ALTER REALITY: Online

Noel opened his eyes as soon as he felt all his senses return, and he was no longer the ethereal consciousness he had been during character customization. The world around him quickly took shape, vivid, and startlingly real.

He found himself standing in a vast, desert-themed Instance, but it wasn't just an endless expanse of sand. The terrain was rough, with sharp rocks of different sizes jutting out from the ground, adding to the harsh environment.

The gritty and warm sand shifted beneath his feet, while the occasional gust of wind blew fine grains against his skin, leaving a slight sting.

The heat was intense, and with it came a rising thirst. Noel could feel the sweat beading on his skin, and each breath deepened the dryness in his throat.

As he took in his surroundings, Noel noticed a timer in the top right corner of his vision showing 11:59:48 (hrs:min:sec), counting down from 12 hours. Just below it was another display that read 0/100, reminding him that he had to either survive the full duration or kill 100 monsters to clear the Instance.

'This feels too real,' he thought, marveling at the game's realism. If he hadn't known he was inside a game, he would've believed he'd been dropped into an actual desert. 

The air was dry, and when he pinched his arm to test the limits of the simulation, a sharp pain followed. 

It felt real, just like in the physical world, but slightly dulled, as if his nerve senses had been turned down.

As he adjusted to his surroundings, his eyes dropped to his legs. They felt strong and steady beneath him. Slowly, with a mix of fear and excitement, he took a cautious step. Then another. And another.

His heart pounded in his chest, not from the effort, but from the sheer joy of movement. He was walking. The muscles in his legs responded effortlessly.

'I can finally walk!', he thought, almost afraid to believe it. The feeling was overwhelming, like being given a second chance at life. He savored each step, the simple joy of movement filling him with a giddy, childlike elation. For the first time in years, he was no longer bound to a wheelchair. No longer trapped in a body that had held him back.

Noel took a moment to absorb the feeling of walking again. He even began to admire the desert's beauty, amazed by how real everything seemed. But his awe quickly turned to alarm as the ground beneath him began to shift in an unnatural way.

The sand began to warp and twist, as if something were burrowing beneath it. Alarm bells went off in his mind, and he quickly backed away from the disturbance, trying to guess what might emerge.

Once he had moved a few steps away, he instinctively took a defensive stance, though the movement felt strange after five years of living with a crippled body.

Suddenly, the sand erupted. A creature burst out, spraying sand grains into the air. It was massive, about the size of a rhinoceros, with the build of a lion but far more terrifying.

Its body was thick and golden brown, packed with muscle and covered in a tough hide. Sharp, crystalline spikes ran along its spine, and its heavy claws dug into the ground with each step, leaving deep gouges in the sand.

Its face was grotesque, with distorted features that looked unnatural, almost as if they were pieced together wrong. Its glowing eyes locked onto Noel. The creature had no tail, just a broad, spiked back that made it even more menacing.

Noel's breath caught in his throat. 'How am I supposed to fight that?' 

He had no weapon, not yet adjusted to his newfound legs, and certainly no idea how to bring down something that looked like it could tear him apart in an instant.

'I have to stay on my feet. One wrong move and it would be over', Noel reminded himself as the Sand Stalker charged, its muscular body barreling toward him at frightening speed.

Reacting purely on instinct, Noel threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the beast's charge. He rolled in the sand, and hurried to his feet just as the creature turned, its eyes locking onto him once again.

The black tactical outfit his character wore was now covered in dust and sand. It offered some protection, but not enough.

A sharp pain flared in his side. He hadn't gotten away unharmed. The creature's claws had grazed him, tearing through the fabric and leaving a few shallow, bleeding cuts beneath.

The creature lunged again. Noel ignored the pain and sidestepped, barely dodging another swipe of its deadly claws, then struck back with a kick to its side.

The hit landed, but the creature's thick hide absorbed most of the blow. It barely flinched, and Noel quickly realized how outmatched he was.

The fight turned into a struggle to stay alive. Noel dodged and attacked whenever he saw an opening, but each move drained him. His stamina was fading, his breaths growing ragged, and the creature's relentless assault kept pushing him back. Every close call left him with more cuts and bruises.

Just when he thought he couldn't hold out any longer, the creature made a mistake. It lunged too far, its massive claws caught in the gap between two sturdy rocks, getting momentarily stuck. 

'This is my chance'. Seizing the opportunity, Noel gathered every last bit of strength he had and slammed his fist into one of the creature's eyes. It howled in pain as its vision blurred.

Without wasting a second, Noel snatched a sharp rock from the ground and drove it into the creature's wounded eye with all his strength. The beast roared in agony, thrashing wildly to shake him off, but he held firm, forcing the rock in deeper until its movements began to slow.

With one final, ear-splitting cry, the terrifying creature collapsed, its muscular body slamming into the ground with a heavy thud.

Noel stepped back breathing heavily as he watched the creature go still. Blood ran down his face, and his limbs trembled from the effort. He had done it. Somehow, he had actually killed the monster.

As he stood there, adrenaline still rushing through him, a soft chime echoed in his ears. His eyes shifted to a glowing notification that appeared in his field of vision. That was when he saw the creature's name for the first time.

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﴾ Lv.2 Sand Stalker ﴿

﴾ 50 Life Energy obtained ﴿

﴾ Congratulations! You have unlocked your Innate Talent,║Liability║﴿

Rewards Obtained

- 2 Kentos 

- 200 grams Sand Stalker Meat ⧼Edible⧽ added to Inventory

- 1 Common Grade Weapon Selection Card added to Inventory

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Noel stared at the notification, trying to process everything. Sand Stalker. The name echoed in his mind. After what he had just been through, he knew he wouldn't forget it even if he wanted to.

When he looked back at where the creature had fallen, He noticed the creature's corpse beginning to fade, its body growing faint and nearly see-through.

The air around it rippled with a faint glow before the entire corpse dissolved, leaving behind only a few scattered grains of sand.

The monster's disappearance served as a stark reminder that this was still a game, not reality. Yet everything felt real. His heavy breaths, the pull of gravity, the sting of pain. It was so immersive that his mind kept slipping into the belief that it was real.

As the line between the game and reality began to blur, a troubling thought crept in, bringing with it a quiet wave of concern.

'Leon… has he been playing something this brutal all along?' The thought lingered, growing more unsettling with each passing moment.

'What has this game been doing to him?'

Before he could think about it any longer, a sharp, burning pain from his cuts and bruises pulled him back. Wincing, Noel recalled that the earlier notification had mentioned something about an inventory, just like in most games he knew.

"Inventory," he called out, and with a soft chime, a panel appeared before him, displaying ten slots. 

Four slots were already occupied. One held a set of clothes, while another displayed a stack of ten items labeled 'Healing Bandaids.'

He quickly selecting the bandaids, and as soon as he did, the bandaids magically materialized in his hand. He wasted no time, applying half of them to the worst of his wounds.

He wrapped a strip around the deep gashes on his side where the Sand Stalker's claws had torn through his flesh, then placed others on the cuts and bruises that marked his arms and legs from the creature's relentless assault.

As the bandaids settled on his skin, a soothing sensation spread through the injured areas. The sharp, burning pain gradually began to fade away. Noel let out a sigh of relief as he adjusted to the strange but effective healing process. 

The calming sensation helped steady his breathing, allowing him to think more clearly. 

'The environment here is rough, but at least I have something to help me survive', he thought, glancing at the harsh desert landscape with renewed focus.

For someone who had grown up in the cold climate of Finland, the oppressive heat was far from welcoming. It made the desert feel even more hostile, each breath dry and heavy in his chest.

Pushing the discomfort aside, he turned his attention back to the inventory panel. Two more slots were filled; one with a Weapon Selection Card and the other containing 200 grams of edible Sand Stalker meat. The items sparked his curiosity, but he chose not to focus on them for now.

Something else held greater importance. His thoughts shifted to the newly unlocked Innate Talent, still waiting to be explored. Unlike the items, this had the potential to significantly increase his chances of survival in the brutal virtual world.

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Author Note: 

ALTER REALITY: Online is the 1st Side Story of EARTH's ALPHA PRIME, a LitRPG System Survival novel that has completed 3 volumes so far. 

The revamped version of EAP Volume 1, 2 & 3 are now live on Kindle. You can find them on Amazon by simply searching the book title or go through the link provided here.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DR53YMV2

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Exclusive artwork for every free chapter is now available on my PATRE0N page! You can find the link in my Discord server.

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Discord Link for 'Earth's Alpha Prime' :

https://discord.gg/P6cWGg2G

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