Before 3055.
Terra. Once called Earth. Once blue, green, and alive. Now lay gray and broken. Held together by technology and human stubbornness. It's oceans were dead in places and black with poisons that no fish could survive. The skies hung low, heavy with dust, and smog. Forests, what remained, survived only in glass domes carefully engineered and carefully guarded, kept as reminders of a world that used to be. The planet was breathing, but faintly like a dying tree, with its roots clinging stubbornly to cracked soil.
Humanity had destroyed its cradle. They had overfished, over-burned, overbuilt. With their cities that had risen like metallic tumors over fertile lands. The oceans choked on plastic and chemicals. Air filters hummed endlessly, but the sky still looked sick.
And yet, humans refused to give up.
They had looked up, beyond the gray horizon, and decided that survival wasn't going to be negotiated. They had to find a solution, through that innovation and the interstellar era followed. Ships capable of light-year travel were built. Engines that folded space, machines that mined asteroids without end. They hunted galaxies for habitable planets, for energy sources, for anything that could sustain life.
In the process, they built the Human Galactic Federation, a network of worlds tied together by ambition, politics, commerce, and the sheer need to survive. Terra remained the heart, but not the crown. It couldn't represent humanity. At best it served as a reminder of the mistakes not to make. The crown went to Nova Meridiana instead, a planet that looked very similar to earth at it's peak. The cities built on Nova Meridiana were perfect, with it sun burning day and moon reflecting light at night, the skies were clean, the were oceans tempered, and the air was fresh. Humans who lived there felt like they were living in a dream.
But It had not been easy. Early colonization failed more often than it succeeded. Ships malfunctioned. Engines flared and died mid-jump, leaving thousands stranded and lost in the cold space. Terra-forming experiments poisoned first attempts at habitable worlds, turning planets into dead deserts or acidic seas. Colonists froze in miscalculated atmospheres.
Terra-forming took centuries. Engineers deduced atmospheric anomalies. The oceans were pumped, filtered, seeded with preserved life. Cities gleamed with metal and glass. Machines assisted governance. AI oversaw everything from energy grids to population logistics. Education was holo-based; children learned history through simulations of extinct species and virtual recreations of the old Earth.
Yet even with all that perfection. Greed and ambition never disappeared. The Federation's shining towers hid black markets, secret human experiments, and political machinations. And on Terra, scars of the past still remained, etched into people and streets alike. Desperation gave way to innovation. Governments had collapsed, but private corporations and scientists banded together. Spaceports filled with refugees who had families, farms, and farms of machines instead of fields. They had to leave, but Terra could not be abandoned completely. Its population was too large, its industries were too necessary. It became a wounded capital, a reminder of the old world, the cost of survival, and the price humans would pay for their mistakes. Gangs roamed the abandoned districts. Scavengers sifted through ruins. And soldiers trained endlessly to hold the line between survival and chaos.
Even with advanced technology, humans were still human.
The Human Galactic Federation spanned 142 planets, with dozens more in exploration. Population? Roughly 4.8 billion spread across each core planets, colonies, and orbital habitats. Terra, though scarred, still held 1.2 billion, mostly commoners, scavengers, gangs, and the military remnants of a planet still clinging to life.
Technology had advanced beyond imagination. AI governance, quantum reactors, anti-gravity propulsion, orbital weapon platforms, and planetary shields were standard across Federation worlds. Medical tech could repair organs in hours. Neural interfaces linked citizens directly to the Federation's database a constant, digital presence tethering minds to knowledge and law.
Society itself was a balance of meritocracy and hierarchy. Federation law ensured that core planets received protection first, colonies second, and fringe settlements last.
In Terra's sprawling cities, old neighborhoods clung to pre-Federation ruins. Dust mixed with neon. Children learned history through holo-lectures and myth simulations. Adults worked to maintain what the stars had given them: life without repeating the old planet's mistakes.
And yet, beneath the gleaming metal, humanity's still scars persisted. Greed. Fear. Ambition. They would matter soon.
It began quietly, like a ripple across the stars and planets. One day, all planets' scanners went dark. Then a red pulse bloomed. The planetary surfaces consumed by anomalies. The skies burned in unnatural colors, winds carried scents of blood, oceans boiled, and forests became writhing masses of tendrils and fungus.
The Eidolon Descent System had arrived. No warnings. No diplomacy. Just horror, structured like a cosmic contract: survive, evolve, or perish.
Humans fought. And they died.
Fleets of battleships struck first, deploying plasma cannons, nanite swarms, and orbital strikes. Ground forces followed with exo-suits and bio-enhanced soldiers. The monsters nightmarish, shape-shifting, beyond comprehension consumed cities in hours. Human weapons, no matter how advanced, barely scratched them.
The first casualty report was staggering: over 900 million dead in the first year across 12 core planets. Red Zones were created. Each Red Zone left scars, geographic, genetic, and societal. Planets were quarantined. Survivors were patched, harvested for knowledge, and left to rebuild societies.
Some planets were abandoned entirely. Where humans couldn't survive, the nightmarish monsters from monoliths continued their work unchecked. Forests, oceans, even skies transformed. Wildlife mutated into horrific predators. Former paradises became prisons of life and death.
The system was sentient, cold, and impersonal. It did not negotiate. It did not speak. It simply observed, recorded, and enforced evolution through horror and sacrifice. Each Red Zone was both punishment and trial. Humans lost again and again because they could not fight what they could not comprehend.
The sociopolitical impact was immediate and profound. Governments collapsed. Colonial governors vanished. The Federation's unity wavered under fear. Those who survived bore marks, physical, mental, and spiritual. Fear and reverence merged. Power dynamics shifted. Scientists searched, experimented, tried to control the unknown but all efforts failed… until the first contact with the Monolith.
The system, it seemed, had left a way out: a path through sacrifice, trials, blood, and horrors. From this crucible emerged the first generation of Eidolon Descenders.
Eidolon Descenders were both weapon and stabilizer, the only hope against systemic extinction. Humanity learned, painfully, that brute force alone could not win. Strategy, knowledge, and sacrifice were required. And yet, even in victory, the system extracted its toll: lives lost, innocence destroyed, morality warped. A galaxy-wide trauma spread, echoing for centuries.
It was only through sacrifice and trial that humanity discovered a way to fight back. The first generation of Eidolon Descenders were forged in fire and blood. Their powers were not mere abilities. They were survival incarnate. They were hope.
The system measured everything: stamina, intellect, courage, cruelty, and willpower. Those who survived Phase I—the Mortal Descent. Emerged with the first threads of awakening, able to manipulate physical, spiritual, and metaphysical forces in ways ordinary humans could not comprehend.
By the time the second generation of descenders arrived, humanity knew the truth: the universe had rules now, written in blood and logic. To defy the Eidolon system was to gamble with extinction itself.
Through blood and sacrifices power scaling among Awakeners became both metrics and legends:
Mortal descenders – the unawakened baseline, stronger than average humans.
Awakened – first touch of Eidolon power, capable of minor feats of destruction or defense.
Ascendant– fully awakened, able to challenge Red Zone horrors in meaningful combat.
Transcendent – heroes and warriors who could reshape battlefields, bend environments, and inspire entire fleets.
Even among these, only those who endured all three phases of the Eidolon Descent System could approach the transcendent level. A level humans rarely survived to reach or describe.
Flash—
Dominic Solari was navigating his way home using the memories in his mind, through Terra's scarred streets, the bandage was still over his jaw hiding more than just his face.
The Red Zones had not yet reached Terra, but whispers of horrors, twisted monsters, and Monoliths drifted across the Federation's planets. Every news carried a reminder: A reminder that survival wasn't just luck. It was sacrifice.
Everything in him had made the choice already. He had made it the moment the Mortal Descent trial ended, when he had tasted both death and survival. Get stronger. Uncover the secret behind this world, this system, this… my transmigration. Find a way back to my former life. And, of course, settle a score with those chicks who had cursed him.
First step: the Academy.
He had heard of it long before the guard had mentioned it. The training grounds for Descenders, the places where the Federation honed those capable of surviving the Eidolon system.
And so, he walked on, the ruins of Terra stretching before him, each step carrying him closer to the first chapter of his new life.
But would it be redemption.... or doom?