CHAPTER 287: CHAPTER 286: IT’S A REVELATION

The golden threads began to unravel, not in chaos, but with deliberate precision, as if unseen hands were carefully tucking them away. The constellations of power... cities glowing like embers in the darkness, shrank into pinpricks of light.

Above them, a massive web of red strings stretched out in every direction, each thread glowing faintly, some tight, some fraying. Names, crests, and faces flickered where the strings crossed... families, corporations, bloodlines, all tied together.

Some threads pulsed like they were alive, others tangled in knots so tight they almost bled light. A few strands connected to nothing, curling away into the dark like they were hiding something.

Then, one by one, the strings faded,

vanishing into the void until only a handful remained... and then those too dissolved.

A low hum reverberated through the black expanse, the kind of sound you feel in your bones rather than hear. It vibrated against his teeth, his fingertips, his spine.

"This is just one side, Rex. The world is far more complex than you think."

The system’s voice wasn’t just sound... it was a weight pressing between his thoughts, impossible to ignore, yet impossible to hold onto.

He tried to speak, but his words dissolved into motes of light before leaving his lips.

Then, the floor beneath him rippled, as if the void itself were a sheet of black water. Gravity shifted. The sensation was neither falling nor rising, but something far stranger... being folded.

The last thing he saw before everything went white was the burning outline of a crown, its points stretching into jagged towers, vanishing into clouds of static.

The light slammed into him, like stepping out of a dark room into the sun. His chest tightened, and for a heartbeat he couldn’t breathe.

And then—

Nothing then, he was back.

The plush leather of the couch pressed against his palms. The faint scent of sandalwood and expensive polish filled the air. The muffled hum of the city skyline seeped in through the glass walls of the suite. The shift was so abrupt, so real, it made him dizzy for a moment.

Rex exhaled slowly, trying to digest everything he had acquired. But the weight of the knowledge he’d just absorbed was pressing down harder than gravity.

A flicker of light shimmered in front of him... the system’s interface, its glow softer now, almost intimate. And then came the final message, cutting into his thoughts like a blade:

"This world is a board. The families are the players. The rest are pieces. You are now aware. Proceed wisely."

You are now aware. Proceed wisely."

The glowing fragments of celebration... the flashing lights, the euphoric chimes of victory, the cascade of virtual fireworks from the earlier prize, all felt trivial now.

But as the echo of the system’s words lingered, the excitement curdled in his chest.

He leaned back, rubbing his temples. "Tch... Still too immature, too naive." The word slipped out before he even realized he’d said it.

For all his scheming, all his confidence, he’d still been thinking too small. Chasing wealth, influence, status... without realizing the ground he was standing on was owned by something much bigger.

And darker.

Much darker than he had ever imagined.

It was like peeking behind the curtain only to find another curtain, thicker and heavier, waiting just beyond.

And the system... it made it sound like this was only the first glimpse.

His fingers tightened against the leather armrest.

For the first time, since coming to this world, he wasn’t sure if he was ready for what came next.

But it didn’t matter. Whether ready or not, he had stepped into the real world now...the one hidden in plain sight, masked behind celebrity smiles and gleaming skyscrapers, ancient crests and bloodlines cloaked in respectability.

He stayed seated, knuckles whitening against the armchair’s edge. His chest rose and fell like he’d just run for his life. Sweat clung to his skin, trickling down the side of his face

The silence rang louder than any noise. His gaze kept flicking to the walls, scanning his surroundings as It felt like there were eyes behind them, watching, recording, judging every twitch and breath. He knew it was just his mind playing tricks on him... paranoia from everything he had just seen, but that didn’t make it feel any less real.

Seeing all that conspiracy and layers, he felt dread in this luxurious room.

The room was still beautiful, still drenched in wealth, but now it felt... tainted. That faint sandalwood scent wasn’t relaxing anymore, it felt like the perfume rich men wore to cover the stench of rot.

His thoughts dragged him back to his first meeting with William. The man’s insistence on giving him security, the way he spoke about protection without really explaining why... it made sense now. If William worked in a security company, he must’ve seen a glimpse of the real game. Maybe not the whole picture, but enough to know it was darker than most people could imagine.

Rex’s lips curled bitterly. Back then, he thought William was just being cautious. Now, he knew... he’d been naïve. This world wasn’t just dangerous, it was layered in ways he hadn’t even begun to understand.

The light from the window cast strange, fractured shadows across the room, and those shadows suddenly felt significant... as if the system had altered the very air here. The books on the shelf looked older now, heavier, like tomes smuggled from forgotten archives.

In the corner, a bronze statue he hadn’t paid much attention to before now seemed loaded with meaning: a lion devouring a serpent. Roman? Babylonian? He couldn’t tell. But it no longer looked decorative... it looked like a message. A warning. A declaration.

He stood slowly, every movement deliberate, as if he was afraid the room might shift again if he moved too fast. He drifted toward the window.

The city skyline stretched before him, lights blinking in the dark like signals. But now, they didn’t seem random... they felt placed. Orchestrated. The tallest buildings rose like pieces on a board: the angular rooftop of one tower looked like a knight frozen mid-leap, the spire of another like a queen reigning over her domain. It was impossible not to wonder if they were just architecture... or markers of control, symbols only certain people could read.

"This isn’t just information," he murmured, voice rough in his own ears. "It’s a revelation."

He stayed there for a moment, eyes tracing the horizon. The city hadn’t changed... but his vision of it had. Now, every skyscraper, every road, every glint of light seemed like part of a design he hadn’t noticed before. A design that someone had built, piece by piece, long before he ever stepped into this world.

(End of Chapter)