You Already Won

Cawren stood atop the smoldering ridge, his silhouette framed by the blazing ruin of the town behind him.

Wreathed in fire and scripture, he was less a man and more a living invocation.

Flames clung to his form like loyal beasts—cascading down his arms in slow, seething trails. Across his exposed chest and limbs, searing runes pulsed and flowed, rearranging themselves in cryptic syntax.

Cawren's eyes burned red, so bright they left streaks when he turned his head. His voice, when it came, crackled like a furnace.

He wore the mask of a demon—elongated and horned, its grin eternal—and the mantle of a king, dark crimson and black, stitched with symbols that made natives shudder when they saw it.

Before him, the Golden Wave loomed—crawling, stretching, a slow smear across the land. It didn't move fast. It didn't need to. Anything it touched turned to gold—statue-like, lifeless.

Behind him, several native soldiers trembled, bound by fiery chains and seared cuffs. Their eyes locked on the wave, unable to blink.

Cawren stepped forward, raised one hand, and a flaming tendril snapped out—grabbing one of them by the chest and dragging him to the edge.

"Let's see," Cawren said, voice crackling like a furnace, "how does this work?"

The man screamed. A prayer. A curse. A plea.

Too late.

The tendril flung him forward, foot skimming the Gold.

He froze mid-step. Skin flaked into shining ash. Then—

Solid. Gold.

Wide eyes. Gaping mouth. A statue in the shape of failure.

Cawren's UI flickered to life:

———————————————————

[Golden Cascade Anomaly: Class ???]

Realm-Origin Affliction

Status: Expanding

Contact: Instant conversion upon physical interaction

Sentience: None detected

Internal Structure: [REDACTED]

Immunity Parameters: [CLASSIFIED]

Source: [REDACTED – ERROR CODE 019]

Notes:

Avoid contact.

No known cure.

Avoid contact.

Avoid contact.

AV⚠️D CO🔳TACT.

———————————————————

He frowned. The glitch on the final line made his eye twitch beneath the mask.

"Not sentient," he muttered. "Just a punishment. A divine glitch. Environmental hazard my ass."

He reached into his inventory, pulled out a vial, and tossed it.

A high-grade fortitude potion, designed to boost resilience and ward off metaphysical effects.

The liquid shattered on the soldier blooming into a sacred immunity robe — Shoved forward.

He was gold before he finished screaming.

Another—this one he gave an anti-divine charm set with a overpowered celestial gem.

Useless.

Three more. Potions. Runes. Relics.

Gold.

Gold.

Gold.

Cawren exhaled through the vents of his mask. Flames hissed. The last native fell to his knees, whispering to a god that wouldn't answer. He then was gold.

"Nothing works," Cawren said flatly. "Doesn't matter what you wear. Doesn't matter what you drink. If it touches you…"

He glanced back at the wave. He stared at the horizon.

The Supreme Families had made their move.

And suddenly, this region wasn't just a playground.

It was a burial pit.

His original plan had been clear:

Kill everyone.

100% the event.

Leave his mark.

But now?

Everyone was already dying.

The game had changed.

He tapped the side of his mask, accessing his point totals and the remaining active contestants. The number had shrunk… drastically.

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Plenty of gems still in his possession. More than enough to coast. But comfort bred sloppiness. And arrogance?

That would get him killed.

Especially now.

He'd need to get clever.

Brutal.

Surgical.

The demon-mask turned, watching the last glinting statue sink beneath the creeping gold.

"New objective," he muttered.

"Kill the gods."

It became clear to him—crystal, almost blinding in its clarity.

That was his goal now.

The only one that mattered.

Ever since that arrogant prick's voice rang through his head like a sermon delivered by rot, something in him had snapped sideways. Not broken. Just… adjusted. Tilted. Aligned.

He'd met gods before.

Well, "gods." Lesser ones.

Backwater deities that could barely warp a hill, spirits that bled when stabbed, sky-beasts with delusions of grandeur.

The term "god" was loose in this world.

More of a costume than a title.

But these beings—

The Supreme Families.

The one called Vari.

The echo of that name alone made his teeth clench.

They weren't gods in the mythic sense. They were concepts with egos.

Rules that walked.

He didn't understand how they worked.

And he hated that.

Hated it more than anything.

Cawren snarled under his breath.

He wasn't powerless before he came here.

He wasn't meant to be fodder.

And that wasn't going to start now.

He was a ranker. A low one, sure. Barely over the line. But he'd crossed it in months.

Not years. Not decades.

Months.

That alone made him a prodigy.

And Cawren, to his credit, didn't shy away from the word.

He wore it like he wore flame: with purpose.

And being a prodigy meant one thing above all—

You didn't stop when the world said "enough."

So what if the Families were ancient?

So what if they moved like inevitabilities and spoke like entropy?

They still existed.

Which meant they had a health bar.

And with enough grinding, evolving, and leveling,

With the right build,

The perfect moment—

He could do it.

Not just fight a Supreme Head.

Kill one.

Then, with a satisfied grin, he turned and walked from the golden field. A red glint flared in his eyes as his UI pinged with nearby movement.

Time to level up.

[SYSTEM MESSAGE]

The screen did not blink into existence.

It bloomed.

Etched in gold-veined wood and flower, bordered with silver runes that crawled like living calligraphy, the interface unfurled before Cawren like the first page of a sacred text. The usual orange and black panels were gone—replaced by something that wasn't a menu.

This was a manuscript.

And it was speaking to him.

———————————————————-

A TALE UNFOLDS

THE FORGE OF ABSOLUTES

You, who has scorched the weak and mocked the divine.

You, who has not bowed to the laws of Kings nor trembled before the stare of Supreme Beings.

You, whose wrath burns brighter than celestial favor.

You, whose tale defies category—

I have seen you.

Where gods placed walls,

You placed fire.

Where kings set trials,

You set your jaw.

Let it be known:

Your defiance is not unnoticed.

Your ambition is not unworthy.

———————————————————

A MYTH IS READY TO BE WRITTEN.

QUEST LINE UNLOCKED: THE FRACTURED ASCENSION

"When tales fail to end,

When heirs fracture and stars fall out of rhythm,

One not of bloodline—but of wrath—may rise."

———————————————————

Primary Objective:

Slay the Fractured Heir — a Jujisn destined to claim a King's title.

Steal their right.

Take their crown.

End their story. Begin your legend.

———————————————————-

Road To Objective:

Defeat the Five Champions of the Land:

Chosen vessels of ancient territories.

Each holds a fragment of the challenge.

Each, a different horror.

Each, a gate you must shatter.

Champion One: The Hollow Grove's Revenant

Champion Two: The Skybreaker of Lethel Vaults

Champion Three: The Beast-Queen of Tharn's Maw

Champion Four: The Mirrorless Monk

Champion Five: The Sealed Crimson Prophet

Absorb their Essences of Worth. Ascend to become worthy enough to face the Fractured Heir.

Rewards:

Access to King-level Ascension Trial

Title: [Claimant of the Absolute]

Authority: [Supreme Divinity]

Trait Evolution: [Transcendental Core Initiation]

????

Warning:

This is a Quest of Legacy.

Failure is Final.

Time Limit: The end of the Fortune Holder.

———————————————————

Cawren stared.

Then he laughed.

A full, throaty, delighted laugh that shook the forest around him.

Flames danced behind his eyes.

He cracked his knuckles.

Then he vanished in a pulse of heat and arcane code, reappearing on a crooked, dead-wood tree several miles away. The branch blackened under his boots. A frightened hiss from above told him the beast living in the upper canopy had fled.

Good. He didn't want company.

Cawren sat down, ignoring the way the tree groaned beneath his flame-wreathed weight. His aura pulsed softly—searing script glowed across his forearms, chest, and neck. His eyes flicked open the moment his UI flared to life.

The message bothered him. Not the power. Not the quest.

But the tone.

It didn't feel like Halo Reapers 3. His UI was structured, brutally efficient—military-grade design with cold bullet points and kill-trackers. This was… poetic. Cinematic. Like someone took over his feed and installed a fairytale inside a war game.

He rubbed the side of his head. "Gods don't need to rhyme. So why the hell are they?"

Also divine beings usually couldn't affect him. He didn't say that to brag—it was just a fact. Top of the food chain in online rankings, before all this started. Before Requiem made those leaderboards obsolete.

He remembered the armor he earned from God Tier raids. The lore behind them had always been broken—"can reflect divine judgment," "immune to acts of creation," "built in the absence of time." Bullshit flavor text.

Except now, here in Requiem…

That lore worked.

He'd resisted divine interference before. When others got smited or altered, he didn't. His UI refused inputs. His armor refused blessings. One time, a god tried to alter his speed and got repelled like a glitch.

So how the hell did this get through?

He leaned back against the scorched bark, eyes scanning the screen again.

There were no system locks. No flashing countdown. No "mission failure" warnings.

It wasn't a forced quest.

It was… an invitation.

Maybe his system was changing. Becoming aware. Adapting to Requiem.

Or maybe…

"No," he said under his breath, narrowing his eyes. "No one hacked me. Not possible. Though…. The gold is bypassing everything. But I doubt a Supreme Family would take interest in me. They haven't before. Now isn't any different."

So that left one option.

His own system did this.

It evolved. He heard of that before. Outlanders who had outgrown their systems and used various other means to express power. Maybe now it was his turn.

He stared at the screen for a long moment.

"Fractured Heir. Five champions. Steal their strength. Ascend."

He cracked his knuckles. Not out of tension. Just out of habit.

If this was a trap, he'd deal with it.

If this was a gift, he'd claim it.

And if the gods were watching?

Let them.

He was always going to break the rules eventually.

Now he just had a better reason.

Besides, he thought, half-smirking, "Absolute Being" sounds better than Ranker.