The Sura of Idrith
Eight billion humans have just received their collective death sentence, wrapped in the guise of a grand fantasy game.
Without warning, one million "vanguard" humans are violently abducted from Earth and scattered across the hostile, extra-dimensional continent of Idrith. The rules dictated by a cold, alien Voice are simple: survive for ten years, level up, and build massive "Citadels" to serve as sanctuaries for the remaining eight billion humans waiting to be teleported.
To the global governments on Earth and the panicked survivors on the surface, it looks like a trial of endurance. To Ren Karasuma, a brilliant, cold-blooded war orphan dropped into the absolute dark of a two-thousand-meter-deep abyssal trench, it looks like a math problem.
Equipped with a dead explorer's logbook and a deep understanding of physics, chemistry, and human anatomy, Ren uncovers a horrific truth: the Citadels are not sanctuaries. They are spatial funnels designed to harvest the kinetic energy of eight billion human bodies materializing directly into solid rock. Furthermore, the "magic" the System offers is not a gift—it is an invasive, extra-dimensional corruption that slowly replaces human biology until the body structurally breaks.
While the vanguard on the surface blindly follows the System's prompts, building their own execution grounds and being systematically culled by an advanced, indigenous military that views humans as mere livestock—*Sura*—Ren chooses a different path.
He ignores the prompts. He rejects the Citadels. Armed only with a pocket knife, a calculated neural technique to manipulate the toxic mana, and a mind forged in the fires of earthly warfare, Ren begins a silent, predatory march through the deep. His goal is not to build a fortress, but to hunt down the world's anchors and break the coordinate matrix before the rest of humanity is turned into cement.
In a world where leveling up means welcoming your own corruption, the ultimate apex predator won't be the one with the highest level. It will be the one who calculates the cost of every breath.