"No one’s touching that boss yet. I might as well let it ripen..."
Ethan Quinn glanced at his inventory. He was barely halfway through Level 3, but his ten-slot bag was already bursting at the seams. It was a hoard of gear and skill books—none of which he could use, but all of which were worth their weight in blood to the desperate players of Shellcroft.
For Ethan, these items were merely stepping stones toward his real goal: Tradeable Lifespan.
Take the Mage skill book Frost Lance, for instance. In the hands of a competent caster, it was a game-changer. One hit meant a movement speed debuff; a lucky proc meant a total freeze. While high-tier bosses laughed off crowd control, it turned regular mobs into sitting ducks.
On the trek back to the Shellcroft safe zone, the forest was a graveyard in the making. Ethan passed dozens of players being run down by Crawlers, their screams echoing through the trees. His expression didn't flicker. This was the inevitable chaos of the early game. People hadn't realized the meta yet: in the opening hours of Godsfall, Agility was the only stat that mattered. If you were faster than the Crawlers, you lived. If you were faster still, you could hunt them down when they tried to flee.
As the safe zone boundaries shimmered into view, Ethan dropped his active stealth. He didn't want to draw unnecessary suspicion, but he wasn't about to walk in exposed. He pulled up his system interface and toggled Face Concealment.
In Godsfall, your avatar was a perfect mirror of your physical self. No sliders, no adjustments.
I’m still just a regular citizen in the real world, Ethan thought, his eyes narrowing. I haven't extracted my abilities yet. Exposure is a death sentence.
He knew exactly what happened to top-ranked players who didn't hide their faces. Fame in the game translated to a target on your back in reality—kidnappings, assassinations, or worse.
A shimmering black veil materialized over his features, leaving only his cold, calculating eyes visible. Clad in his starter black robes, reinforced by the rugged Sprinter's Hide Greaves and Rotskin Boots, he looked like a shadow given form.
Shellcroft was a pit of despair. The players here, mostly refugees from Rivenhaven City, were paralyzed by fear. They wanted to reach Level 3 to earn their ticket back to reality, but they couldn't even handle a single Crawler without a full party, and the monsters rarely traveled alone.
When Ethan walked into the town square, the atmosphere shifted instantly.
The crowd went quiet, their eyes trailing over his equipment. The greaves, the boots, and especially the Corroded Dagger in his hand all pulsed with the distinct, faint bronze glow of high-tier loot.
"Who the hell is that?" someone whispered.
"Look at the gear. That's at least two Bronze-tier pieces."
"Wait... is that Shade? The one at the top of the leaderboard?"
The silence broke into a frantic roar.
"Shade! Over here! Ten million RMB if you power-level me!"
"Forget him, I'll give you a hundred grand just for your build path! How are you soloing?"
"Please, I’ve died four times already," a young woman sobbed, reaching for his sleeve. "I'll do anything. Just get me out of here."
Ethan didn't stop. He cut through the crowd with clinical indifference, heading for a derelict stone fountain in the center of the plaza. He sat on the edge and flicked his wrist, opening a public trade stall.
Store Title: [Gear & Skills. 10 Minutes Only. Fast Trades.]
The notification pinged for everyone nearby. The square surged toward him.
"It really is him!"
"Bronze gear? Did he actually kill a boss? I heard the Hexbane wiped out that group of thirty guys earlier!"
A woman in grey robes pushed through the throng, her movements more composed than the others. Like Ethan, she had her face concealed. He recognized her immediately from the rankings: Ashen Rose, currently sitting at Rank 11. She was wearing inferior-grade robes dropped from common mobs—a far cry from the power she’d wield later.
She looked at the Frost Lance book, then up at him. "How much for the skill?"
"One hundred days of Tradeable Lifespan," Ethan said.
Ashen Rose frowned behind her veil. "A hundred? That’s steep. Most of us haven't even banked that much. Can you do a discount?"
Ethan didn't bother responding. He simply looked away. Frost Lance was the premier leveling tool for casters right now. A hundred days was a bargain for the power to survive.
"I have cash," she tried again.
"If you have cash, find someone willing to sell their lifespan for it," Ethan replied coldly. "I only take the one currency that matters. I’ll hold it for you until a better offer comes along."
She bit her lip, then turned to her teammates. They huddled in a private channel for thirty seconds before she stepped back to the fountain. "Fine. A hundred days. Let’s trade."
Ethan’s total jumped.
[Tradeable Lifespan: 268 Days ➔ 368 Days!]
The transaction had barely cleared when the crowd was shoved aside by a girl with a high ponytail and a modified black robe—the sleeves torn off to show off her toned arms. Her tag read Pear Drop.
"Shade," she said, looking down at him with an arrogance that felt practiced. "I’m giving you a shot. Power-level me to Level 3. Once we’re back in reality, I’ll transfer ten million RMB to your account. My father is the Chairman of Riverspan Industries. The money is real."
The crowd gasped. Ten million for a single level? It was an astronomical sum for a few hours of work.
Ethan looked at her, his expression flat. "No."
He hadn't recognized her at first, but the mention of Riverspan Industries triggered the memory. Lily Jiang.
In his previous life, she was notorious. She had spent the early days of the collapse buying up lifespan with empty promises of cash. Once people returned to the real world to collect, they found silenced pistols waiting for them instead of bank transfers. She had built her empire on the corpses of the people who helped her level.
In a world where society was crumbling, Lily Jiang was a predator.
"Ten million," she repeated, her voice sharpening. "You realize what that can buy you? Cars, houses, women... anything you want. Stick with me, and you’ll be set for life."
Ethan waved a hand dismissively. "Move. You're blocking the customers."
"You—!" Lily’s face contorted. As the heiress to Riverspan, she had never been treated as an inconvenience. A flicker of genuine malice crossed her eyes before she smoothed it over with a fake smile. "Fine. Your loss."
She turned and marched away, her mind already spinning with ways to track his real-world ID.
Ethan didn't care. The Riverspan name would be worthless within the month. Once people realized that Tradeable Lifespan could be used to extract game items into reality, the global economy would collapse. Lifespan was the only currency that was going to survive the transition.
As Lily moved away, a man with a tattooed arm—Old Leo—approached her, grinning. "Hey, Pear. I'm Level 2. I know the trick to soloing these things. I'll take that ten million deal."
Lily eyed him. "What's the trick?"
"Most people are idiots," Leo whispered. "You have to dump all five starting points into Agility. You outrun the Crawlers, you win. Simple as that."
Lily frowned. She had already dumped her points into Strength, thinking she could just overpower the mobs. She had been wrong. "Fine. Five million. Level 3. You get the cash when we get back."
Leo nodded eagerly, thinking he’d just scammed a rich brat. He didn't know he was signing his own death warrant.
Ethan finished his business quickly. He offloaded the rest of his gear—a few pieces of Bronze-tier Warrior and Cleric armor—for thirty to forty days each. By the time he packed up, his total was significantly healthier.
[Tradeable Lifespan: 546 Days!]
"Time to finish this," he muttered.
He slipped back into the shadows, his stealth activation silent and perfect. He headed straight back for the Hexbane’s territory.
On the way, he saw Leo leading Lily Jiang into the woods. He didn't offer a warning. In this world, stupidity and greed were the leading causes of death.
Ten minutes later, he reached the clearing. The Hexbane had finished its initial evolution. The grey mist surrounding it had thickened, and its bark-like skin now pulsed with a dull silver sheen. It was already beginning the slow transition toward Gold-tier.
Silver to Gold takes eight hours, Ethan noted. I’m not waiting.
Gold bosses would be everywhere soon enough. Right now, he needed the immediate power spike of a Silver kill.
Moving like a ghost, he circled behind the twisted, treant-like monstrosity. He took aim at the base of its neck where the rot was thinnest.
Virulent Dart.
The projectile hissed through the air, burying itself in the boss’s hide.
The Silver-tier Hexbane had nearly triple the health of its Bronze predecessor, but the toxin didn't care about health pools—it dealt percentage-based damage over time. The boss roared, its HP bar chunking down by a quarter instantly as the poison took hold.
It spun around, lashing out with vine-like arms that shattered the nearby stones, but there was no one there. Ethan was already back in the void, watching the monster die from the shadows.
Enraged, the Hexbane raised its withered arms. Grey elemental energy gathered in its palms, swirling into a violent vortex.
Then, it exploded. A twenty-meter pulse of necrotic energy blasted outward, leveling the undergrowth in a desperate attempt to catch the invisible killer.