The stage was on fire.
Not metaphorically. Not anymore.
The shattered glass from a thousand drone cameras rained down like confetti across the burning stadium. Screams, once deafening with adoration, had turned to silence. No crowd. No fans. No thunderous chant of "K/DA!"—just the choking, acrid scent of scorched circuitry and the soft crackle of what remained of the holograms.
The center of it all—where music used to reign—was now a ruin.
He blinked once. Twice.
It didn't make sense.
One moment, he was crossing the street outside his apartment. Late for work. Coffee in hand. Earbuds in, blaring "POP/STARS." The next, headlights. Cold. Then—
Here.
Runeterra, but not like any version he knew.
Not the games. Not the lore dumps or cinematic trailers. Not even the concert stages with their dazzling lights.
This world was real. Tangible. And it was dying.
He staggered forward across the cracked platform, his boots—his new boots—crunching over broken glass and smoldering vinyl. Somewhere in the distance, a speaker sputtered, then died. A voice echoed faintly. Familiar. Autotuned and full of anguish.
"This isn't how it ends…"
He found her among the wreckage.
Ahri.
The idol. The icon. Her tails flickered like dying embers, one nearly torn off. Makeup smeared with blood. Her outfit, once a radiant shimmer of glamour and pop mystique, torn, melted, singed. Her eyes—once electric with charm and confidence—were dull. Empty.
She wasn't breathing.
"No," he whispered, his voice catching. "No, no, no. Please. Not like this."
He dropped to his knees beside her, hands trembling. She looked too small like this. Too human. Not the goddess the world knew.
He didn't even know her.
And yet—
Tears stung his eyes.
A panel exploded behind him. Sparks. Screams.
He turned too late.
The sky split open. Violet and black, a crack running through reality itself. From it came noise, static-laced and howling like a thousand corrupted songs being played backward. Figures descended—faceless, glitching, half-human things. They moved like broken animations. Monsters shaped from sound and shadow.
"Void…?" he muttered. But this wasn't the Void he remembered. It was worse.
A scream tore through the air. Not a fan. Not a civilian.
Evelynn.
She stood on the edge of the chaos, lashes singed, claws up, but her posture sagging. Kai'Sa was beside her, holding a sputtering weapon in one hand and bleeding from the mouth. Akali was nowhere to be seen.
And then—he felt it.
A burning heat in his chest.
Like fire igniting in his soul.
[SYSTEM BOOTED.
User: Unknown Entity Detected.
Initialization Complete…
Skill Tree Unlocked.
Level 1: Survivor.]
His breath hitched.
He stumbled back, staring at the floating, translucent interface now hovering before his eyes. Numbers. Stats. Notifications. A memory flickered—web novels, manhwa, system isekai tropes. This was that. This was real.
He didn't get time to question it.
One of the corrupted dropped in front of him. It twitched, glitching mid-frame. Its mouth opened, spewing distorted lyrics like a broken record.
It lunged.
He moved without thinking.
Faster than he should've. Cleaner than he ever had. His body responded like muscle memory downloaded straight into his bones. He rolled, grabbed a steel rod from the debris, and drove it into the creature's chest. It hissed, not in pain, but in static, and evaporated in a cloud of corrupted pixels.
+100 XP.
LEVEL UP.
"What the hell…"
"Behind you!" a voice cried out.
He spun.
Kai'Sa, barely standing, had shouted the warning. Another creature—bigger—charging straight at him.
Too slow.
He raised his arms—
A flash.
A tail—white, searing, laced with lingering magic—slammed the thing aside.
Ahri.
Her body glowed dimly, flickering between life and death. Her eyes, half-lidded, found his.
"You're not from here," she whispered. "Are you?"
He shook his head. Couldn't speak.
"Then you might be our last encore…"
She collapsed.
And then the world shattered again.
Light. Endless and blinding. Sound, crashing like thunder and autotune woven into war drums.
And then—
Darkness.
When he awoke, it was cold.
He wasn't on the battlefield anymore. No flames. No death. Just neon lights flickering on a rainy alley wall. Posters of K/DA covered the surface. The date on a digital sign blinked:
Six months earlier.
He stumbled to his feet.
Breathing hard.
It worked.
He was still here.
Ahri was alive. They were all alive. For now.
He looked up at the city skyline—shining, buzzing, teeming with life.
Welcome to Piltover.
[Quest: Prevent the collapse of K/DA.]
[Quest: Survive.]
[Quest: Change fate.]
His hands were shaking.
But he was ready.