Tanzania — Dar es Salaam, Monday 11:07 A.M.
The city trembled.
The air shimmered like heat haze, even though the sky was dull and heavy with storm clouds. Felicia Malangalila stood alone outside her home, ash in her hair and prayers on her lips, the second orb hovering before her like a silent judge.
All around her, the world was coming apart—sirens, screams, soldiers shouting—but none of it reached her.
She was beyond fear now. Beyond reason.
Her boys were gone.
Her heart had burned out long before the fires began.
The orb pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Then cracked open like a glowing egg, spilling golden light into the world.
Felicia flinched. The light hit her chest, but instead of pain, there was warmth—pure and alive, like sunlight on skin after endless rain.
She gasped and fell to her knees as a voice—ancient, gentle, and fierce—rose inside her mind.
> "You have lost much, child of flame… yet your soul does not break."
"You weep for the world, not yourself. So rise, and burn away its darkness."
The orb's light coiled around her, spiraling into the air like living fire.
Her rosary disintegrated, turning into sparks that wrapped around her wrists, forming glowing crimson markings—feathers of light spreading from her forearms to her shoulders.
Her eyes blazed gold and scarlet. Her tears turned to steam.
> [SYSTEM NOTICE]
Class Awakened — Mage (Ascended)
Blessing: Ember of the Phoenix
Skill Gained: "Rebirth Flame" — burns all corruption, heals all truth.
Passive: The more she protects, the stronger she burns.
Wind roared around her as her house caught fire—not in destruction, but in radiant gold flame that did not consume, only purified.
The neighbors who watched from afar fell silent, shielding their eyes. To them, it looked as though an angel of fire stood at the heart of their street.
Felicia stood slowly, her voice breaking into a whisper.
> "If this power came from heaven…"
"…then heaven has heard my grief."
She looked toward the sky—where fragments of light danced, falling like feathers of flame.
> "And if not—"
"Then I'll burn heaven too, until it answers."
The last of the fire folded around her, forming a faint sigil of a bird on her back—a Phoenix mid-flight.
And as the wind died, the ground beneath her feet glowed faintly in molten gold, tracing her path toward destiny
The wind howled across the endless white plains of Siberia, slicing through Alex's coat like knives. The oil rig's metal skeleton groaned under the cold, every breath turning to frost.
He had ignored the glowing orbs hovering near the site for hours. Everyone had seen them—two pulsing spheres of light that seemed alive. The first had already counted down. People who touched it vanished. No screams, no blood, just… gone.
> Government tricks, he had told himself. Some military experiment. I'm not playing along.
But when the second orb appeared—hovering just above the frozen ground, humming like a living heart—something inside him cracked. The silence of the field was broken by a sound that did not belong to this world.
A rumble, deep, ancient, heavy. The ice split open beneath the rigs.
"Alex!" someone shouted from behind him. "The ground—!"
The man never finished his sentence. A massive, frost-covered hand erupted from the ice, fingers thick as trees, dragging itself up. Then another. And another.
The first Ice Giant pulled its colossal body free from the rift, blue runes glowing across its chest like molten veins frozen mid-flow. Its eyes burned white, its breath fogging the world around it.
Alex's knees trembled. He stumbled backward, heart pounding. More giants followed—five, ten—each taller than the oil towers themselves.
He turned to run—then saw the orb floating right in front of him, glowing a deep crimson now, as if mocking him.
> The first to run. The last to stand.
The words weren't his. They entered his head like a whisper from the void.
Something inside him screamed back, No. Not again.
Not like his brother.
Not like the day the avalanche buried the rescue team and left him watching helplessly.
He grabbed the orb.
It pulsed once—then exploded into his chest.
Flames of crimson lightning coursed through his veins. His breath became smoke. His eyes burned red. His heart roared like thunder.
System text blazed across his vision:
> [Class Acquired: Berserker]
[Skill Unlocked: Wrath Unbound]
[Passive: Fear Immunity — Active]
He screamed—not in terror, but in rebirth. The world slowed. Every heartbeat shook the snow.
The first giant's club came down. Alex caught it with his bare hands. Bones cracked, blood sprayed—but he didn't stop. He couldn't. He pushed back, roaring as his muscles swelled and the club shattered like glass.
He tore a pipe from the rig and swung it like a spear, slamming it through a giant's throat. Steam and frost exploded from the wound. He leapt onto its shoulder, eyes wide with fury, and plunged his hands into its face—until it stopped moving.
> "COME ON!" he bellowed, his voice echoing through the storm.
"IS THAT ALL YOU MONSTERS HAVE?!"
Three giants charged him together. The ice beneath their feet cracked under his advance. Blood and frost mixed in the snow.
Each strike he gave took part of his humanity with it. Each scream became more beast than man.
And when it was done—when the final giant fell, split open from chest to skull—Alex stood alone, steaming, trembling, laughing through the pain.
The orb's voice echoed again, soft and amused:
> "Welcome, Berserker. Let's see how long before you break."
He looked at his bloodied hands. The snow melted beneath his feet. And in the reflection of the crimson ice, he no longer saw the coward who had once run from everything.