Ohritro

Eli Turner had perfected the art of coasting through life, gaming, lounging, and vibing with no grand ambitions beyond the next high. But his laid-back existence is upended when his laptop inexplicably transforms into a gateway to another world. What starts as a surreal escape becomes a perilous journey as Eli finds himself wielding a mysterious system that allows him to level up, fight monsters, and gain abilities beyond his wildest dreams.  

At first, the portal world feels like a haven, offering purpose and adventure Eli never knew he craved. Guided, or manipulated, by Azrael, a mischievous god orchestrating the game, Eli rises as one of the system's chosen players. But as the quests grow more dangerous and Azrael’s true intentions begin to surface, Eli struggles to balance the fantasy world with his life back home. His girlfriend, Sara, and his friends are left grappling with a version of Eli they hardly recognize, as the lines between his two lives blur.  

When the system expands to players worldwide, Eli crosses paths with others drawn into Azrael’s cosmic experiment: Yumi Tanaka, a fiercely disciplined Japanese student with a perfectionist streak, and Arjun Mehta, a charming Indian playboy with secrets of his own. Each carries their own burdens and ambitions, but all three must face the harsh truth: Azrael’s game is far more than it seems.  

As alliances are forged, rivalries ignite, and the stakes escalate, Eli must confront not only the dangers of the portal world but the growing rift between the person he is and the hero he’s becoming. In a game where every move is a test and every choice ripples across both worlds, the question remains: can Eli, Yumi, and Arjun uncover the truth before the system consumes them all?

I Got a Notification on my Laptop and Got Legendary Powers

The world around them was unraveling. Fragments of memories—Yumi's memories—spun in the void like broken glass, distorting and reshaping themselves into shifting figures, faces she barely recognized yet knew intimately.

Lucid stood at the center, watching her with patient, knowing eyes. Her eyes.

"I want to come back," she had said.

Yumi swallowed hard. "You say that like I left you behind on purpose."

Lucid tilted her head slightly, amusement flickering across her face. "You did. The moment you touched the Echo, you shed the part of you that couldn't survive in the real world. The part of you that hesitated. That doubted. That feared."

The memories around them shifted again, images bleeding into one another.

A younger Yumi, standing before the Iron Nexus for the first time.

A fleeting glimpse of her father, face half-buried in shadows, his voice unreadable.

The moment she first heard Azrael's voice in her mind, whispering his cryptic warnings.

Yumi clenched her fists. "If you're really me, then you know I don't trust anything that just conveniently offers answers. Especially not when I don't know the cost."

Lucid smiled. It was eerie how much it mirrored her own. "Smart. But you don't have a choice."

The world trembled, the endless sea of code beneath them fracturing.

Eli's voice cut through the distortion. "YUMI!"

She turned—just in time to see Eli and Arjun fading, their forms breaking apart into pixels. They weren't meant to be here.

Panic surged through her. "Let them go!"

Lucid took a step closer, unfazed by the chaos. "I'm not the one holding them here. You are."

Yumi's heart pounded. What?

Lucid raised her hand, and suddenly, Yumi felt it—the pull of the Echo inside her. The way it had grown stronger every time she accessed it, how it had bled into her reality. It wasn't just data anymore. It wasn't just some external force trying to control her.

It was a part of her.

Lucid's voice softened. "The longer you fight it, the worse this gets. You think you can keep separating yourself from the Echo? You can't. You are the Echo now."

She had always thought of the Echo as a thing. A force. A weapon locked away in the digital abyss.

But what if it wasn't? What if it was alive?

And worse—what if it was already inside her?

The real world slammed back into place with a force that sent Yumi staggering.

Her breath came in ragged gasps. She was back in the underground chamber. The neon-lit walls flickered erratically, the entire structure groaning like it was on the verge of collapse.

Eli was gripping his sword, eyes wide. "What the hell just happened?!"

Arjun was furiously scanning his interface, his fingers shaking. "I don't—I don't know! You just froze up, and then the entire system started spiking. You were locked in some kind of feedback loop—"

Yumi's head throbbed. She looked down at her hands. They were glitching, faint distortions flickering along her skin like static interference.

Azrael, who had been silent the entire time, finally spoke. His voice was unreadable.

"You saw it, didn't you?"

Yumi swallowed hard. "Lucid… she's not just a copy. She's something else. And she's waiting."

Azrael exhaled, as if confirming something he had long suspected. "Then we don't have much time."

A deep, mechanical growl rumbled through the walls.

Eli spun around. "Yeah, uh, we might have an even bigger problem."

The chamber trembled. The cables lining the floor snapped, and from the depths of the underground complex, something massive began to rise.

The Guardian of the Hollow Grid was waking up.

Echoes of the Self