Awakening The Gods: System's Ascension

How many years has it been now? Five? Seven? I somehow lost track of time ever since then.

All I can say for sure is a long time has passed by, since the world changed. Since the earth itself and the sky ripped open and the monsters came. Like nature shedding its skin for an evolution, but at the cost of the people who were its inhabitants.

Since the streets ran red with the blood of the unprepared. The first day was utter chaos. A massacre no one could have ever imagined. Gruesome sights that'd easily send bile rushing through the throats of the weak hearted. And broken buildings where individuals had once planned their lives.

The second week? No one could have thought of it as something possible, but it became worse. Like these monsters—despite seeming to possess little to no intelligence—found the torment they inflicted amusing.

By the end of the first week, it was all gone. Governments which took years to build were destroyed, and civilization crumbled. Cities were burned, and the air was filled with the screams of those who couldn't fight back. Not like anyone could.

Then came the insanity of Natural selection. Humans began to kill humans for survival. For resources, and shelter. They themselves began to drown in the pool of inhumanity, slowly becoming the monsters they had all feared.

And then, like a reward from the same nature who tried to take us for the sake of its growth, they arrived. The ones who looked human but weren’t. They walked through the ruins of our world as if they owned it, wielding powers that defied reality, cutting through the monsters like they were nothing. They brought out the impossible and wielded it as the possible.

Some of them helped us. Some of them didn’t.

I’ve fought. I’ve survived. I’ve killed.

And then came the System.

I still remember the moment it appeared to me—the cold, blue text floating in my vision, the unreadable symbols that somehow made sense, the overwhelming flood of information that turned my fear into something else entirely. Hope.

A bright light showing me a path in this blinding darkness. And that was the same reason why I rejected it. I thought my mind, out of desperation, was trying to give me a reprieve. Perhaps I was going insane. And that foolish suspicion became a costly mistake.

A punishment descending on me like the world scolding me for rejecting its gift.

However, my acceptance of this gift opened my eyes to a choice I never thought I'd have to make. I accepted the world, and in turn, I was rejected by its inhabitants.

That was when I saw it. The position I was in. I had two choices: Pick the world and myself while rejecting its inhabitants, or pick its inhabitants and subject myself to countless punishments from the world.

That was a lifetime ago. And I made my choice.

Now, I barely remember the man I used to be.

Every battle I won, every enemy I cut down, every corpse I walked over, every desperate moment where I pushed past my limits—it all fed into the numbers, the glowing stats that told me I was becoming something more than human.

Strength, Agility, Vitality, Perception... Every level-up made the pain feel distant, every new skill a distraction from the memories that refused to die.

But no matter how much power I gain, there’s still this gaping hole inside me. A wound that no amount of levels, no amount of stat increases, no legendary skills can heal.

It’s always there. Waiting.

Some nights, I stare at my reflection, at the cracked remains of a persona I used to be familiar with, trying to recognize the person staring back. A man sculpted by blood and survival. A puppet of the System, dancing to its every command.

The problem is, I can’t tell if I’m the one using it, Or if it’s the one using me.

Every battle feels necessary. Every kill justified. The System rewards me, strengthens me, makes me faster, stronger, more capable of surviving. But sometimes I wonder: Would I still be fighting if it weren’t for the glowing blue screens? Would I still be killing if there was no Quest Completion at the end of it?

Am I truly free?

Or am I just another monster created by the System itself?

[New Quest Available]

Eliminate the survivors in the Safe Zone.

Reward: +3 Levels, [Skill: Phantom Step], 10,000 System Credits.