Divine Origin

Beren Aygard was nobody. Back on Earth, he was an invisible seventeen-year-old stuck in a dead-end routine: stocking shelves, scrolling through stories of overpowered protagonists, and whispering the same wish to the uncaring night—I want power. I want to matter. Someone heard him. Aetherion, the forgotten God of Origins, answers Beren’s wish and drags him to Arcanthus, a world where faith has rotted into politics and fear. The State Church serves a man-made sun god that keeps people obedient. In the cracks left behind, a chained darkness—Vorthuun, the God in Chains—is waking, feeding on despair. Chosen as Aetherion’s Herald, Beren gains the Authority of “beginnings”: he can rewind wounds to their first moment, restore shattered shrines, and ignite new paths in people’s lives. But there’s a price. Every believer who puts their faith in him becomes a thread tied to his soul. Their hope fuels his miracles; their suffering and deaths scar him forever. Hunted as a heretic by the Church and courted by Vorthuun’s cult, Beren struggles through a world of corrupted beasts, ruined temples, and lies written into holy law. Alongside Lyra, a disgraced knight who refused to burn innocents; Rin, a fox-eared scout whose village still secretly lights candles for Aetherion; and Mira, a scholar determined to record the truth, Beren must decide what kind of “savior” he will be. As his following grows, so does his power—and the temptation to use it like the very gods he hates. In a world where faith is a weapon and despair is a god’s feast, can a boy who always felt invisible become a symbol of hope without losing himself? Or will his own beginnings light the way to another divine tyrant?