Ethan pulled up his status window, the translucent HUD flickering against the dim backdrop of the starter town.
—
[Lifespan: 130 Years]
[Physical Attack: 13 (+10)]
[Physical Defense: 13]
[All Elemental Resistance: 15]
—
The math was simple. His base Strength provided 13 points of raw power, while the rusted hunk of metal in his hand added another 10. Every player dropped into The Forsaken Realm with a starter weapon suited to their class—if you could call a piece of 'Inferior' grey-grade trash a weapon.
[Rusted Iron Dagger (Inferior): Attack +10]
Ethan flipped the blade, testing its balance. In his past life, he’d been a Warrior, but he wasn't a stranger to daggers. He knew the penalty: using a weapon outside your class specialization reduced its effectiveness to 70%.
Good enough for now, he thought, a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips.
Twenty-three Attack. That was the standard baseline for most newcomers. It put the sheer absurdity of his Shadow Veil skill into perspective—that 90-point Veil-Breaker bonus wasn't just a buff; it was a death sentence for anything in his way.
He gripped the hilt tighter. He needed to move. Staying in town was a death sentence of a different kind. Progression required Evolution Points, and Evolution Points required blood.
What the masses hadn't realized yet was that Godsfall wasn't a playground. In typical MMOs, monsters waited patiently in their designated zones for a player to come along and slay them. Here, the roles were reversed. Outside the safety of the town walls, every player was a walking battery.
To a monster, a player was nothing more than a source of Lifespan.
Lifespan, Ethan mused, his eyes narrowing. It came in two flavors. Bound Lifespan—the seventy-five years he currently held—was his ticking clock. It kept his heart beating. But Tradeable Lifespan was the true currency of the gods. You could use it to barter, to buy resources, or most importantly, to 'Extract' items and skills into the real world.
That was how you became a god in reality.
But monsters wanted it too. By devouring a player’s Lifespan, creatures could evolve, growing smarter and more lethal. In this world, the players weren't the hunters. They were the prey. Those who couldn't kill fast enough would find their years stripped away until they simply dropped dead.
"This time," Ethan whispered to the empty air, "I'm not carrying any dead weight."
In his previous life, he’d struggled to protect his sister, Evie. Her presence had slowed his growth to a crawl. This time, he was solo. This time, he would be the one doing the hunting.
He headed toward the town exit, weaving through the chaos of the newly arrived. Near the gate, a heavyset guy was staring at his hands in a trance. "Is this a joke? I was literally just about to sleep after a binge... is this a hallucination?"
A guy in glasses next to him looked just as rattled. "I don't know, man. I was midway through a match and then... boom. I’m here."
Ethan didn't spare them a glance. Their confusion was irrelevant.
As he neared the edge of the safe zone, five pillars of white light erupted in front of him. Players respawning. Ethan went to sidestep them, but the group solidified quickly.
Leading them was a girl in a black tank top, her face pale with the lingering shock of death. Behind her were three men and another girl. They looked like a team that had just been chewed up and spat out by the wilderness.
Their Lifespan would have been halved by the death penalty. They were already desperate.
"That thing was insane," one of the men spat, his voice trembling. "One bite took half my health. How are we supposed to fight that?"
"It was just a Level 1 Crawler," another groaned. "Five of us, and we barely scratched it."
The girl in the black tank top, Pear, gripped a longbow. Ethan noticed it immediately—it wasn't the standard shortbow given to Rangers. She had a Hidden Class. That explained why she was the one calling the shots.
"We need a sixth," Pear said, her eyes scanning the crowd until they landed on Ethan. Her gaze sharpened. She saw his dagger and the way he moved. "You. You're an Assassin type, right? Join us. The party limit is six, and we need the extra DPS."
Before Ethan could respond, a girl with long, soft hair from Pear’s group stepped forward, her voice sweet and pleading. "Come on, join us! The monsters out there are too strong to solo. We’ve already fought one, so we have experience!"
Ethan almost laughed. Experience in dying, maybe.
He didn't say a word. He simply walked past her, his stride unbroken.
The group stiffened. Pear’s expression soured, and the men behind her began to mumble. They weren't used to being ignored, especially not when they were offering a 'life-line.'
"Is he serious?" one of the guys sneered. "We told him it's dangerous, and he's just going to walk out alone?"
"Let him," another laughed. "He thinks he’s a protagonist. He’ll be back at the respawn point in ten minutes."
Pear watched him, her eyes cold. She’d managed to catch his handle as he walked by: Shade.
"Shade, huh? Edgy," she muttered. She signaled her team. "Follow him. I want to see how he dies. Maybe we can learn the monster's attack patterns while it's busy eating him."
Ethan reached the boundary—a series of rotting wooden fences that marked the end of the Shellcroft safe zone. He felt the shift in the air immediately. The Scorchlands were cold, smelling of ash and old blood.
He felt Pear’s group trailing a dozen paces behind.
Shadow Veil.
Ethan didn't hesitate. He triggered the skill, and the world seemed to ripple. His body dissolved into the gloom, his silhouette bleeding into the shadows until there was nothing left but the wind.
Pear and her team stopped dead.
"Where’d he go?" the tall Assassin in their group gasped. "He has a stealth skill? Already? My base class didn't give me shit for invisibility."
They searched for minutes, but the Scorchlands were empty. Terrified of the dark without a target to follow, the group eventually retreated back toward the town gates.
"Fine," Pear snapped. "Let’s look for NPCs or chests in town. If he wants to go out there and get slaughtered, let him."
Ethan didn't care about their opinions. He knew the truth: there was nothing in Shellcroft for him.
He moved through the sparse, blackened woods of the Scorchlands. In Shadow Veil, he was a ghost. His footsteps made no sound, his breathing was muffled, and even his heartbeat was silenced by the system. Unless someone had a high-tier detection skill—which was impossible this early—he was invincible.
A hundred yards out, he found what he was looking for.
A hunched, grey shape was crouched near a withered tree, its long, spindly limbs twitching.
[Crawler (Lv. 1)]
[Grade: Common (Evolving...)]
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. The creature was surrounded by a faint, misty white aura. Lifespan.
"Greedy bastard," Ethan whispered.
The monster had just devoured the Lifespan from Pear’s team. Instead of retreating to evolve in safety, it was lingering, hoping for more. It was a common sight in Godsfall—monsters getting drunk on the "years" they stole from players.
Ethan didn't wait. He waited for his cooldown, then refreshed Shadow Veil to ensure he had the full duration. He crept behind the creature, the stench of rot filling his nostrils. The Crawler was a faceless horror, its grey skin slick with a viscous fluid.
He raised the rusted dagger.
He aimed for the base of the skull—a primary weak point for Crawlers.
Strike.
The blade flashed out of the darkness, sinking deep into the creature's neck.
-372! (Weak Point Critical)
The Crawler didn't even scream. Its body jerked once, grey blood spraying against the bark of the tree, before it collapsed into a heap of useless limbs.
Holy shit, Ethan thought, looking at the number. Even he was surprised. The base damage was okay, but the 90-point flat bonus from his evolved Shadow Veil had turned a starter poke into a railgun shot.
[You have slain 'Crawler (Lv. 1)'.]
[You have gained 10 Experience Points.]
The grey mist surrounding the corpse condensed into a glowing orb the size of a fist. Ethan reached out and grabbed it.
[You have gained 3 Days of Lifespan (Tradeable).]
[You have gained 54 Years, 155 Days of Lifespan (Bound).]
Ethan sighed. Pear’s team had likely lost over a century between them, but the "conversion rate" through a monster was brutal. He’d only recovered half of what they’d dropped.
Still, the Tradeable Lifespan was what mattered. Three days wasn't much, but it was a start.
He kicked the corpse aside and picked up two items that had shimmered into existence beneath it.
[Rotskin Boots (Inferior): Defense +3, Movement Speed +5%. Req: Lv. 1]
[Skill Book: Frost Lance (Common): Mage-type. Req: Lv. 1]
"Not bad for a first kill," Ethan muttered, sliding the boots on. He didn't need the skill book, but it would fetch a high price once the Mages in town stopped crying and started playing.
He vanished back into the shadows, heading deeper into the forest.
Back at the edge of the woods, a young couple from the town approached the clearing. They saw the Crawler's corpse lying in the dirt.
"Look!" the guy pointed, laughing. "Someone already killed one. See, Mia? I told you this game was easy. It’s just like any other RPG."
"You're right," the girl giggled, clutching his arm. "I was worried for nothing."
They stepped over the boundary, oblivious to the fact that high above them, in the blackened canopy, a much larger shadow was beginning to uncoil.