Chapter 1: Rebirth! An SSS-Rank 10,000× Acceleration Talent!

Hot blood kept pouring from the gaping wound in his abdomen.

John lay sprawled across a pile of rubble, his throat tightening with every breath. Each ragged gasp brought a wet gurgle of bloody foam bubbling from his lips.

Ahead of him, the keep at the heart of his territory was engulfed in flames.

Burning timbers crashed to the ground one after another, scattering showers of sparks into the night.

Three young men stood before the inferno.

Embroidered on the shoulders of their school uniforms was a cross-shaped sword dripping with blood.

The emblem of the Judgment Alliance.

The boy at the front was holding a severed head by the hair.

Long crimson strands swayed in the heat, blood still dripping from their ends.

It was Sylvie’s head.

The boy spoke.

"I told you from the start. You should’ve just behaved like a good little livestock, paid the Alliance your daily resource quota, and enjoyed a few more years of life."

He flicked his wrist and tossed the blood-soaked head onto the ground.

"But no. You had to copy those idiots who think fighting to the bitter end makes them heroes."

He sneered.

"Didn’t know when to quit."

Sylvie’s red hair sank into the muddy water.

John dug his fingers deep into the earth.

Dragging his torn intestines behind him, he crawled forward inch by inch, desperately trying to reach that deathly pale face.

"Syl... vie..."

Only the faintest breath escaped his throat.

Then a scythe glowing with pale light swept across his vision.

The world spun.

The ground—

the burning castle—

everything vanished.

...

"Sylvie!"

John roared, both hands clawing desperately at the air.

But what his fingers caught wasn’t mud.

It wasn’t a cold corpse either.

It was a pair of rough hands.

A gentle voice reached his ears.

"Johnny? Did you have a nightmare?"

John sucked in breath after breath as his eyes slowly came back into focus.

A fair, clean face hovered in front of him, brows slightly furrowed in confusion.

Darcy Blackwood.

His older sister.

John’s gaze darted around the room.

Above him was a crumbling concrete ceiling.

In the corner, an ancient ventilation fan squealed with every rotation.

The air carried the familiar Lower City stench of cheap disinfectant and mildew.

On the wall, the glowing red digits of an electronic calendar read:

October 26, 2096.

On the back of his right hand, a dark crimson sword-and-shield mark radiated a faint warmth.

Darcy stared at him.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t tell me you don’t even recognize your own sister."

She pulled out a rough tissue and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

John placed a hand over his stomach.

Smooth.

Uninjured.

There was nothing beneath his shirt except the hard outline of his ribs.

And yet the agony of being disemboweled before his death in his previous life still seemed to linger at the ends of his nerves.

Everything in front of him pointed to one impossible conclusion.

Time had gone backward.

He had returned to ten years ago.

To the very day he turned eighteen and became eligible to enter Godfall Battlefield.

In the center of the living room, their secondhand holographic television suddenly flashed a blinding red.

A mechanical female voice shattered the silence.

"Emergency announcement: The United Defense Authority’s 133rd Grand Selection has concluded."

"A total of 120 million candidates have qualified in this cycle."

"All citizens who have awakened a Godfall Mark must complete neural synchronization and log in within one hour."

"Any unactivated candidate remaining when the countdown expires will permanently lose their qualifications as a Lord."

A massive sixty-minute timer appeared on the television screen, counting down second by second.

World War III had reduced the surface of the Earth to scorched wasteland.

Nuclear winter and radiation had driven humanity deep underground, into cities that had not seen natural sunlight for generations.

And just as famine and civil unrest threatened to tear what remained of human civilization apart...

Godfall Battlefield descended.

Godfall Battlefield was a game centered around territory development, resource warfare, and competition between Lords.

Every ten years, all humans who had reached the age of eighteen underwent a Selection.

A portion of them would randomly awaken a Godfall Mark on the back of their hand.

By establishing territories, plundering resources, and training armies within Godfall Battlefield, Lords could bring food, technology, and even supernatural powers from the game back into reality.

From that day onward, humanity entered the Age of Lords.

With the resources of Godfall Battlefield, human civilization rose from the ashes.

But a thousand years had passed since then.

The underground United Government had long since become a government in name only.

The true lifelines of the subterranean cities were controlled by the massive Alliances and old-money conglomerates that had risen through Godfall Battlefield.

In his previous life, John had reincarnated into House Blackwood with the memories of his former existence intact.

Before he could accomplish anything, however, his parents mysteriously disappeared when he was ten years old.

From then on, only he and Darcy remained, relying on each other to survive.

Darcy had told him more than once that, before John was born, House Blackwood had lived in the Upper City.

They had owned a massive private shelter and even an entire commercial district.

But because their father had refused to bow to a certain Alliance, everything the Blackwoods owned had been seized overnight.

The entire family was driven down into the lightless Lower City, where they had barely scraped by ever since.

In his previous life, John had awakened only the lowest-tier C-Rank production talent in Godfall Battlefield.

He had painstakingly cultivated farmland and summoned Sylvie, a civilian-type Hero.

After countless struggles, he finally managed to raise his territory to Tier 3.

Then an expansion squad from the Judgment Alliance discovered him.

They demanded his Territory Core and his entire stockpile of food.

In exchange, he would become a serf working exclusively for the Alliance.

John refused.

The result?

His territory was slaughtered to the last man.

Sylvie was beheaded.

And John himself was torn apart.

"Fuck the Judgment Alliance."

John clenched his teeth, veins bulging across the back of his hand.

"This time, I’m settling every last score."

Darcy watched the tension in his face, completely unaware of what he had just experienced.

"Johnny, you’re running out of time."

John snapped back to reality.

His eyes fell on the dark circles beneath hers.

To pay for him to finish Lord Preparatory Academy, Darcy worked fourteen-hour shifts every day at an underground water recycling plant.

Years of exposure to highly alkaline chemicals had left both her hands covered in cracked, raw skin.

"Sis."

John stood up.

"When I come back, we’re moving to the Upper City."

Darcy froze for a moment.

Then she smiled.

She didn’t crush his confidence.

Instead, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a shriveled piece of black bread wrapped in cloth, and tucked it into the inside of his coat.

"All right."

"I don’t need you to conquer some massive territory in there. I don’t care about money or status."

"If you can’t win, retreat."

"Find somewhere safe and keep your head down."

Her smile softened.

"Just come home alive."

As she spoke, Darcy instinctively raised her right hand.

On the back of it was the faded remnant of a mark, now completely gray-white.

It was the mark of a failed candidate.

Ten years ago, Darcy had lost her Lord qualifications during the previous Grand Selection.

She would never be able to enter that world again.

John carefully put away the bread and nodded.

Then he closed his eyes and focused all of his consciousness on the dark crimson pattern on the back of his right hand.

Buzz!

A translucent emerald portal tore open in the middle of the rundown living room.

John stepped forward.

The moment he entered, his figure vanished.

The portal rapidly collapsed into a single point of light before disappearing into the air.

Darcy stood alone in the empty room.

One hand rested over the cold scar on the back of her hand.

She remained there for a long, long time.

...

The sensation of cold and weightlessness lasted for only an instant.

When John opened his eyes again, he found himself suspended within an endless sea of stars.

Countless enormous gray celestial bodies surrounded him.

Across their surfaces, images constantly shifted—

mountains,

forests,

wastelands,

cities.

Directly ahead stood an enormous ancient bronze mirror.

Suddenly, ripples spread across its surface.

A solemn, majestic voice echoed through the void.

"Qualified genetic sequence detected."

"Godfall Mark successfully activated."

"Welcome to Godfall Battlefield, Novice Lord."

"Please establish your permanent Lord ID."

John stared at the youthful face reflected in the bronze mirror.

He didn’t hesitate.

"Tyrant."

"Checking ID..."

"ID available."

"Permanent designation confirmed: Tyrant."

"Lord identification number assigned: Lower City–Sequence 13–9527."

"Initializing Lord Status Panel..."

"Connecting to Initial Talent Gene Pool..."

"Preparing Talent Draw..."

High above him, tens of thousands of colored spheres of light emerged from the starry void.

Red.

Purple.

Blue.

White.

Legendary.

Epic.

Rare.

Common.

They spun rapidly around John.

In his previous life, the light that had fallen into his hands had been white.

A C-Rank talent—

[Rapid Farming].

That one talent had condemned him to the life of a production player from the very beginning.

But this time...

The instant the spheres rotated above John’s head, they abruptly froze.

The calm mechanical voice suddenly became shrill.

"WARNING!"

"Abnormal timeline superposition detected within host!"

"Temporal energy concentration within designated soul interval exceeds acceptable limits..."

"Tenfold..."

"Hundredfold..."

"Ten-thousandfold overflow detected!"

"Core logic conflict!"

"Talent Gene Pool is being interfered with by an unidentified Law of Time!"

"Forced correction initiated..."

"Correction failed!"

"Recalibrating Talent Rank..."

The enormous bronze mirror began to shake violently.

One after another, the colored spheres floating around John exploded, scattering into clouds of glittering dust.

Then—

from the deepest reaches of the starry void—

a mass of light wrapped in golden arcs of lightning tore through space.

Before John could react, it slammed directly into the center of his forehead.

BOOM!

A crisp notification tone rang out.

"Recalibration complete."

"Congratulations, Lord Tyrant."

"You have obtained the unique SSS-Rank Exclusive Talent—"

[10,000× Acceleration]!