Night.

  Inside the silent apartment, the sound of magical explosions spilling from the phone's speaker was crystal clear.

  ["Kneel before the true sovereign. Your blood already belongs to me!"]

  Mark felt a chill run down his spine when he heard that.

  "...Why did I ever program you like this?"

  At that moment, Mark was lying on the living room couch with his legs dangling off the edge, his neck twisted at an angle that would definitely make him pay for it the next morning.

  Like any ordinary salaried young man, he didn't have many hobbies.

  No girlfriend, no friends, no family — his life was simple enough.

  Games were his only refuge.

  But Mark liked one in particular.

  Tower Defense: Age of Blood.

  As the name implied, it was a mobile game focused strictly on defense.

  It was a "High-End Tower Defense Strategy" game that involved complex spells and servants, rather than just "wooden towers" shooting arrows.

  Mark had been playing it since his teenage years.

  He had followed the game from pixelated graphics all the way to today's ultra-realistic 3D.

  As the years passed, his avatar reached the maximum level — the legendary level 500. There wasn't much left to do besides logging in occasionally to defend against the daily attacks and collect his rewards.

  It was a routine he had kept for years.

  His avatar, a Hero Unit, was the strongest unit, positioned at the very top.

  Its personality was the only problem.

  Tower Defense allowed players to customize everything, from corridor architecture to the avatar's own sadistic personality, and his avatar had been designed as a villainous vampire with arrogant lines and exaggerated behavior.

  He had created it when he was still young, back when he consumed certain kinds of content, so he couldn't exactly be blamed for it.

  Either way, it was a "rebellious" past he preferred not to remember, even though it was right there, recorded in every line of dialogue.

  Mark shook his head, trying to focus on what mattered: the defense of the Ziggurat.

  If the invaders won, he would lose his perfect login bonus, and that was the only thing that still gave him any sense of accomplishment in life.

  There was no open-world exploration or vast plains to ride across; the player was confined inside the structure, acting as its intelligent core, while the outside world remained unknown.

  Since the game gave total freedom to build the base, Mark had designed his fortress in the shape of a ziggurat.

  The structure wasn't an ordinary ziggurat, but a succession of five concentric rings rising in massive steps toward the center, resembling a shooting target when seen from above.

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  The place, named The Crimson Ziggurat, was the pride of his adolescence and the location he had to defend at all costs from enemy attacks.

  Since it was still a legitimate tower defense, the gameplay was claustrophobic and strategic.

  Mark spent most of his time confined within the inner space of the Ziggurat, managing resources and positioning traps, like a bunker guard watching enemies through security cameras.

  Staring at the display, where his avatar faced a horde of white-armored soldiers, he frowned.

  "Seriously, why do these dumb paladins have so much HP?" Mark couldn't help cursing as an elite enemy's health bar refused to go down.

  "And their damage? Why does a generic knight hit a Level 500 this hard? This Holy Kingdom is broken!"

  Mark had spent years collecting essence and strengthening his undead servants.

  Even at max level, he was still having trouble clearing this trash that had entered his territory.

  If the developers thought he would spend real money to buy defense buffs now, they were very mistaken!

  Despite complaining, he kept playing.

  Every day.

  On the screen, the paladin began to glow, preparing a light skill he was weak against.

  Mark exhaled through his nose.

  The AI's movements were too predictable.

  "He really thinks he's going to hit me with that?"

  Waiting for the exact moment the enemy animation locked, Mark attacked using his own skill.

  His finger slammed against the phone screen, pressing the glass nearly to its limit as the magical explosion devoured everything in the scene.

  "Now receive my power! [SCARLET ABYSS JUDGMENT]!" the avatar shouted.

  It seemed to be enjoying itself.

  With the final blow, Mark watched the HP bar of the last commander of the invading army evaporate beneath a cloud of red mist.

  ["Weak. Your blood isn't even worthy of staining my floor."]

  On the screen, the avatar wiped the blood from its hands with a theatrical gesture, laughing as the victory soundtrack burst from the phone speakers.

  "Done." He murmured, feeling the adrenaline fade and the day's exhaustion settle back onto his shoulders.

  The system notification blinked in the corner of the screen.

  [Invasion Defeated: Army of Light – 4th Division].

  [ZIGGURAT DEFENSE COMPLETE!]

  [INVASION REWARD: 50,000x Blood Essence, 1x Corrupted Mana Crystal.]

  [DAILY LOGIN BONUS (DAY 1,460): Ancestral Sovereign Chest.]

  A succession of reward windows began popping up across the interface, blocking his view.

  "One thousand four hundred and sixty days..." Mark stared at the numbers, feeling a mix of emotions.

  So today was the day.

  "Four years logging into this crap every day to make sure a bunch of pixels don't knock down my fake castle. What an incredible achievement..."

  He claimed the loot with a disinterested tap, not even bothering to open the chest.

  In the past, he would have been euphoric seeing a rare item shine on the screen, but now, at max level, items were just numbers stacking endlessly in an infinite inventory.

  There was nothing left to build or evolve.

  The game had become as mechanical as brushing his teeth every morning.

  "That's it. Ten more minutes of life wasted."

  He muttered, adjusting himself on the couch while the phone's light illuminated his tired face, already showing signs of sleep.

  The hall in the game fell silent.

  With no more targets, the avatar stood still after killing the last invader.

  Mark slid his finger across the screen, checking the base's perimeter before closing the game.

  That was it.

  He needed to sleep.

  Work had to be done tomorrow.

  Slowly, he locked the phone screen, let the device rest on his chest, and closed his eyes.

  Mark sighed, feeling his body sink deeper into the couch cushions.

  "..."

  Silence.

  The apartment's darkness grew heavier as the phone's light went out.

  Without realizing it, his consciousness began to sink into the dark and his breathing slowed.

  His awareness started to blur, as if someone had covered it with a cloth.

  He fell asleep.

  . . .

  . . . . .

  . . . . . . . .

  As time passed, something began to feel wrong.

  His couch wasn't new, but Mark was sure it was soft.

  So...

  Why did it feel so hard?

  Why did it feel so cold and smooth?

  The discomfort forced him to wake.

  Pulling himself out of his drowsy state, Mark forced his eyelids open, expecting to see the stained ceiling and the weak glow of the streetlight coming through the window.

  However, when he opened his eyes, the scene was different.

  Absolute darkness.

  A hall that seemed to stretch endlessly.

  The floor was black marble, polished enough to look like a dark mirror. Heavy red velvet curtains fell from the shadows of a ceiling that seemed more than thirty meters high.

  Embedded in the walls, red crystals emitted a faint glow.

  The whole place looked like something out of a dream.

  Mark blinked, his senses screaming in alarm as he looked down.

  He was no longer lying on his couch.

  At that moment, he was sitting.

  On a throne.

  "Eh?"