
by Jordan Cummings
Tobi’s life ends with a message he should’ve answered… and begins again with two glowing orbs in a void that shouldn’t exist. When he chooses the blue orb, he wakes up in his room—alive, aware, and marked with a pulsing insignia that shouldn’t be possible. At first, the change is small: a faint HUD in his vision, a strange warmth in his palm, a sense that the world is slightly… off. Then the anomalies start. Reality flickers. People freeze mid‑motion. Shadows stretch too far. And Ben—his quiet classmate he failed once already—becomes the center of a rising “pulse” only Tobi can see. When a monster erupts from the floor of a grocery store and a mother-shaped thing stalks Ben’s house, Tobi realizes the truth: He didn’t just get a second chance. He got pulled into a branching reality—one that reacts, adapts, and hunts. The blue orb gave him abilities. The world gave him consequences. And something inside the anomalies wants Ben… badly. To save him, Tobi must navigate a shifting house, hostile entities, and a system that refuses to explain itself—while the “Ben Pulse” climbs toward a threshold he might not survive. This time, Tobi won’t walk away. Even if the world breaks around him.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 22 Oct 2026, 19:08 UTC
Entry forecast updated 22 Oct 2026, 19:08 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 11% of similar stories
not enough data yet
needs about a week of observations
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.