Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!-Chapter 386: The Time When the World Paused

And across the Earth, more and more began to awaken.

Golden orbs crack through skies, back alleys, warzones, slums, hospitals, cathedrals—each one slamming into a soul not just chosen by fate, but twisted by it. They fall without sound. No trumpet. No prophecy. Just light—pure and absolute—descending like forgotten promises reignited. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

Each chosen awakens differently. In agony. In ecstasy. In silence.

But all are changed.

They are granted something no mortal was meant to hold.

A gift wrapped in ruin.

A godlike ability… and a fatal flaw buried within like a ticking heart.

Unbeknownst to even Olympus, to the gods who believe themselves architects of justice, something else has touched the blessings. A whisper behind the divine. A glitch in the holy signal. A seed inside every gift.

THEY.

A name not spoken. A presence not seen.

Only felt.

Every Chosen hears it—quietly, deeply, like a memory they haven't lived but somehow know:

{Those marked by the red dot… they are enemies of the gods. Find them. Erase them.}

And none questioned it.

Because the voice doesn't sound like a command.

It sounds like truth.

They don't know yet, but every blessing is a curse dressed in divine glow.

And every marked soul they are sent to kill bleeds into a larger scheme—one drawn by a hand unseen, written in a language older than the stars.

And as the first Chosen lift their eyes to the darkening sky above—

The hunt has already begun.

But one truth binds them all:

The marked must die.

****

New York never slept, but right now it felt like it was sighing.

The sky was gold-tinted and stretched wide over the towers of glass and steel, blinding commuters as they shuffled out of the subway, coffee in hand, earbuds in, dreams long forgotten. Street vendors cursed at each other in languages that melted into each other like jazz. Taxis honked. Stock brokers talked too loud. A child pointed at a homeless man who was singing in perfect French while petting a three-legged cat wearing a pearl necklace. Nobody noticed that above them, the clouds swirled just a little wrong.

Streets pulse with motion—horns blaring, sneakers scraping pavement, steam rising from underground grates as if the city itself breathes out exhaustion.

A girl in oversized headphones dances at a crosswalk without rhythm, while a man beside her scrolls endlessly on a cracked screen. Above them, digital billboards flash influencers selling ambition and diet plans, unaware that the world they market to is already shifting beneath their feet.

Half a world away, in the alleys of Marrakesh, a merchant haggled with an American tourist over the price of a handwoven carpet. The tourist grinned like he'd won, unaware the carpet had already frayed at the edges with a thousand forgotten secrets sewn into the pattern. The merchant only looked up when the wind changed. Hot. Strange. Like the scent of something holy and unholy had passed by together.

In Tokyo, a girl in a school uniform sat beneath the sakura trees, drawing. Her sketchbook was filled with monsters. Some looked like gods. Some like nightmares. Her pencil paused for a second as a strange chill ran down her spine, but then she continued sketching. The creature on the page was smiling now.

Mountains watched.

Tokyo glows beneath thousands of neon gods. Pachinko machines rattle. Trains whisper past platforms with frightening precision. In a convenience store, a university student debates between instant ramen and microwave curry. Her phone buzzes. She doesn't check it. Outside, a cat sits on a vending machine, staring into the empty sky like it sees something falling—something no one else can feel yet.

In Nepal, wind brushes past prayer flags strung across a narrow ledge, each one faded from years of sun and belief. A monk, wrinkled and barefoot, sweeps the temple steps with a worn broom, humming a tune only the stone remembers. He pauses, glancing up at the sky—not because he senses anything, but because something just beyond sensing is there.

A boy chased goats up a trail he'd walked since birth. But today the goats stopped, ears twitching, noses lifting. The boy looked up too. For a second, the peaks—Everest, Annapurna, all of them—felt… alive. Like giants waiting for a signal.

In the plains of Argentina, a father sharpens a blade by lantern-light while his daughter gathers water from a well older than memory. Their hands are worn, their silence comfortable. Above them, the stars shimmer unnaturally still. The daughter glances up, frowning. Something about the sky feels heavier tonight, like it's watching back.

In the Arctic, a research outpost buzzed with quiet. Scientists laughed over noodles, reviewed ice core samples, and one woman frowned at her screen. The data made no sense. The magnetic field had glitched. Again. The auroras were dancing south, toward the equator. She marked it down, then deleted it. No one would believe her anyway.

In Seoul, skyscrapers still cut through the clouds with glass and steel, but tonight the sky above is wrong. The stars don't shine. The moon doesn't glow. Something heavier has settled there—thick, dark, alive.

Across Yeouido, black snow falls gently, too gently, like ash pretending to be innocent. The city doesn't scream. It watches. A barista hands off two drinks to a couple holding hands, steam rising between their smiles, unaware that the flakes touching their coats are not made of water or ice—but something else. Something feeding.

The lovers don't notice the shadows deepening beneath them, or the faint pulse in their chests that wasn't there before. No alarms ring. No gods speak. But something beneath the city is breathing… and it's not human.

In Uganda, the sky turned gold-orange as boda bodas zipped past street corners packed with vendors selling Rolex and sugarcane. Teenagers rapped on a corner with a Bluetooth speaker coughing out distorted beats. In a small home, a grandmother lit a candle for her grandson before whispering something to the wind. She felt something watching. Not evil. Just ancient.

Over the Nile, a crocodile submerged beneath still water. In Brazil, the jungle hushed like it was holding its breath. In the oceans, something deep stirred, old and restless. Whales swam a little faster. Birds veered off course. Dogs barked for no reason.

A wedding begins in a quiet village in northern Uganda. Drums echo under the canopy trees.

Laughter dances through the air as women wrap bright cloths tighter, men lifting crates of beer and soda, a young boy chasing chickens from the ceremony tent. Joy weaves through their movements, but somewhere near the forest edge, the leaves rustle without wind.

A child turns his head. Just for a moment.

In Alaska, the snow falls without reason. It's not in the forecast. A hunter pauses in the forest, holding his breath as the wind stills. No sound. No birds. No crunch of deer. Just snow. Falling. Wrong.

Across the Earth, life moves on. In the world, a few people—no more than a dozen—looked up at the sky without knowing why.

But then... the world paused.

Not just time.

Not just sound.

Everything.

The winds stopped mid-breath. Waves froze halfway through their crash. Flames flickered once—and held there, unmoving, like they were waiting for permission to burn. Somewhere, a tear hung suspended on a child's cheek. Somewhere else, a man blinked—but the blink never finished. Not yet.

No prayers were spoken. Not because people forgot how to speak—but because the concept of voice itself went still.

Across the pantheons, gods stirred in their celestial realms, only to find their thrones wouldn't respond. Their omniscience fizzled. Their omnipotence dimmed. Even thought slowed, like molasses in the veins of reality. Olympus. Yggdrasil. The old wheels beneath Egypt. All still.

As if existence itself had been gripped by fingers older than time.

No thunder cracked. No scream echoed.

Just that absolute, unnatural, holy stillness—

as if the universe had been caught in the middle of blinking,

and forgot how to open its eyes.