"You're a version of me that struggled, throughout your life just to never get anything that you actually want. Hahaha fuck… It seems that fate hates us wherever we go."
That voice felt like it came from inside my skull rather than my ears. Not accusing, not mocking, just tired. Like someone who had already lost the fight but still found it funny in a bitter way.
Memories… of a version of me that lived through an apocalypse. He stayed in the Philippines. He lived to protect my family back home, standing between them and a world that had already ended once. I could feel the weight of his exhaustion as if it were my own. The nights without sleep, the hunger, the fear of hearing monsters scrape against concrete walls. I could even remember the smell of blood and seawater mixed together.
Hahaha… it's just a dream. It has to be. I mean… it's not like magic or anything like that exists in this reality. I'm being delusional again. That's what I always told myself whenever these dreams came back stronger than before. Vivid enough that they refused to fade even after I woke up.
"Am I wishing for a better life again?"
I've asked myself that question more times than I can count. Ever since I was a teenager, really. Ever since life decided to pile responsibility onto my shoulders and never bothered taking it back.
I send money home for my siblings. Our mother left us for another man after my father died, and just like that I was promoted to something I never asked to be. Guardian. Provider. Replacement. I didn't hate her. I didn't forgive her either. I just didn't have the luxury to think about it.
I work as a chef here in Saudi Arabia. The pay is far better than in my home country, but life goes on. Long hours, burnt hands, aching feet, and a smile I learned to wear because customers liked it. I'm twenty five now. My younger sister should graduate from college in a few months, so I can finally get my own savings… right?
At least that's what I thought.
Ever since I started having dreams of different lives, of parallel selves of mine, that simple future started to feel fragile. In those dreams, the sky turned red. Not metaphorically. Literally red, like it was bleeding. Monsters crawled out of rifts in the air and the ocean alike. Cities burned. Governments collapsed. Humanity learned very quickly that prayers did not stop claws.
And then the dreams stopped feeling like dreams.
The sky has turned red.
Monsters have begun invading our world.
Soon it will be every man for themselves.
I didn't wait to find out how bad it would get overseas. I used what little savings I did have on a ticket back to my home country. My siblings needed someone. At least one adult in the apartment who would not run.
About two days after I arrived back home, the invasion fully began en masse.
Sirens screamed across the city. Phones stopped working. The sea near the coast boiled as something massive surfaced and then disappeared again. People cried. People looted. People died. And in the middle of all that chaos, something else happened.
The system descended.
It wasn't a voice from the sky or a god stepping down from the clouds. It was a screen. Cold. Blue. Impartial. Appearing before every human as if it had always been waiting for the right moment.
With it came the advent of unique abilities. Gifts, the system called them. Power distributed without mercy or fairness. Luck wrapped in glowing letters.
My family was no stranger to this blessing or curse.
My younger brother received an A-Class Gift: Adaptive Frame (Passive). His body gradually adapts to certain kinds of damage, be it blunt force, magical, or piercing. I watched him survive things that should have shattered bones. Each hit made him tougher, harder to kill.
My younger sister received something simpler but no less valuable. C-Class Gift: Tether Cord (Active). A glowing, flexible line that could extend from her palm. She could use it like a grappling hook, swing across gaps, or pull objects and people toward her. In a collapsing city, mobility meant survival.
A passive requires no effort and is on at all times, while an active skill requires conscious activation. The system was kind enough to explain that much.
My skill was different.
Mine had a little bit of both.
S-Class Gift: Ocean King's Successor.
It came with a description so long that my head hurt trying to read all of it at once. Something about inheritance, authority, tides, and dominion. I won't bore you with the full details for now. What matters is that it promised what I needed, Power.
The system didn't just give us abilities. It gave us structure.
[Status]
Title(s): N/A
Combat Rating: Intermediate-Iron Grade
Name: Arnold Santos
Profession(s): None
Gift: Ocean King's Successor (S-Class)
Mana: 12,000/12,000
Ki: 1,300/1,300
Learned Skills: Basic Mana Regeneration (Passive), Basic Ki Circulation (Passive)
This was what my status screen looked like at the start. Clean. Simple. Deceptively calm, considering the world was ending outside our window.
Combat Rating, according to the system, determines overall strength. It goes from Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, all the way up to Diamond. Each rank is further divided by prefixes. Basic-Iron, Intermediate-Iron, Peak-Iron. The difference between each prefix is not small. It is the difference between surviving a monster and becoming its meal.
The system itself provided this information freely, as if it wanted us to understand the ladder we were about to climb. Apparently, lifespan increases with higher rank. Beings in the Silver-grade live for at least three hundred years. I didn't know whether that was a blessing or a warning.
Professions are unlocked on the seventh day, so I don't have one yet. Mana and Ki form the foundation of everything. Mana fuels spells and abilities. Ki strengthens the body and martial techniques. Weapons dropped by monsters can channel both, turning steel into something far more dangerous.
Monsters drop more than just materials. Skill books exist. Knowledge condensed into glowing tomes that can rewrite how a person fights, moves, or survives.
This much is all I can explain for now.
If you want to understand what came next, then read on. Because this is only the calm before the tide rises, and I have to start from the moment the system truly opened up for me.