Atavius Meloi was fuming at the disrespect he had received from his teachers at the Ironwater Cultivation Academy. It was ridiculous that mere commoners held authority over him at all, being the scion of the vaunted Meloi Clan.

Their stretch of the sky held little Mana and commanded meager sway in the Imperial Court, but for a backwater sect like Ironwater, they should have been licking the very ground his boots stepped on.

Instead, he had been expelled. And for something so stupid as acting improperly with a common-born girl. She was talented, for a commoner, but it was absurd to Atavius that they would side with a peasant over the pureblood direct descendant of one of the 88 Progenitors. Yes, they had fallen from their former graces, but the Meloi were still a Progenitor Clan.

His groveling father had barely even fought back against his removal, offering his sincerest apologies to the headmaster for his son’s “disgusting behavior.”

Atavius kicked a training bag with his full fury as he soared through the stars far faster than the speed of light on his personal spaceship. When he came into his own right as head of the Meloi Clan, there were going to be changes. Big changes.

As it currently stood, Atavius was only level 155 and was confirming the very basics of his Domain’s Dao Path. He would bide his time and continue to cultivate and grow stronger. He had all the time in the world, having recently evolved to an Elemental Superhuman II. His lifespan could now be counted in the thousands of years. Atavius would cultivate for the next few decades and shore up his foundations to pristine levels.

Those issues were for the Atavius of tomorrow, however. In a few days, he would descend on an uninitiated planet at the very furthest reaches of Meloi Clan territory. The Multiverse was a truly enormous place and the Meloi Clan’s holdings stretched nearly 100 million light-years but he had still carefully chosen the planet to be as inconspicuous as possible. The Pathfinder AI of the Final Frontier Empire was both a curse and a blessing. It required him to invest hundreds of Orichalcum drachma to the proper Karmic and Timeline algorithms, but Atavius was a well-off man.

His target was a paltry world completely lacking in Mana. Mortals on the planet lived frighteningly short lives. His probe discovered 100 years was considered ancient. It was a perfect planet to take off the edge of some of his anger.

Killing billions of mortals would normally abolish his Karmic reputation, but with the Lovecloak of Subverting Benevolence, Atavius would be safe from even the Sage’s hallowed eyes.

It would be unfortunate for the people of Earth, but who cared what powerless mortals thought?

The world was ending, and there was nothing Alistair could do.

Just a few days ago everything was fine. No, more than fine. Alistair had just graduated from Boston College with a 3.9 GPA and was ready to start a cushy, six-figure investment banking job. His love life wasn’t bad either, as he had been dating his girlfriend for almost three years. Alistair often remarked how lucky he was, and he wouldn’t trade his life with many people at all.

He lived with two roommates in a house outside of campus. The area was a bit sketchy, but the rent was cheap. Tommy and Nathan were good friends and on the fateful day in question, all three of them were watching the NBA finals, blissfully unaware.

Everyone had their own stories about where they were when they saw the news. Alistair was on his feet with Tommy and Nathan watching a huge dunk.

One of the craziest dunks in Finals history turned into an emergency CNN broadcast. A reporter in a helicopter spoke over a scene of apocalyptic destruction.

“What you are seeing is live footage of Moscow. Words cannot express the level of destruction we’re witnessing. It appears that the entire city was burned to the ground. We have received credible reports that this carnage was the result of a single individual.”

Shaky phone-captured video captured a streak of fire descending from the skies and blowing up multiple city blocks. A cut to drone footage showed a human figure surrounded by fire slicing thousands of people with an infernal spectral sword that seemed to move at his command. It was hundreds of feet long and shaped like a katana and with every cut, it created lines of destructive combustion miles into the distance until finally the drone itself melted in the confluence of heat.

No one spoke. It was beyond their comprehension. A single person? That sounded impossible. The videos couldn’t have been faked, but it didn’t make any sense. It was so out of bounds of normal reality. Thoughts raced through Alistair’s head and everyone else on the planet. Was it an alien invasion? A figure from mythology or religion?

His thoughts were interrupted by the Seal of the President. A woman with disheveled hair ran to the podium. Alistair wasn’t into politics, but he recognized her as the Press Secretary.

“We have interrupted your regularly scheduled programming to inform you what we know about the attacks on Russia. Fifteen minutes ago, an unidentified alien object landed just east of Moscow. NASA and other space agencies had picked up something headed for Earth two weeks ago, however, it was not expected to cause any serious damage. We believe these terror attacks to have been caused by an alien--”

The Press Secretary was going to continue, but she noticed that the reporters in the room were all checking their phones. Alistair couldn’t help but mimic them.

Every social media, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, had a deluge of notifications. Alistair was getting dozens of texts. They all said something similar.

The alien was on the move. In its wake, a wave of fiery destruction followed. It was moving thousands of miles an hour based on satellite footage and destroying every city in its path. It was last spotted in Volgograd, already having killed millions of people. There were other reports that parts of Kazakhstan were being bombarded by waves of fire.

“This can’t be real,” Tommy muttered, reclining on the couch with a dead look in his eyes. He was a stark contrast to Nathan, who was walking about erratically and rapidly texting. “What the fuck is the government doing? Where’s our military? We just have to bomb this thing until nothing’s left.”

Alistair felt the urge to mention that it would not be taken well for the US to just start bombing a country like Russia, but he immediately realized how mundanely he was thinking about the whole affair. An alien with magic powers had landed on Earth and was killing millions of people and he was thinking about sovereignty and geopolitics. The ramifications of what was going on hit Alistair like a truck.

Even if they stopped this one alien, what about an army? Was this being truly alone, having traveled through the vast expanse of the final frontier just to start a genocide of Earth?

Alistair started panicking as he thought of his family and girlfriend. His mom, dad, and sister were on vacation in Turkey. It was 3 AM there and they were probably fast asleep, but he tried calling them anyways and got no response. His girlfriend, Katelyn, was just down the block and she ran over as soon as she saw the news.

Over the next few hours, the mood grew even dourer. No one looked away from a screen, desperate for more updates on the attacks. The news was grim. The alien seemed unstoppable. Report after report came in of millions of deaths every time it swung its flaming sword, which had grown to be miles long. Its rampage had destroyed most of Central Asia and the Middle East.

HD footage of it finally appeared and surprisingly the alien looked like a young Caucasian man with blonde hair and robes that could have been out of Imperial China, which caused rampant speculation. Some conspiracy nuts thought China had captured an American and experimented on him to give him superpowers.

In opposition to that theory, the man kept firing mile-long bolts of fire into the sky, bombarding places thousands of miles away, including China. America wasn’t hit yet, but it was only a matter of time.

Nothing worked on the man. The governments of the world sent enough missiles at him to blot out the sky, violating every international law, and nothing worked. In fact, his pace of destruction only increased after he met Earth’s feeble resistance.

Alistair scrolled through his Instagram feed. Over one billion people dead. South Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East took the brunt of the attacks but his long-range fire bombardments killed hundreds of thousands globally every time they landed.

His family should have been waking up by now in Turkey, yet they didn’t respond. Fear clenched Alistair’s heart as he immediately thought of the worst-case scenarios. Turkey hadn’t been hit by anything, but six hours into the alien’s destruction, mass rioting had broken out all over the world.

Katelyn hugged his arm for comfort as gunshots and car alarms were going off in the distance. They lived off-campus and in a somewhat sketchy area, and with society rapidly collapsing, Alistair knew a return to anarchy was forthcoming. They boarded up their house and reinforced the front and back doors with furniture, but he doubted a truly motivated group of individuals would be deterred by their efforts. Social media abounded with videos of looting and assaults and far worse crimes. The cops and military had declared martial law and were trying to enforce order, but they were massively outnumbered.

“Everything’s going to be okay, right, Alistair?” Katelyn looked up at him with wide brown eyes. She was trembling, all but clinging to him for reassurance. Alistair wanted to yell at her, to say of course it wasn’t okay, but he reined in the intrusive thought.

It was funny how things worked. He was probably just as scared as she was, but it was his duty to comfort and be strong for her.

“Of course,” Alistair said, caressing her silky brown hair. He couldn’t help but think of his family. The reality of the possibility of never being able to see them again sunk in on him, and he wanted to retch and cry, but he stayed featureless.

At this point, his roommates had abandoned reality, choosing to watch some TV show on Netflix rather than see any more carnage. He didn’t blame them. What could two ordinary humans do against god-like powers? At the same time he understood them, Alistair couldn’t look away from his screen. The being was certainly evil, but there was something fundamentally awe-inspiring about him. When he watched the swing of his sword, it was like he was seeing the tiniest glimpse of some ineffable truth.

He would never admit it, but there was a certain beauty to it. It made Alistair wonder what he would do if he got that kind of power. It sounded cliché beyond belief, but he imagined he would be a superhero. Flying around, saving people from guys like the alien.

Alistair sighed, reclining down on the couch with his girlfriend’s head on his chest. How could things have gone this wrong? His mind wandered to how his parents always told him to be more mindful and generous lest he be reincarnated into a lower realm. He had never believed in any religion, but any thought of some greater plan gave him meager comfort.

With that thought, a massive wave of sound went off in the distance. The entire house shuddered as if there was an earthquake, with glasses and plates falling out of cabinets and the lights flickering. It was over.

Alistair had read the reports; the mile-long bolts of fire the alien sent out first caused a sonic wave that spread out for hundreds of miles. The lucky ones closer to the center of impact would be ripped apart instantly, while those on the outskirts of the radius would be burned to death by a wave of unstoppable fire.

Alistair closed his eyes and gripped Katelyn’s hands tight. He thought he would have felt more fear, but instead, there was a quiet sense of calm. His only regret was not being with his family.

Optimization 99.75% complete, integration 99.93% complete, initiate personal interface PL-1076 for planet designation FX-14752.

Alistair opened his eyes as a robotic feminine voice spoke in his head. The voice felt like it came from within him.

He looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary except the others who were also shocked. Wait, he was alive? Despite obviously being able to feel his body, Alistair looked down at his arms and torso, which were decidedly not incinerated. Somehow, he and everyone else had been saved from fiery doom, and perhaps it was related to the voice speaking in his head.

The Final Frontier Empire is deeply sorry for the actions of Atavius Meloi, the voice said. A vision forcibly flashed through his mind, picturing the alien who had killed over a billion people. He was frothing at the mouth and screaming in a sibilant language foreign to Alistair, and most likely to Earth as a whole. His body was cracked with veins of white energy and it looked like his hands were cuffed behind by translucent glass links as he thrashed around.

As compensation for his indiscretions, your planet, designation FX-14752, will be initiated into the Final Frontier Empire as a Premium tier Beginner world. Congratulations are in order! It is unheard of for a planet with as low a mana concentration as FX-14752 to be initiated as Premium tier. However, humanoids of FX-14752, you first must survive the initiation process in order to become true citizens of our glorious Empire. The mortality rate might be 80%, but those who survive have the potential to become the foot soldiers of the next generation.

The voice faded away and Alistair was at a loss for words. Katelyn was just as wide-eyed as him and Tommy and Nathan both looked like they had heard it as well.

“What was that?” Alistair asked shakily.

“You guys heard it too?” Nathan was up and walking like he always did as a nervous tic.

“I did,” Katelyn said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

“This is like some crazy realistic nightmare that just won’t end.” Alistair ruffled a hand through his black hair. “I’m not normally inclined to believe the words of a mysterious voice in my head, but I would assume that people all around the globe heard that.”

He had already taken out his phone to check social media, but something was amiss. He had no connection.

“Guys, is the internet not working for you?”

“Yep, WiFi and cellular down for me,” said Tommy.

“And me,” said Nathan.

Alistair considered everything the robotic voice had said. Without any further information, he took everything it said at face value.

Apparently, the alien that attacked Earth was named Atavius Meloi and acting against the authority of the Final Frontier Empire. Earth was in their territory and was being “initiated”. A glimmer of hope struck him. This Atavius fellow was a citizen of the Final Frontier Empire as well. Would it not be possible for him to become as strong as him eventually?

A fire burned in Alistair’s heart as he turned his anger toward Atavius. Before the message of the Pathfinder AI, the alien was an unreadable force of nature, so it didn’t make sense to be mad at him, any more than it made sense to be mad at a hurricane or volcano. Hearing he had a name and realizing that they were part of a greater whole coalesced his rage. One day, Atavius would pay for what he had done.

But that was putting the cart before the horse. Alistair was faced with the more pressing problem of how they were supposed to survive the coming weeks. Almost as if on cue, Alistair felt a strong desire to press a button inside his head. The concept made absolutely zero sense, but he tried anyway, and a blue holographic screen appeared two feet in front of his face.

Name Alistair Tan Species Human (Unevolved) Class None Level 1 Health 57/57 Mana 34/34 Strength 8 Agility 8 Constitution 7 Endurance 9 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 4 Charisma 8 Badges "Premium Initiate" Talents None Skills None Quests [The First Step]

“Are you guys seeing this?” Alistair exclaimed, not willing to believe his eyes. He had a stat sheet like in D&D or an RPG. He turned to his friends, who both were raptly staring into space. “Guys?”

“What do you mean, where are your guys’ screens?” Tommy asked, looking at Nathan and Alistair.

“It looks like we can’t see each other’s screens,” Nathan mused, scratching his chin. “I have this feeling--”

He stared intently for a second and his screen popped up magically just like Alistair’s own.

“We can see it now!” Tommy exclaimed, craning his head to look at Nathan’s screen, Alistair looking over as well.

Parts of his screen were identical to Alistair’s, with the same “Premium Initiate” badge and [The First Step] quest. However, his stats were different, along with his health and mana.

“How did you do that?” Alistair asked.

Nathan shrugged. “I just kind of imagined my screen materializing in front of me and it made it visible for you guys.”

Alistair tried to do it as well, concentrating on imagining the screen in front of him to be as real as possible. He didn’t notice any changes, but after two seconds, Nathan said that all three of their screens were visible.

He checked out Tommy and Katelyn's screens. Each of their stat sheets was subtly different. It seemed like their stats actually represented their real characteristics in numerical form. Alistair was more athletic and agile than both of his roommates, lending to his higher agility, but he often lacked common sense, hence the lower Wisdom. It also seemed likely that Katelyn’s lower physical stats were endemic to all women since Katelyn was decently athletic for a girl. However, if stats were anything like any RPG he played, the minute differences in their starting stats would become irrelevant as they leveled up.

He also wondered what the average was. Alistair somewhat conceitedly imagined that his attributes were pretty decent, and his total amount of stats was higher than either Nathan or Tommy.

“Can’t believe Alistair gets the lucky high stats even in an apocalyptic nightmare,” Nathan muttered.

“Don’t be jealous,” Alistair teased. “It’s not a good look.”

He frowned for a minute looking at the Health and Mana, doing some calculations in his head. He ignored that he had such a thing like Mana for the moment, though he was giddy inside at the idea of being a Mage class, something he always played.

“I think I cracked how Health and Mana are calculated. Health appears to be equal to 20 + 4*Constitution + Endurance, while Mana is 10 + 2*Intelligence + Wisdom.”

Nathan whistled. “Showing us why they thought 10 Intelligence was a good number for you, I see. What do you think all these stats mean? I think Strength and Agility are self-explanatory, but what about Constitution or Endurance? And mana, for that matter?”

“Obviously I can’t know for sure, but I think that we’re going to be able to upgrade our stats, like in a game. We have a level, after all. It depends on the type of game, but usually, Constitution is like how resistant you are to damage, while Endurance represents your stamina and how fast you heal.”

“This is fucking crazy,” Tommy said. “The world was being torn apart by a madman and now we’re in some kind of game?”

“I don’t think we should think about this as a game. We have stats and levels but if you die, you’re dead for real. And if this Final Frontier Empire wanted us dead, we would already be dead. They can magically transmit voices to our heads and give presumably every human alive a stat sheet. We just have to go along and if we play our cards right I’m sure we’ll be a part of the 20% who survive. I don’t want to be morbid, but our odds are definitely decent. When it comes to survival, four young people are going to have a huge advantage over old people and kids, right? The average for each stat is probably like a 6, I’d wager.”

Tommy nervously nodded, and Nathan gave a grunt of acknowledgment. Katelyn looked at Alistair with admiration. He grew more convinced. We’ll all make it.

“Hey, if you focus on an area of the screen, it’ll give you more information,” Nathan said.

Alistair concentrated on the Class section and a subwindow popped up.

Class:

Warrior (Common) - Primary Attribute(s): Strength and Constitution. There is strength in simplicity. Defeat your enemies in direct combat and refine your path of combat. Available at level 15.

Acolyte (Common) - Primary Attribute(s): Intelligence. The Path of Magic is an insurmountable peak, but it begins with but a single step. Available at level 15.

[Random] - Take your luck with one of the hundreds of different classes provided by the Pathfinder AI at Premium Tier. Rarity capped at (Rare). Available at level 15.

[Locked] - Find your own path. Each individual has a unique potential inside them worthy of their own individual class. Confirm your class with achievements that demonstrate potential. The Pathfinder AI provides over 1,000 Beginner Classes, many of them non-combat. Available at level 15.

It looked pretty simple to him, reach level 15 and he could choose Warrior, Acolyte, a random deal of the draw, or a class based on his accomplishments. It seemed obvious the strongest one was the [Locked] option, but he imagined it would take more to achieve.

“Uh, I think you should look at the Quests right away,” Katelyn said. She pulled at Alistair’s arm.

Quests:

[The First Step]: Your world has been initiated into the majestic Final Frontier Empire. However, before you can truly be called citizen, your world must be terraformed and your people culled in order to meet our strict criteria. Expect the local wildlife to mutate and an invasion of various species of our Empire. Task: Kill at least one sophont in the next 5 hours. Time Limit: 4:55:12. Penalty: Death.

The timer kept ticking down as Alistair stared at [The First Step]. The choice of word was peculiar and very nerdy, but he knew what it meant. A sophont was a category describing intelligent beings of around human-level or greater. The quest was asking them to kill humans.