The coffee tasted burnt. It was the best thing Ronan had ever tasted.
He sat in the corner of the busy Starbucks on 5th Avenue, watching the clock on the wall.
11:58 AM.
"Two minutes," Ronan whispered, his fingers tracing the rim of the paper cup. "Two minutes until the physics of this world shatter."
Nobody else looked up from their phones. A businessman was yelling about stocks. A teenager was filming a TikTok. They had no idea that the ground beneath them was about to stretch like chewing gum.
Ronan wasn't panicked. He was checking his backpack.
One combat knife (high carbon steel).
Three rolls of duct tape.
A bag of salt (crucial for the initial Slime invasion).
A map of the city subway system.
In his previous life—the one where he died spitting blood in a muddy trench—he had been a "Strength" build. He had punched his way through the apocalypse. It worked, until he met the entities that couldn't be punched.
This time, he wasn't relying on muscle. He tapped his temple.
I have the Archive.
[System Synchronization: 99%]
[Legacy Talent Activated: The Archivist's Eye.]
He looked at the businessman yelling into his phone. A translucent pane of glass appeared over the man's head.
[Human (Homo Sapiens)]
[Potential Evolutions:]
[1. Zombie (Infection chance: 90%)]
[2. Awakened Warrior (Survival chance: 9%)]
[3. Mana Conductor (Requires: Consumption of a Spirit Fruit within 1 hour of Expansion. Chance: 0.01%)]
Ronan grinned. He could see the paths. He could see the future.
Rumble.
It started as a vibration in the coffee cup. Then, the windows rattled.
"Earthquake?" someone shouted.
"No," Ronan said, standing up and shouldering his bag. "Growth spurt."
CRACK.
The sound was deafening. It wasn't an explosion; it was the sound of space itself tearing open.
The street outside the window stretched. The pavement elongated. The building across the street, which was fifty feet away a second ago, shot backward as the asphalt between them expanded into a mile-wide canyon of raw, churning dirt.
Cars were tossed into the air like toys. The sky turned a bruising purple. Gravity fluctuated—heavy, then light, then heavy again.
Screams erupted in the café. The floor tilted.
"Everyone stay down!" the barista screamed.
Ronan ignored him. He sprinted toward the back exit. He knew exactly what was happening. The city wasn't being destroyed; it was being redistributed. New York City was being scattered across a landmass the size of Jupiter.
He kicked the back door open and ran into the alleyway.
Or what used to be an alleyway.
Now, it was the edge of a cliff. Below him, where the next block should have been, was a roaring jungle that hadn't existed ten seconds ago. Trees the size of skyscrapers were growing in real-time, their roots crushing the concrete foundations of the city.
[The Great Expansion has begun.]
[Mana Density: Increasing.]
[First Wave of Mutagenesis: Active.]
A rat, terrified and scurrying from a dumpster, squealed.
Ronan watched.
The rat convulsed. Its bones snapped and reformed. Fur fell out, replaced by chitinous scales. In three seconds, the rat grew to the size of a wolf. Its eyes glowed red.
[Mutated Rat - Level 1]
[Evolution Path: Plague Carrier]
The rat hissed and looked at Ronan. It crouched, ready to pounce.
In his last life, Ronan would have fought it. He would have taken a bite, got infected, and spent a week recovering.
This time, Ronan reached into his pocket and pulled out... a laser pointer.
He clicked it on. A red dot appeared on the wall to the left, hovering over a bundle of exposed electrical wires that had snapped during the expansion.
The rat, driven by new, predatory instincts, saw the movement. It didn't have a brain yet; it only had aggression.
It lunged at the red dot.
Zap.
The rat bit into the live wire. 10,000 volts of city grid electricity—which hadn't failed yet—fried the creature instantly. It convulsed and dropped dead, smoke rising from its ears.
[You have killed a Level 1 Mutated Rat.]
[Experience gained.]
[Drop: Rat Fang.]
Ronan walked over, careful to avoid the wire, and used his knife to pry out the creature's incisor.
[Item: Mutated Rat Fang]
[Type: Material]
[Description: Contains trace amounts of viral mana.]
Ronan held it up to the purple sky.
"Step one complete," he muttered. "I need ten of these to brew the 'Iron Stomach' potion. Once I have that, I can eat the Core of the Alpha."
He looked out at the horizon. The Empire State Building was visible in the distance, but it was now perched on top of a mountain of twisted metal and rock, miles away.
Between him and that mountain lay a jungle of monsters that were rapidly evolving.
"Time to go shopping," Ronan said. He turned and ran—not away from the danger, but deeper into the newly formed jungle.
He knew where a "Golden Apple" would spawn in exactly five minutes. And he wasn't going to let anyone else get the first bite.