The world was ending. Again.

  And Dr Kelly Voss was the only one who remembered.

  Fire rained from the skies, molten streaks carving the atmosphere into a grotesque canvas of destruction. Oceans boiled. Glass towers and steel spires crumbled, monuments of human ambition devoured by the fractured ground. Above it all, something vast obscured the skyline, a portal as wide as city blocks, and beneath it hung a presence—it carried no tech Kelly recognised, and it looked like a man but wasn’t. Its eyes were too wide, its limbs too big, its skin too… different. And its robes, as thin as silk, were capable of blocking shells that could level entire districts. It could not be measured by human senses and defied comprehension.

  Kelly looked at it all and smiled, blood caked beneath her lips, and murmured, "Third-worst Tuesday this month."

  She stood atop the ruins of a research tower, on the ledge, briefly watching the horizon fracture before staring down at the West Side Highway, shifting her weight forward against the edge until her boots barely clung to the crumbling concrete. Just to get a better look. The sprawling city had always moved too fast, eaten too much, and slept far too little.

  The skyline was still standing—for now—and everything beneath was crumbling. But everything beneath it had already started to crumble long before today. The loops had taught her that. No matter how many times she reset, New York was still New York.

  The city was a spectacle. A corporate fever dream where billionaires threw launches to orbital parties, influencers auctioned off brain chemistry, and the most expensive thing you could own was dignity. And at the outer edges, the outskirts of the city? Even more so. New York’s outskirts were a place for two types of people; the first were people like Kelly with well hidden and mildly questionable backgrounds, those who needed a place away from the constant surveillance and corporate regulators’ all-seeing, pocket-bleeding eyes, and the second type were people too poor to make it out of the slums and into the opportunities that lay at the centre of the city. In the outskirts, the outer edge’s poorer populace was far from thriving; they barely fought to keep up.

  If you weren't rich, you rented everything, even your own body. Subscription-based immune systems, short-term exoskeletal enhancements, trial-period intelligence boosts that worked just long enough to make you realize how screwed you were, and enhanced limbs with a side of lifetime debt. Even emotions had a payment plan.

  "One big pay-to-win scam with extra steps." She muttered into the wind, watching the city burn as the apocalypse consumed it. The ones who could afford a way out to safety were already gone. The ones who stayed? The product. New York had been the beta version of reality—every corporate prototype got its first test run in the city's most profitable districts. If something could be commercialized, it started here.

  Just yesterday, the city had been too rich to fail.

  Today, the streets were littered with the rubble of collapsed or abandoned cars, shattered glass, and the occasional corpse. And Kelly knew that at some point today, everyone who hadn't made it out of the city was going to die.

  Why? Well, the answer hung in the sky.

  Above her, the sky was a cracked mirror. Portals hung like jagged shards, their edges bleeding violet static into the atmosphere. The largest one hung directly over what used to be Central Park, and beneath it, suspended in defiance of gravity, hovered the silhouette of a floating being Kelly had heard survivors call 'The conductor'. An inhuman appearance, and oversized to ten feet, like someone had fed a baby growth hormones from birth and never stopped. The world obeyed his presence, unravelling at a flick of his finger as he floated. He had recovered from being obliterated by humanity's near light-speed weaponry, vacuum bombs, and directed energy weapons, all utilised in moderation to avoid collateral and corporate damage. Now, he waved away ordnance assaults that had proved fatal against a majority of the things that spilled through the portals.

  And worst of all, he could even summon creatures so dangerous their mere presence wrapped up the day in cling film and stuck it in the freezer; like a snake the size of a starship that always looked like it had just woken up on the wrong side of the galaxy. Everyone hated that one.

  Among the invading creatures, only he seemed truly untouchable.

  Everyone had tried scanning him for enhancements or tech, but his readings just never held still, constantly fluctuating. Sometimes it barely registered, and other times it spiked high enough to raise ethical concerns. Most of the time it refused to cooperate with measurement at all. If it wasn't for the fact that he hovered above humanity's technological research hub, Kelly suspected more dangerous orbital strikes and weaponry would have been brought to bear, eviscerating everything on a level only replicated in religious texts. But that didn't explain how he was still there.

  How had he survived the initial assault? Why hadn't the corporations used their more dangerous weaponry? And how was he doing what he did? It was all a mystery she had yet to uncover.

  The flight and hovering itself wasn't much of a big deal, but the other stuff he could do Kelly hadn't seen the... Man? No—it wasn't quite a man, but something close to it—Well, whatever he was, Kelly hadn't seen any tell-tale internal augment indicators or external devices; he was breaking physics wide open without any visible traces of tech. Dark energy and matter manipulation with no detectable signals, trace, or interference.

  Implants, maybe? She couldn't be sure.

  Her best friend, Jennie—Jellybean—would have probably already had theories and ideas. If she were still with her. Jennie was in this dumpster fire somewhere; she was certain of it. She hadn’t seen her in years, not for a lack of trying to turn the city upside down and shake it until she fell out. Reuniting was one of her primary goals, alongside figuring out the whole ‘world-ending-apocalypse’ thing. If she could dissect every secret and burn every last problem to the ground, and find Jennie in the process? That would just be the icing on her already large cake of desires.

  It was a win-win.

  Kelly muttered "Status" under her breath, watching as the translucent sheet came into view without the aid of any visible or known tech. Before today, before the portals erupted, spewing out whatever lay on the other side, no one had ever seen them before. No startup took credit. No conglomerate filed patents. No ads, no slogans, no licensing. Which made it the only tech on Earth that arrived without monetization.

  It covered every major network in seconds, bypassed every known firewall, and ignored every sovereign and interstellar border. The security collapse was impressive. Some analysts said it was a virus. The short list ran through the usual countries—Russia, America, China, South Africa, the off-world nations, and even the Cyber Terrorists and The Tüin—a singular, distant race extraterrestrials humanity had a somewhat touchy relationship with. All of them issued denials through recycled press releases or badly directed public videos. The rest blamed the phenomenon itself.

  They said it was a ‘fallout event.’ A consequence of extradimensional architecture clipping into standard space. Which actually made a lot of sense, if you lowered the threshold for scientific proof to 'vibes' or ‘felt right in the moment.'

  As far as anyone could tell, the Status was an enigma.

  There were plenty of ways to create holograms; Advanced photon control to allow structured light waves to self-stabilize in mid-air, creating the illusion of solid, tangible holograms.

  Programmable nanobots or self-assembling molecules suspended in the atmosphere could alter local air properties to create high-contrast, bright displays. Advancements in electromagnetic resonance could allow the creation of visible energy structures in mid-air; plasma screens without the need for extreme heat or gas ionization. Each needed a catalyst like lasers, drones, or machinery.

  But this wasn't any of that, or any of the other known ways. Countless researchers, scientists, and competing institutions had clarified, and, naturally, Kelly had checked in her slightly illegal, personally constructed home-lab. The 'status' that had swept through the Earth hadn't utilised or connected to any known network, aside from traced and tracked surges in dark matter and dark energy wherever it appeared. It was exactly like the portals.

  New. Unknown. More than tech.

  It was phenomena. Something that didn't use heat, light, or anything physics had the courtesy to acknowledge. And it had just slipped past her multilayered quantum neural encryption and waltzed through her autonomous AI guardian's defense like they were glorified pop-up blockers.

  [Name: Dr. Kelly Voss

  Race: Human

  Title:

  Rank: F-

  Traits: Absolute Mana Incompatibility (EX),

  Skills: ]

  Kelly focused her attention on titles, skills, and nothing happened. Then she focused on the word 'Traits,' something of a daily ritual, and like it always did, the status panel presented her with a scientific and existential enigma.

  Without any evidence of traceable technology, it bypassed her mental defense and AIs and reacted to her intent;

  [Traits: Traits are passive performance modifiers that quantify and provide a mechanical enhancement to the being that possesses them. Based on either quantification or the 'Trait' that led to its acquisition. Or both.]

  It was a classification that explained everything while explaining absolutely nothing at all. Like saying the sun rose every morning or that the universe came into being without telling you the when, the who, the where, the what, the how, or the why.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  ‘Titles' were greyed out, offering even less than nothing when she focused on it. 'Skills' were grayed out too. Only her 'Name', 'Race', 'Rank, and 'Traits' seemed to be available for inspection.

  'Name', 'Race', 'Rank'—obvious enough, but she checked anyway, just in case the butterfly effect was on steroids and it'd changed the definitions while she wasn't looking. Yep. 'Name' was still her 'Name’, 'Race' was still her 'Race,' and 'Rank?' Well, an F-Minus still wasn't going to keep her alive if her lungs got incinerated, or make her strong enough to punch through whatever that thing hanging in the sky was supposed to be.

  From the moment the first portal erupted its extradimensional contents, every single being on and off-world had gained access to the strange status panel dictating their 'Rank.' Its meaning had been a mystery,

  For the first ten minutes.

  Humanity was wired into networks, feeds, shared spaces, and assistive virtual worlds that turned numerical patterns into predictive models—so when the Status Panel appeared on Earth and quickly spread, 'Ranks' were mapped, compared, and ranked before the first emergency broadcast even finished. The 'Ranks' measured physical capability and the danger a being could pose if they decided to act to their full capacity, like measuring a loaded spring by how far it could shatter bone, or like ranking predators by the toughest creature they could take down if they really tried.

  The upper levels were unknown, but humanity had attempted to compare and quantify them anyway.

  Within hours, 'Ranks' had tier lists, death montages, and subgroups arguing if a B-rank creature could solo Chicago—all fed through forums, AIs, and panic servers faster than the first bunker fell.

  The status panel didn't show any sign or indication that it had noticed Kelly's loops. Maybe it couldn't.

  Or maybe she was overestimating herself, and the scale it measured against included things so far beyond her that even that breaking the flow of time didn't register. But that made no sense.

  The only thing that could make sense was that the loops were unrelated to the status, or perhaps entirely beyond it?

  Her thoughts drifting, Kelly turned to focus on the single 'Trait' she, and every other member of her dimension possessed, and another panel sprang to life.

  [Absolute Mana Incompatibility (Racial, Foundational, EX-Grade): This being cannot generate, store, or manipulate mana, cast spells, or gain mana-based skills, titles, or additional Traits. Through innate spiritual and physical incompatibility, this being rejects mana on a fundamental level. This trait is intrinsic to their race and dimension's beings, shaping both their physical form and spiritual being. While mana can enter their body, it remains inert, unusable, and incapable of being stored. Their physiology and metaphysiology lacks mana-generating functionality and mana-conductive pathways, replacing them with a stabilized quantum neural lattice that repels the formation of such metaphysiology at the subatomic level. Immune to mana corruption. Registers as an absence in mana-based detection.]

  Humans couldn't directly manipulate dark energy or matter—the world's so-called 'Mana'.

  Though there had been some minimal progress in studying the portals before the loops, so far, all attempts at direct biological manipulation had proven impossible. It was everywhere, and ignored them, denied them access to the power that rippled through everything else.

  EX-Grade. What the hell did that actually mean? Focusing on the words brought no explanation.

  The internet claimed it was similar to old and forgotten games from millennia ago, and in some respects, it was—but Kelly found the comparison... lacklustre. The trait the grade was attached to had the word 'absolute' in it. Which, if words meant anything, should imply the highest level of effect, right? EX showed up on scientific calculators as shorthand for exponential scaling, and in physics, Exawatts were so far beyond normal power levels that measuring them was almost pointless—so if Traits worked in the same way, where the hell did they start, and how big were the jumps? If Traits had grades, that meant some were better than others, which meant some lucky bastard out there in the invader dimension had the Dollar Store version of the same demerit every human on Earth did.

  The sheet showed her personal information, and the 'Trait’ confirming humanity's incompatibility with 'mana.' Her experiments in her sort-of-illegal home lab had only revealed how the world's dark matter surged to respond to the word "Status" when spoken with intent—a mystery she couldn't even begin to solve without better resources and a much better lab.

  It made no sense. At work, she had studied how dark matter and energy interacted with the portals, to a lesser degree. But the panel itself was an enigma. How did the 'Status' bypass the highest military grade defenses and infiltrate the minds of billions of people? How did it project images without the use of any known technology? Which on or off-world nation was behind it?

  And why did a single word activate it? She needed her military lab. She needed access to her workplace. The crude equipment here couldn't handle the questions she was chasing, and time was collapsing as fast as the world outside.

  Her lips pressed into a thin line as she eyed the same unchanging statement of humanity's limits staring back at her, printed in cold, clinical text.

  [Absolute Mana Incompatibility.]

  No access. No interaction. No exceptions.

  Kelly exhaled sharply through her nose. Right. Because that wasn't going to stop her.

  She flicked a hand toward the display. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Big cosmic 'No Humans Allowed’ sign. That ever worked on me before?"

  The text didn't answer. Probably for the best.

  It didn’t matter if the world had shoved a locked door in her face, she wasn't the type to find another way around. She'd break the door, the wall, and whatever idiot thought it was strong enough to keep her out.

  Standing on a high ledge, watching the city burn, she leaned back, tapping her fingers against her thigh, planning her route. "Magic says I don't exist, huh?" A grin tugged at her lips. "Cute.”

  “Let's see how long that lasts when I run it over."

  Beneath the floating tyrant, entire sections of the sky continued to fracture at his command, splitting apart like glass under pressure to reveal an impossible void beyond. Voids. Blacker than space. Hungrier than death. The portals were glowing, jagged gashes, their edges crackling with energy that defied every law of physics Kelly had ever studied to create completely new ones. They endlessly vomited creatures that defied biology, like someone had handed evolution a corporate budget and told it to cut corners.

  The first thing she did was the obvious one: hit a black?market supplier for neural jacking tech. Extremely illegal; execution?level illegal. She puppeted the dumbest creature she could find. The problem was always resistance—push too hard, and even the simplest portal creature could fight back.

  The creature's genetic makeup let them command dark matter as easily as breathing, rewriting the rules of reality with a disregard usually reserved for corporate ethics boards. Some of the creatures, the more dangerous ones, seemed to shrug off a majority of conventional weaponry, their bodies adjusting to gunfire, explosives, and anything short of total annihilation. Some hurt to even look at. But one thing persisted amongst the invading reality-altering beasts; that each and every one of them attacked the population indiscriminately.

  New York had always been doomed. The apocalypse just had better special effects.

  "Alright, gravity," she muttered, leaning forward dangerously on the high ledge. "Let's do this."

  The edge of the building fractured beneath her heavy step, but Kelly was already gone, boots cutting clean through the empty air. She kicked off an adjacent crumbling ledge with the speed and poise of an Olympic athlete, twisting in midair, descending towards her vehicle far below.

  She'd missed the truck once. Overshot it twice. Landed on the hood and shattered her ribs on attempt four. Sprained an ankle on number forty. Now? Now, she didn't even think about it.

  As she fell, Kelly tapped her temple, adjusting her augmented reality implant lenses—custom-built, she'd made them herself, right in her home lab, and wouldn't trust the corporations with making her a cup of coffee let alone give them a back door into her senses and thoughts through her implants, because trusting mass-market implants was just asking to wake up with a Terms of Service update directly in her skull. She worked for a corporation. A major one. She'd read the internal reports, seen how "data collection" translated to full-scale personality theft. Violating human rights and breaking regulations was standard protocol for almost all corporations, though they kept it hidden well enough.

  With a tap, her lenses zoomed in mid-fall, and her eyes scanned the distant destruction of Times Square. The city's once-famous screens and holograms had now either fallen into disrepair or displayed corrupted feeds into the open air, glitching with strange projected symbols from another reality as machines attempted in vain to repair them.

  She looked down, focusing on her free-fall.

  Legs hanging loose, coat trailing like a tattered flag, every movement perfectly timed to the chaos unfolding around her. She tucked her arms in as twisting beams of metal spiraled past her, collapsing in a shriek of steel. The beam spiraled past her knee at the exact angle it always did, scraping through the air with the familiar shriek of twisting metal. She didn't dodge. It wasn't about dodging anymore. It wasn't even about increasing drag. It was just knowing where the pieces would fall. Perfect timing, every time.

  A jagged piece of concrete, familiar in its irregular shape, spiraled toward her. It had crushed her skull once. She tilted her body just enough to let it skim past her shoulder.

  She hit the truck's roof with a clang that rippled through her bones, a sound she'd grown to love. It meant she'd made it. This time.

  Still, she landed hard, boots clanging against the armored roof, the force rattling her teeth. But her knees bent at just the right angle to absorb the impact, her hand finding the side rail without a glance. A solid landing. No broken ribs, no splattered spine, no awkward tumble off the side.

  Nice, she thought idly.

  Her employer had granted her improved recall, which she'd hacked, naturally, to get an unfair edge at work. Who knew it'd come in handy at the end of the world?

  She stepped over the smoldering remains of a creature that looked like it had been stitched together by a drunk god—thick, leathery green skin, tusks jutting from a jaw too wide for its skull, and eyes that still glowed like dying embers. Her switch blade hung loosely at her side, its edge still steaming from the last fight.

  "You're blocking the sidewalk," she said, nudging the corpse with her boot. It didn't respond.

  Kelly jumped once and dropped through the open window, slipping into the driver's seat with perfect ease, the truck already adjusting beneath her.

  She tapped the dashboard—a pointless habit she hadn't bothered to break, then she thumbed the DNA-triggered security ignition.

  The engine rumbled to life.

  "Good truck," she muttered.

  Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel as she drove toward the floating bastard in the sky.

  "You know," she muttered, as if the bastard could hear her, "I've died on 'this' stretch sixty-two times already. You'd think I'd avoid it by now."

  But this was the only route that took her the furthest on the path to reaching her military lab, so she could finally study what the internet called magic. And more importantly, avoiding things just wasn't her style. Crashing through them? Far more satisfying.

  Her mouth twitched into a grin.

  "Let's see how sharp I am today."

  The truck rumbled over shattered pavement, tires crushing loose debris beneath them. She eventually spotted a green creature rummaging through the wreckage, hunched over without care, like it had all the time in the world.

  It gripped the ruined husk of a police droid, fingers sinking into reinforced plating like it was cheap plastic. Metal groaned, wires snapped—displaying strength that shouldn't belong to something that still needed lungs to breathe. Her lenses kicked in, mapping out the kind of augments it would take to crush industrial-grade alloys like wet cardboard. Most would swerve and find a safer route, but Kelly didn't slow down. The engine roared as she stomped the pedal, the truck lurching forward like it had something to prove. The creature looked up just in time to catch two tons of momentum to the chest.

  The impact launched it skyward, limbs flailing, debris scattering in its wake.

  Kelly never swerved. Not for obstacles, not for barricades, and definitely not for things that needed killing. Crashing through was faster, easier, and way more satisfying.

  She watched the creature disappear into the skyline and over the edge, flipping end over end.

  With that strength, it wouldn't die—not from something like that. Its enhanced physiology would keep it intact, but "intact" wasn't the same as functional. It wouldn't be moving around anytime soon.

  "Physics is fun," she muttered, shifting gears.