The sky split open before Ethan could even solve the first problem.
One moment, he was trapped in the most useless class of the semester.
The next, a city of neon and steel was hanging upside down above the world like a prophecy.
And before anyone else realized what was happening, death had already found him twice.
January 8th. Seabrook University District.
It was the last ideological and political theory class of the semester, which meant the room had long since stopped pretending to be a classroom.
The teacher had already finished the syllabus days ago. After casually outlining a few exam points, he gave the class permission to "self-study," then leaned back behind the podium and started watching short videos on his phone with the relaxed focus of a man who had spiritually resigned from education.
Naturally, the students followed his inspiring example.
One corner of the room was filled with the sound of a mobile game team fight, complete with furious shouting and profanity. A few people had their faces buried in their arms, sleeping like they were trying to recover from years of war. Someone in the back was writing something dramatic into a notebook with the expression of a poet abandoned by destiny. Snack wrappers crackled. Laughter came and went in waves.
Not a single person looked like they were studying.
Well... not openly, anyway. As everyone knew, real university students never studied in public. They hid under blankets at two in the morning and then lied about it the next day.
Ethan glanced around at the scene and felt a strange kind of competitive spirit rise in him.
If everyone else was committed to wasting time, then he would outwork all of them.
Without hesitation, he pulled out his postgraduate entrance exam advanced mathematics textbook, opened it to a problem set, and uncapped his pen.
Then he froze.
A pale white glow was spreading across his right arm.
Ethan blinked hard and lifted his sleeve. "What the hell?"
The skin on his forearm hadn't changed, but there, just above the wrist, a bright white symbol had appeared—a glowing V-shaped mark that looked almost carved into reality itself.
His first thought was absurd.
Did my arm mutate?
His second thought was worse.
Why is nobody screaming?
The classroom remained as chaotic as ever. Nobody turned around. Nobody reacted. No one even glanced in his direction.
Heart starting to pound, Ethan grabbed the classmate beside him by the shoulder and dragged him closer.
"Look at my arm," Ethan said in a low voice. "Do you see anything?"
The guy squinted, then grinned. "Yeah. I see brother's muscles. Brother looks handsome today."
Ethan stared at him for one second, then shoved him away. "Get lost."
That earned him a laugh and a confused curse, but Ethan was no longer paying attention.
He looked down again.
The symbol was still there, pulsing faintly, like it had a heartbeat of its own.
Only he could see it.
That realization made his skin crawl.
He hesitated for just a moment, then pressed his left hand against the glowing mark.
A translucent virtual screen exploded into existence right in front of his eyes.
"Ding—"
[ Beta player qualification detected ]
[ Current number of beta players: 100,000 ]
[ "Night City" early access trial version released ]
[ Version 0.10: The passing bell tolls for gods and kings, dreamers sleep in the nine heavens ]
[ Please click the screen to start the game ]
Ethan's expression went blank.
"A... game?"
He almost laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it was so ridiculous his brain refused to process it normally.
A mysterious glowing mark had appeared out of nowhere on his arm... and it turned out to be a game launcher?
He narrowed his eyes and tapped the screen.
The interface instantly shifted to a deep black background.
No animated cutscene.
No flashy logo.
No dramatic soundtrack.
Just lines of blood-red text, glowing in the darkness like something typed by a machine dreaming of murder.
Ethan sat up straighter.
A text-based game?
He kept reading.
[ On a rainy night, you are awakened by the gunfire of MAX-TAC and look out the window. ]
[ Beneath the neon-soaked sky, MAX-TAC moves like armored ghosts. Their guns spit metal storms. Bullets scream through the air at three times the speed of sound, tearing through cyberpsychos and hostages alike. Bodies burst like red flowers. Blood runs through the street in streams. ]
[ To prevent corpse fragments from undergoing anomalous distortion, white-phosphorus grenades are deployed. Heat crashes through the air. The smell of burning flesh drills into your lungs. ]
[ The wind and rain seem to carry shrill screams. ]
[ Just another ordinary night. ]
A chill ran down Ethan's spine.
The words were simple, but the image they painted was brutally vivid. He could almost hear the rain. Almost smell the phosphorus. Almost see that city—neon, steel, blood, smoke—rising in the dark like a mechanical hell.
He kept reading.
Night City. A dream city built on scorched earth. A city shattered by war and disaster. A place where order had died, and chaos now fed on the living.
A place where hope still existed—but only just enough to lure people in before devouring them.
"Cyberpunk..." Ethan muttered.
That much, at least, he recognized instantly.
Mega-corporations towering like gods. Neon drowning out the stars. Chrome arms, artificial eyes, synthetic dreams, and human desperation wrapped together into one glittering nightmare.
The game barely showed him anything, yet already the atmosphere hit with suffocating force.
This was no bright sci-fi utopia.
This was a city that smiled with bloody teeth.
A new prompt appeared.
[ Click "Hack System" to formally create a character ]
Ethan tapped it.
[ Hacking into Night City resident database... ]
[ Hacking successful. Please choose the player's initial identity ]
[ 1. Streetkid ]
[ 2. Nomad ]
[ 3. Corpo ]
Ethan studied the options.
Streetkid meant gutter survival. Nomad sounded like desert poverty with extra dust. Corpo, though...
He snorted.
So the game was asking whether he wanted to be poor, poorer, or morally compromised.
"Corpo it is."
He tapped the third option without hesitation.
A new prompt immediately appeared.
[ Dear Dreamer, choosing the Corpo background requires payment of 100,000 US dollars ]
[ Detected current cash on hand: 30 US dollars ]
[ Insufficient balance. Would you like to top up? ]
Ethan nearly choked.
"You've got to be kidding me."
One hundred thousand dollars to choose a starting background?
He stared at the screen in disbelief.
"This isn't Night City. This is Pay-to-Win City."
Grinding his teeth, he backed out and selected Streetkid instead.
If the rich path was locked behind six figures, then he'd start in the gutter like everyone else cursed by reality.
[ Dreamer, you have chosen Streetkid ]
The text described gangs, fixers, joytoys, drug dealers, scavengers, and a life raised on scraps and violence.
Then his status panel appeared.
[ Name: Ethan ]
[ Gender: Male ]
[ Age: 18 ]
[ Background: Streetkid ]
[ Street Cred: LV0 ]
[ Personal Level: LV0 ]
[ Cyberware Capacity: 0 / 300 ]
[ Body: 4 ]
[ Intelligence: 3 ]
[ Reflexes: 3 ]
[ Technical Ability: 1 ]
[ Cool: 2 ]
[ LV0 → LV1 requires payment of 1,000,000 US dollars ]
Ethan stared at the number for a long moment.
Then he shouted in the middle of class, "A million to level up once?!"
Several students glanced over with pity.
One guy shook his head sympathetically, as though Ethan had just lost a ranked match and his sanity with it.
Ethan didn't even care.
Who was this game for? Billionaires? Oil princes? Trust-fund lunatics playing while sitting on yachts?
Was he supposed to meet other players in the future and watch them pull up in private helicopters while he arrived on a shared bicycle?
It was so outrageous it looped back into being funny.
But beneath the irritation, there was something else.
Excitement.
Because no matter how absurd this was, the glowing mark on his arm was real.
This thing could affect reality.
That alone made it more than a game.
So he pressed Start Game.
The next set of text rolled forward.
He woke in a cramped apartment in Watson. He was a rookie merc with mounting bills, no work, and a reputation for disaster. Missions went wrong around him. Fixers stopped calling. Rent was due. His balance was empty.
His choices were simple.
Wait in the apartment and hope some fixer took pity on him.
Or go outside and chase opportunity in the lawless streets of Night City.
Ethan barely needed to think.
"Waiting to die is still dying," he murmured.
He selected Go Out and Explore.
The result came immediately.
[ You step outside your apartment and encounter a passing group of Scavs. ]
[ They take an interest in your fresh organs, knock you unconscious, and drag you away. ]
[ When you wake, your kidneys are gone. ]
[ You have died. ]
Ethan went completely still.
Then he blinked.
"That's it?"
He had taken one step outside and gotten harvested for parts.
He hadn't even had the chance to fail properly.
"What kind of city is this?" he hissed. "This place is worse than a nightmare."
His jaw tightened.
Free players really didn't deserve human rights in this game, apparently.
But before he could rage further, the screen changed again.
The tone shifted.
The text grew heavier.
[ At the edge of death, resentment tears through your heart like a thousand blades. ]
[ The beauty of the past flashes before your eyes. You pray for rest. But you cannot accept it. ]
[ You want to roar. You want to kill this world. ]
[ In the final 0.01 seconds before death, your genes shatter their restraints. ]
[ You awaken S-rank talent: Samsara. ]
Ethan's breath caught.
He read the next lines twice.
[ Samsara (S-rank): A madman infinitely close to death, burning eternity with the fire of life. ]
[ Whenever you die, you respawn twenty-four hours earlier. ]
For a moment, the noise of the classroom disappeared.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
Then a grin slowly spread across his face.
An S-rank talent.
A time-reset ability.
A power that turned death itself into a resource.
That was no ordinary starting perk. That was the kind of ability protagonists in trashy wish-fulfillment novels would kill for.
No—die for.
The next choice appeared.
[ Keep Waiting ]
[ Go Out and Explore ]
[ Revenge: Ambush the Scavs ]
Ethan didn't even hesitate.
He selected Revenge.
Nobody harvested his kidneys and got away with it. Not even fictional organ thieves in a nightmare cyber-city.
The result arrived at once.
[ Freshly reborn, the hot-blooded dreamer chooses revenge. ]
[ Unfortunately, your confidence wildly exceeds your combat ability. ]
[ The ambush fails. The Scavs recognize you, curse you as a 'Samsara User,' and open fire. ]
[ You are riddled with bullets. ]
[ You have died. ]
His expression froze.
Then his eye twitched.
Again?
Again?!
Worse, the next line slammed into him like cold water.
[ Samsara is on cooldown. Remaining time until rebirth: 23:59:58 ]
Ethan slowly lowered the phone-screen-like interface and stared at the desk in front of him.
He had died twice in less than ten minutes.
Once as livestock.
Once as target practice.
He should have been furious—and he was—but under that fury, another feeling was growing.
Curiosity.
The Scavs had called him a Samsara User.
Not just some random victim. Not just prey.
That title meant something.
And judging from the way they reacted, it wasn't good.
The earlier line returned to his mind:
Every gift from fate has long had its price marked in the dark.
His immortal reset ability came with a cost. Maybe a curse. Maybe a target painted on his back.
Night City didn't just reward monsters.
It noticed them.
Before he could think any further, another prompt appeared.
[ Emergency Player Event ]
[ Bounty Boss: Adam Smasher ]
[ Bounty Rank: S and above ]
[ Reward: Talent Enhancement Serum ]
[ Effect: Unlimited enhancement of one talent ability ]
[ Issuer: Anonymous ]
Ethan's pupils narrowed.
Adam Smasher.
Even the name sounded like a walking catastrophe.
If the reward could strengthen Samsara even further...
His pulse quickened.
Then reason immediately followed.
He was currently Level 0.
He couldn't even survive a casual encounter with street trash.
Going after a boss ranked above S was suicide.
Still...
The seed had been planted.
A minute later, the class bell rang.
The room exploded into motion as hungry students poured toward the door in search of food and freedom. Ethan closed the game interface with a touch, hid the V-mark beneath his sleeve, and moved with the crowd.
He had only taken a few steps when the people in front abruptly stopped.
"What happened?"
"No idea—look up!"
A strange silence spread through the corridor.
Ethan frowned, pushed through two students, and stepped into the open.
Then he looked up.
And forgot how to breathe.
Above Seabrook City, hanging across the sky like an impossible reflection, was an inverted metropolis.
Towering skyscrapers floated upside down in the clouds. Massive pillars of neon light connected sky to earth. Rain and mist blurred the edges of a futuristic cityscape drenched in chrome, glass, and electric color.
It was breathtaking.
Terrifying.
Beautiful in a way that made his chest tighten.
Ethan had never seen that city before in real life.
But he recognized it instantly.
Night City.
Not a game screen.
Not text on a panel.
Not imagination.
A real image—brief, impossible, and vast—hanging over the world like a warning.
Around him, the campus erupted.
"A mirage!"
"No way—what city is that?"
"Is this some insane ad campaign?"
Phones shot into the air. Voices rose in confusion and excitement. Students shouted over one another, trying to capture every second before it vanished.
The vision lasted less than a minute.
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the city faded into nothing.
The sky returned to normal.
But Ethan stood motionless in the middle of the crowd, his sleeve pulled low over the glowing mark on his arm.
His heart hammered against his ribs with dangerous force.
Everyone else saw a miracle.
Only he understood the truth.
The launch of the game for one hundred thousand beta players had never been just a game.
It was the opening signal.
The first crack.
The first warning that something impossible was beginning to overlap with reality.
Ethan lowered his gaze, hiding the storm in his eyes.
This world was changing.
And somewhere beyond that vanished skyline, Night City had already begun to arrive.