Chapter 1: When the Sky Split
The night the sky broke, the world stopped breathing.
Aiden Cross was on the rooftop of his crumbling apartment block, watching the skyline of New Arcadia flicker like a dying heartbeat. Neon signs blinked on and off across the city's veins — streets already empty, sirens long since swallowed by static. It had started as a night like any other. Then the world had tilted.
The temperature had dropped without warning, the clouds had turned glassy, and the stars… had begun to move.
Aiden stared upward. The stars weren't twinkling — they were shifting, sliding like beads of mercury across an invisible dome. A hum filled the air, low at first, then climbing until his eardrums buzzed. His phone vibrated in his pocket again and again, notifications blurring together — emergency alerts, warnings, government broadcasts, all collapsing into noise.
Then, silence.
And light.
It wasn't lightning. It wasn't even fire. It was as though the heavens themselves had been split by a blade of white energy, so bright that the clouds scattered like ash. Through that wound in the sky, he saw nothing — pure blackness, deeper than night.
For one impossible heartbeat, every screen, car, and streetlight in the city flickered back on at once.
And then everything died.
The lights vanished. The air crackled. The earth groaned.
Aiden gripped the railing, knuckles white. "What the hell…"
Something fell from the rift above — not rain, not debris. It was a sphere of darkness, dripping liquid shadows that hissed when they hit concrete below. The smell of iron filled the air, sharp and metallic.
Then came the sound.
A scream. Not human. Not animal. A layered chorus of static, distortion, and rage — echoing across the skyline. Every instinct screamed for him to hide. But he couldn't move. His body felt frozen in place, transfixed by the terrible beauty above.
The sky was no longer sky.
It was alive.
Lines of light twisted like veins, spreading across the wound. Through the cracks, he saw movement — shapes slithering between dimensions, eyes gleaming like dying stars.
And then — the first notification appeared.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING…][World Integration: Phase One — Awakening][All living beings will now be assigned attributes.]
Aiden staggered backward, blinking. The letters weren't on any screen. They hovered in his vision, pure light overlaying reality, shimmering as if burned into the air itself. He rubbed his eyes. They didn't vanish.
"What— what the hell is this?" he whispered.
The next line appeared instantly.
[Assigning Unique Skill…][Error Detected.][Override Protocol Engaged.]
Pain exploded behind his eyes. He fell to his knees, clutching his head as heat surged through his body. It was as if something enormous had reached into his skull, rearranging the pieces of his being.
His vision went white.
Then black.
Then nothing.
For a moment, he felt himself falling through endless space — no light, no sound, no body. Just consciousness, and something vast pressing in from all directions.
Then it spoke.
Not in words, but in intent.
A hunger. A whisper. A call to consume.
[Unique Skill Granted: VOID SOVEREIGN]
Aiden gasped, snapping back into his body. He was on the ground, the concrete cold beneath him. His vision flickered — black veins spreading faintly across his hands, his pulse thrumming like a drum in his ears.
The air itself bent slightly around him. Shadows crawled toward his body like dust pulled by gravity.
[Skill Detected: Void Sovereign][Initializing Core Connection…][Warning: Unstable Host Integrity.]
The notifications blinked rapidly, then vanished.
He didn't have time to process it — because that's when the monsters came through.
The first wave dropped from the rift like living tar — humanoid, but wrong. Their limbs were too long, their joints bent backward, and their eyes burned gold and violet. Their flesh shimmered like oil on water.
The creatures hit the ground running. Their screeches echoed through the streets. Windows shattered. Streetlamps toppled.
Aiden stumbled to the edge of the rooftop, looking down.
People were fleeing — scattered shapes below, some with phones in hand, others frozen in disbelief. Then one of the creatures fell upon them. Aiden watched in horror as its claws tore through a man's chest like paper. Blood splashed against glass.
The man didn't scream long.
"Jesus…" Aiden whispered. "This can't be real."
But it was. The world had changed. The sky above writhed with energy. The System messages kept flashing in his periphery, cataloguing deaths, awakenings, and level-ups across the city.
[Level 1 Entity: Consumed][Local Anomaly Detected: Skill Resonance – Void Sovereign]
Aiden's breath caught. He could feel something deep inside him respond to those words. A pull. Like gravity — but wrong.
It wanted him to act.
He didn't understand it, but his instincts screamed the same truth his heart denied:If I don't move, I die.
He sprinted down the emergency stairwell two steps at a time. The air reeked of ozone and blood. He reached the bottom and froze.
The lobby was in ruins. The front doors were gone. The glass had melted, fused into the concrete. Outside, the street was chaos — overturned cars, fires burning with no smoke, shadows moving too fast to follow.
And then he saw her.
A little girl — six, maybe seven — crouched beneath a fallen sign, sobbing. One of the creatures crept toward her, its claws clicking against the ground.
Aiden didn't think. He ran.
He leapt over debris, his lungs burning, and grabbed a metal rod from the wreckage. He swung it as hard as he could. The creature caught it midair, claws slicing through steel.
Aiden froze. The thing's golden eyes met his.
Then — without command — the Void responded.
The world dimmed.
A sphere of absolute blackness burst from Aiden's palm, swallowing the creature whole. The sound vanished. Light bent toward the sphere, and then — silence.
When it faded, there was nothing left. Not a corpse. Not dust. Just absence.
Aiden stumbled backward, staring at his hand. The metal rod had disintegrated where his fingers touched it. His veins pulsed faintly with dark light, and his chest felt hollow — like something had been taken from him.
[Void Consumption: 0.04%][Warning: Essence Overload detected.]
He fell to one knee, gasping for air. Every breath burned. His heart felt like it was being pulled into a black hole.
The girl stared at him, eyes wide. "Mister… what happened to the monster?"
Aiden swallowed, forcing his voice to stay calm. "It's gone. You're safe now."
But the word safe felt like a lie.
He turned his gaze upward. The rift was expanding. Pieces of the sky were peeling back like paper, revealing swirling nebulae beyond — colors no human eye should see.
[Phase Two Initiated — Integration Ongoing][Warning: Planetary Boundary Fracture Detected][Estimated Survival Rate: <1.2%]
The text scrolled across his vision faster than he could blink. He didn't understand it all — but one thing was clear: this wasn't random. It was organized.
Someone — or something — was running this.
"Come on," Aiden said, pulling the girl close. "We have to move."
He led her through the alleyways, the smell of burning fuel and metal thick in the air. Explosions thundered in the distance — not bombs, but creatures colliding with human weapons. The military was fighting back.
For how long, he didn't know.
He ducked behind a crashed drone car, holding the girl close as a winged creature flew overhead — sleek, insectoid, with a dozen eyes glowing like molten glass. It screeched, and the sound shattered windows a block away.
The girl whimpered. "I want my mom…"
Aiden clenched his jaw. "I know."
He peered around the corner. A convoy of soldiers was setting up barricades ahead, firing at anything that moved. The sound of gunfire and inhuman shrieks blended into chaos.
One soldier spotted him and waved. "Hey! Civilians! Get over here!"
Aiden didn't hesitate. He sprinted forward with the girl — but the ground split beneath them before they made it halfway. A new rift opened right in the street, swirling like liquid darkness.
From it, something crawled out.
It was taller than a bus, humanoid in shape but with a body made of black glass and sinew. Its face was a cracked mask with golden lines running through it, and in its hand was a blade made of screaming light.
The soldiers opened fire. Bullets ricocheted uselessly off its skin. The monster turned its head slowly, as though curious, and swung.
The world exploded in light.
When the dust cleared, half the street was gone. The soldiers — gone. The vehicles — gone.
Aiden stared at the crater. He couldn't even scream.
[S-Class Entity Detected][Engagement Strongly Discouraged][Void Sovereign Instability Rising]
He looked down at the girl. She was shaking, clutching his jacket. Her eyes were wide and wet.
He couldn't run. The creature was moving toward them, each step cracking the asphalt.
The Void pulsed in his chest — stronger now, louder. It whispered in his mind. Consume… consume…
He knew it was madness. He knew if he used it again, it might kill him. But he didn't have a choice.
Aiden stepped forward, placing himself between the monster and the girl.
The creature's head tilted, as if recognizing him. It raised its weapon — a blade of condensed starlight — and brought it down.
Aiden raised his hand.
The Void roared.
This time, the sphere didn't just form — it expanded. Black tendrils erupted from his arm, weaving together into a shield of pure nothingness. The creature's strike met the Void — and vanished.
The impact threw Aiden backward. The ground cracked under his feet. The monster reeled, its arm dissolving into nothing where it had struck.
[Void Consumption: 0.23%][Foreign Energy Absorbed][Skill Evolved: Void Resonance Lv.1]
The world slowed. Every sound dulled. Aiden could feel the monster's presence — its energy, its heartbeat, its fear.
He understood instinctively what the Void wanted: to feed.
And so he let it.
The black tendrils surged forward, wrapping around the creature. It howled, thrashing as its form collapsed inward. The air shimmered. Then, in a single instant, it was gone — erased.
Aiden fell to the ground, gasping. His vision blurred. He could taste blood.
[Warning: Host Integrity 72%][Void Instability Rising][Containment Required]
He barely heard it. The world was spinning. His heartbeat echoed in his ears, too loud, too heavy.
Then — silence.
The rift above flickered, dimmed, and finally began to close.
Aiden lay there for a long time, staring at the fading glow. The city was still burning. The air still carried the scent of blood and ash. But for a moment — there was quiet.
He looked over. The girl was safe, clutching her knees, staring at him like he was something unreal.
"Mister…" she whispered. "You made it disappear."
Aiden's lips twitched. "Yeah… guess I did."
He sat up slowly. His vision swam — the black veins across his arms retreating, fading under his skin. The hunger within him dulled, though it never truly went away.
He stood, helping the girl up. "We need to find somewhere safe. There might be shelters."
She nodded, holding his hand tightly.
As they walked, the first broadcast crackled through the ruined speakers along the street — a robotic voice echoing over static.
"Attention survivors. This is Global Command. The System integration is confirmed. All civilians are to report to designated Awakening Zones for identification. Repeat, all civilians—"
The message cut off.
Aiden exhaled slowly."System integration… Awakening Zones… So this isn't just us," he muttered.
He glanced up at the sky. The rift was gone. For now. But the stars were still wrong — too close, too bright, like they were watching.
And deep inside, the Void stirred again, whispering secrets he couldn't yet understand.
Something inside him had changed. Something permanent.
He looked down at his trembling hand, flexing his fingers. A faint shimmer of darkness danced along his palm, flickering like a heartbeat.
"What are you?" he murmured to himself.
No answer came — only the distant sound of collapsing buildings and the low hum of a new, alien world beginning to awaken.
As dawn struggled to break through the ash-filled sky, Aiden and the girl disappeared into the maze of ruins.
Behind them, the System messages continued to update in the air above the city, silent and cold.
[World Integration: Phase One Complete][New Objective: Survive][Welcome, Chosen of the Void.]
And for the first time in human history, the age of levels had begun.