Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating.
President A. Cole studied me carefully from across the massive mahogany desk of the Oval Office, his fingers steepled, his expression unreadable. The weight of the last week—the impossible, the unexplainable—hung over us like a storm cloud ready to burst.
“You remember everything.”
It wasn’t a question.
I exhaled slowly. “Yeah.”
The sharp hum of the monitors behind him flickered through the room, displaying live feeds of the planet—except this wasn’t Earth as I knew it.
A sky streaked with violet hues, split with faint silver cracks like the universe had been stitched together wrong. The Moon glowed an eerie purple, its surface scarred with new, unnatural craters. The tides shifted unpredictably, as if some unseen force played with gravity itself.
And then, there were the planets.
Hundreds of celestial bodies orbiting a colossal golden sun, all arranged in ten concentric rings.
Earth was on the innermost ring, along with nine other worlds.
But our old home? Our solar system?
Gone.
Cole turned to the monitor, his gaze lingering on the foreign constellations, the alien formations, the terrifying expanse of an unfamiliar universe.
Then, he spoke.
“You knew this was coming.”
I smirked faintly. “I tried to tell people.”
Cole scoffed, shaking his head. “And for that, they locked you up.”
“Yeah.”
The tension thickened.
He wasn’t just a politician. He wasn’t just a survivor.
Cole was someone who adapted—who rose above the chaos and took control.
And that was what he was doing now.
"Something is coming," he muttered.
I nodded. “It’s already here.”
Then—
A voice.
Not from the speakers.
Not from Cole.
From everywhere.
From within.
From beyond.
A voice that was not a voice at all.
A deep, resonating presence pressed into my skull, vibrating through my very existence.
And I wasn’t the only one.
Because I heard it through the monitors, through the live broadcasts, through the screams of billions worldwide—
Everyone heard it.
[THE GRACE PERIOD HAS ENDED.]
My blood ran cold.
Cole’s head snapped toward me. His advisors clutched their heads, eyes wide with terror.
The voice wasn’t human.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
It was something else.
Something ancient.
Something absolute.
[WELCOME TO THE TOWER REALM.]
[THE TUTORIAL BEGINS NOW.]
The room shook.
Cole stood abruptly, slamming his hands onto the desk as the monitors flickered violently, distorting with unreadable symbols and shifting static.
The air thickened, pressing against my lungs.
I staggered, gripping the edge of the desk.
The voice continued, unfazed by the rising panic worldwide.
[YOU HAVE SURVIVED THE ASCENSION.]
[YOU NOW BELONG TO THE TENTH FLOOR.]
[ADAPT OR PERISH.]
Then, the entire world screamed.
Cities trembled.
Skyscrapers rattled.
The very fabric of reality twisted—and then snapped.
Everything went white.
***
A Void of Nothingness
I opened my eyes.
There was nothing.
Just… white.
A blank, infinite void stretching endlessly in all directions.
No sky. No ground. No sound. No horizon.
Just me.
I took a shaky breath. It didn’t echo.
I moved my foot—there was no texture.
This wasn’t a place. It was absence.
A dream?
A hallucination?
Or worse—something real?
Then—
[TUTORIAL IS COMMENCING.]
[TUTORIAL QUEST 1: SURVIVE]
[Survive against the incoming hordes of goblins.]
[Time: 1h]
[Reward: Basic Functions]
A glowing window appeared before me, suspended in the void, letters burning in an unfamiliar script that my brain somehow understood.
The voice read it aloud in my head.
A quest?
I frowned. A game quest?
It didn’t seem impossible. After all, I was standing in nothingness after reality itself collapsed.
But this felt… wrong.
Not like a game.
Like a test.
[BEGINNING QUEST.]
Suddenly—
Screeches.
I turned.
A circle of goblins had materialized around me, 100 meters away in all directions.
Their warped, snarling faces twisted with malice.
Their eyes glowed red.
Their clawed hands gripped rusted blades.
Their bodies twitched unnaturally, as if reality struggled to contain them.
And then—
They charged.
***
The goblins lunged.
I barely had time to process before the first one closed the distance.
A shrill shriek tore through the air, its jagged rusted blade swinging straight for my throat.
Move.
Instinct took over.
I twisted my body, narrowly dodging the slash. The goblin’s rancid breath hit my face, its yellowed fangs snapping at the empty space where my neck had just been.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Another one lunged from the side.
I barely managed to throw myself backward, skidding across the ground—except there was no ground. It felt like I was moving on something solid, but my feet left no marks, and the surface beneath me was… nothing.
No time to think.
The goblins were fast.
Not sluggish, not the low-level cannon fodder that games or stories made them out to be.
They moved like starving predators—each motion jerky, twitching, unpredictable.
One screeched and slashed at my face. I ducked, but another was already diving for my exposed back.
I was going to die.
No.
I wouldn’t.
I had spent eternity in the abyss. I had seen the universe collapse. I had survived spaghettification.
I clenched my fists, a surge of something running through my veins.
My body felt lighter.
Faster.
Stronger.
Adapt or perish.
The words from the Tower Realm echoed in my skull.
The goblin came at me again.
This time, I didn’t dodge.
I stepped into its attack, twisting my body at the last second. The creature overextended, stumbling forward—and I moved.
My hand shot out, grabbing the goblin by its wrist.
It screeched in surprise—right before I twisted its arm at an impossible angle.
A wet snap.
The goblin shrieked. I didn’t let go.
I yanked it forward and slammed my knee into its face. Its skull caved inward with a sickening crunch, and it collapsed lifeless at my feet.
Blood dripped from my knee.
The first kill.
But there was no time to process.
The other goblins had stopped in their tracks, their glowing red eyes locking onto their fallen comrade.
For a second, they hesitated.
Then—
They roared.
I barely had time to react before the entire swarm charged at once.
Shit.
I spun on my heel and ran.
The goblins weren’t just fast—they were relentless.
They didn’t move like mindless monsters.
They hunted.
They flanked me, forcing me toward dead zones where I had no room to dodge. They herded me, waiting for a mistake.
I barely slipped past one of them, kicking off the body of another to gain distance.
There were too many.
My breath came in sharp bursts. My legs burned. My heartbeat pounded in my ears.
I couldn’t keep running.
The realization hit me like a slap to the face.
They weren’t tiring.
I was.
If I didn’t end this soon, they would tear me apart.
A goblin lunged from my blind spot.
I spun—too slow.
The blade sliced across my arm.
Pain flared through my body.
I hissed, stumbling back. My blood—bright crimson—dripped onto the endless white void.
The goblin grinned, its jagged teeth stained yellow.
It lunged again.
I dodged—but this time, I grabbed its wrist.
It screeched, trying to pull away.
I didn’t let it.
I twisted and yanked the goblin in front of me as a shield just as another goblin’s dagger stabbed forward.
The blade sank into its ally’s chest.
The goblin shrieked.
I used its dying body as leverage, vaulting over it and bringing my elbow down on the attacking goblin’s skull.
It cracked like a dropped watermelon.
Two down.
I landed in a crouch, panting. My arm burned where the goblin had cut me, but the pain was starting to dull.
Or maybe I was just adapting.
The remaining goblins hesitated again.
Good.
I was learning.
And they were starting to fear me.
[REMAINING TIME: 44 MINUTES]
[TIME TICKS FORWARD. YOUR BODY WON’T LAST.]