared at the white bar in disbelief. In his entire previous life, he'd never even heard of anyone reaching anything beyond gold, something everyone treated as the absolute limit, an unbreakable ceiling.
He didn't have time to understand.
The timer jumped.
2.
1.
0.
A notification appeared before his eyes.
[Sacrifice ritual complete.]
[You will now be teleported…]
"Wait…what does the white bar mea…" he started, but didn't finish.
The scene blurred again. The white shattered into formless smears, and a heartbeat later his vision went completely dark.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he heard was voices.
"What the hell was that?"
"Ha, I don't understand what those sacrifices mean… where did I get teleported this time?"
"I'm dreaming, right?"
"What the fuck is going on?!"
Leon stood in a vast, dark void.
There were no walls, no ceiling, no ground, only blackness stretching in every direction. Around him stood countless other people, scattered, staring at each other with disbelief, fear, and panic, exactly the kind he'd seen before.
There were exactly ten thousand of them.
Leon swept his gaze across their faces, wide eyes, trembling hands, jittery movements. People who had no idea what was happening or where they were.
And then he felt that familiar pressure in his chest.
The same as before.
Because he had been here once already.
And he remembered exactly what came next.
Leon's hands clenched slowly until his nails bit into his skin. The tension in his forearms was the only proof he still controlled his own body as he murmured, almost soundlessly, that he had returned to the past, before this truly began, before the first real step, before the selection, before death, and that if he wasted this chance, there wouldn't be any "next time."
"I can't screw this up," he muttered, more a vow than a thought.
In that same instant, the darkness around them ignited with a bright white light, so intense some people instinctively shielded their faces. From its center, a single figure emerged.
Its shape was impossible to describe.
Not because it was too complex, but because it refused to settle, face and body blurring, as if reality itself rejected giving it form, as if every glance slid off it without finding anything to hold onto.
And yet the moment it appeared, everyone understood.
This being was something extraordinary.
"Congratulations on completing the first sacrifice ritual," it said, and its voice didn't come from any one direction. It spread through the void, calm, almost polite. "This is one of the more important moments of your life, so I hope you used it we…"
The voice paused for a fraction of a second.
The figure turned toward Leon.
"…used it well."
A heartbeat later it added, and a faint smile, barely there, touched its tone.
"Some of you used it a little too well, didn't you?"
There were no visible eyes, but Leon knew.
With absolute certainty, he knew someone was staring at him.
The gaze settled on him, heavy, crushing, like it was trying to look deeper than skin and bone. Leon felt his blood thicken in his veins, his body recognizing danger faster than his mind could.
Seconds passed.
Long ones.
Uncomfortable ones.
Leon instinctively shifted to the side.
The gaze followed without delay.
Only then did the figure turn away, as if it had seen enough, and address the gathered crowd again.
"Upon arrival at your first location, you will all receive a 'Talent' to assist you in this new world."
"Perhaps, in time, you will learn the truth. But until then…fight to survive."
Fuuush!
The figure vanished.
The darkness trembled, and space collapsed inward, as if squeezed by an invisible hand.
Teleportation came without warning, no transition, no suspended moment. The world simply cut out again, and when Leon opened his eyes, he was somewhere else.
A system window appeared immediately.
[Congratulations, you have arrived at Novice Village No. 14.]
The letters hung in the air against a new landscape, and a second line appeared beneath it.
[Each novice village has 10,000 residents, and there are 100,000,000 villages available.]
Leon slowly raised his gaze.
The village was simple, primitive, even. Rough wooden buildings with plain shapes, no ornamentation, no defensive walls, scattered around an open square where the ground had been packed hard by thousands of feet. Beyond it stretched open land, giving way to forest and low hills.
The air smelled of fresh wood, damp earth, and something wild and unnamed.
One by one, more figures began to materialize.
Humans appeared first, young, old, women and men, wearing whatever they'd had on at the moment of teleportation: tracksuits, jackets, shirts, work clothes. They looked around nervously, backing away on instinct when someone appeared too close.
But they weren't alone.
A tall, slender figure with red skin and thin horns rising from its forehead appeared beside them, a demon, with vertical pupils and a tail that moved slowly, betraying tension.
A few steps away, a short, broad dwarf materialized, wide-shouldered, hands like blocks of stone, beard braided thick. He immediately scanned the area as if searching for a forge, or a weapon.
Between them appeared two elves, tall, unnaturally calm, pale-skinned with sharp features and visibly elongated ears, watching the village with open curiosity.
There were other silhouettes too, harder to name, beings with limbs too long, skin shaded gray and blue, eyes without whites. They stood motionless, as if listening for something the rest couldn't hear.
When the last person appeared on the square, the air vibrated.
Ding!
A new system window lit up before everyone's eyes.
[Novice Evaluation Task Activated: Reach level 10 within one month or die.]
Beneath it, another line appeared, cold and emotionless.
["Divine Ascension" is an extremely fair game, granting the player infinite possibilities to exploit.]
[Good luck.]
Leon read the words slowly.
A game.
His fists clenched even tighter until the muscles in his forearms strained to the edge of pain, because he knew perfectly well that the nightmare awaiting them all, hunger, death, killing for experience points, the breaking of people and entire races, was just a game. A simple, cruel amusement for gods sitting outside this world, watching to see who would be entertaining enough to survive.
That familiar, burning hatred rose in him again, cold and thick, the same hatred that had followed him through his entire previous life.
And then another system window appeared.
[Now is the time to develop your talent.]
Seeing the new system message, Leon took a deep, slow breath, as if trying to calm a body that reacted faster than thought. Then he focused straight ahead as another window formed in the air.
[Your talent depends on the sacrifice ritual.]
Without delay, the next line appeared.
[Analyzing sacrifice ritual…]
Time seemed to slow.
Leon didn't blink as the message lingered, no progress bar, no hint of how long it would take. The silence around him grew heavier, because unlike other stages, the system didn't draw things out without a reason.
Then the text changed.
[Analysis complete.]
Leon held his breath.
The panel flared with bright light, sharp, distinct, cutting through the surroundings, and in its center appeared a line that, for a fraction of a second, felt unreal, like it didn't belong to any category he knew.
[Congratulations, you have awakened the ultra unique SSS-Level Talent]
[100% Drop Rate]