1: Reborn

The digital clock on the bedside table read 08:14 AM.

Vivi Shepard gasped awake, her eyes snapping open as her lungs instinctively seized, as though she could still feel the agony of claws tearing into her flesh.

She scrambled backward against the headboard, her chest heaving as her eyes darted wildly around the room. For a terrifying moment, she could barely think before reality slowly began to sink in.

“Isn’t this… my old bedroom?”

Confused, she lowered her gaze to her trembling hands. There was no pain, no blood, and not a single scar on her skin.

‘Was it all a nightmare?’ she wondered, her heart still pounding against her ribs. ‘If it was, then it was too long, too vivid, and far too painfully real.’

Before she could process her current reality, her phone started ringing on the vanity table, the shrill noise snapping her out of her thoughts.

She picked it up, but the moment she saw the caller ID, her expression darkened.

Ward Hoover. Her boyfriend.

In her terrifying “dream,” he had been cheating on her with her best friend, Susan, before eventually murdering her.

The memory was as clear as day. It felt less like a nightmare and more like a horrific premonition, a warning screaming at her to end things with Ward immediately.

Clearing her throat to steady her voice, she swiped to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Hey, babe,” Ward said with casual familiarity in his voice. “It’s a Saturday. Why don’t you come out? Let’s have an outing. You should bring Susan with you, too. We can all have fun together.”

“An outing?” Vivi asked carefully, her grip tightening on the phone. “Where?”

“Uh…” Ward trailed off and after a few seconds of silence, he replied, “We could go shopping for some clothes, then catch a movie, and maybe hit the merry-go-round. It’ll be fun, don’t you think?”

Vivi lowered her gaze, recognizing every activity he had mentioned. ‘Shopping, movies, merry-go-round.’

Ward had never once taken her shopping on his own dime. The only time it had ever happened was when Susan was right there with them.

And that day was suddenly crystal clear in her mind.

She remembered standing awkwardly in the mall, feeling like an outsider while Susan tried on expensive outfits. Back then, they had deceived her into believing Susan was paying for everything herself. It wasn’t until much later that Vivi discovered that Ward had funded the shopping spree while Vivi got nothing.

When they went to the movies, Susan had claimed she was terrified of horror films, clinging to Ward and burying her face in his shoulder the whole time. Meanwhile, Vivi had sat quietly beside them, too timid to complain or even voice her discomfort.

And the merry-go-round? Susan had batted her eyelashes and claimed she had never ridden one before, insisting that she desperately wanted to try it. Ward had immediately asked Vivi to step aside so he could take Susan on the ride.

When Vivi’s turn finally came, Ward abruptly declared that it was getting too late and forced them all to leave.

It was identical. Every single detail matched the nightmare. Except…

Vivi’s breath caught in her throat.

With trembling fingers, she opened the calendar app on her phone.

October 12, 2023.

“Oh my God… I’ve been reborn!”

The realization crashed over her like a tidal wave.

Stunned, she slid off the bed and dropped to her knees on the floor, the magnitude of it leaving her breathless.

“Hello? Vivi, I haven’t gotten an answer from you,” Ward’s voice crackled impatiently through the phone speaker.

Instead of answering, Vivi hit the red end-call button. She dropped the phone onto the carpet and stared back at the calendar date glowing on the screen.

2023.

October 12 today.

It was exactly one week before the world went to hell.

In her previous life, Vivi Shepard had been a pathetic fool.

When the celestial phenomenon occurred and mysterious crystals appeared across every corner of the earth, she had been too preoccupied and oblivious to pay them any attention.

While others scrambled to collect the strange crystals out of curiosity, she had ignored them completely and because of that fatal mistake, she became part of the unprivileged.

And then the real nightmare began.

Spatial gates tore open across the globe, unleashing hordes of monsters that slaughtered a quarter of the world’s population within days.

That dark epoch became known as the Day of the Rising.

Before humanity could even begin to understand what was happening, corpses littered the streets, survivors fled into hiding, and countless people lost their homes, businesses, and every shred of wealth they possessed.

Twenty-three-year-old Vivi Shepard had barely survived the catastrophe.

She vividly remembered starving in a damp basement while Susan and Ward ate comfortably in front of her. Her helplessness had left her completely dependent on them because she lacked the strength and resources to survive on her own.

Later, she had accidentally stumbled upon a few ordinary white crystals. Ward had immediately sweet-talked her, showering her with empty promises of protection until she finally handed them over.

But instead of using them to protect her, he had secretly given the crystals to Susan, allowing them both to grow stronger.

By the time humanity finally managed to stabilize the situation and understand the new rules of the apocalypse, the old social order had completely collapsed.

The world had become a place where power determined everything.

Those fortunate enough to find the Blue or Golden Crystals became elite Hunters, rising above the masses and ruling over the helpless like kings.

And Vivi? Because she was weak, she was nothing.

She had witnessed firsthand how drastically the world had changed.

A poor man could rise to unimaginable heights simply because he had been lucky enough to obtain a Golden Crystal. A woman who had once been trampled on and looked down upon could become a global hero, an indispensable figure upon whom the survival of humanity depended.

The balance of the world had fundamentally shifted.

Only the blessed and the powerful possessed the strength to protect what remained of civilization. By killing the monsters that emerged from spatial gates and dungeons, they secured humanity’s continued existence.

Once people figured out how dungeons functioned and established a classification system for their varying levels of danger, dungeon raids became a mandatory global responsibility. Hunters had to eliminate dungeon bosses before they could break out and unleash devastating waves of monsters upon the world, threatening both civilization and the defenseless people called the unprivileged who could not protect themselves.

Hunters grew wealthy and powerful, while the weak stayed at the bottom of the food chain.

And Vivi’s miserable end came when Ward lured her into a D-rank dungeon under the noble-sounding excuse that they needed to work together to protect one another.

Instead, he had used her as bait to kill the dungeon boss.

She could still feel the pain, the blood soaking her clothes, and the unbearable realization that she had been betrayed.

Her final moments had been spent bleeding to death while her so-called best friend and boyfriend watched without a shred of remorse.

That was how Vivi Shepard had died.

Vivi slowly lifted her head and the terror in her eyes was gone, replaced by a gaze as sharp and cold as winter ice.

She slowly rose to her feet, a dangerous, beautiful smile curling her lips.

“Now that I’ve been reborn,” she sneered softly to the empty room, “it’s my time to become powerful.”