The monitor was the only thing still alive in the room.
Its pale blue glow washed over empty cans, a half-zipped hoodie, and a pair of headphones sitting crooked over messy black hair.
2:47 AM.
Ethan Vale hadn't looked at the clock once.
He hadn't noticed the cold creeping through his bedroom window.
Hadn't noticed the texts he left unread.
Hadn't noticed how small his world had gotten lately.
A bed.
A desk.
A screen.
And the one place where he actually felt like he mattered.
Eternal Ascension Online.
The hardest fantasy RPG ever made.
No difficulty settings.
No hand-holding.
No mercy.
You either learned, adapted, and survived…
Or you got erased.
And Ethan?
Ethan was cracked.
His fingers moved before his brain even had to think.
Dodge.
Parry.
Step in.
Counter.
On-screen, his character slid under a flaming axe that would've one-shot most players, twisted through a wall of black fire, and drove a silver blade straight into the glowing core of the world boss.
The monster froze.
Its health bar dropped from red…
To empty.
CRITICAL HIT.
The battlefield shook.
The boss collapsed.
Then the message appeared across the screen.
WORLD BOSS SLAIN.
Loot exploded everywhere. Gold, weapons, runes, rare materials — the kind of drops people stayed up all night praying for.
Ethan leaned back in his chair and smirked.
"Too easy."
For one second, he felt good.
Not tired.
Not stuck.
Not like some random guy wasting away in a room nobody cared about.
He felt like the best.
Then the screen flickered.
A new notification appeared.
No item image.
No glowing color.
No rank.
Just plain white text.
[You have obtained: ATTRIBUTE FRAGMENT]
Ethan's smile faded.
"…What the hell is that?"
The message disappeared.
Another one replaced it.
[Hidden System Requirement Met]
[Player Compatibility Confirmed]
[Beginning Integration]
Ethan sat up slowly.
"Integration?"
The screen glitched.
Hard.
The battlefield twisted. The sky tore open in blocks of broken color. His character stood completely still in the center of the screen.
Then, slowly…
It turned around.
Not toward the boss.
Not toward the camera.
Toward him.
Ethan's stomach dropped.
His character's face was hidden under a dark hood, but Ethan could still feel it staring.
Like something behind the screen had finally noticed him.
A low hum filled his headphones.
Not music.
Not game audio.
It sounded like electricity crawling through a wall.
The lights in his room flickered once.
Then the final message appeared.
Would you like to Continue?
▸ YES
NO
Ethan stared at it.
Every normal thought in his head told him to turn the game off.
Unplug the computer.
Walk away.
But Ethan had never walked away from a hidden event in his life.
He let out a nervous laugh.
"Secret quest? Bet."
He clicked YES.
The monitor went black.
The room went silent.
Then the silence pressed down on him.
Not like quiet.
Like pressure.
Like the whole world had taken a breath and was holding it.
Ethan ripped off his headphones.
"What the—"
Golden lines spread across the monitor.
Then across his desk.
Then the walls.
They moved like living circuits, burning through reality itself. His keyboard broke apart into glowing particles. His desk dissolved. His chair vanished from under him.
Ethan reached for something.
Anything.
But there was nothing left to grab.
The floor disappeared.
His stomach lurched.
And then he fell.
Not down.
Not exactly.
It felt like falling through light.
Through code.
Through a thousand broken pieces of himself.
He tried to scream, but his voice didn't come out.
Memories flashed around him.
His room.
His hands on the keyboard.
His character fighting alone.
The word Continue burned into his mind.
Then—
Impact.
Ethan hit the ground hard.
Air exploded from his lungs.
He rolled across wet grass, coughing, dirt smearing across his hoodie. For a few seconds, he just lay there, shaking, trying to force his body to remember how to breathe.
Cold wind rushed over him.
Real wind.
The smell of earth filled his nose.
Wet grass.
Smoke.
Metal.
Blood.
Ethan pushed himself up on trembling arms.
The first thing he saw was the sky.
It wasn't Earth's sky.
Two moons hung above him, one silver and one cracked with red light. The stars looked too close, like if he reached high enough, he could cut his fingers on them.
Ethan stared.
"No…"
His voice came out thin.
He looked down at his hands.
They were still his.
Same fingers.
Same scars.
Same shaking.
But something shimmered faintly beneath his skin, like golden data moving through his veins.
A translucent screen opened in front of his face.
Ethan flinched back.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]
[UNIQUE ABILITY GRANTED]
Ability Name: ATTRIBUTION
Effect: You may absorb Attribute Fragments from defeated beings.
More text appeared beneath it.
[Core Attributes Available for Growth:]
Strength
Agility
Spirit
Intellect
Dexterity
Health
Low absorption = stable growth
Excessive absorption = unknown consequences
Ethan's mouth went dry.
He read it once.
Then again.
Then a third time.
His heartbeat started getting louder.
Because this wasn't a dream.
Dreams didn't make your ribs hurt.
Dreams didn't leave mud on your hands.
Dreams didn't smell like smoke and blood.
Ethan swallowed.
"This is…"
His voice cracked.
"This is the game."
A roar split the night.
Deep.
Heavy.
Wrong.
The ground shook under him.
Ethan turned.
Something massive climbed over the hill ahead.
At first, his brain refused to understand what he was looking at.
It was built like a boar, but bigger than a truck. Plates of black armor covered its body. Its tusks curved forward like jagged blades, dripping with thick dark fluid. Its eyes glowed the same red as the cracked moon above.
It lowered its head.
And looked straight at him.
A new message appeared.
[First Target Detected]
[Defeat Required to Activate Attribute Extraction]
Ethan froze.
No keyboard.
No mouse.
No health bar in the corner.
No respawn button.
No second chance.
The monster pawed at the ground.
Steam rolled from its mouth.
Ethan took one step back.
His legs wanted to run.
His brain screamed at him to move.
But somewhere underneath the fear, something else woke up.
His body felt different.
Lighter.
Sharper.
Like every fight he'd spent hours mastering had been carved into his bones.
The monster charged.
The ground tore open beneath its feet.
Ethan's breathing slowed.
One second.
That was all he had.
One second to decide if he was going to die like some scared kid dragged into another world…
Or move like the player who never lost.
His foot slid back.
His hands raised.
A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"Alright then."
The beast came closer.
Ethan's eyes locked onto its movement.
His fear didn't disappear.
He just moved through it.
"Let's see if I still got it."