"It can't be..."

  The voice that came out of his throat wasn’t the one he remembered.

  A deeper, velvety sound reverberated through the hall.

  What was happening?

  Was he dreaming?

  No.

  If that were a dream, he should have woken up from the shock!

  Mark raised his arms, bringing his hand in front of his face.

  His fingers were long and thin. His skin was as white as snow, with black, sharp nails gleaming under the dim light of the environment.

  When he unconsciously passed his tongue over his lips, he felt the sharp tip of something that seemed like fangs brushing against his lower lip.

  His mind was working to process the information.

  'Think...' Mark gripped the arms of the throne, his nails digging into the cold stone.

  He had been in his apartment playing Tower Defense: Age of Blood.

  After defeating the 4th Division of the Army of Light, he claimed the login bonus and locked the screen. The weight of the phone on his chest and sleep pulling him down were still clear as day.

  But now, the couch had disappeared.

  The stained ceiling had been replaced by a stone vault that vanished into darkness, framed by red curtains.

  This wasn’t just a place that looked like the game.

  "I... I entered the game?" Mark felt a dry laugh rise in his chest, but the sound that escaped his lips came out as a low growl, making him shut up immediately.

  The thought left only one plausible explanation.

  Even if it was the most absurd explanation.

  So... what was different today?

  His mind fired off in search of a trigger.

  "The 1,460 days..." he murmured, tightening his grip on the arm of the throne.

  Exactly four years.

  One thousand four hundred and sixty days of uninterrupted logins.

  Was it possible?

  A loyalty bonus that, instead of a rare item or an exclusive skin, gave the player the very world he had spent so much time in?

  He was pulled into the game just because he hit the daily login milestone.

  Impossible, right?

  Mark felt cold sweat slide down the back of his neck.

  If that was the reward for his dedication, it was a truly cruel prize.

  Then again, his life outside the game wasn’t any less cruel.

  No friends or family, no prospects for the future, and trapped in a monotonous routine that drained his energy day after day.

  He would probably repeat that cycle until the day he died.

  Even so!

  Despite liking and investing years in that game, Mark didn't want to live in it!

  He needed to find some way to get out of the game!

  'Game...'

  How had he not thought of that? If he was inside the game...

  Mark opened his mouth, moistening his lips.

  "Menu!" he commanded, his voice echoing through the empty hall.

  Nothing happened.

  "System!" he tried again.

  ...

  "Exit game."

  ...

  "Logout."

  ...

  "End session."

  ...

  "Log out!"

  ...

  Nothing was working!

  Panic began to take hold, but Mark forced his mind to work at its limit in search of alternatives.

  If the basic command didn't work, maybe technical commands would!

  "Open Settings."

  ...

  "Help Menu. Report Bug!" he tried again, raising his voice. "Server integrity check!"

  No loading bar.

  No sign that the developer was listening.

  It was as if he were trapped inside a box.

  Taking a deep breath, Mark tried the most basic command, the one that should be rooted in the very soul of the avatar.

  "Status."

  Suddenly, the air in front of his eyes vibrated.

  A window of crimson light, translucent and sharp, leapt out of the darkness, illuminating his pale face with a familiar digital glow.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  ***

  Name: Vaelin

  Unit: Heroic.

  Level: 500 [Max]

  Race: Vampire (Ancestral), Class: True Blood Progenitor.

  Current Title: Lord Of The Crimson Ziggurat.

  [ HP: 600,000 ], [ BE: 2,400,000 ], [ MP: 1,200,000 ]

  [ BLD: 240,000 ], [ INT: 120,000 ], [ VIT: 60,000 ], [ STR: 40,000 ], [ AGI: 40,000 ]

  [ M.DEF: 1,200,000 ], [ P.DEF: 400,000 ]

  [ ... ]

  [ Skills ]: [Blood Rule: Absolute Command], [Scarlet Abyss Judgment], [Gaze of the Sovereign], (2,447...)

  [ ... ]

  Mark froze, his breath catching in his throat as the crimson light of the window floated before him.

  His gaze rose to the top of the window, where the name glowed.

  Vaelin.

  That was the name of his character.

  The command had worked!

  If there had been a spark of doubt left, it was extinguished there.

  That wasn't just a hallucination or a particularly detailed lucid dream. The interface was identical to the app's, but now it wasn't compressed into a five-inch screen.

  It was right in front of his eyes.

  It felt real.

  He looked at the massive numbers and swallowed hard.

  In the world of Age of Blood, level 500 was the absolute ceiling, the peak of any player's journey.

  Maybe because it was a game focused strictly on defense, the developers had compensated that limitation with unprecedented freedom of customization and technical detail.

  That freedom of customization kept the community alive, but the real addiction lay in the evolution system.

  In Age of Blood, almost every unit — whether obtained through gacha, event drops, raids, or achievements — had the theoretical potential to reach the cap.

  The problem was that not all units were worth the effort.

  Turning a common card into something minimally useful required an amount of resources and time that would make most players give up halfway.

  But the Heroic Rank... that was the pinnacle.

  Being a Heroic Unit came with a growth multiplier that left any epic unit eating dust.

  Vaelin was a heroic unit.

  He was the spoil of one of the most brutal events in the game's history: The Blood Invasion.

  Back then, the entire server was flooded with invasions of noble vampire families, bloodthirsty servants, and creatures of shadow.

  While other players saw their defenses pierced like paper, Mark endured.

  Vaelin was a rare and unique drop with a 0.01% chance to fall after stopping one of the blood invasions.

  And every rare drop was an exclusive card.

  In the game, drops of that caliber generated unique registration cards.

  In simple terms: there was no other Vaelin on any server.

  On the day the card shone on his screen, he deleted his old character without hesitation and spent the following years raising the level, race, and class of that vampire from scratch, turning him into what he was today.

  Years...

  It wasn't easy, but invasion events turned the boredom of waiting and progression into glorious chaos.

  Witches, werewolves, holy knights... all kinds of strange creatures had already tried to invade his territory.

  Although the game wasn't open-world, the universe of Age of Blood was alive.

  The story of the world wasn't told through exploration, but through the enemies that knocked on his door.

  The player learned without ever stepping outside his constructions.

  Mark knew enemies by the insignias on the armor of the knights he turned to ash.

  He understood the ecology of distant forests by the types of beasts that tried to scale his walls.

  He read love letters found on soldiers' corpses, witches’ grimoires that detailed forbidden sects, and generals’ dialogues revealing wars happening kilometers away.

  Each wave of invaders carried fragments of a vast and unknown world.

  And now, looking at those numbers in his status, Mark realized that the "strength" he had built was... his.

  That heroic unit, born from a global massacre event, was his own body.

  He was Vaelin.

  Vaelin was him.

  Mark released his grip on the throne.

  Taking a deep breath, he felt his thoughts finally fall into place as he looked at the status window.

  Why did he want to go back?

  There was nothing for him there anyway.

  No one would miss him, and he certainly wouldn't miss being just another face in the crowd.

  If he couldn't get out and was truly trapped inside the game, at least he was max level.

  And deep down, a morbid curiosity began to replace the panic.

  He was curious about this whole situation.

  In his old world, he was insignificant.

  Here, he was Vaelin.

  "So it's decided..." Mark murmured, his velvety voice filling the hall with new confidence.

  If this was his new world, he would embrace it.

  With those thoughts, Mark stood up from the throne, his clothes rustling.

  It was time to leave and see what awaited him.

  'Heavy!' His brain was used to his previous body, and as he stood up, he felt the difference.

  This body was heavier, but not in a negative way. It was a powerful density, as if his muscles were made of cold metal instead of flesh.

  Was that the result of his strength and physical defense points?

  It felt very good.

  His nose twitched for a moment, sensing the dry smell of stone and metal and a sweet, numbing aroma similar to flowers.

  His ears even caught his own heartbeat pounding slowly and powerfully inside his chest.

  The world seemed sharper.

  Vaelin was like a machine starting its engine.

  His gaze swept across the hall, moving toward its exit.

  If he was inside the game, then the Ziggurat shouldn't have changed.

  The only difference was that he was now playing in first person.

  The instant Mark tried to take the first step toward the exit, his muscles tensed and his vision warped.

  BOOM!

  In a fraction of a second, he crossed the entire hall, colliding with the opposite wall with a dull crash, making the walls vibrate.

  His body bounced back after hitting the wall, landing on his butt on the floor.

  "Shit..."

  The speed was immense.

  In the game, the 40,000 agility was just a numerical stat on an interface, but there, it was reality.

  He tried to take a step and tore through space in a blink, stopping instantly in front of the wall on the other side of the hall.

  The distance that should have taken seconds to walk had been annihilated.

  Although there was no pain, his head was spinning.

  How had he not thought of that?

  He needed to calibrate the use of his strength!

  Getting up from the floor, he brushed his hands over his clothes to clean the invisible dust and looked around the empty hall.

  "..."

  No one saw that.

  Good.

  Now that he knew he had to be careful, Mark tested a few light hops, controlling his strength.

  Little by little, the feeling of familiarity grew.

  After a minute of short movements without leaving the spot, he already felt at home.

  With basic control consolidated, he thought about trying some abilities that had once been just icons on a screen.

  "Blood Bolt!" he said cautiously, extending his palm.

  Nothing.

  "Blood Spear? Crimson Explosion?"

  He began saying the names of the skills out loud, waving his hands exaggeratedly, but nothing happened.

  No glow or sound.

  He realized he didn't know how to fire magic. Before, he only had to click the icon and the avatar did the rest, but now there was no interface.

  Mark looked around.

  There was really nothing.

  With no direction, he decided to change his approach.

  'Breathe...' Closing his eyes, Mark tried to feel his body.

  That was when he felt something hot begin to circulate through him. It was as if a raging dam had burst.

  The flow was so violent that Mark felt his blood vessels would explode under the pressure.

  Blood Essence!

  He stopped abruptly, panting, feeling the scorching heat beneath his skin.

  That was his instinct warning him.

  Carefully, Mark tried again. This time, he directed the energy with his mind and focused on a low-level skill: [Blood Drop].

  Unlike human physical effort, the process was purely mental.

  He felt an icy tug starting from the center of his chest, a subtle drain that ran down his arm like liquid electricity to the tips of his fingers.

  The air above his palm began to vibrate and condense something out of nothing, until a perfect sphere of blood, the size of a pearl, floated there.

  He could feel the pulse of that tiny drop.

  It was like an extension of his own life responding to the slightest command of his will.

  'I did this...'

  The scarlet sphere was dense, with a surface tension that looked like liquid metal.

  There were no icons, loading bars, or touch commands.

  It was just pure intent turned into matter.

  The initial success triggered a frenzy.

  Like a fish returning to water, Mark began casting skills in succession, losing his fear as he felt raw power shape reality around him.

  He fired [Sanguine Needles], watching dozens of crystallized needles tear through the air with a sharp whistle and shatter against the marble columns.

  He activated [Crimson Veil], feeling a warm, protective blood mist wrap around his body like liquid armor.

  Chaos filled the hall.

  Smaller explosions of crimson energy cracked against the resilient walls of the Ziggurat, leaving scorched marks.

  'This is amazing!'

  Dust rose, obscuring the throne, while Mark continued his experiments, laughing low like a mad scientist.

  There were no more restrictions.

  This was his world now.

  He was finally free to cross the gates and feel the wind outside!

  But at that moment, the hall door was suddenly thrown open with a bang.

  "My Lord!"