William's fingers flew across his phone screen, his eyes locked on the glowing display as the countdown timer hit zero.
[INFINITE DESCENT - GRAND EVENT UPDATE]
[THE ABYSS AWAKENS - STARTING IN: 00:00:03]
Three years. Three years of grinding through dungeons, perfecting his builds, and climbing the leaderboards. William had poured thousands of hours into Infinite Descent, and tonight's event was supposed to be the biggest content drop in the game's history.
"Come on, come on..." he muttered, watching the loading bar crawl across his screen.
His small apartment was dark except for the blue glow of his phone and the flickering light from his laptop, where he had the game's wiki pulled up in twelve different tabs. Energy drink cans littered his desk. He had taken the day off work for this exact moment.
The timer reached zero.
[THE ABYSS AWAKENS!]
[NEW CONTENT UNLOCKED]
[LOADING...]
William leaned forward, his heart racing with anticipation. The screen went black for a moment, then—
Everything changed.
The light from his phone intensified, becoming blindingly bright. William jerked back, shielding his eyes, but the light didn't come from the screen anymore. It came from everywhere—seeping through his windows, bleeding through the walls, filling the entire room with an otherworldly radiance.
"What the—"
A sound like reality tearing apart cut him off. A deep, resonant crack that he felt in his bones rather than heard. William stumbled to his feet, phone clattering to the floor as the entire building shook.
Then came the sudden screaming.
Not from his phone but from outside. From everywhere.
William rushed to his window and looked out onto the street below. What he saw made his blood run cold.
The sky was wrong. Instead of the familiar night sky of downtown Seattle, there were... rifts. Massive tears in reality itself, glowing with the same sickly purple light he'd seen a thousand times in Infinite Descent. A portal light.
And pouring out of them were monsters.
"No way," William whispered, pressing his face against the glass. "No fucking way."
A pack of Lesser Imps with their grey skin and razor claws exactly as they appeared in the game tore down the street, chasing a group of people. A woman's scream cut short as one of the creatures pounced in her. William watched in horror as the imp's health bar appeared above its head, glowing red in his vision.
[Lesser Imp - Level 3]
[HP: 150/150]
This wasn't possible. This was Infinite Descent, that was a mobile game, code and pixels, not flesh and blood.
Another window shattered somewhere in his building. More screams echoed through the halls.
William's gamer instincts kicked in before his rational mind could catch up. He needed to understand what was happening.
As if responding to his thoughts, a translucent blue screen materialized in front of his face, following his line of sight no matter where he looked.
[WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD]
[THE MERGE IS COMPLETE]
[EARTH AND INFINITE DESCENT ARE NOW ONE]
[ALL HUMANS WILL NOW AWAKEN THEIR TALENTS]
[AWAKENING SEQUENCE INITIATING...]
William's chest tightened. A strange warmth spread through his body, starting from his core and radiating outward. It wasn't painful, but it was intense—like every cell in his body was being rewritten.
[ANALYZING PLAYER DATA...]
[ACCOUNT FOUND: WILLIAM_CROSS]
[PLAYTIME: 120,247 HOURS]
[ACHIEVEMENTS UNLOCKED: 2,847/3,000]
[CALCULATING TALENT...]
The warmth intensified. William gasped, falling to his knees as the system processed... whatever it was processing. Through his window, he could see similar lights surrounding other people on the street—blue, green, white. Different colors for different people.
His was gold.
[TALENT AWAKENING COMPLETE!]
[CONGRATULATIONS!]
[YOU HAVE AWAKENED: SSS-RANK TALENT - 100% DROP RATE]
[RARITY: UNIQUE]
[EFFECT: All monsters you kill will drop 100% of their possible loot. No RNG. Guaranteed maximum rewards.]
William's eyes widened. In Infinite Descent, drop rates were everything. Most items had a 0.1% drop chance, some even lower. Players could grind for months and never see a legendary item. But 100% drop rate? That meant every kill, every monster, would drop everything it possibly could.
But the system wasn't done.
[ADDITIONAL SYSTEM DETECTED...]
[COMPATIBILITY CHECK... PASSED]
[ACTIVATING: 10,000× BONUS REWARDS SYSTEM]
[UNIQUE ABILITY GRANTED]
[EFFECT: Every monster slain will grant rewards multiplied by 10,000. This applies to experience, items, currency, and skill drops. Higher-ranked monsters have increased chances of dropping rare rewards.]
William stared at the notifications, his mind racing. This was insane, it was beyond broken. With a 100% drop rate, he'd get every possible item. With the 10,000× multiplier...
A crash from the hallway snapped him back to reality. The screaming had gotten closer.
Right, he was in an apocalypse with monsters.
He needed a weapon.
William scrambled to his feet and grabbed the only thing that seemed remotely useful, a baseball bat he kept by the door. It felt pathetic in his hands, especially knowing what was out there, but it was better than nothing.
Another notification appeared:
[EQUIPMENT DETECTED]
[WOODEN BASEBALL BAT]
[DAMAGE: 5-8]
[DURABILITY: 15/15]
[QUALITY: COMMON]
Five to eight damage. Against a Level 3 Lesser Imp with 150 HP, he should need... William did the math quickly. At least twenty clean hits. And that was assuming the imp just stood there and let him swing.
A woman's voice screamed from the hallway. "Help! Someone help!"
William's hand tightened on the bat. Three years of gaming had taught him a lot about the games combat mechanics, monster patterns, and optimal strategies. But this wasn't a game anymore. Those screams were real and the pain would be real.
He took a deep breath and opened his apartment door.
The hallway was chaotic. His neighbor from 3B—Mrs. Iven, a sweet elderly woman who always said hello—/,was backed against the wall, facing down two Corrupted Rats. They were the size of large dogs, their fur matted and dripping with a black substance that hissed when it hit the floor.
[Corrupted Rat - Level 2]
[HP: 80/80]
[Corrupted Rat - Level 2]
[HP: 80/80]
The rats hadn't noticed him yet because they were fully focused on Mrs. Iven, their beady red eyes gleaming with hunger.
William's gaming instincts kicked in. Aggro management…He needed to pull their attention.
"Hey!" he shouted, raising the bat. "Over here!"
Both rats' heads snapped toward him. Their health bars shifted, a small aggro indicator appearing next to his name in their targeting display. It worked just like the game.
The rats suddenly charged at him hungrily.
William's heart hammered in his chest, but his body moved almost on autopilot. The first rat lunged with its teeth bared at him. William sidestepped, bringing the bat down hard on its skull.
[CRITICAL HIT!]
[DAMAGE: 12]
[CORRUPTED RAT HP: 68/80]
The rat squealed and staggered. The second one was already coming at him from the left. William pivoted, swinging the bat like he was aiming for a home run. It connected with the creature's ribs with a sickening crunch.
[HIT!]
[DAMAGE: 7]
[CORRUPTED RAT HP: 73/80]
They were fast, faster than he had expected. In the game, you just tapped the screen. Here, every movement mattered if he hesitated for even a moment he would be dead.
The first rat recovered and lunged again. William wasn't fast enough this time causing its teeth to sink into his forearm, and white-hot pain exploded through his arm.
[YOU HAVE TAKEN 15 DAMAGE]
[HP: 85/100]
William screamed and smashed the bat down on the rat's head again and again. The creature released him, making him see blood, real blood, his blood, dripping from its teeth.
[CRITICAL HIT!]
[DAMAGE: 11]
[CORRUPTED RAT HP: 57/80]
He needed to focus. Kiting. Distance management. Crowd control.
William backpedaled, keeping both rats in his line of sight. When they lunged, he dodged. When they overextended, he struck. It was brutal and exhausting work. His arms burned and sweat poured down his face.
But slowly, methodically, he whittled them down.
[CORRUPTED RAT HP: 12/80]
[CORRUPTED RAT HP: 23/80]
One more hit each. Just one more.
The first rat made a desperate lunge. William brought the bat down with everything he had left.
[CRITICAL HIT!]
[DAMAGE: 14]
[YOU HAVE SLAIN: CORRUPTED RAT - LEVEL 2]
And then the notifications started.
[10,000× BONUS REWARDS ACTIVATED!]
[CALCULATING DROPS...]
[100% DROP RATE APPLIED!]
[YOU HAVE OBTAINED: CORRUPTED FANG ×10,000]
[YOU HAVE OBTAINED: RAT PELT ×10,000]
[YOU HAVE OBTAINED: BRONZE COINS ×100,000]
[YOU HAVE OBTAINED: RARE ITEM - LEATHER BRACERS OF THE VERMIN HUNTER]
[YOU HAVE OBTAINED: SKILL BOOK - QUICK STRIKE (UNCOMMON)]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 200,000 (20 × 10,000)]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 6!]
Golden light erupted from William's body. The pain in his arm vanished and his fatigue disappeared. He felt stronger and faster, like his body had been upgraded.
The second rat, perhaps sensing the shift in power, tried to flee but William didn't let it. He closed the distance in a burst of speed he didn't know he had and brought the bat down.
[YOU HAVE SLAIN: CORRUPTED RAT - LEVEL 2]
The cascade of rewards hit again. More items. More coins. More experience.
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 8!]
William stood in the hallway, breathing hard, staring at the notifications filling his vision. Only two Level 2 rats had earned him eight levels, tens of thousands of crafting materials, and rare equipment and a skill book.
So this was his power now?
Mrs. Iven was staring at him with wide eyes, her back still pressed against the wall.
"William?" she whispered. "What... what's happening?"
William looked at her, then at the dissolving corpses of the rats, then at his trembling hands. Hands that now held the most broken ability in this new merged world.
"I don't know, Mrs. Iven," he said quietly.
Suddenly another roar echoed from the stairwell sounding deeper and louder.
William pulled up his status screen, really looking at it for the first time.
[WILLIAM CROSS]
[LEVEL: 8]
[HP: 180/180]
[MP: 120/120]
[STRENGTH Lvl.24]
[AGILITY Lvl.22]
[VITALITY Lvl.18]
[INTELLIGENCE Lvl.12]
[TALENT: SSS-RANK - 100% DROP RATE]
[UNIQUE: 10,000× BONUS REWARDS SYSTEM]
[UNSPENT STAT POINTS: 35]
He had thirty-five stat points to allocate. A skill book in his inventory which was glowing, waiting to be learned. And somewhere in this building, bigger monsters were hunting.
William smiled grimly. He had played Infinite Descent for three years. He knew the monsters. He knew the game mechanics and how to exploit every advantage.
And now he had the ultimate advantage.