The Glacial Awakening

"Varek, wake up! *Dusk of Divine Lords* is launching at nine. If you keep sleeping, you'll miss the drop!"

The words hit Varek's ears like thunder.

*Dusk of Divine Lords? Launch?*

His eyes snapped open. He shot up, lungs pulling in ragged breaths, his gaze darting around the messy, cramped room. Posters of old video games lined the walls. Sunlight filtered through the dusty blinds.

"Is this... Visionary Studio?" he muttered, his voice hoarse.

His mind spun. Just moments ago, he had been in the crumbling depths of the Divine Ruins, tasting his own blood, staring up at the cold, mocking eyes of Malric Thorne. Malric had driven a blade through his back, ending his life in a bitter betrayal. The phantom pain of the steel tearing through his flesh still lingered, making his chest ache.

He lunged for his phone on the nightstand. The bright screen illuminated his trembling fingers.

*May 20, 2032.*

He dropped the device. He had been reborn. Pushed ten years back in time, right to the exact day *Dusk of Divine Lords* went live.

Bram Sterling stood in the doorway, an oversized mug of coffee in his massive hand. Seeing Varek's pale face and trembling shoulders, Bram set the mug down, his expression softening into one of deep concern.

"Varek, don't sweat it, man," Bram said gently. "We'll all chip in. We'll pool our cash. Liora is going to pull through. I promise."

*Liora.*

The name pierced Varek's heart, unlocking a floodgate of repressed agony. He remembered it all too well. Around this very time in his past life, his younger sister had been struck by a speeding car. The impact had left her with a severe blood clot in her brain, clinging to life on a sterile hospital bed. The driver had vanished into the night, leaving no surveillance footage, no trace, and no justice.

The hospital had demanded three hundred thousand dollars for the emergency surgery.

The crushing weight of that debt had fallen squarely on his shoulders. Bram and the rest of his friends had emptied their savings, skipping meals and taking out predatory loans just to help him. Even then, they had only scraped together two hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

He remembered falling to his knees in the sterile hospital corridor, sobbing, begging the doctors to save her. They had looked at him with pitying, clinical eyes, refusing to prep the operating room without the remaining forty thousand.

Liora had died waiting. He could still see her face, pale and motionless against the white pillows, her mischievous, bright smile extinguished forever.

Varek clenched his fists. His fingernails dug into his palms until the skin nearly broke. The overwhelming grief that had defined his last decade burned away, replaced by an unbreakable, fiery determination.

"Don't worry, Liora," Varek whispered to the empty air, his voice steady. "This time, I will save you."

He looked up, his dark eyes gleaming with a fierce, untamed light. He had been given a second chance. He would seize it, tear fate apart with his bare hands, and rewrite their tragic ending.

He turned to Bram and let out a genuine, unburdened smile.

"Tank, let's log in," Varek said, his tone ringing with unshakeable confidence. "This time, we take control of destiny ourselves."

Bram let out a heavy sigh of relief, his broad shoulders dropping. "You got it, Varek. See you on the other side."

Varek stepped into the sleek, metallic gaming pod in the corner of the room. As the hatch sealed shut, encasing him in darkness, his heart drummed a steady, relentless beat against his ribs.

The public believed *Dusk of Divine Lords* was just a groundbreaking virtual MMORPG, a 'Secondary Realm' birthed by a massive collaboration of over a hundred nations. They thought it was an unprecedented leap in entertainment.

Varek knew the terrifying truth.

It wasn't a global government project. The game had been designed by the Celestial Overlord, forged from the lingering, dormant powers of Earth's ancient gods. Its true purpose was far more desperate: to serve as a brutal training ground, preparing humanity for the apocalypse.

In exactly five years, the Alarite Star System would tear through the fabric of space, invading the Milky Way and plunging Earth into an era of blood and ash. Having survived the onset of that great catastrophe, Varek knew that power within this game translated to survival in the real world.

"In my last life, I failed to even unlock a talent at the start," Varek murmured in the dark. "This time, let's see what I was meant to wield."

The pod hummed to life. His consciousness was pulled through a vortex of light, depositing him in the ethereal void of the character creation screen.

Instantly, a cinematic trailer began to play. The sky shattered, ancient gods clashed against cosmic horrors, and mountains crumbled into ash. It was a breathtaking, sensory masterpiece—a lavish promotional video that lasted an agonizing eight hours. The system offered no option to fast-forward. A player could only skip it or endure it.

In his past life, almost every single player had skipped it. In a game where every second of launch day mattered, burning eight hours on a cutscene was competitive suicide.

Varek sat down in the void and watched.

He didn't skip a single second. He knew a secret buried deep in the game's code. The first person to endure the entire, grueling eight-hour cinematic would be granted a supreme reward: a God-level Talent Awakening Stone.

In *Dusk of Divine Lords*, talents dictated a player's ceiling. They were categorized into Yellow Level, Profound Level, Earth Level, Sky Level, Saint Level, and the mythical God Level. Awakening one required a specific stone. In his previous life, Varek had stumbled upon a God-level stone by pure luck much later, but his awakening had inexplicably failed. The leading theory among the elites was that his innate talent was locked behind an impossibly rare God-level barrier, dormant because he missed his initial window.

Those who possessed God-level talents in his past life were unmatched titans, shaping the world to their whims. This time, he would stand among them. No, he would stand above them. With ten years of future knowledge, he would reach the pinnacle and crush the Alarite invaders under his heel.

Hours bled away. The epic battles faded into quiet, sweeping vistas of shattered worlds. Varek waited, his anticipation building with every passing minute.

Finally, the screen faded to black.

*Ding!*

"Congratulations, you are the first player to watch the *Dusk of Divine Lords* trailer in its entirety. You have earned the God-level Talent Awakening Stone +1."

A satisfied, razor-sharp smile spread across Varek's face. *Right on time.*

The darkness fractured, dropping him into the marble-floored character creation hall.

"Class: Archer. Nickname: Glacial King," Varek commanded, choosing the exact same path he had walked before.

*Ding!* "Class creation successful. You are about to enter Novice Settlement #10086."

A flash of white light blinded him. When his vision cleared, the sounds of a bustling, chaotic medieval square flooded his senses.

He stood in Novice Settlement #10086. Stone cottages lined the dirt roads, and the air was thick with the chatter of thousands of players. Each settlement could hold up to ten thousand people, meaning over a hundred million players were already grinding, leveling up, and fighting for scraps.

Varek ignored the frantic crowds rushing toward the quest boards. He slipped into the shadows behind a dilapidated blacksmith forge, ensuring no one was watching.

He opened his inventory and retrieved the Awakening Stone. It pulsed with a brilliant, blinding golden light in his palm, warm to the touch.

"Awaken," Varek whispered.

The stone shattered into a million specks of starlight, rushing into his chest.

*Ding!* "Due to your exceptionally high innate talent, the God-level Talent Awakening Stone can only awaken part of your talent."

Varek froze. His heart skipped a beat. *Only a part of it?*

*Ding!* "You have awakened the talent: Heaven's Hand."

Surprise washed over him. He pulled up his talent panel, his eyes scanning the glowing text.

**Heaven's Hand (Super God-level): 1 star**

**Effect 1:** Every basic attack causes 1% of your current HP as true damage.

**Effect 2:** Every basic attack permanently increases your HP by 1 point.

**Proficiency:** 0/1000.

*(Note: You can only stack HP when damaging living beings.)*

Varek stood there, stunned into silence. Super God-level? In his entire past life, rubbing shoulders with the elite and fighting on the front lines of the apocalypse, he had never even heard whispers of a rank above God-level.

The mechanics of it sent a thrill of overwhelming awe straight to his core.

Permanently increasing his health points. True damage scaling infinitely with his health. It was a monster of a talent. It defied the very rules of the game.

Shaking off the initial shock, Varek quickly opened his attribute panel to see his starting foundation.

**Nickname:** Glacial King

**Level:** 1 (0/100)

**Class:** Archer

**HP:** 100/100

**MP:** 50/50

**Attack:** 9, **Magic Power:** 5

**Armor:** 3, **Magic Resistance:** 1

**Attack Speed:** 0.63, **Movement Speed:** 3.1

**Physical Penetration:** 0%, **Magic Penetration:** 0%

**Special Attributes:** None

**Attribute Points:** 0

**Luck:** Hidden

**Talent:** Heaven's Hand (Super God-level)

**Skills:** Multi-shot (1 star)

**Equipment:** Novice Longbow

Without factoring in Heaven's Hand, his stats were painfully ordinary, just like any other level one player. But with this talent resting in his soul, his potential wasn't just terrifying—it was boundless. Every single arrow he fired would inch him closer to godhood.

"Time to level up," Varek said, his voice laced with burning anticipation.

He had spent eight hours waiting. He was severely behind the curve, but he didn't care. He had the ultimate weapon now.

Varek sprinted past the wooden gates of the Novice Settlement, stepping out into the vibrant, grassy plains. The starting zone was swarming with players fighting over spawns, but Varek easily spotted his targets grazing in a less crowded patch near the tree line: Level 1 Red-eyed Rabbits.

**Red-eyed Rabbit (Normal): Level 1**

**HP:** 90/90

**Attack:** 5

**Skills:** None

With his ordinary starting stats, as long as his mechanics weren't rusty, he could hunt them without breaking a sweat.

He unslung the rough, wooden Novice Longbow from his back. He reached into his quiver, nocked an arrow, and pulled the bowstring taut. The draw felt heavy and sluggish. His attack speed was a miserable 0.63, meaning it would take him about a second and a half just to loose one arrow. It felt agonizingly slow compared to the blistering 13.5 attack speed he had wielded at the peak of his past life, but he shoved the frustration aside.

He locked his eyes on a rabbit chewing on a patch of clover.

*Whoosh!*

The arrow sliced through the wind and sank into the rabbit's side.

*-8*

A tiny red number floated above the creature's head. But Varek wasn't looking at the damage. He was looking at his own health bar.

A warm, soothing energy cascaded through his veins. His maximum HP ticked up from 100 to 101.

A fierce, predatory grin spread across Varek's face. The math was real. The power was real. With this talent, he was on a one-way path to absolute invincibility.

He drew another arrow, letting the rhythm of the hunt take over. While other players were desperate to farm experience and copper coins, Varek had a different goal. He needed to strike, to bleed the monsters, to stack his health higher and higher.

He fired again, enduring the slow, clunky animation of his low-level body.

*Ding!* "You killed a Red-eyed Rabbit. Experience points +1."