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What a multi-dimension life!

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The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 7 chs / week.
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Chapter 1 - The Anomaly Called Normal

Chronicles of the Anomaly

Chapter 1: A Crack in the Mundane

Kenji Tanaka was an expert at being normal. His life was a simple, looping pattern: wake up, toast a slice of bread, walk to school, try not to fall asleep during history class, and walk home. In a world with no magic, aliens, or superpowers, being average wasn't just a fact; it was a skill. He had no grand ambitions, his grades were perfectly in the middle, and his presence was so unremarkable that teachers sometimes forgot to call on him. He was perfectly, predictably content with his boring life.

That all changed on a Tuesday afternoon. The sky was painted a warm, hazy orange as Kenji took his usual shortcut home. It was a narrow alley tucked between a closed-down laundromat and an apartment building, a forgotten space that always smelled faintly of rain and old newspapers. He was thinking about nothing in particular—maybe the video game he'd play later—when he heard a sound that didn't fit. It was a deep, steady hum, not like a machine, but like the whole world was vibrating at a low frequency, a feeling he felt in his teeth as much as he heard with his ears.

Curiosity, an emotion Kenji rarely indulged, pulled him forward. He peeked around a large, graffiti-covered metal dumpster and saw something that made his brain stall. In the middle of the road, the very air was twisting and distorting. It looked like a swirling hole torn in the world, a vortex of impossible, shifting colors—deep purples and electric blues—that pulsed in time with the strange hum.

Suddenly, two figures shot out of the portal, landing silently on the asphalt. They moved with a blurry, unnatural speed that was hard to follow. One was a man in a crisp white suit, his face a mask of detached calm. The other was a woman with long, silver hair that flowed like liquid mercury, wearing sleek, dark armor that seemed to absorb the light around it.

The battle that followed shattered every rule of reality Kenji knew. The woman in armor thrust her hand forward, and the concrete road peeled upwards like a sheet of paper, a massive slab flying toward the man. But the man just calmly waved his hand, and the chunk of road dissolved into a cloud of delicate pink cherry blossom petals that drifted harmlessly to the ground. He moved with impossible speed, appearing behind her in a silent flash, holding a spear made of pure, blinding light.

The woman didn't even turn around. The air around her seemed to bend and warp. The spear of light, which should have hit her instantly, slowed to a crawl, stopped, and then shot back at the man who had created it. Kenji was frozen in place, his jaw slack, his mind completely blown. This wasn't a fight; it was a clash between two forces of nature, and it was happening in the grimiest corner of his boring neighborhood.

He was so shocked, so completely captivated by the impossible display, that he didn't realize he had stepped out from behind the dumpster, his school bag slipping from his shoulder and hitting the pavement with a soft thud.

The sound was quiet, but in the tense silence between the two fighters, it was as loud as a gunshot.

The man in white dodged the reflected light spear, his movements fluid and graceful. But his calm expression finally broke when he saw Kenji standing there, a stupidly surprised look on his face. The man's eyes, which had a faint golden glow, widened in annoyance. The woman used that split second of distraction. A wave of invisible, concussive force erupted from her, slamming into the man and making him stumble.

The man looked at the woman, then back at Kenji, a silent calculation in his gaze. With a quiet sigh that seemed to echo directly inside Kenji's head, he vanished. At that exact moment, Kenji felt a powerful, irresistible tug, like a giant, invisible fishhook had snagged him. The world twisted into a nauseating blur of light and color, the smells of asphalt and garbage were ripped away, and his normal life was over.