Pain came first.
A dull throb at the back of Elias Cain's skull pulsed with each beat of his heart, like someone had slammed his head against a wall. He groaned, rolling onto his side, gravel and cold stone scraping against his cheek.
Then came the silence.
Not the comforting kind—but the wrong kind. No city sounds. No distant hum of cars. No wind, birds, or even the buzz of electricity. Just stillness. Oppressive and unnatural.
His eyes blinked open.
The ceiling above him was made of dark stone, carved with circular runes that glowed faint blue. It shimmered like veins of ice trapped under glass. Elias sat up, his breath fogging in the cold air, and took in the room.
He wasn't alone.
All around him, bodies lay sprawled—men and women, teenagers and adults—some groaning, some unconscious. Roughly a hundred people just in this chamber alone, lying on the floor like discarded dolls. Dressed in simple clothes: black tunics, utility belts, thick boots. Uniform, sterile, unfamiliar.
His heartbeat sped up. He staggered to his feet.
Where am I?
Before he could form an answer, the runes overhead pulsed. A mechanical chime rang out from the walls.
Then a voice—calm, genderless, and impossibly loud.
"Welcome, Chosen Ones. You are now in Realm 1000."
Gasps echoed. Whispers. A few people screamed.
"You have been selected for the Trial of Continuance. Your memory has been locked. Your bodies have been calibrated. You each possess an ability chosen at random by the Realm."
"You are one of 1,000 participants."
"Survive."
The light flared—and then the world shifted.
The stone beneath Elias vanished, and gravity turned traitor. He fell—not down, but through—like reality had decided to delete the floor. A hundred others screamed as they plummeted into glowing darkness.
The fall lasted only seconds.
Then he landed with a thud—soft grass beneath him, thick and wet with dew. Elias gasped, coughing as he rolled over. Above, a grey sky hung low, mist crawling through a dense forest that surrounded a wide meadow. All around him, people groaned and scrambled to their feet.
And then, a second voice spoke—this time, inside his head.
[System Core Active]
User: Elias Cain
Ability: Insight I – Observe basic combat data, health status, and emotional state of nearby targets.
Status: Newborn
Begin.
A translucent blue screen blinked in front of his eyes, floating in the air, and vanished a moment later.
Elias stumbled back, nearly tripping.
"What the hell is going on...?" he muttered.
"Hey! You okay?" a voice asked nearby.
He turned to see a girl, maybe a year older than him, offering a hand. Blonde hair tied back, sharp blue eyes, already alert. She looked like she belonged in a boot camp, not lost in the woods.
He hesitated, then took her hand.
"I'm Kaela," she said quickly. "I think we're supposed to stick together."
"Elias," he replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "Did you get a... screen thing?"
"Yeah. Something about 'Bladestorm.' No clue what it does."
She glanced around. Others were waking, some shouting, some panicking.
"What the hell is this place?" Elias whispered.
Kaela looked grim. "Some kind of game, maybe. But not the kind we get to quit."
Before Elias could respond, the trees stirred.
The air changed. The light dimmed.
And then the screaming started.
Across the meadow, black shapes emerged from the treeline—twisted figures, gaunt and twitching. Some shuffled with stiff movements, others sprinted low to the ground, mouths gaping open in silent hunger. Dozens of them.
Zombies.
But not like in the movies.
These ones moved with purpose. Their eyes burned red. Their skin looked wrong—like burlap stretched over sharp bones. One leapt fifteen feet and tackled a boy near the edge of the group, tearing into him with unnatural strength.
"RUN!" someone shouted.
Chaos erupted.
People scattered in all directions—some fighting with bare hands, others discovering strange flashes of power: a girl who made vines erupt from the earth, a boy whose fists glowed with lightning. But most just ran.
Elias froze.
Think. Don't panic. Think.
His heart thundered—but then something clicked.
A light blue shimmer appeared around a nearby zombie.
[Threat Level: 7]
[Health: 82%]
[Emotion: Hunger. Aggression. No Pain Response.]
"Insight..." he whispered. "It's real."
Another figure nearby caught his attention: Kaela. She stood her ground, holding a short sword someone had dropped. She dodged a lunging zombie with perfect timing—and then moved like a blur, slicing clean through it.
[Kaela Voss – Combat Rating: 8. Ability Active: Bladestorm]
She looked at him across the chaos. "We need to find high ground!"
He nodded, falling in behind her as she carved a path through the attackers. The forest was thick—but Elias's eyes began picking out openings, movement patterns, weak spots.
Left flank is collapsing. That guy's about to be overrun—
He lunged without thinking, dragging a stunned teen back as a skeletal hand swiped past his face. His arms burned. Fear screamed in his brain. But Insight was showing him more now—angles, danger ratings, probabilities.
He could see the flow of the battlefield.
Kaela stopped in a clearing, breathing hard.
"Okay," she gasped. "We find a defensible spot. Regroup. Figure this out."
Elias nodded.
But deep inside, something else stirred.
I wasn't given fire, or lightning, or brute strength...
I was given the power to understand this place. To survive it.
To outthink it.
He looked back at the mist-covered forest as more monsters emerged. His eyes glowed faint blue.
"I'm going to find out what this Realm really is," he muttered. "And I'm going to burn it down."