Just looking at the man’s photograph was enough to irritate me.
On the screen, Lucian Evernight stared into the camera as though the millions of people looking back at him were nothing more than worthless insects.
Whenever I saw those cold eyes, I knew the anger rising inside me wasn’t entirely my own. It was something left behind by Noctis. Even if his memories were fragmented, his body hadn’t forgotten that man.
My jaw tightened as my hand unconsciously gripped the edge of the laptop. I lowered my gaze to the single word displayed on his profile:
Classified.
"Classified, my ass."
I already knew what my father’s ability was: wind control.
At least, that was the simplest way to describe it. The problem was that Lucian’s command over wind had reached a level that the word "control" couldn’t properly explain.
I opened the comments beneath his profile and several analyses written about him. There were hundreds of different theories online.
Some claimed Lucian could fly. There were blurry recordings from several operations showing him standing in the sky without any form of support.
Others believed he was actually using telekinesis. In one video, the body of an enormous monster rose into the air without touching the ground before being hurled several hundred meters away by an invisible force. In another, a collapsing building suddenly stopped and remained suspended until everyone inside had been evacuated.
But I knew it wasn’t telekinesis. Lucian wasn’t directly moving the objects. He was controlling the air around them.
By changing the pressure in whatever direction he wanted, he could lift even objects weighing several tons.
The most widely discussed recording lasted only eight seconds.
In the footage, Lucian stood perfectly still as he stared at the monster in front of him. The next moment, the creature’s head separated from its body, and the three buildings behind it were cut apart along the same line.
He hadn’t moved a hand or used any visible attack. Because of that, some people believed he could cut through anything with nothing more than his gaze.
"Idiots..."
He had most likely compressed the air into an extremely thin blade.
Then again, if the attack was too fast to see and cut through everything in the direction he was looking, there wasn’t much of a difference.
I looked through the verified operation records on Lucian’s profile.
Overlaps Destroyed: 71
Seventy-one.
Most of them were small Overlaps that had been relatively easy to clear. However, the list also contained zones stopped just before they swallowed entire cities, as well as operations that dozens of Nexus users hadn’t dared enter together. Lucian had fought alone in some of them.
The fact that he was this powerful only irritated me more.
"Damn old bastard..."
I glared at his photograph through clenched teeth.
"One day, I’m going to break your bones."
I chose not to think about the fact that this body could currently manage only one pull-up. A person needed ambitious goals: first a second pull-up, then breaking the bones of the man ranked seventh in the world.
There was only a small difference in difficulty.
I closed Lucian’s profile and scrolled farther down the list.
The man in eighth place could transform his body into a substance resembling lava, while the woman in ninth could change the direction of gravity across an area several kilometers wide. In tenth place was someone who claimed to be a dragon in human form.
Whether the man was truly a dragon attracted more attention than his actual ability.
After looking through several more profiles, I grew bored. They were all far too powerful, hundreds of theories surrounded each of them, and I had no chance of defeating any of them right now.
"Whatever. I’ve seen enough Nexus users."
I closed the page.
"Now it’s time to research Overlaps."
I typed "What is an Overlap?" into the search bar.
The first result was an informational page published by the World Nexus Association.
The opening paragraphs explained things I already knew.
Monsters didn’t emerge from portals. No gate opened in the sky, allowing creatures from another world to march through in a line. Instead, regions belonging to other realities were placed directly over this world.
It was like forcing two puzzle pieces into the same space even though they didn’t fit together.
I opened one of the example images on the page.
The photograph had been taken in the center of an ordinary city.
At least, it had once been ordinary.
Several streets had transformed into a dark crimson swamp. Parts of the asphalt were still visible, but most of the surface had disappeared beneath a thick liquid resembling blood.
The buildings hadn’t vanished, but twisted black trees had grown through their walls. Their roots shattered the windows and spread through the rooms inside. Blue insects the size of human heads flew around the streetlights.
The strangest part of the photograph was the sky. Two pale moons could be seen within the boundaries of the Overlap, while people standing only a few meters away remained beneath a bright, cloudless sky.
It was as if another world hadn’t merely been projected over that part of the city. The world itself had been pasted directly onto it.
In the next video, researchers wearing protective suits threw small metal balls across the boundary of an Overlap.
The moment one of the balls entered, it began falling upward. Another melted into a black liquid. The third didn’t produce a sound until four seconds after crossing the boundary.
The foreign world’s laws of physics arrived along with the region. Gravity could change, fire could give off cold, the flow of time could slow down, and substances that shouldn’t have been able to exist together could appear.
The monsters weren’t invaders emerging from the Overlap either. They were the natural inhabitants of the world being placed over ours.
While wandering through their own forests, they suddenly found themselves in the middle of a city inhabited by humans. Of course, that didn’t mean I needed to be more understanding when they ate anyone who crossed their path.
At the center of every Overlap was a Nexus Node.
The Node could take a different form in each Overlap. Sometimes it appeared as an enormous crystal, sometimes as a beating heart, and sometimes as a living tree whose roots spread throughout the entire region.
In some cases, the Node could even be located inside the body of the strongest creature within the Overlap.
If the Node wasn’t destroyed, three things happened: the Overlap expanded, the foreign world’s laws became increasingly permanent, and our world was slowly swallowed by the other reality.
A small Overlap that expanded only a few meters during its first hours could consume an entire neighborhood within days and a whole city within weeks if it wasn’t stopped.
When the Nexus Node was destroyed, the connection between the two realities weakened, and the foreign region began to recede.
However, not everything returned to normal. Destroyed buildings weren’t repaired, the dead didn’t return to life, and creatures left behind in this world when the Overlap closed didn’t disappear.
That was why foreign plants, creatures, and minor distortions left behind by altered physical laws could still be found around successfully closed Overlaps.
As I scrolled down the page, my eyebrows slowly drew together.
I already knew most of what I had read from Noctis’s memories. The part I didn’t understand was why these different worlds were overlapping in the first place.
Were they on the verge of destruction and trying to cling to another reality, or was someone deliberately causing it?
Researchers had no definite answer.
According to the most widely accepted first theory, Overlaps were the survival attempts of realities that were falling apart. A world approaching destruction connected to another world with the closest energy frequency and attempted to settle over it.
The second theory argued that all universes existed simultaneously and that fluctuations in Nexus energy weakened the boundaries between them.
The third theory was far more disturbing: some Overlaps weren’t natural.
Traces resembling artificial structures had been discovered within certain Nexus Nodes—perfect geometric shapes, writing in unknown languages, and defenses specifically placed to protect the Node.
Those who believed this theory thought some worlds were deliberately invading ours.
"Great."
I sank a little deeper into my pillow.
"As if natural disasters weren’t enough, now we might have a war between worlds."
Not everything that emerged from an Overlap was a savage monster either. There were elves, dwarves, vampires, dragons, and many other intelligent species that resembled humans.
Some possessed their own languages, countries, armies, and civilizations that were thousands of years old. Certain groups had fought against humanity after the Overlap began, while others quickly established communication and chose to reach agreements.
Some even lived in human territories: elves who had received official citizenship, dwarves working for mining companies, and foreign merchants doing business in human cities...
One news article featured a vampire campaigning to become mayor. Since he couldn’t attend daytime rallies, he gave all his speeches in the evening.
"So people have gotten used to this too."
For now, relations appeared largely stable, but they had all come from other worlds. Whether they wanted to or not, they had arrived alongside the Overlaps consuming our reality.
Calling them invaders might have been a little harsh. Even so, citizenship documents didn’t change the fact that the world they came from was trying to swallow ours.
I opened the world map again.
There were more red regions than I had expected.
Humanity was currently surviving thanks to Nexus users, advanced weapons, and agreements with foreign races. But what would happen if more Overlaps appeared?
Every new Overlap meant another war, another evacuation, and another region that needed to be defended.
No matter how powerful Ice King was, he couldn’t be everywhere in the world at once. Lucian had destroyed 71 Overlaps, but if two more opened for every one he closed, that number meant nothing.
Eventually, humanity wouldn’t be able to endure any longer. Territory would be lost piece by piece, foreign laws of physics would become permanent, and eventually there would be no point in even asking how much of this world still truly belonged to us.
I stared silently at the map for a while.
For the first time since arriving in this world, I fully understood just how dangerous my situation was.
I needed to earn money, complete the System’s quests, and improve my stats and abilities. There was no guarantee that the street I lived on wouldn’t one day become a crimson swamp beneath two moons.
I looked at the clock in the corner of the laptop screen.
"Ah."
There was less time left before the stream than I had expected.
I shut down the laptop and got out of bed.
"Whatever. I’ll think about the end of the world later."
For now, the only disaster I could prevent was missing my streaming schedule.
I sat down at my desk and began preparing.
First, I activated the camera and facial-tracking software. A few seconds later, the avatar on the screen blinked and tilted her head at the same time as me.
I checked the microphone level and launched the game before looking at the follower count on my profile.
The people who had followed me after yesterday’s stream were still there. Today, I was going to gain more of them.
Far more.
I sat in the gaming chair and pulled my shoulders back. At the same moment, my avatar proudly pushed out her small chest.
"All right."
A confident smile appeared on my face as I placed my hands on the keyboard and mouse.
"I’m going to gain at least three hundred new followers during today’s stream!"
The room remained silent. Even the System didn’t respond to my ambitious goal.
"One of you could at least wish me luck..."
I cleared my throat and clicked the Start Stream button.
A countdown appeared in the center of the screen.
[3]
[2]
[1]
[YOU ARE LIVE]