[Please enter your avatar name!]
- Hmmm... - Kriss leaned a hand to his chin, then looked thoughtfully at the game window in front of his face.
His head was still hurting badly and he wanted to go back to bed, but the frightened screams outside the window kept him from resting peacefully.
...
A few hours earlier.
Criss woke up and rubbed his eyes lazily.
Over the past year, Criss had organized his personal life and solved all his accumulated problems.
It was safe to say that his life was successful. Even though he didn't have a lot of money, and his expenses were almost at the limit of his income, he had done his best not to worry about it anymore.
At least Kriss was happy with this arrangement.
The only thing he regretted a bit was that he never found a girlfriend. After graduation, his head was full of work and plans for the future.
He'd also picked up a couple of bad habits. One of them was sleeping too much.
If the alarm clock was off and nothing was going on in the house, Criss would hardly wake up, snoring peacefully in a dead sleep.
But what happened after he opened his eyes deeply shocked him.
[Welcome to the world of divine Rulers, player named Criss Kostum!]
[All the basic rules will be entered into your memory, please familiarize yourself before the first trial of Heavenly Rulers begins.]]
[Become a divine ruler, elevate your people and rise above mere mortals, chisel away wealth, fame, and immortality!]]
[All of this is only possible in the world of heavenly rulers!]
The robotic voice chimed briefly and disappeared.
Sleepily, he stood there and tried to absorb all the information the voice had said into his swollen and aching brain from the noise in his head.
A sudden ecstasy came over him, but was immediately replaced by a terrifying headache.
Abruptly his body became wooden, and then it fell like dominoes to the cold floor.
He woke up only hours later, when someone was banging hard on his door.
Criss's head was cracking with pain and he couldn't lie down anymore.
With his disheveled hair, deep, dark circles under his eyes, and cheap, threadbare clothes, he looked like a zombie from those horror flicks that ran in the movie theater.
Slowly he headed for the door. Without even checking the peephole, he plugged his ear with his hand as if he knew what was going to happen next and turned to the side, rolling his eyes.
- BLEEP! Why don't you answer the phone and open the door?! Do you want me to kick you out right now?! - An unbearably loud scream came from behind the door.
A hail of words that Criss didn't even pay attention to came out of the middle-aged woman's mouth.
There was no room for wrinkles on her face. Wrinkled with anger, she saw him with her gaze and asked: - Where's my damn rent money!
- This is the third month you've been promising something, you little brat! You got three days! If I don't see payment for all three months in three days, I'll throw you out and find a new man!
- But-" Before he could finish, Criss received only a loud slam of the door in his face.
- Ouch! That old hag! It's the sixth of the month! You're crazy! - He couldn't stop wriggling while he got something cold from the freezer.
Unfortunately, all he could find was a red substance that the previous owner had left in the freezer. There was no food in there.
"Shit, I'm broke."
Putting the frozen piece of ice to his nose, he turned on the old TV and started scrolling through the channels one by one.
- ...What the ... what the ...? - Surprised, he watched as the same emergency channel played on the TV.
In it, a female anchor was constantly reporting strange news. Every now and then the camera switched to a reporter claiming that something was slowly descending from the heavens.
Criss quickly threw away the remote and ice, ran up to the balcony and opened his mouth in shock.
A multitude of lights that looked like shooting stars were floating in the air. They looked quite mesmerizing in the sunset sky.
If you looked closely, you could see that they were coming down in different directions.
With each passing moment, they accelerated and descended faster and faster, until the sky was illuminated with a bright light.
Just as Criss covered his hand from the bright light, he suddenly felt a small ball in his hand.
After waiting out the flash, he looked at this strange balloon. His gaze was drowned in boundless, all-consuming darkness. Even the light around him was distorted, it seemed to him that even his touch was slightly changing the reality around this ball.
But rubbing his eyes lightly, he dismissed the crazy thought.
Criss's mind immediately recalled the memories that had been forcibly injected into him earlier.
"What? The Earth will be swallowed up by the Heavenly Ruler's world?!"
While in the distance, terrified screams and the noise from the alarms of parked cars echoed throughout the neighborhood, the same picture flashed through the minds of more than a few billion people.
As the terrified screams and alarm noises of parked cars echoed throughout the neighborhood in the distance, the same picture ran through the minds of more than a few billion people.
A picture where the earth becomes part of another world and all of its inhabitants will be forced to fight for survival.
[It's time for the ruler qualification test.] Do you want to take it right now? There will be no other opportunity!]
"Yes."
Without hesitation, Criss mentally authenticated the entrance. It seemed to him that this moment would be a turning point in his life.
[In 4:55:23 minutes, you will be sent into space to undergo the test.]
But something deep in his soul was not letting him rest. Right now he felt like he had done something meaningless in his life, something completely unnecessary and something he would regret.
"The time will come and then I'll face that fact like a real man."
The tears on his face flowed in continuous streams. He just fell silently to his knees and silently cursed the heavens.
"Damn you, you fucking banks! Damn you, Kostum family! Remember this day, I'll pay you back one day!"
Criss overdramatized, raising his fist high up with a determined look. But the tears kept coming.
The sweat and blood he had earned in five years was barely enough to cover all thirteen major debts. Some of which his family had put on him by means of various fraudulent schemes.
And now that he is finally free of all the weight that has hung over him for more than seven years, Yaem is told to his face that the world he knew will soon disappear!
[You will be transported through: 3... 2... 1...]
- Screw you all...
[Transfer successfully completed, we wish you good luck!]
...
Criss found himself in a white space. It was so white and bright that his eyes hurt if he didn't see darkness for a long time.
He saw a huge cloud platform with a spiral staircase of clouds starting from it.
A window with information popped up in front of his face.
[Several bloodlines are wearing. Please select which bloodline you wish to speak from: Kostum/Flomber.]
The clear outline gave no reason to think it was a mirage.
Yes, and the information coming into Kriss's head made him tense up slightly.
- We have to pass the bloodline test?! - Criss' face contorted.
As it happened, Criss possessed the bloodlines of two famous clans.
In the pre-modern times, they were two warring parties. One was a small empire and the other was a large kingdom.
Although the Flamber Empire was not of impressive size, it was capable of fighting back against all surrounding parties interested in its lands and resources.
Mysterious and unexplored, the Flamber Empire has always remained in shadow. Without engaging in any conflicts it has always remained at the level of ever growing parties.
But there was a special kingdom that coveted the mysterious lands of the small empire.
Someone said that they had accidentally learned of some secret for which they were willing to do anything.
But alas, these are just old tales, preserved in old and weathered books.
In the modern world, though there are still famous families. Their influence is far from what it was in ancient times.
- The bastards of the Kostum family! - Criss clenched his teeth and without a moment's hesitation chose the ancient crest of the Flamber family.
Even a sword with a wavy blade was more appealing to the young man's eyes than the vile white griffin crest of the family that had mocked him and his mother all these years.
After the choice, there was a frightening rumble somewhere in the distance. Goosebumps ran down his spine, but Criss still couldn't find anything.
The main objective was simply to climb to the top of the tower.
Step by step, he climbed up as if nothing had happened. He flew up the first five steps without even noticing how he got to the ninth step.
- What's the challenge? If things continue like this, won't I just go up and pass the test?
It seemed simple to Kriss, but as soon as his foot hit the tenth step he felt a little uncomfortable.
- I feel like I've got a sack of potatoes on my back. - He said it out loud, then frowned slightly and sped up.
When he reached the middle of the stairs, Criss was exhausted. Sweat dripped from his pale face.
He wanted to take back what he'd said, but he didn't have the energy to even think about it.
The intense pressure was trying to knock him down. Criss was well aware that if he fell and surrendered now, he would be thrown out and the ordeal would be over.
Gritting his teeth even harder, he gathered all his strength and continued to climb.
With each step the pressure increased more and more. And the pressure of the last step was no match for the next.
When he reached the last three steps, his legs were trembling and his eyes were bloodshot.
- I'll do it, I'll do it, damn it! - With inhuman willpower, Criss shouted to himself.
Directly in front of him, the cloud platform shimmered, with only three steps left to go.
It seemed to him that these three steps were an insurmountable obstacle in his way. He thought that the three steps were an insurmountable barrier, a huge wall that towered over him, a boundless ocean, or the deepest abyss.
And with each step the gap grew wider and wider, throwing the young man's consciousness into a real terror.
He took another step and touched the second step, a groan of pain escaped from his mouth.
The test was too cruel, it seemed it was not the weight of the pressure. It was the pressure of something else, something more weighty than just the weight that could be lifted.
Criss didn't realize it, but he showed strong determination, on his way to the finale. His teeth were already chattering, and his throat was bursting into a scream: "I'm GOING!
Stepping onto the last step, he felt no increase in pressure. Only a strange relief.
A soft and warm light enveloped his body, bringing it completely back to normal.
Just as he was about to find out what reward he was to receive, the sky split in two and darkness poured into this purest of spaces.
When he raised his head he saw a giant hand forming from the dark clouds.
The huge hand was slowly heading towards Kriss while he couldn't move.
Extending a finger, it pointed at him.
- Destroy this world! - A deep thunderous and commanding voice resounded in the sky.
- What?....
After a huge lightning bolt struck the young man, he could only slightly make out a gigantic silhouette in the darkness, whose eyes were watching him intently.
Criss did not understand the language spoken by the silhouette in the darkness, but the meaning was transmitted to his mind.