It began around 15 years ago when 100 people from every country in the world disintegrating in a holy light. They had only one thing in common and it wasn't religion, lineage, or intelligence, they were the 100 most creative people in their countries and they had been chosen by something they didn't know or understand but in the coming 5 years afterwards more people ascended in the same way until it finally happened.
Every country in the world saw a face in the sky, each one different, but each one being one of the people who ascended 5 years prior. Every single one announced the same speech which came through as this "We're sorry but we had no choice in this matter. The world has been chosen to die and those of us who ascended had to plan its destruction in the form of a game and so we decided to give everyone a chance to change the ending by turning everyone into players with abilities that can grow based on their rarities and so we hope that despite most of us remaining admins being deranged, psychotic madmen that you can rebuild after the end of the world. WELCOME TO THE GAME!"
Their speech riled fear in everyone because no matter who you were or where you saw it, it was real and starting in 24 hours. This was 10 years ago and since then people seized power over their countries which are now called servers and for those who refused to become players they mutated into abominations the largest of which reside in the Russian mountains and North Korea. 5 players ruled over multiple servers with hidden character classes with the rarity called "admin abuse" but many servers fell under the rule of Mythic rarity character classes.
Britain is one of 25 servers to be ruled by a Legendary rarity despite housing some of the strongest players on the global leaderboards. This is because those players decided to let a born leader rule whilst they became a guild. Guilds are built to be an area for players to sign and protect areas under the safety of a ruler known as a guild master, they became common practice after 2 year of the world having ended. The most notable being the American Angel guild which managed to take control of the entirety of North America and the British Shadow guild which holds exactly 259 players who all rank upwards of level 75 and spread across 48 different servers at the mark of 10 years since the end of the world. But we won't learn more about those two guilds until later. Instead we're going to follow some survivors at the very start of the end. His name is Jimmy.
Jimmy was a 21 year old man who was visiting home for his birthday when all this started. His hair was a blue mullet which complimented his muscular frame he worked so hard to build at university. He was calmly lying in his room reading when it happened. Everyone living on earth fell into a void. Everyone miles away from each other with no idea what was happening but one view that they could see. A gachapon was infront of them and a token was in their hand. "Insert token for class." The machine whirred to life. Jimmy decided to do as the machine said and a small capsule fell out. It was toxic to the touch and emitted an aura of darkness. It was too late now, he had to open it. Once he opened it a status window appeared and read "CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE GOT A SECRET RARITY CLASS. FROM NOW ON YOU'LL BE THE ADMIN ABUSE RARITY SHADOWMANCER." after reading that he was thrusted back down to earth in his room.
He didn't know why, but the world had died and he felt everything. The burns of flames, the screams of civilians, the scent of death. After a second it all disappeared and a status window appeared. "Complete the tutorial for special rewards. Move quickly for higher rewards. Good luck player." With that he realised something was happening and he shot out of his room to face his first losses. 5 small green humanoids no bigger than 3 feet were stood above his parents corpses with bloodied daggers. They're dead and Jimmy lost control out of the grief. A system message popped up. "You've lost yourself to emotion, a higher force will take control of your body. Don't fight it ." Jimmy was a passenger in his own body, but he trusted the system and watched as they fought the beasts. Shadows around the room moulded to his will and blinded the beasts giving him enough time to throw a chair at one distracting the rest. Before they could react the table had been flipped and pushed towards them they tried to fight but Jimmy's natural strength was two much for the small creatures and all five were flattened between the table and wall. 5 pop-ups appeared all reading "you killed a goblin. 5 gold rewarded per goblin."
Jimmy was back in control of his body and he looked around frantically. There was someone else at his house and he needed to find them. He sprinted down the hallway to find the door to his sisters room locked. He couldn't think rationally... THUD... THUD... THUD... CRACK... He punched a hole through the door. His hand bled from the splintered wood but he couldn't give it any mind as he ripped through the door until he could climb through. She was there. Crying in a corner. Alive. Jimmy ran to comfort her. The two embraced. Lily felt the blood on his hand from where he punched through the door and unconsciously activated a skill. "Heal." His hand returned to the same state as before he broke through her door. She became a player. Her class was support mage. It was common and allowed her to heal and apply buffs to allies. It suited her kind and caring nature. "We need to leave and find somewhere safe." Jimmy whispered gently into her ear as he helped her up.
The two left and scanned the streets. Everything was on fire and there were corpses everywhere. People were running and players were fighting but one house stuck out to Jimmy. His best friends house was under attack by a large hoard with his friend holding them off from the front door. But only Jimmy and Lily could see the group closing in on their backdoor. They needed to act. Jimmy ran in with Lily close behind. He quickly manipulated the shadow of the house to cover the goblins and apply pressure but that wasn't enough yet. He quickly punted one of the goblins through a fence but that wasn't enough. He needed a weapon. "Lily go inside and tell them I'm protecting the backdoor." Jimmy shouted as he grabbed a part of the brocken fence and ripped it from the ground to attack the creatures with it. Lily did as she was told and ducked inside. Jimmy couldn't think for long as the goblin he punted returned and lunged for his back. THUD... The beast was hit and collided with the wall dying from blunt trauma. A goblin pop-up appeared. Jimmy ignored it and rushed the others. There was 9 left and he had one blunt weapon. He started swinging the fence piece like a sign hitting the goblins as he attacked. 3 died from the attacks whilst the other 6 stopped and recalculated. Jimmy needed a new plan and so he let instincts take control with him running to the left and grabbing a bench before running towards them and jumping with the bench facing down. SPLAT... The goblins were crushed and the last pop-ups appeared allowing Jimmy to enter the house. He saw people hiding in the living room with Lily healing their injuries. "They were injured so I helped heal them." Lily said turning to Jimmy. "Keep at it I'm gonna go help James." He replied going to the front door of the house and stepping out to join his friend in defense.
"There was 10 in your back garden." Jimmy said as he looked at his friends sword. "And there's 30 here. I killed 10 so far." James replied turning to look at Jimmy taking note of his eyes glowing in pitch black. "10 each then" they say at the same time as the two lunged into battle with Jimmy taking on the ones on the left using shadows to blind them as he threw punches and snapped neck which were too weak to be a challenge. James sliced through them with precision as if he'd been doing this since he was born. That got Jimmy thinking because all the players he saw were using skills with ease even if most of them died. After killing 5 goblins he got a system pop-up which read "New skill unlocked. Shadow density. It allows you to change the density of the shadows you control." After getting that he managed to crush the last 5 goblins by making the shadows above them too dense for them to handle and bringing them down with a bone curdling splat. After that a system message appeared reading "You've killed 25 mobs. As a reward for being the 18th player worldwide you get a rare item roll ticket. Limited to first 100 players." James had finished defeating his 10 as well so the two returned inside to the others.
"You suffered any losses yet?" Jimmy asked as he scanned the group whilst Lily healed him and James. "Nah, you?" James replied cautiously. "Yeah, lost our parents." Jimmy replied as he got up and stretched. "Where'd you get the sword?" Jimmy asked further questions in hope of finding answers. "I got it with my swordsman class." James said as he started cleaning the blade.
"So what do we do then." One of the hiding people asks. "We finish the quest and find the boss monster. Preferably soon." James say as he summoned a status window with a quest on it. "Defeat the boss mob to leave the tutorial area." Is what the status reads. Jimmy had an identical one but he was more interested in his inventory tab. "125 gold & 1 rare item roll ticket." Was his inventory he lifted his hand and a ticket appeared in it. "I think I get an item by using this." He said in an inquisitive tone. "Use it then." James replied with a chuckle.
As Jimmy thought of using it the ticket had burned away and a status window appeared reading one thing. "You have rolled the shadows kings staff. Rank Legendary." And with that a staff appeared in his hands emmiting a dark aura as the shadows around the room swirled towards its base. The staff also came with a status window that read "Shadow King's Staff. Increases ability to use magic and allows basic shadow sense to its wielder. If wielded by the shadowmancer it will allow shadow manipulation to grow 5 levels higher than current level." Everyone stares in shock as the shadows began to envelop Jimmy before he dissolved into the darkness.
Jimmy found himself in a void face to face with an unmistakable person. He was staring at a petite person wearing feminine, emo attire with a gentle face and jett black hair. It was his ex-boyfriend was looking at him with tears in his eyes. Jimmy's ex was one of the original people to ascend to the state of admin and was believed dead by all his friends and family except Jimmy who never gave up on him. "What? Nova? Why? How? Huh?" He scrambled for words as his ex reached out to stroke his cheek. "Tell me Jimmy, do you still love me like you did 5 years ago?" Nova asked in a small gentle tone as he looked into Jimmy's eyes. "Nova, I could never not love you. What happened?" Jimmy replied with a tear then forming in his own eye. "Because of my creativity i was forced to create this death game but the high admins, our leaders, chose 10 admins who weren't plain psychotic and still in a good head space to create a hidden class each and allowed us to guide these players by being your own encyclopedia of this hell hole using our now unlimited knowledge. I chose you to be my player so I could see you again. I'm in big trouble though because I manipulated both your class spin and your item spin so I could see you faster so you need to beat the tutorial before we can meet again." Nova explained as he started to disappear into the void.
"I'll see you later then, my little shadow." As Jimmy said that he reappeared in the room where everyone is screaming in confusion.
"JIMMY, WHAT HAPPENED?" Lily shouted as she tackled him to the floor in a tight, caring embrace. "I saw Nova." Jimmy said still processing the supernatural encounter. Both James and Lily stared in shock before straightening themselves out and putting on serious expressions. "I'm gonna find the boss and kill that bastard, you guys stay here and protect the others." Jimmy says as his face turns to pure rage and he gets up and leaves to find the boss for the tutorial in hope that he can see Nova at least one more time.