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Prologue: The Last Moment
The vehicle rolled through the highway in a gentle way, the dying orange light of the evening sun illuminating the sky. Lucian was sitting quietly at the back-seat and his younger brother Neo was sitting next him looking out of the window with his normal childish curiosity. Their parents, in front, were gossiping and the manner in which only a family can gossip, that is, when there is peace in the world.
His dad said, "Lucian, you do not need to worry about your finals, I have a look over my shoulder. "You'll do great. Just take it one step at a time."
Lucian smiled half-heartedly. "I guess. It is simply impossible with all the things that are going on
You never stop thinking, eh, his father laughed. The thing is that sometimes you only need to allow things to flow.
His mother looked over her shoulder at him, and her warm eyes met his in the rearview mirror. "Your dad's right. You'll be fine. Just enjoy life a little more."
Lucian nodded silently but somewhere deep in his inner heart, he knew that something was wrong. The world they lived in was evolving and no one appeared to feel the burden of the changes that had taken place. The monsters, the dungeons, the weird powers- everything was going wrong. But at that point, this moment, this impulse, was an illusion of a normal life.
But in a moment everything was different.
The automobile shook violently to right, the tires screaming on the road. His heart sinks in the light of time and time appeared to stretch and bend. The control of the wheel slipped in the hands of his father, his mother gave a gasp, and then suddenly they were quiet.
"Dad?" The voice of Lucian was trembling, but sank into appalling silence. His father didn't respond. His mother turned pale, and her body was bending to one side, without the slightest consciousness.
Lucian froze. The hands stretched to them, but the body could not get upon them quickly. still in a panic he attempted to wake them up, in vain. The external world had changed and at that time, their lives had broken.
Next to him Neo turned with his eyes open wide to look in the direction of Lucian, who was in a state of confusion. "Lucian, what's happening?"
But Lucian was unable to describe. All he did was to grab the hand of his brother dragging him to himself, wishing that somehow their parents would come to their senses.
A World Changed
Those days were a nightmare of hospital rooms and white stain walls. His parents were in a coma-locked in some sort of suspended state and their bodies were not responsive as doctors tried to find solutions to the problem. But no one could explain why. Nobody was able to know what had occurred.
It was the world of beasts, monsters and dungeons changed overnight.
Hellspheres their name was. And there started to appear beings of outside, the Ascendants, and possessed unimaginable power. These divine beings battled with one another and tore cities to pieces causing havoc.
But Lucian? He was a nothing in this new world.
He was a low-grade, man without magic, without power, and the world ensured that he experienced that on a daily basis.
He had a series of odd jobs and hardly made ends meet as his parents were in their comas. The papers were stacking up and his younger brother, Neo was too young to understand. He could only fall back and console himself with Lucian, his elder brother. But Lucian lacked the responses.
He was empty. Broken.
And each time he had imagined an escape he was killed.
Over and over.
He didn't know why. He did not know why But every time he died he woke up. Same body. Same place. Same grief.
It brought him into doubt everything- his existence, his purpose.
Strange Dreams and A Calling
It did not take long before Lucian started having weird dreams. Bright and stormy, they did not seem like fantasies, but rather memories. He had towering figures of fire, ice and shadow. There were inconceivable sceneries, worlds that went further than he knew and one mighty, dominating figure that was standing in the background.These dreams were accompanied by a voice, cold and distant, telling him in some way: You are not what you are, Lucian. This world is broken." It was no comforting voice. It was black, significantly shot through with a weird finality. Lucian did not know who it was, but whenever it was talking his heart felt narrow and achy because something seemed to be coming at him.
The Last Hope
Days went by in an uncertain haze, then one day Lucian was standing before the organization called the Awakened Control Organization or ACO. It was they who were keeping the balance in this broken world. They censored the Ascendants, who possessed the forces of the dispersement magic of the gods.
I lost everything, I said to you, and as I stood in front of you, I was trembling in my voice. My parents- they are in a coma and due to a brawl between two ascendents their hospital was burnt. My family... I must be informed about the reason why this has occurred. I need help"
The cold, impassive officials looked little at him. He did not even startle them as he talked. The words he said appeared to fall on deaf ears.
Such things we cannot interfere in, one of them said in a dismissive manner. It is not in our power to stop the fight of Ascendants. The dangers you ought to have known.
Lucian's heart dropped. He attempted to reason, to make them perceive how much he was in pain, but they would not hear. They turned their backs on him, like another casualty in an ailing world. The death of his family, his suffering, it did not matter to them.
A Desperate Choice
Lucian walked out of ACO headquarters numb in his body, his head in disarray. The world had forgotten him, and even those that had the authority to bring about the difference were not willing to be concerned. He was roaming around the streets like a broken shell of the man he was. His sorrow, his rage--it all rose in him.
When Lucian stood on the edge of a bridge, and looked down into the black waters below, the crushing finality of all these things came to him. He was now left with no life to live. His family was gone. The world was cold and unconcerned.
But as he was going to enter into the void, something just made him stop. A memory. A face.
Neo.
The simple, fearful and hopeful eyes of his little brother could have hauled him back to the ditch.
"I can't leave him."
And at that instant he realized. He was unable to die-not till he had the opportunity of making things right. A chance to change his fate.
And perhaps... perhaps, there was yet something more involved here. Something had been looking at him, leading him to something better.
A New Path
Lucian did not know what was to come, but this much at least he knew: the world had robbed him of everything, and he was going to get it back.
The world-god-like power was power there was-and he would find a means of making use of it. He would cause them to remember him.