All at once, my consciousness returned with a jolt, a dull throb pulsing behind my eyes.
The world swam into focus, not the familiar clutter of my apartment, but a vast, silent expanse of pale, mist-shrouded plains.
The horizon stretched endlessly, swallowed by a suffocating white haze that seemed to muffle even the air itself.
In front of me stood a blank, white void, a colossal, formless presence that defied shape or logic, and yet pressed heavily against my awareness.
Words echoed from it like thunder, reverberating through my skull rather than the air. You have one chance.
One chance at what? I tried to ask.
However, the thought had barely formed when the memory fractured, splintering like glass under pressure.
A violent sensation of falling seized me, ripping me away from the white plains.
The mist vanished.
Green and brown blurred together as the world spun violently around me.
Then came the impact.
A bone-jarring crash drove the air from my lungs as I slammed into the ground.
Pain flared across my body. Damp moss and fallen leaves cushioned the blow only slightly, their cold texture pressing against my palms as I struggled to orient myself.
I sucked in a ragged breath.
The air smelled of rich earth, decaying wood, and something faintly metallic.
For a moment, I lay there, stunned, unable to process what had just happened.
The white plains were gone.
The towering presence was gone.
In their place stood an unfamiliar forest stretching as far as I could see.
This place...
What the hell?
Where was I? Huh?
Before me, hanging in the air like a mirage, a system interface materialized, its cold, lifeless text staring back at me.
Status
[Human]
[Enter Name]
The name field blinked, a silent, expectant cursor pulsing in an empty void.
My mind refused to process it.
Then it hit me.
You have got to be kidding me.
This was the beginner screen. The day one, fresh-out-of-the-box character creation interface that nobody had seen in over half a decade. A system screen that should have been long buried beneath updates, expansions, and endgame protocols.
A cold dread, sharper and heavier than the damp earth beneath me, began to seep into my bones.
I scrambled mentally, forcing command after command through instinct alone, trying to summon the inventory overlay, the territory map, anything at all. The muscle memory was there, carved deep from years of repetition, a familiar mental twitch.
No interface expansion. No holographic menus.
Shit!
Panic surged in immediately, and I instinctively opened the forums.
Then the interface responded.
The forums chat interface unfurled in an instant.
Player count: 1,000,000
The world around me seemed to blur and collapse into a cascading wall of text. Messages stacked violently over one another, a chaotic flood of panic, rage, and disbelief spilling across the interface faster than I could process.
[WHERE IS THE CUSTOMER SUPPORT?!!!]
[G** fking da**** A TOTAL RESET??? SCREW THIS GAMEE]
[My planetary bases!!! My items are all gone!!]
[3 YEARS!!! 3 F**KING YEARS!!!]
[OI!! LOG OUT WHERE IS THE LOG OUT!!??]
The words scrolled past in a frantic, endless waterfall of despair and rage. My own achievements, my meticulously crafted outposts, the end-game fleets I had spent half a decade assembling, all… gone. Erased.
Still trembling, I instinctively formed the command to access the settings.
Nothing happened.
I tried again, a more focused, deliberate mental push. Still nothing.
The standard command to access settings, to log out, to leave…
It was gone.
Not grayed out, not malfunctioning. Simply… absent.
I looked around. This area was vast open ground. Further ahead, the trees around me were ancient, colossal things, their bark craggy and covered in a carpet of vivid green moss.
Sunlight, dappled and golden, pierced through the dense canopy, painting shifting patterns on the forest floor.
This was too detailed. Too real. The subtle breeze carried the scent of wild blossoms, and I could feel its gentle caress on my skin.
This wasn't my rig. The scent of stale coffee and overheated electronics was gone.
The feeling of the worn-out chair was all gone.
I looked down at my hands. They weren't my avatar's hands. They were mine.
The original me.
Fuck…
"What the hell happened…" I whispered, the words barely scraping past my throat.
I tried to think back, further than the forest, further than the system window…
Back to the moment before everything shattered. I remember returning home. I remember the dull routine of work bleeding into exhaustion, the familiar ritual of preparing to sleep. The kind of ordinary ending to an ordinary day that should have meant nothing at all.
Then it slipped.
The memory flickered violently, like a corrupted file trying to load.
The white void returned.
That endless, suffocating expanse. The formless presence. And the voice…, echoing through something deeper than sound itself.
You have one chance.
One chance at what?
My breath caught in my throat, shallow and uneven, as the realization began to form… It felt slow at first, then crushing in its weight.
If this wasn't a game anymore… if the log out function didn't exist at all…
Then that single "chance" wasn't a reward.
It was a transfer.
The thought settled into me like ice spreading through my chest.
We were inside…
...
[Enter name]
Seeing it felt like there was no choice.
A bitter laugh escaped my lips, a hoarse, broken sound in the profound silence of the forest. The irony was suffocating. Back when I first started Eterna Galaxy Online, I was an office worker. My characters were always waifu aliases like 'SmokeyAnne' or something equally ridiculous.
The cursor blinked. Waiting.
This wasn't a game. I reminded myself…
A Name…
Maximus Decima Meridia...
No...
It needed to be mine. Truly mine.
I reached out a trembling finger, the tip hovering over the translucent keyboard. The moment my digit touched the 'A', a spark of electricity, faint but undeniable, shot up my arm.
[Enter name: Atlas]
The final input was registered.
The window dissolved instantly, its light breaking apart into drifting fragments that scattered around me before fading into the air.
Those fragments didn't disappear. In front of me, they reformed, condensing into a structured system imprint as the first reward manifested.
Beginner Spacecraft
A compact, single-occupant exploration vessel. Basic life support, navigation, and atmospheric entry systems included. Basic weapon modules. Minimal shielding. Designed for survival and initial planetary exploration.
The knowledge of it settled into my mind like something already understood, as if the system had etched its existence directly into my perception of reality.
The name was set.
The game had begun.
The moment I stepped closer, the vessel reacted, subtly at first, then with a low, resonant hum as its systems recognized authorization. A ramp extended from its underside with smooth mechanical precision, settling into the forest floor as it had always belonged there.
I boarded.
Inside, the atmosphere shifted immediately. The air was filtered and clean, stripped of the forest's damp heaviness. Soft ambient lighting lined the narrow corridor, embedded into the walls in thin strips that pulsed faintly with a calm, rhythmic glow. It wasn't bright, it was controlled, functional, and designed to conserve power while still maintaining visibility.
The interior was compact, almost minimalistic. Every surface served a purpose. The corridor led directly into the central cockpit, with auxiliary systems branching off in tight, efficient segments. There were no wasted spaces, no comfort-driven expansions, just necessity refined into design.
The cockpit itself was a semi-circular chamber with a wide, curved viewport dominating the front wall. Through it, the forest remained visible, distant and quiet.
A single pilot seat sat at the center, embedded into a neural interface cradle. No bulky controls, no physical clutter, just a streamlined interface designed to connect directly with thought and intent. Around it floated faint holographic panels, currently dormant, waiting for activation.
To the side, compact storage compartments lined the walls, their contents secured and unlabeled, likely tied to system-locked inventory access. Beneath the floor plating, I could feel the faint vibration of dormant engines.
At the rear of the cockpit, a small auxiliary station displayed basic diagnostics: life support stability, structural integrity, energy reserves.
Beyond a narrow access hatch lay the living module.
The moment I stepped through, the space opened slightly, though "spacious" was a generous term. It was a compact, functional habitat section built into the ship's core, designed for endurance rather than comfort. The lighting here was softer, warmer, shifting subtly with the ship's internal cycle to simulate a sense of time.
One side of the room held a fold-out bed integrated directly into the wall. It was thin but structured, with adaptive padding that adjusted firmness depending on pressure. Above it, a recessed storage panel blinked faintly, likely linked to the system's inventory interface.
Opposite the bed sat a compact utility kitchen, with bare essentials only. A retractable prep surface extended from the wall beneath a minimalist dispenser unit that likely synthesized basic nutrients or rehydrated stored rations. A small sink-like basin was embedded beside it, connected to a closed-loop water recycling system. No stove, no flame, no real cooking as I knew it, just controlled output modules designed for efficiency and survival.
Everything folded, retracted, or existed in multiple-use form. Every centimeter of space was accounted for, engineered with the singular purpose of keeping one person alive indefinitely if needed.
A narrow strip along the floor concealed storage compartments for supplies, tools, and emergency gear, each locked behind system-authenticated access.
It wasn't luxurious. It wasn't impressive in the way endgame vessels had been in the old world.
But it was self-sufficient.
And for now, that was enough.
I let out a slow sigh, the sound feeling heavier than it should in the quiet of the ship.
Normally, there would have been a full interface. An avatar overlay interacting with the environment, menus unfolding with a thought, and clean system prompts guiding every action.
That was how it had always been. Automated. Detached. Safe.
This time, there was nothing between me and the world. No guided cursor, no layered HUD, no avatar buffer quietly thinking for me in the background.
It was just me.
Every check, every observation, every small decision had to come from my own awareness, my own instincts, my own hands, my own eyes.
And somehow, that realization made the silence of the ship feel even heavier, as if it had weight of its own pressing down on my thoughts.
Then came the deeper truth.
This wasn't just immersion.
I could feel it.
The floor beneath my feet. The faint vibration of dormant systems. The air is cycling through the vents. Even the subtle ache in my muscles from tension I hadn't realized I was holding. It all registered cleanly, no filters, no abstraction, no avatar separation to dull the edges.
And for the first time, it hit me fully.
Even pain wasn't data anymore.
I have to be careful. First things first, how do I run this ship?
I moved to the pilot seat, and the moment I lowered myself into it, the neural cradle activated. A faint pulse of light traced along the frame as something locked into place behind my head.
Then a voice spoke from the neural cradle
"Pilot detected. Please enter your name."
The moment I entered it, the ship responded. A subtle shift ran through the systems, as if something fundamental had clicked into place. Authorization confirmed. Ownership assigned.
I didn't hesitate. I ran every diagnostic I could, pushing the interface through instinct and focus. Status panels unfolded across my awareness, clean and precise.
The results came back quickly. Stable. Functional. Bare minimum… but operational.
Then I noticed something else.
It seemed the rest of the beginner rewards weren't just abstract system grants that appeared out of nowhere.
They were here, integrated into the ship's database and function.
Planetary Construction Blueprint Set
A modular planetary base framework containing structural schematics, energy routing systems, and scalable expansion protocols. Capable of rapid deployment using available environmental resources.
→ Requirement: Planetary deployment site.
Faster-than-Light Technology Schematics
An incomplete but functional theoretical framework for spatial displacement beyond relativistic limits. Requires direct cognitive integration.
→ Status: Locked. Prerequisite unmet.
It didn't take long to connect the dots.
I needed a planetary base first. A foundation. Something to anchor progression before anything else could unlock.
Then the final beginner reward entry surfaced.
Gene Fusion Core
A biomechanical synthesis device capable of restructuring and merging genetic material at a foundational level. Interfaces directly with the biological code. High instability risk.
I stared at it longer than the others.
This wasn't just equipment.
This was it.
The trigger for character progression.
I pushed myself out of the pilot seat and made my way to the ship's storage compartment.
It didn't take long to find it.
Secured within a recessed bay was the device, a fusion unit, compact but unmistakably complex. Its surface was smooth, and two cylindrical chambers were mounted side by side.
One was already filled with a blue translucent fluid, faintly luminous, swirling in slow, deliberate currents. Genetic cleansing fluid, most likely the refining, stabilizing, preparing whatever it touched.
The other chamber was empty. Waiting.
Beneath them, locked into a sterile slot, rested a single syringe.
Simple. Clean.
All I had to do was choose a bio-organism to take. It will be my first key to awakening the dormant gene.
In Eterna Galaxy Online, that choice defined everything.
There had always been countless paths, countless builds, countless theories thrown around in forums and late-night discussions. But five years of gameplay had carved out the truth. The meta had stabilized. Refined. Proven.
Everyone knew the top five.
The Arcana.
The Bio-Swarm.
The Entropic Void.
The Gestalt Machine.
The Blood Lord.
Each one was absurdly powerful in its own right. Each one was capable of breaking the game in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing.
The Arcana, the Entropic Void, and the Blood Lord all traced back to lost civilizations, fragmented relic paths that surfaced through pure chance. RNG determined everything. A player could spend years searching and never encounter even a single viable fragment.
But in the late game, that uncertainty stopped mattering.
The Bio-Swarm, given enough time and resources, could parasitize a unit tied to a unique progression path, assimilate it, and replicate its advantages. What was once rare became harvestable. What was once unique became… scalable.
Because at its core, this game had always been about one thing.
Resources.
In this endless expanse, the one with the most resources wins. Not skill alone. Not luck. Time, accumulation, and control, those were the real deciding factors.
It would take time. A lot of it.
But first… I needed information.
I turned and made my way back into the ship, the hatch sealing behind me with a soft hiss. The cockpit lights adjusted as I approached, the neural interface already waiting.
I slid into the pilot seat.
The cradle activated instantly, syncing with my thoughts. The interface unfolded, not as visible screens, but as layers of awareness overlaying my vision. Controls, options, system pathways… all of it accessible with intent alone.
I focused.
Orbital Scan.
The command registered.
A low hum spread through the ship as dormant systems came online. Power surged through the frame, and a moment later, the thrusters ignited. The entire vessel vibrated beneath me, a controlled force building from within.
Then we lifted.
The forest fell away in seconds, swallowed by distance as the ship punched through the sky. Clouds blurred past the viewport, torn apart by velocity, until blue faded into the dark expanse of space.
The ascent didn't feel smooth. It felt real. Every shift in acceleration pressed against my body, every adjustment in trajectory translating directly through the neural link.
Then, a sudden deceleration.
The ship halted in orbit with a precise, calculated stop.
Before me, the planet came into full view. Vast. Curved. Alive. Layers of green, blue, and shifting cloud systems stretched endlessly across its surface. From this height, everything looked calm. Untouched.
A world waiting to be claimed.
The system voice returned, clear and mechanical within my mind.
"Initiating orbital scan… Planetary circumference measurement in progress. Estimated completion time: 72 hours."
Three cycles.
Seventy-two hours.
Time to think. Time to plan.
Time to survive.
My reflection stared faintly back at me in the viewport, no avatar, no interface mask. Just me. Flesh. Breathing. Real.
The weight of that possible truth settled deeper than before.
No resets. No second chances. No log out.
Only progression.
Or death.
The ship hummed softly around me as the scan began its silent sweep across the planet.
I shifted my focus and pulled up the forums again. The chaos hadn't slowed down. If anything, it had grown worse. Messages flooded in faster than ever, a relentless stream of rage, fear, and disbelief.
But something else caught my attention.
The number at the top.
Player Count: 891,234
Even as a veteran player, my chest tightened.
It had already dropped.
No announcement. No explanation. Just… gone.
A quiet kind of dread crept in, colder than before.
I closed the feed.
"Alright…" I muttered under my breath, the word feeling heavier this time.
My gaze returned to the planet below.
"Let's see what kind of hell this place really is."