The first thing Kael noticed was the **dice**.
They rattled in his skull like loose teeth—twenty-sided, sharp-edged, and glowing faintly radioactive green—as he blinked awake on a cracked obsidian plain. The sky hung low, bruised purple and streaked with gold, like a fresh wound. A System notification flickered in his periphery, glitching between languages:
**[Welcome to the Infinite Realms, Player #9,427,116.]**
**[Loading Interface…]**
**[Error. Error. Access Denied.]**
**[Designation: Forsaken.]**
**[All Attributes Permanently Locked at 1.]**
**Kael's laugh turned into a cough, flecking his palm with blood.** He stared at the crimson droplets, their metallic tang sharp on his tongue. Three weeks ago, those same spots had stained the pages of the novel he'd been reading in his hospital bed—a pulpy isekai where the hero got a second chance. *Second chance?* He wiped his hand on his threadbare tunic. *More like a cosmic punchline.*
**The air tasted charged, like the moment before a lightning strike.** His body felt both alien and achingly familiar: gaunt limbs, the persistent tremor in his hands, the hollow ache in his ribs. Chronic fatigue didn't vanish just because he'd been yeeted into a hell dimension. He glanced at the die hovering beside his head, its edges crackling with static. *At least the hallucinations are creative this time.*
**Memories flickered—needles in his arm, his mother's voice strained through tears, the beep of a heart monitor flatlining.** He'd died. He'd *died*, and instead of silence, he got… this. A wasteland ruled by dice and a spiteful spreadsheet. *Typical.*
Three figures crested the ashen horizon—scavengers in armor cobbled from rusted gears and dinosaur ribs. One licked filed teeth. "Fresh meat! Check his loot table!"
**Kael's pulse spiked.** He'd seen enough RPG streams to know what "loot table" meant. His fingers twitched toward a rock, but his legs betrayed him, buckling like they had a thousand times before. *Move. Move, damn it.* The die clattered, landing on **2**.
**[DEX Check (1d20): 2 + 0 (Agility) = Critical Failure.]**
**[Result: You trip over your own shadow.]**
He hit the ground hard, the obsidian slicing his palms like glass. The scavengers roared with laughter. "Stats all ones! Even the System's given up on him!"
**Their voices echoed in Kael's skull, overlapping with memories he'd tried to bury.** *"Prognosis: six months," the doctor had said, her tone rehearsed. "We'll make you comfortable." Comfortable. A sterile room, beeping machines, and the slow erasure of everything he'd been. Now here he was, erased again—by a System that couldn't even fake pity.*
The die spun again. This time, Kael's vision fractured. The scavengers glowed red, their weaknesses scrawled in floating text:
**[Lurk Scavenger (Level 3)]**
**[HP: 50/50 | Weakness: Solar-aspected damage (Resistance: None, because they're trash mobs).]**
**[Soulsight (Basic) Activated!]**
**[A hidden skill? Or a glitch?]**
The die landed on **19**.
**[WIS Check (1d20): 19 + 0 (Insight) = Success.]**
**[Your eyes dissect the battlefield. Solution detected: Weak structural integrity in northern plinth.]**
**Kael's gaze snapped to a crumbling pillar behind the scavengers.** Its base was fissured, veins of glowing magma pulsing beneath the stone. *Solar-aspected damage.* The System's snark had a purpose after all.
**He lunged sideways, ribs screaming, and hurled a rock at the plinth's base.** Not his best throw—but in a world ruled by dice, physics was just a suggestion.
**[STR Check (1d20): 15 + 0 (Might) = Success.]**
**[The plinth collapses. Congratulations! You've earned a title.]**
**The pillar erupted in a geyser of molten light.** The scavengers' laughter died as the blast engulfed them, flesh and armor dissolving into pixelated ash. Kael shielded his face, the heat searing his skin, but when the light faded, he stood unharmed—save for the blood trickling from his nose.
**The die hovered, its edges blackened.** *Did it… protect me?*
The System flickered, its monotone voice warping:
**[Title Earned: Ruin Dancer (Forsaken Exclusive).]**
**[Effect: +5% chance to trigger environmental disasters. Stackable.]**
**[Warning: Player #9,427,116 has drawn Administrator attention.]**
**[Recommended Action: Die quietly.]**
**A cold wind swept across the plain, carrying the scent of ozone and something older—burnt parchment, maybe, or ashes.** Kael's breath hitched as a shadow passed over the sunless sky. For a heartbeat, he saw it: a colossal figure silhouetted against the gold-streaked void, its form shifting between serpent and storm. Then it was gone, leaving only a whisper in his mind: *"Clever little glitch."*
**The voice wasn't the System's.** It was deeper, hungrier. A shiver crawled down Kael's spine.
The die reappeared, edges crackling with black static. It landed on **1**.
**[CHA Check (1d20): 1 + 0 (Charisma) = Critical Failure.]**
**[Result: The Realm Lord's daughter just felt you trip over her future. Expect assassins.]**
**Kael stared at the notification.** *Trip over her future?* He'd barely survived five minutes in this hellscape, and now he'd pissed off royalty. "Any other cosmic entities I should avoid?" he muttered.
**The die spun once more, landing on **3**.**
**[LUK Check (1d20): 3 + 0 (Fortune) = Failure.]**
**[Result: The assassins are already here.]**
**A blade whistled past his ear, embedding itself in the obsidian.** Kael turned slowly. Three figures stood atop a nearby ridge, clad in black armor that drank in the light. Their faces were hidden behind masks shaped like weeping angels.
**"Kael Veyra," the central figure intoned, their voice echoing with unnatural harmonics. "By decree of the Silent Dominion, your soul is forfeit."**
**Kael raised his hands, bloodied palms open. "Can I appeal?"**
**The lead assassin drew a sickle-shaped blade. "No."**
**The die spun wildly as Kael stumbled backward.** This time, it landed on **13**.
**[INT Check (1d20): 13 + 0 (Cunning) = Success.]**
**[Solution: The northern plinth's collapse destabilized the fault line. Jump.]**
**Kael didn't hesitate.** He threw himself into the fissure just as the ground split open, swallowing the assassins' furious shouts. He fell through darkness, the die's green glow his only light, until—
**—he slammed into shallow water.** The cavern around him pulsed with bioluminescent fungi, their light reflecting off a mural of a serpent coiled around a throne. The die clattered beside him, showing a single word:
**[Safe. For now.]**
**Kael lay there, breath ragged, and laughed until his ribs ached.** *Safe.* In a world where even the ground wanted him dead. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the erratic thump of his heart. *Still alive. Still fighting.*
**A notification pinged, this one tinged crimson:**
**[Bounty Issued: Kael Veyra (Forsaken).]**
**[Offense: Existential Contamination.]**
**[Reward: 10,000 Realmmarks.]**
**[Claimants: 4,229 and rising.]**
**He snorted.** *Existential contamination?* If the System feared a dying man with stats locked at one, maybe it wasn't so omnipotent after all. He pushed himself upright, legs trembling, and squinted at the horizon. The obsidian plains stretched endlessly, but his Soulsight flickered again, revealing a faint golden thread snaking toward a distant spire. A path—or a trap. Either way, it was movement. Survival.
**As he limped forward, the die followed, its green glow dimming.** For the first time in years, Kael felt something stir in his chest. Not hope—that ship had sailed—but a jagged, defiant curiosity. *What happens when a glitch outlives its deletion?* He touched the blood drying on his chin. *Let's find out.*
---
**Chapter 1 End.**
**Next: [In the Ethereal Spires, even shadows have price tags.]**