If Vlad knew that today would be the day that the whole world would come to an end, he wouldn’t have bothered going to his college campus.

“This way!” He shouted. “Move, move!”

Vlad guided his friends to the closest campus building that could protect them. All around him and the others, chaos ensued as monsters not from this world wreaked havoc on the campus grounds, killing everything and everyone in sight.

Sweat stuck to his charcoal black hair, causing him to push it back so it didn’t block his vision. As he did this, a small gash mark on his forehead was revealed as it continued to bleed, trailing down his face and dripping off his chin. He could still feel the slight throb from the wound but did his best to ignore it to stay focused.

Turning around frantically, he saw several monsters close in on them quickly. All of them looked short and had green skin, pointed ears, and menacing yellow eyes that glared at him and the others. When one of the gremlin monsters smiled, it revealed yellow jagged teeth that would give a dentist nightmares.

Just then, one of the monsters leaped at Vlad with malicious intent. It carried a rusted dagger and aimed it right at him while diving in his direction. Instead of dodging, Vlad planned to counter the creature and try and take its dagger.

However, just as it got close, a baseball bat was soon swung at the monster's head, sending it flying in another direction. Vlad turned to the source and saw that it was one of his friends that did this.

“C-Chloe…!”

The person wielding a bat was a girl around Vlad’s age and wore a black sports hoodie and tights along with tennis shoes. Her short raven black hair was a mess as if she had just gotten out of bed, and on her right cheek was a wound that appeared to have been from some kind of blade. The gash slightly bled as it trinkled down her cheek, but she ignored it.

Despite her slender build, she had quite a bit of muscle on it, which allowed Chloe to swing that bat as hard as she could and get a home run out of the goblin. With a huff, she whipped her head and glared at Vlad with her menacing royal purple eyes, causing him to flinch and step back out of fear.

“The hell were you trying to do, dumbass?!” She scolded.

“I-I wanted to get its dagger…” Vlad explained with a mutter.

He then pointed at the dagger on the ground near them that the monster dropped after getting knocked away by the bat. Hearing this, Chloe grunted before bending down and picking up the dagger. Shoving it in Vlad’s hands, she turned back to the building and went back to running.

“You got the damn dagger, so move!”

Chloe said nothing else and made her way to the campus building. Vlad didn’t waste any time either and started to scurry for the door as well, not looking back. This was a fatal mistake since as he was running, he felt something lunge on his back while making a malicious cackle. Vlad frantically shifted his head and saw another one of the green monsters riding on him. The monster didn’t wield a weapon which was why it used its mangled hands and claws to claw and grabbed onto his black and red jacket and tugged on it roughly.

“Get off…!” More annoyed than anything, Vlad used his new dagger and jammed the blade into the monster’s neck.

Blood spurted out the wound before the monster lost its grip and released Vlad’s jacket. However, thanks to its rough yanking, a massive hole was ripped in the sleeve. However, Vlad ignored the hole and hauntingly stared at the dead monster. Blood oozed out the wound, spilling all over the concrete ground. His hand that wielded the blade trembled slightly as his body filled with adrenaline. His heart pounded like mad as he tried to breathe slowly and calm down to avoid having a panic attack.

He actually…killed it. Although Vlad intended to use the dagger to defend himself, he didn’t think that he would kill something. Fear and horror gripped Vlad’s heart, his legs and body frozen stiff at the sight before him.

Meanwhile, something manifested in front of him. It was some kind of blue holographic panel that had something written on it.

[Goblin has been Defeated!]

[Error! User hasn’t been integrated into the Yggdrasil System! XP cannot be obtained.]

For a moment, the tension Vlad felt before faded away, but was replaced with confusion and anger.

“The fuck is this?” His brows furrowed as he glared at the panel.

Why was this thing talking about XP after he killed that monster? Did it think that this was some kind of video game or something? And that thing he just killed was called a goblin? Weren’t those mythological creatures that you would see in video games or books? Why the hell was there one here trying to kill him?

Although he was filled with questions, he couldn’t focus on what the panel was saying at the moment. Vlad had to concentrate on staying alive. While rushing to the building where his friends were, he took his jacket off so it didn’t slow him down. As his coat landed on the ground, he didn’t look back and kept moving.

As he made his way to the building, he turned to his left and gazed at a horrific scene which was a giant, hulking monster with green skin much like the short gremlins that were after him lifting a student. The student pleaded for his life, but the hulking monster said nothing as it opened his jaw and…devoured the student. His body was about a quarter of the way in before the monster chomped onto his body, ripping it off from the rest of his body. Flesh and muscle were torn apart as blood splashed on the ground.

Vlad could feel the urge to vomit as bile built up in his throat, but he forcefully swallowed it to avoid stopping to throw up. He soon made it to the building where Chloe and his friends were waiting.

“Come on, Vlad!” Chloe shouted, urging him to get inside.

Rushing past his friends, Vlad was now inside the campus building and currently, if only for a moment, away from the chaos happening outside. The ceiling panel lights above them were dimly lit, likely due to some kind of power surge that occurred during the beginning of the apocalypse.

As the lights flickered, the group tried to catch their breaths and calm down. They were all huffing and puffing as sweat profusely beaded down their faces. Some of them were covered in wounds from the monsters, but none of them were life-threatening. They were a bit irritating to deal with, but they couldn’t do anything about it for the moment.

Vlad glanced over at his friends. Aside from Chloe, there were two others. One was a male around his age with matted brown hair that was slightly stained red with blood. He was wearing a slightly bloodied blue bomber jacket and khaki pants that had some slash marks on them, revealing a trail of blood running down his leg and pants.

Next to him was a young girl with long blond hair which was slightly disheveled from all the chaos happening. Despite her current hair situation and her frightened, sweaty appearance, she still gave off the appearance of a lovely maiden while wearing a beautiful white sundress with black closed-toe wedge shoes.

These two were Arthur Wood and Lucy West. Vlad’s other friends. He’s known these two along with Chloe since their freshmen year of high school. They had been together so long that the four of them decided to attend the same college when they graduated, and so here they were.

And now they were dealing with the end of the world.

“Just what the hell is going on right now?” Arthur muttered with a huff. “What were those monsters? And why were they eating the students and teachers?”

“More importantly,” Chloe spoke up, her tone growing more annoyed and angrier by the minute. “What the hell were those panels talking about? That…assimilation bullshit?”

Hearing this, Vlad’s mind wandered back to when the apocalypse first started. He and his friends were roaming about the campus ground, waiting for one of their classes to get started. Then, while in the greenery, a strange holographic message appeared before them along with everyone on the campus and even the planet.

And what the message stated…was the end of the world as they know it.

[Universe Sector 224K5 has been chosen for Assimilation by the Yggdrasil System.]

[Universe Sector 224K5 will become a New Branch Realm of the World Tree.]

[All inhabitants now under the Yggdrasil System will soon go through the Player Class Integration Protocol.]

[Main Quest: “Survive the Apocalypse!” – As a New Branch Realm of the World Tree, your world must go through a complete assimilation. Monsters and beings from other realms will be brought to your world to slowly amalgamate and terraform it. To become integrated into the Yggdrasil System like your world, you must survive ten minutes of the apocalypse to proceed to the Player Class Integration Protocol.]

[Time Remaining: 9:58]

After these panels were shown to the entire world, everything went to hell in a handbasket rather quickly. First, an earthquake occurred that seemingly shook the entire planet. No matter where you were in the world, you were bound to feel the tremors. Vlad and the others lived in Georgia which experienced little to no seismic activities, and yet they felt a quake that could only happen in the western part of the United States. Vlad never experienced an Earthquake before, and his first experience ended up resulting in the end of the world as well. What rotten luck that was…

Then large purple portals started appearing all over the place before monsters soon emerged from them. It wasn’t just small green little gremlins or those hulking ones but also feminine monsters with wings for arms and bird legs, demonic-looking creatures with some kind of hardened skin and horns with menacing red eyes, and even more like tall, lanky, hunched-back gray-skinned monsters with wet messy black hair, and deformed face that would make the guy from Notre dame look handsome.

And their goal was simple…kill and devour. The monsters started going after the students and teachers and slaughtered them one by one. Some monsters killed the people using weapons like swords or clubs, but others resorted to more…savage methods like picking up the civilians and simply ripping their heads off with their teeth. Vlad could still remember seeing one student get picked up and carried by those female bird monsters before getting ripped apart by a horde of them while still in the air, his blood and intestines falling onto the ground, making a disgusting splat sound.

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However, he couldn’t get distracted by other people’s death. He had to focus on his survival. Along with his friends.

“We need to get to higher ground,” Vlad declared, his eyes shifting over to the stairs ahead of them, knowing exactly what they needed to do. “Let’s move.”

Vlad then made his way to the stairs with his three friends following behind him. Their footsteps echoed throughout the hall in a synchronized rhythm. Aside from their steps, they could still hear the chaos happening outside the building. Students and teachers screaming, monsters roaring, and…the sound of flesh and bones being torn apart from the body.

The four grimaced at the horrific sounds but did their best to ignore them and continued moving. Making it to the stairs, they climbed the steps to get to the second floor.

“D-do you believe the military will help us?” Lucy asked with a whimper, unable to control the fear in her tone.

Vlad, Chloe, and Arthur didn’t reply for a few moments, for none of them had a clear answer. Was the military going to help them? They weren’t sure. All they knew was that they needed to keep moving if they wanted to stay alive.

Finally, Vlad spoke up. “For now, we need to focus on hiding from those monsters. At least until this damn timer goes off and…”

“And what?” Chloe cut him off with a sharp tone. “For all we know, when that time hits zero, more monsters could appear. We can’t trust what those panels tell us.”

Vlad stayed silent, unable to refute her statement. If anything, she could be right. Once time runs out, they could very well be swarmed with more creatures like the ones outside. Maybe even stronger and scarier ones. Still, Vlad had hope that they could be saved if they just waited it out. If anything, it was the only thing keeping him focused and determined. After all…his sister was still out there experiencing all this chaos as well.

Vlad had an older sister named Mina Stoker. She was a Hematologist who studied and worked on blood at a hospital. She was his only family left after their parents died in a car crash when he was ten. Since then, it had been just the two of them. They used to have grandparents that they lived with back when their parents died, but they left this mortal realm around two years ago. Now it was just them.

If the whole world was experiencing this hell, then so was his sister. She was probably at the hospital, trying to run away from the monsters just like he was. He wished he could be there for his sister. He prayed that she was still alive so he could try and find her when he could get out of the campus. If he survived this place first, that is.

“Come on,” He declared, focusing on the wall that had a sign that said, ‘Second Floor’. “We’re almost there.”

All of a sudden, the group heard a loud noise the sound of glass breaking, along with malicious cackles that made everyone’s spines tingle with fear. Unable to help themselves, the four quickly spun around to see what was happening, only to witness several goblin monsters enter the campus building. The moment the monstrosities got to the stairs, they all looked up and saw Vlad and his friends, then evilly smiled from ear to ear before charging at the group with malicious glee.

“Shit! Move!” Vlad shouted before climbing the stairs faster.

He soon made it to the second floor, but instead of running away, he waited for his friends to make sure that they were all safe and accounted for. Arthur was the second to make it to the floor, and the pair looked down to see if Chloe and Lucy were coming.

That was when they witnessed one of the gremlin monsters lunging at Lucy and getting a hold of her hair. The creature tugged tightly, yanking their friend’s head back forcefully.

“Aaaah!” She screamed fearfully, grabbing her hair to try and pull it back.

“Lucy!” Chloe witnessed this and rushed back to save her.

With a swift kick, much like a spartan one, she got the monster off Lucy as it fell down the stairs. As a bonus, it crashed into some of its friends, causing them to descend as well. However, one of the gremlin freaks was still moving and closed in on the girl pair.

Without a second thought, Vlad pulled out the dagger he got from the dead goblin from outside and threw it at the monster, getting a clean headshot in the process. The dagger dug deep into its skull and the monster was thrown backward on the stairs and rolled down lifelessly.

[Goblin has been defeated!]

[Error! User is not integrated into the Yggdrasil System! XP cannot be obtained!]

“Move, now!” Vlad shouted, urging the girls to climb the stairs while ignoring the panel blocking his view.

They wasted no time and started sprinting up the steps, finally making it to the second floor. As they did, Vlad looked down and turned pale as he noticed more gremlins showing up. They just kept coming. Looking away from the monsters for a moment, he shifted his gaze down the hall and saw an open door to a classroom while hastily pointing at it.

“Down the hall to the open classroom door! Go!”

The group then scurried over to the classroom where they could hide. As they did, the sounds of evil laughter could be heard from downstairs, only getting closer as the sounds of multiple pitter-patter steps got louder. The only thing Vlad could do was pray that he and the others could make it before they got caught. In a situation like this, it was their only option.

The four soon got to the classroom and entered without skipping a beat. The moment they got inside, Arthur and Vlad worked together and slammed the door shut. They didn’t waste another second and started grabbing desks and chairs to block the entrance and prevent any monsters from barging inside. It didn’t take long before the gremlins got to the floor and unfortunately figured out which room the group was in as they began bashing on the door, trying to enter it.

Vlad and Arthur did their best to keep the entrance blocked, but they knew this would only last for so long. Especially if a bigger monster were to show up and join in on the fun. They were obviously short on time. But how short was the current question?

“The timer…” Vlad muttered, pressing his body against the chairs and desks to keep the entrance shut. “How much longer…?”

He glanced at the holographic panel that materialized before him, showing him how much time remained.

[Time Remaining: 1:00]

Only a minute left. Could they last that long before the monsters managed to break in?

“We only have to hold out for a minute,” Vlad declared, doing his best to stay calm as he relayed this to the others.

“How can we trust the timer, though?” Chloe questioned, as she held onto Lucy to comfort her. “We still don’t know what will happen when it hits zero.”

“She’s right,” Arthur chimed in with a grunt as he kept leaning against the door as well. “All we know is that we’ll be proceeding to some integration protocol. But what exactly is that, huh? What will happen to us?”

Vlad froze for a moment, his words caught in his throat as he was unable to answer either of them. He was certain that once time ran out, they’d be sent somewhere else, at least away from the monsters. Where exactly, he wasn’t sure. What he did know was that they didn’t have a lot of choices as to what to do except hold out for the timer.

“We hold out until time runs out,” He sternly stated, making his decision final. “Then we worry about what happens after. There’s nothing else we can do at the moment except wait it out like it told us to.”

Neither Arthur nor Chloe retorted back since they didn’t know what else to do either. The one thing they needed to focus on for the moment was to hold out until the timer ran out. That and pray that when it does…they weren’t sent to their doom in the process.

All of a sudden, Vlad and Arthur got slightly pushed back as something behind the door crashed into it. Something big too.

“Dammit!” Vlad grunted as he continued to press his body against the door. “Keep them from entering! For as long as you can!”

Vlad and Arthur did their best to keep the door from opening. Just then, Chloe and Lucy approached them and started pressing against it as well. On the other side, inhuman shrieking could be heard along with a single low roar that came from a bigger monster. Like the hulking one that ate a student in half or maybe one of those rock-skinned demonic monsters with horns. Either way, the situation was looking dire.

But, all they had to do was hold out for less than a minute. Just one measly minute and they were hopefully taken away from this hellhole.

“A-agh…” Lucy groaned, her shoulder against the door as she pressed her weight against it. However, out of the four, she likely wasn’t contributing enough due to her frail build. Yet, that didn’t stop her from helping them out as best she could.

“H-how much longer, dammit…?!” Chloe grunted while making a strained expression.

“L-let’s see…”

Vlad gazed at the timer.

[Time Remaining: 0:20]

Twenty seconds. That was doable for them.

“Hold out for twenty seconds, alright? Just keep the do-agh?!” Before Vlad could finish speaking, the door was bashed again, causing the four to get pushed back briefly, before they leaned against it again.

Sadly, this wasn’t the end as the door got bashed a third time, easily splitting the door to pieces as the group got blown back from the force and fell to the tiled floor. The chairs and desks blocking the door were scattered across the classroom as well. Then, a couple of the goblins from before emerged into the room, all of them cackling wickedly.

Chloe and Vlad were the first to get up as they rushed over to grab either a chair or desk to defend themselves with. One of the monsters lunged at Vlad, but he managed to grab a chair in time before swinging it at the creature. The green gremlin got knocked back and crashed into the wall. Some blood splattered across the white brick wall as the monster collapsed to the floor, making no indication that it would get back up to attack.

[Goblin has been defeated!]

[Error! User-]

“I know already, dammit, so stop telling me!” Vlad snarled at the panel.

The last monster got slammed into the floor with a desk by Chloe, who managed to cave its skull in and scatter its brain matter all over the floor under her feet. As she lifted the desk, some of its brain stuck to it as it stretched like bubblegum before breaking off. She gave a disgusted expression at the sight before focusing back on the creatures entering the room.

Another monster emerged and charged at the pair. However, after only taking a couple of steps, it was immediately stopped as another desk was launched at its face. It was immediately knocked out as the desk rested on its body, though it likely wasn’t dead but unconscious.

Looking behind them, Vlad and Chloe saw that it was Arthur who threw the desk. He was breathing a little heavily after tossing it and kept glaring at the door where the monsters kept coming through.

Turning back, Vlad and Chloe managed to get a look at the big monster that helped the smaller ones get inside. It had the appearance of one of those hulking brutes, but it had a fatter appearance. It had a pale gray skin complexion, its gut stuck out like a beer belly and it had a lot of skin folds, fully accentuating its stout stature. Like the green monsters, the fat one attempted to get through the door as well. Sadly, due to its obese body, it bore too much mass to enter. Not only that but as it attempted to push through to enter, its body got stuck, miraculously acting as another block used against the other monsters.

Sadly, it couldn’t completely obstruct the entrance as a couple of the green monsters managed to get through and sprinted toward the group. The four stuck together to fend them off as Vlad and Chloe used their desks and chairs to push them back. They attempted to kill them, but the gremlins got too close and lunged at them. They latched onto the chairs and desks before trying to attack Vlad and the others. To get them off, Vlad swung his desk near a window and smashed the monster through it, causing it to let go and fall out of the shattered opening.

Before Vlad could swing his desk against another one, the creature leaped at him and managed to latch onto his back.

“Vlad!” Chloe called out to her friend, but before she could help him, more of the gremlins appeared and started to overwhelm the group.

Vlad desperately tried to get the monster off him, but his desk couldn’t reach it due to it moving around on him. Just then, another monster lunged at him and pushed him against the shattered window.

“A-agh…!” Vlad grunted, feeling shards of glass digging into his back, all the while, he kept trying to get rid of the goblins on him.

Sadly, he was unsuccessful as a third one appeared and leaped at him immediately after. The moment the creature crashed into Vlad, he was pushed further against the window, resulting in him and the monsters falling out of it.

“No!”

“Vlad!”

Vlad’s friends called out to him out of fear but were unable to do anything with the remaining goblins lunging at them. They could only watch in horror as their friend fell out the window, either about to die from the fall or be torn apart by the monsters moments later.

As soon as Vlad was pushed out the window, it was as if time stopped and everything around him from the monsters to the people was frozen. While in this state, Vlad briefly feared for his life. Was this how he was going to die? Falling to his demise while goblins were trying to kill him? What kind of shitty death was that?!

Then he suddenly remembered the time and quickly opened up it to see if he was lucky. To see if Fate was on his side or not.

[Time Remaining: 0:01]

Only one more second…! For a brief moment, Vlad looked down and noticed that he still had a little bit of height left before he crashed into the ground. Surely that was enough to save him!

[Time Remaining: 0:00]

[Main Quest has been completed!]

[All Survivors will now be transported to the Player Class Integration Protocol.]

Miraculously enough, Vlad was able to outlast the timer and survive the apocalypse. The moment the timer ran out, white particles erupted and flooded his vision until he could see nothing but a white light. It felt a little cold, like he was taking a dip in a pool yet he also felt relaxed in it as well. All of his senses soon faded away, leaving him feeling nothing while being in the white void. At first, Vlad believed that it was just his body relaxing after all the tension he had just experienced, but something told him that this was due to the particles engulfing his body.

While experiencing this bizarre situation, in the back of Vlad’s mind, he prayed that whatever he was about to face after surviving the apocalypse, wasn’t going to kill him. Not knowing that this…was just the start of his new nightmare.

[Welcome, Survivors, to the Yggdrasil System!]