[Chapter 165. The Creation of the First City]

The colossal turtle fell, but it never actually reached the earth. Before the massive weight of its ancient shell could crush the ruins beneath it, the beast began to dissolve into shimmering particles of blue and gold light—much like his drones did when they were recalled or destroyed. Through the lingering, heavy haze of red that clouded his mind, Searanox could see a system window pop up in his vision, pulsing with an urgent rhythm.

But before he could focus his eyes to read a single word, the world betrayed him.

Darkness swept in from the corners of his vision like a black flood, cold and absolute, consuming everything in its path. His perception narrowed into a shrinking tunnel of gray before snapping shut completely. The adrenaline that had sustained his bloodlust vanished, leaving behind a hollow, aching void.

The next thing he knew, there was light. It wasn't the soft, filtered light of morning, but a searing, overhead radiance that pierced through his closed eyelids.

Searanox opened his eyes. He was lying on something hard and textured. His gaze, still unfocused and hazy, drifted upward to find a few of his drones hovering silently above him. They were battered but functional, their lights casting small shadows against a sky thick with unnatural, swirling clouds. With a slow, pained movement of his head, he surveyed his surroundings. There was nothing but flat, desolate terrain in every direction. The ruins of the city—the skyscrapers, the rubble, the history—were simply gone.

The light became too bright to bear, forcing his eyes to fill with tears of irritation. He realized he was lying on a rough, wool-like blanket. Muffled sounds began to assault his ears, slowly sharpening into distinct voices as his hearing returned.

"He is waking up!" a high-pitched scream echoed through the still air. "Get Iris! Someone get her now!"

With a sudden, instinctive motion, Searanox threw an arm over his face to shield his eyes. As he did, multiple system windows materialized in his field of vision, overlapping one another in a chaotic display of notifications.

He blinked several times, his vision still swimming and his head throbbing with a dull ache. The sounds around him still felt strangely distant, as if he were submerged under twenty meters of water.

"Searanox."

The voice was closer now. He squinted and lowered his arm, trying to summon his sunglasses from his storage ring with a mental tug. The connection felt frayed, and his mental inventory came up empty. He realized with a jolt of annoyance that his shades weren't there. Through burning, watery eyes, he saw the silhouette of Iris standing over him, her tail twitching in a rhythm he couldn't quite read.

"You are awake," she said, her voice sounding steadier than he felt.

"My glasses..." he muttered, shielding his brow against the glare.

Iris reached down to the grass beside him and handed him his shades. As he slid them onto the bridge of his nose, the world finally settled. The polarized lenses cut through the blinding shimmer that had been obscuring his vision. He sat up slowly, his joints popping, and looked around once more.

He was lying in the center of a barren field. It was an impossible sight. As far as the eye could see, there were only open plains of packed earth and flat stone. There were tents scattered nearby, and people—survivors—were sitting on the short, sparse grass, looking dazed.

"Where the fuck am I?" he muttered, his voice raspy. He tried to reconcile the image of the ruined metropolis he had fought in just a moment ago with this empty wasteland.

He then noticed the four women—Lana, Carmen, Sarah, and Vanessa. They were standing a few meters away, huddled together. When their eyes met his, he didn't see relief; he saw a deep, lingering fear. Next to them stood Rayan and Samantha, their expressions equally shell-shocked. Behind them, a few other familiar faces from the city watched him with a mixture of awe and terror.

"You are inside the city... or rather, where the city was once located," Iris began, her voice dropping into a somber tone. "It vanished the moment we cleared the city node. The structures simply... disintegrated, leaving behind only this void."

Searanox brought his body fully upright, shifting into a sitting position. His muscles felt tight, a lingering reminder of the violent slaughter he had enacted. As he moved, Iris took a step to the side. Behind her, hovering in the center of the wasteland, was a sphere of golden light. He had mistaken it for the sun because its radiance was so intense, but now he saw it for what it was—a concentrated ball of System energy. It hovered directly over the only remaining stone structure in the vicinity: the node pedestal.

"What do you mean, 'vanished'?" he asked, rubbing his temples.

"The System... it deconstructed the buildings. Everything considered part of the ruined city was reclaimed," Iris explained, her voice shaking slightly. "It took everything. The steel, the concrete, the history. It's all being processed."

Searanox shook his head, trying to make sense of the tidal wave of questions crashing against his mind. "Let me take care of the system windows first. We can talk after I finalize this."

`Yes.`

He directed the thought toward the floating prompt. Almost immediately, the level-up screens vanished, replaced by a new interface that demanded a name for the territory. He sighed harshly, his mind too tired for creativity. He reached into the depths of his memory and pulled out a name that sounded sufficiently imposing.

`Androxis`

The thought was followed by a cascade of celebratory system windows. They congratulated him for being first, even granting him a boon—not for himself, but for the city he was about to manifest. It was the guild creation process all over again, but on a massive, terrifying scale. Window after window asked him to choose the type of city architecture and governance. He tried to select a standard model, but the interface flickered.

Without warning, the sun-like ball of light hovering in the sky burst like an overfilled water balloon. Instead of water, it sent out a massive, pressurized wave of golden threads that raced across the barren plains. Before the wave could touch him, Searanox’s vision shifted. He felt his perspective lift, as if he were being shown the world from a bird’s-eye view.

In the distance, he saw the golden tsunami hit the earth. The threads began swirling and weaving into themselves, constructing reality at a molecular level.

From the epicenter of the golden storm, a single, impossibly black spike erupted from the ground. It wasn't a slow growth; it was a violent birth. The black monolith punched through the golden light with absolute finality. This was the Magitech Fortress Tower, the heart of his guild. It was a 660-meter needle of dark granite that seemed to drink the surrounding radiance. Its violet conduits were pulsing with a slow, possessive rhythm that matched Searanox’s own heartbeat.

As if summoned by the tower's presence, colossal walls began to unspool from the base. They didn't rise like masonry or constructed stone; they rose like solidified shadows. These hundred-meter-high ramparts were made of the same seamless, black material, spreading outward in a eight-pointed star with straight sections between the corners until they enclosed a staggering area of ten kilometers. The sheer scale of the fortification dwarfed the assembled survivors, making them look like ants in the shadow of a mountain.

A second, shorter ring of wall burst from the ground around the tower's immediate vicinity, interlocking with the Magitech Fortress Tower's auxiliary towers that had grown in thickness and height. This created a fortified citadel within the larger fortress.

Then, the space between this inner keep and the outer wall began to fill. From the golden threads, elegant structures took form, but their architecture was a sharp departure from the Gothic cathedral like tower. Graceful, pagoda-roofed buildings with sweeping eaves and intricate wooden latticework materialized. Tranquil Zen gardens, complete with stone paths and spirit-fountains, appeared in neat, orderly districts. This was an upscale enclave of impossible beauty—a vision of ancient Asian splendor forged from pure System energy. Its silent streets and pristine squares offered a stark, alien contrast to the ruined, gray world that had existed just moments before.

A third wall, less imposing but no less absolute, segmented this refined district from the remainder of the city. Beyond it, the golden light wove a different reality. The architecture remained inspired by the same aesthetic, but it was plainer and more functional. The buildings were packed closer together, the wood was less polished, and the stone was rougher. This was the residential quarter for the masses—a sprawling, orderly cityscape of tenement blocks and market squares, meticulously planned but stripped of the opulence granted to the inner circle.

The entire metropolis rose from nothing in a matter of minutes. It was a silent, terrifying miracle of creation that left no room for doubt about the System's power or the nature of its chosen agent.

From the four cardinal directions colossal gates materialized in the seamless outer bulwark. Each was a masterpiece of magitech engineering that dwarfed any human construction in history. They didn't swing open on hinges; instead, they slid into the walls themselves with silent, impossible precision. Their granite faces reflected none of the light. Behind these portals, the System manifested four arterial roads, each wider than a pre-System highway, cutting through the metropolis with geometric perfection. They converged on the central Tower, forming a perfect cross that divided the city into four quadrants.

At the heart of multiple of the larger plazas, where the wide avenues intersected, the golden threads coalesced one final time. Spires erupted from the ground, not as violently as the main tower, but with the same inexorable finality. They rose to a height of hundreds of meters—impressive, but deliberately subordinate to the fortress keep. Their form echoed the tower's architecture, a dark needle adorned with violet conduits that pulsed in perfect sync with their larger progenitor.

The announcement echoed not just in Searanox’s mind, but seemingly across the entire planet. Suddenly, a loud, resonant chime rang out, followed by the cold, synthesized voice of the System once again. A new object appeared directly in front of Searanox, hovering at chest height. It resembled a Magitech core, but it was far larger, and its center held a Green and dark blue swirling vortex that looked dangerously similar to the entrance of a dungeon gate.

As the System spoke, the core flew off with a low hum, streaking toward a massive, open plaza near the base of the central tower. The earth shook once more, a violent tremor that matched the destruction of the ruined city. Inside the newly formed Fortress City, buildings shifted and slid along invisible tracks, making room for a massive, domed structure that began to rise from the ground.

It towered over the surrounding residential blocks, its roof a curved masterpiece of black granite. The architecture was identical to the Fortress Tower—cold, imposing, and ancient.

Searanox stood up, his legs finally feeling strong enough to support his weight. He stared at the massive walls and the towering obsidian needle that now defined his world. He looked at his hands, as if still stained with the blood of the guardians he had slaughtered.

What the fuck is going on...? The question hung in the air.