Free Web NovelChapter 1: [1]: The Architect’s Glitch, A $5,000 Gamble
The sky was on fire. Not a sunset. A living inferno that swallowed the horizon.
Ash rained like black snow over the city’s shattered skeleton. Skyscrapers were jagged stumps. Highways ended in midair, severed cleanly as if cut by a god’s scalpel.
Levi ran.
His boots were cracked. His armor which wasn’t really armor, just strips of scavenged leather strapped over a torn jacket was soaked with sweat and someone else’s blood.
Each breath came as a wet gasp, something loose in his chest.
His left leg screamed with every step. A fracture had healed wrong three months ago. He couldn’t afford a healing potion.
Behind him, the world shook.
Not an earthquake. Worse.
A sound like the sky being torn open. Levi didn’t look back. He’d heard that sound before. Three times. Each time, someone died.
He looked back.
He looked back.
The angel floated five hundred meters above the ruins. It was beautiful in the way a nuclear detonation was beautiful, impossible, absolute, and utterly devoid of mercy. Its body was wrapped in light so intense it burned the retinas. Six wings unfolded from its back, each one spanning the length of a football field, feathers made of pure, condensed holy fire that dripped downward like molten gold. Its face had no features. Where eyes should have been, there were only two pools of blinding white radiance.
It didn’t speak. It didn’t need to.
Level ???. Celestial Sentinel. ??? HP.
The health bar was so long it couldn’t render fully on Levi’s interface. The level was just question marks. The game had given up trying to quantify it.
Around the angel, lesser divine soldiers descended, humanoid figures in silver plate armor, riding pillars of light like elevators from heaven. Each one was Level 280. Each one could level a city block with a casual swing.
Levi was Level 31.
Three years. Three miserable years since Starfall Online had merged with reality. Three years of scavenging through garbage, hiding in sewers, eating rats, both the animal and the digital kind just to stay alive.
The elite guilds had fortified the remaining cities. The strong had become kings. The weak had become fuel.
And Levi? Levi had become nothing.
He had been climbing through the collapsed subway tunnels when the angel’s vanguard attacked the surface. The ground above him caved in. He’d been thrown into the open like a rat flushed from a pipe.
Now he was running. Not toward anything. Away from everything.
A divine soldier landed thirty meters ahead of him. The impact cracked the asphalt in a perfect circle. It rose slowly, its silver helmet turning to face him. A sword of condensed light materialized in its hand.
Levi didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Stopping meant dying.
He tightened his grip on his weapon, a notched, rusted iron pipe he’d pulled from a collapsed building two weeks ago. Its durability was at 3/100. One good hit and it would shatter.
He charged.
Not because he was brave. Not because he had a plan. Because the soldier was between him and the only intact tunnel entrance, and Levi would rather die fighting than die with his back turned like a dog.
He swung the pipe with everything he had.
The divine soldier didn’t even raise its sword. It tilted its head slightly, and an invisible force slammed into Levi’s chest. The impact launched him backward. He hit the side of a collapsed bus, went through the rusted metal, and tumbled across the ground like a broken doll!
[-847 HP]
The damage overflow killed him ten times over. If not for the passive damage reduction from his scavenger title reducing all incoming damage by 60%, the hit would have erased him entirely. His health bar dropped to 12. Out of a maximum of 340!
The soldier raised its luminous sword and walked toward him with the calm, unhurried pace of something that had never known fear.
Levi spat blood. He tried to stand. His left leg buckled. He crawled forward instead, dragging himself with his arms. The tunnel entrance was twenty meters away. Fifteen. Twelve.
The soldier swung.
The blade of light missed Levi’s head by an inch. It carved through the bus behind him like butter, splitting it cleanly in half!
The heat singed the back of his neck.
Levi’s fingers clawed into the cracked asphalt. He pulled himself forward. Ten meters. Eight.
Then the sky went white.
Levi felt it before he saw it. A pressure so immense it felt like the atmosphere itself had doubled in weight. His ears popped. His vision blurred. He looked up.
The angel had moved!
It was no longer five hundred meters above. It was directly overhead, close enough that the heat from its wings wilted the dead grass around him. The six wings spread across the sky like a canopy of fire, blocking out the ash, blocking out the clouds, blocking out everything.
Its hand opened. A spear materialized above its palm.
The Celestial Spear.
Not a weapon as mortals understood weapons. A concept given form. A pillar of condensed divine judgment, three meters long, humming at a frequency that made Levi’s bones vibrate. The light was so pure it felt like judgment. Every sin, every failure, every pathetic choice surfaced in his mind at once.
The angel’s voice didn’t come from its mouth. It came from everywhere. From the air. From the ground. From inside Levi’s own skull.
"Mortal."
One word. That was all.
The angel released the spear.
It didn’t throw it. It simply let go, and the spear moved on its own. It accelerated to a speed that defied physics, trailing a wake of golden fire that scorched a perfect line across the ruined earth.
Levi saw it coming. He had maybe half a second. In that half-second, he didn’t pray. He didn’t beg. He didn’t close his eyes.
He screamed.
Not in fear. In rage. In pure, distilled fury at the unfairness of it all. Three years of suffering. Three years of crawling through dirt and eating garbage, and this was how it ended? Not in a blaze of glory. Not protecting someone he loved. Not even in a fight he had a chance of winning.
Just... snuffed out. Like an insect.
The Celestial Spear punched through his chest.
There was no pain. That was the cruelty of it. Angelic weapons didn’t cause suffering. They simply erased. The spot where the spear entered his body didn’t bleed. It glowed. Golden light spread from the wound like cracks in glass, crawling across his skin, dissolving him from the inside out.
His health bar didn’t tick down. It simply vanished.
[You have died.]
The last thing Levi saw was the angel turning away, already disinterested. He hadn’t even registered as a threat. He hadn’t been worth a second glance. He was less than an ant. He was dust that had the audacity to move.
Then there was nothing.
---
Levi woke up with a violent gasp, his hands flying to his chest.
He clawed at his cheap t-shirt, fully expecting to feel the gaping hole where the Celestial Spear had pierced his heart. His fingers dug into the fabric, frantic, searching for the golden light, the burning, the dissolution...
But there was no blood. There was no angelic fire eating him from the inside out. There was only the sterile, annoying hum of his cramped apartment’s faulty refrigerator.
He sat up on his thin mattress, his chest heaving as cold sweat dripped down his forehead. His heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to escape. He looked around the room. The peeling wallpaper, the stack of empty instant noodle cups on the cheap folding table, the leaky faucet dripping in the tiny kitchenette.
This was his apartment. His old apartment.
Levi scrambled out of bed, almost tripping over a pile of dirty laundry.
He grabbed his cracked smartphone off the table and stared at the lock screen.
May 12, 2026. 7:55 AM.
"You’ve got to be kidding me," Levi muttered, his voice hoarse. He rubbed his eyes, half-expecting the date to change, but the digital numbers stayed exactly the same.
He had been reborn. He was exactly three years in the past!
In exactly five minutes, Starfall Online—the highly anticipated, hyper-realistic VRMMORPG—was going to launch.
To the rest of the world, it was just the next big distraction. A revolutionary game with perfect sensory feedback.
But Levi knew the terrifying truth.
In exactly three years, the servers of Starfall wouldn’t just shut down. The game would violently merge with reality. The descending Gods, the mythological beasts, the apocalyptic magic—it would all bleed into the real world!
In his past life, Levi had treated the game casually at first. He’d figured it was just a game. What did it matter if he fell behind? He could always catch up later.
By the time the apocalypse happened, his avatar was horribly under-leveled. Level 31 in a world where the strong were Level 300. He spent the post-merge years dying slowly as a miserable, low-tier scavenger, picking through the ruins of modern cities while the elite guild players ruled like kings.
And in the end, an angel hadn’t even bothered to aim at him specifically. He’d been collateral. An afterthought. Dust that had the audacity to move.
"Not this time," Levi growled, his eyes narrowing. "I am not being a bottom-feeder again."
He spun around and began tearing through his closet. He tossed aside old jackets and shoeboxes until his hands brushed against hard plastic. He pulled out his NerveDive VR helmet. It was a standard, budget model. Nothing fancy, but it was all he needed.
The clock on his phone clicked to 7:56 AM.
Levi rushed to his bed, laid down, and jammed the helmet over his head. He grabbed the power cable and slammed it into the wall outlet next to his bed.
The moment the metal prongs touched the socket, a massive power surge struck the apartment building.
"Shit!" Levi yelled as a loud pop echoed from the wall. The lights in his room violently flickered and died.
The NerveDive helmet sparked. A jolt of electricity shocked the side of his head, making his vision go completely white. Instead of the standard, polished waiting room with the angelic Starfall logo, Levi was suddenly dropped into a cold, pitch-black void.
Green, pixelated text floated in the darkness around him. It looked like a retro developer terminal, completely stripped of any graphics or textures.
[Warning: Unauthorized Access.]
[Rerouting to Fallback Interface...]
[Welcome to The Pioneer’s Real-Money Auction House.]
Levi blinked, rubbing his digital eyes. The Pioneer’s Auction House? This wasn’t supposed to exist. The developers had scrapped the real-money trading hub before the game launched, fearing it would break the economy on day one. But the glitch had bypassed the firewall and dumped him straight into the dormant code.
He looked at the bottom of the floating green menu. The auction house was completely empty, except for a single, glitched listing blinking in red text.
[Item: Seed of the Harvester]
[Rarity: SSS / Soul-Bound]
[Cost: $4,999.00 USD]
Levi’s breath hitched. SSS rarity. In his past life, he had never even seen an item past the Gold tier, let alone SSS. He didn’t know what the Seed did, but he knew exactly how much money he had to his name. He had saved up exactly five grand from working a dead-end warehouse job to pay for next semester’s community college tuition.
If the world was going to end in three years, college was completely useless.
The digital clock in the corner of his vision ticked to 7:59 AM.
Levi didn’t hesitate. He pulled up the payment prompt, linked his real-world banking app through the helmet’s interface, and hit buy.
[Transaction Approved. Balance: $1.00]
[Seed of the Harvester purchased. Binding to player...]
At exactly 8:00 AM, the server officially opened.
The black void shattered like glass. A blinding rush of color and sound slammed into Levi’s senses. He felt a cool breeze brush against his face.
He opened his eyes. He was standing in Novice Village 404, also known as the Hamlet of Oakhurst. He was wearing a terribly itchy, coarse peasant tunic and a pair of worn leather sandals.
All around him, flashes of white light erupted as thousands of other players spawned in. Instantly, the quiet village turned into a chaotic madhouse. Players were shouting, running in circles, and mobbing the poor NPC villagers to grab their basic starting quests.
Levi ignored the noise. A system notification chimed in his ear, pulling his attention to a glowing prompt.
[The Seed of the Harvester has successfully merged with your avatar.]
[Your default racial trait has been permanently replaced.]
[You have acquired the SSS Talent: Supreme Harvester.]
Levi quickly opened his status screen and read the description. His jaw almost hit the dirt floor.
[Supreme Harvester (SSS-Rank)]
[Effect 1: Stat Plunder — Upon dealing the killing blow to an Elite or Boss monster, permanently steal 1% to 10% of their maximum core attribute.]
[Effect 2: Boundless Fusion — Grants the ability to permanently merge three identical items, consumables, or skill books of the exact same rarity into a mutated, higher-tier version.]
To a normal player, stealing 1% to 10% of a monster’s stats didn’t sound like much at Level 1. But Starfall Online was a game of massive, ridiculous scaling. Late-game world bosses, like the Calamity Dragon, boasted upwards of 400,000 Strength. If Levi landed the killing blow on a monster like that, taking 10% meant he would instantly gain 40,000 Strength permanently.
A normal player only gained 5 free stat points every time they leveled up. To earn 40,000 points naturally, a player would need to level up exactly 8,000 times in a game where the absolute level cap was 100. With this cheat, Levi wouldn’t just be strong. If he farmed enough bosses, his base stats would easily surpass the actual Gods of the game.
Then there was the second effect: [Boundless Fusion].
The equipment and items in Starfall followed a strict, brutal hierarchy: Common (White) → Uncommon (Green) → Bronze → Silver → Gold → Platinum → SSS.
In the early game, a normal Bronze-tier weapon was a treasure. A massive guild of twenty players had to fight a dungeon boss for hours just for a tiny 1% chance to drop a single Bronze sword. But with Boundless Fusion, the math changed entirely. Three trash Common items fused into one Uncommon. Three Uncommons fused into one Bronze... all the way to SSS.
That meant Levi only needed exactly nine pieces of absolute garbage loot—the basic drops that most players threw away—to forge a highly coveted Bronze weapon. He could completely bypass the game’s brutal drop rates, ignore the economy, and forge god-tier equipment in a random alleyway. It was a terrifying, game-breaking advantage.
Levi stared at the text. This was completely game-breaking. Stat Plunder meant his power wasn’t capped by his level. He could endlessly snowball his base attributes just by hunting elites. And Boundless Fusion? He could turn absolute trash into premium gear without needing a blacksmith or a crafting bench.
"Yeah," Levi whispered, a ruthless smirk spreading across his face. "I’m going to ruin this game."
He immediately turned away from the village square. While thousands of idiots were currently screaming at the blacksmith NPC to get a quest for five copper coins, Levi headed straight for the village outskirts. He didn’t need tutorial quests. He needed blood.
He walked past the wooden palisade and stepped into the tall grass. A few feet away, he spotted his first target.
A Level 1 Rabid Field Mouse.
It was roughly the size of a small dog, with matted brown fur and glowing red eyes. Above its head floated a small red health bar: HP 30.
Levi opened his beginner inventory and equipped his starting weapon. A rusty, dull piece of farming equipment materialized in his right hand.
[Rusted Sickle]
[Rarity: Common]
[ATK: 2]
Levi checked his stats. Because he was a fresh Level 1, his base stats were completely flat. He had 5 Strength. In Starfall, the base attack calculation was simple: Strength multiplied by two. That gave him a Base Attack of 10. Combined with the pathetic sickle, his Total Attack was exactly 12.
The mouse noticed him. It let out an annoying, high-pitched squeak and leaped forward, its tiny fangs bared.
Levi didn’t flinch. In his past life, he had fought off mutated hounds the size of cars. He had charged a Level 280 divine soldier with a rusted pipe. A digital mouse was nothing. He easily sidestepped the sloppy leap and swung his sickle down hard.
The rusted blade bit into the mouse’s back.
Levi quickly did the math in his head. His 12 ATK against the mouse’s 2 Defense meant he dealt 10 Damage per hit.
A red [-10] floated above the mouse’s head. Its health bar dropped by exactly one-third.
Before the mouse could recover its footing, Levi stepped into its blind spot and slashed two more times in rapid succession.
[-10] [-10]
The mouse let out a final squeal and violently shattered into hundreds of glowing blue polygons. It didn’t leave a corpse.
[System Notification: You have slain a Level 1 Rabid Field Mouse. Gained 10 XP.]
Levi gripped the rusted sickle tightly. The sensory feedback was perfect. The weight of the weapon, the resistance of the strike, the sound of the kill. It was exactly like he remembered. He checked his XP bar. He needed 90 more XP to hit Level 2.
He looked across the massive, sprawling wheat field. Hundreds of field mice were scurrying through the grass. To anyone else, it was a boring, tedious grind. To Levi, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet.
His path to godhood had officially begun.
—-
Updated Stat Sheet:
- Name: Levi | Level: 1
- Class: None | Talent: [Supreme Harvester (SSS-Rank)]
- HP: 100/100 | Mana: 50/50
- STR: 5 | AGI: 5 | VIT: 5 | INT: 5 | LUK: 5
- Attack: 12 (Base 10 + Weapon 2) | Defense: 5 | Speed: 5
- Core Skills: None.
