Aiden remembered enough about them from his previous life to know that none of these men are with firearms.
That made him relaxed slightly. He’s still human, and one mistake could still put him in the hospital. But against men like these, he knew exactly what to do.
The leader interpreted his silence differently, getting a bit riled up by Aiden’s nonchalance...
"What’s wrong?" He stepped closer, "You deaf?"
Aiden looked at him and for a moment, nothing happened, but then something changed.
He was ready for his first combat after regression, he was more than ready.
The expression in Aiden’s eyes became completely different. The ordinary university student disappeared, there was no nervousness, no irritation, no fear. Only an ancient, quiet coldness.
It was the gaze of someone who had watched cities fall. Someone who had walked through mountains of corpses. Someone who had stared into the eyes of creatures that could swallow humans whole.
Someone who had survived three years in a world where hesitation meant death.
Aiden didn’t release killing intent, there was no need to.
He simply looked at the man, and the leader’s smile disappeared.
In response the leader’s body instinctively stiffened.
For the briefest moment, something inside him screamed that he should step away.
He didn’t understand why, after all the guy standing before him looked completely ordinary.
Yet... Something was wrong. Very wrong.
One of the gangsters swallowed. "...What’s wrong with this guy?"
Another quietly muttered, "Forget it, Boss."
The leader’s jaw tightened. He didn’t want to back down in front of his men.
"What are you looking at?"
Aiden’s expression remained indifferent, "Nothing."
"Then what’s your problem?"
"Nothing."
Aiden paused, his eyes shifted briefly toward the side, "You were just standing in my way."
Silence hit them once. The gangsters looked at one another.
The leader’s expression twitched. For several seconds, neither side moved.
Then, slowly, the leader stepped aside, "Whatever."
Aiden walked past him and didn’t look back.
Behind him, one of the gangsters whispered, "Boss..."
"I said forget it." The leader watched Aiden’s back disappear into the crowd. He couldn’t explain it.
But something about that young man’s eyes had made him remember every horror story he’d ever heard. It wasn’t fear exactly, it was instinct.
The kind of instinct that told a person when they were standing too close to something they didn’t understand.
Aiden continued walking. After several steps, he shook his head faintly.
’The Black Fang Gang...’
The name surfaced naturally from his memories. He had completely forgotten about them. The university’s number-one gang.
Before the apocalypse, their reputation had spread throughout the campus and several surrounding districts.
They bullied students, extorted money and controlled several underground businesses.
They weren’t powerful by any meaningful standard, but in a peaceful society, five violent men with enough followers could make hundreds of ordinary people afraid.
Aiden had encountered them occasionally in his previous life. But after the apocalypse... He couldn’t remember hearing their name even once.
His eyebrows lowered slightly, ’Now that I think about it... I never heard about them again.’
’Not even once,’ he shook his head as he searched through his memories and got nothing.
Perhaps they had survived for a while, perhaps they hadn’t.
His gaze became distant. ’Were they wiped out during the first wave?’
It was entirely possible after all the apocalypse hadn’t given anyone time to prepare. People died in their homes, people died in the streets, people died inside fortified buildings.
Some had guns, some had emergency supplies. Some had wealthy families and private security. Others had nothing but the clothes on their backs.
But none of that guaranteed survival. The rules of the world had changed overnight.
The strongest predators were no longer human.
A gang that terrified hundreds of students one day could become nothing more than food for a monster the next.
’Maybe the Black Fangs were simply among the first casualties.’
Aiden wasn’t particularly happy about the thought. Nor was he sad. It was simply a possibility, a reminder that the hierarchy of this world was already on borrowed time. The people who ruled the streets today wouldn’t necessarily survive tomorrow.
And those who were insignificant today might become monsters—or heroes—after the apocalypse descended.
Aiden’s footsteps never slowed. A few minutes later, the surrounding streets became increasingly crowded.
He looked ahead. And then he finally saw it; The Eclipse Online Pod Shop. The enormous structure rose several stories above the surrounding buildings, its entire exterior covered in sleek black glass and luminous silver panels.
Above the entrance floated an enormous holographic logo.
[ECLIPSE ONLINE]
The letters stretched across the sky, rotating slowly as streams of digital light cascaded around them.
A massive crowd had gathered outside, students, office workers, young couples, gamers carrying backpacks, parents accompanying their children, everyone seemed infected by the same excitement.
The anticipation for this game was multiple times higher the anticipation people have for GTA 6
Anyways, some were taking pictures beneath the holographic logo. Others were comparing pod models displayed on their personal terminals.
"I heard the Eclipse X-9 has a neural synchronization rate of ninety-nine percent!"
"That’s fake marketing!"
"No, my cousin works in the industry. He said it’s real!"
"Forget the X-9. The military-grade immersion pod is the one worth buying."
"They’re already sold out!"
"What?!"
Arguments erupted everywhere, people were laughing. Excitement filled the air. It almost felt like a festival.
Aiden stood at the edge of the crowd. His gaze slowly swept across the countless expensive pods displayed behind the transparent walls.
Tomorrow... None of them would matter. Once Eclipse Online merged with reality, these pods would become nothing more than expensive pieces of obsolete technology.
After all, what purpose did a pod serve when the game itself had become reality?
But that wasn’t why Aiden had come. The pod was only the beginning. Creating an account before the merge. Entering the game. Claiming opportunities before anyone else even knew they existed.
Every one of those things mattered. His gaze settled on the enormous holographic logo above him.
The crowd continued celebrating around him, completely unaware of what tomorrow would bring.
Aiden’s eyes narrowed. For everyone else, this place represented the beginning of the world’s greatest game.
For him... It represented the beginning of his second life.
Taking a deep breath, he took one final step forward. The entrance stood directly before him. The first piece of his new future was waiting inside.
The atmosphere inside was noticeably different from the chaos outside.
Everything was polished, organized, and almost sterile.
Rows of sleek immersion pods stretched across the spacious showroom, each model displayed beneath floating holographic panels. Some resembled elegant reclining chairs enclosed within transparent capsules, while others were larger, more extravagant machines equipped with additional neural interfaces and sensory modules.
Holographic advertisements floated above them.
[NEURAL SYNCHRONIZATION — 99.8%]
[FULL-SENSORY IMMERSION]
[ZERO-LATENCY RESPONSE]
[NEXT-GENERATION VIRTUAL REALITY]
Employees moved between customers, explaining specifications and processing purchases.
The excitement was almost tangible.