Leon woke up late, his body finally recovering from the grueling final years of the Academy. Excited to finally spend a day with Claire and uncover the secret of her meteoric rise to S-Rank, he hurried to her room.
The bed was made, the room silent. Claire was gone.
Panicking, Leon searched every corner of the estate. He kept his silence, fearing that announcing a kidnapping too early would put her in more danger. He returned to her room, his eyes scanning for any anomaly, until he spotted a corner of parchment peeking from beneath her bed. He pulled out the envelope and read the coordinates. Relief and curiosity mixed in his chest—she wasn't kidnapped; she had a secret mentor. Without a second thought, Leon set off for the forest, eager to meet the man who had shaped his sister into a god.
Miles away, the serene waterfall had become a theater of death. Claire stood in total disbelief as Ren Henderson's "cold" demeanor turned murderous. The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow: there hadn't been a new Legendary Rank in eight years because Ren was the gatekeeper. He was hunting down every prodigy with the potential to surpass him.
"Why are you doing this?" Claire cried out, her voice echoing over the roar of the water. "You are the Head Administrator!"
Ren didn't answer with words. He unleashed a terrifying barrage of lightning and howling winds. Claire raised a single hand, her S-Rank skill forms a barrier that held firm against the onslaught. She wasn't just defending; she was barely moved. With a growl of focus, she brought her other hand up and shoved back, forcing the Legendary Rank back several feet.
Ren narrowed his eyes. He realized Claire was even stronger than her stats suggested; she had the raw power to crack a continent. He couldn't kill her with simple elemental strikes without leveling the entire kingdom and alerting the other Legends.
He needed to drag her into a world where he was God.
Ren stretched both hands toward the heavens. The sky above the waterfall began to fracture, bleeding colors that shouldn't exist. He began the ancient incantation:
"The purest clouds in a never ending sky,
Ocean screams and lands never dry,
Bloody rain in the never ending sky,
Behold the domain of the gods..."
"Soul's Palace: The Throne of Nimbus!"
The forest vanished. The waterfall was replaced by an endless expanse of golden, electrified clouds and a sky that felt infinite. Claire stood on the edge of a divine throne room, trapped within the realm of a Legend.
Leon had teleported into the clearing just seconds before the trap snapped shut. As Ren completed his incantation, the world folded in on itself, dragging both the "Goddess" and the "Anomaly" into the Sky God's divine trap.
The Throne of Nimbus was a nightmare of shifting physics. Boiling rain fell from golden clouds as the atmosphere spiked with a scorching heat that melted the very air. In every direction, reckless lightning arc-ed across the sky, while the universe-sized ocean beneath them heaved with tsunamis that could swallow mountains.
Worst of all was the gas—a subtle, lethal poison that filled the lungs. Claire, having inhaled the toxin before she could bend the air to her will, felt her strength wither. She had underestimated the absolute authority of a Legend.
Ren sat upon a throne of solid cloud, looking down at her like an indifferent deity. "Do you really think you can compete with me?" he asked, his voice echoing through the endless space. "My will is the law here. You are nothing but a fly trapped in the eye of a hurricane."
Claire's vision blurred. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed onto the only solid ground left—a tiny, muddy landmass in the center of the boiling sea.
"Wait," Ren muttered, his brow furrowing. "Something else is in here."
Deep within the realm, Leon stood amidst the chaos. He had activated a shimmering barrier the moment he arrived, unaware that it was effortlessly filtering the poison and deflecting the lightning strikes. He looked at the screaming tsunamis with a curious tilt of his head. "Where am I? Is this a Soul Palace?"
The ocean itself rose up like a sentient beast, swallowing Leon's shield and spitting him out at the foot of Ren's throne.
Ren's eyes widened in mockery. "I see. She didn't come alone. She brought her little brother? Does she think a mere B-Rank can stop a Legend? How insulting."
Leon ignored the god. His eyes locked onto Claire's fading form. "Claire!" He rushed to her side, pulling her into the safety of his impenetrable shield.
"Leon... no... you shouldn't be here," she whispered, her hand reaching for him as she finally drifted into unconsciousness.
"What did you do to her?" Leon's voice was low, vibrating with a brewing storm.
Ren leaned forward, intrigued. He noticed the boy was completely unaffected by the realm's pressure. I remember this kid's skill... Theft? Impossible. Only one can possess a Primordial Theft skill in an era. "She? She's dying of poison. Let's ignore her. Tell me, boy—what is your true skill? I know 'Theft' is a lie."
Leon's rage spiked at the command to ignore his sister, but he forced it down. He placed his hands over Claire's chest, and a brilliant light began to knit her soul back together.
Ren was baffled. The boy had cast a shield that even a Legend's domain couldn't crack, and now he was performing high-tier healing. Can a 'Theft' user truly possess such versatility? Ren stood from his throne, his caution finally overriding his arrogance. He pointed a finger at Leon.
The entire realm turned its fury on the siblings. The temperature plummeted from a scorched heat to an absolute, ice-cold freeze, encrusting Leon's shield in thick glaciers. The tsunamis crashed with enough force to shatter continents. For the first time, cracks began to spiderweb across Leon's barrier.
Leon realized the truth: he couldn't protect his sister by merely defending. He had to override the law of this world with a higher authority. He stretched his hand forward.
"Do you intend to attempt a Soul Palace?" Ren erupted in mocking laughter. "A B-Rank? Impossible! Only a Legend can manifest their soul!"
Leon ignored the laughter. He looked at the frozen glaciers, the boiling rain, and the man who thought himself a god. His voice rose, drowning out the roar of the ocean:
"Behold a race of gods,
Each skill and its Lords.
A pantheon of endless gods,
Born from nothing..."
"Soul Palace: Realm of the Almighty!"
The golden clouds of the Sky God's throne did not just fade; they began to splinter. With the sound of a thousand windows breaking simultaneously, the Throne of Nimbus shattered like fragile glass, falling away into a void of pure power.
As Ren's domain crumbled, the true reality of Leon's soul bled through. From the cracks emerged the Endless Pantheon. Gigantic, alien-like gods—beings with too many eyes, limbs of shifting starlight, and a presence that made the concept of "Legendary" feel like a playground rumor—loomed over the smallness of the forest.
Ren Henderson, the man who had sat so confidently on his throne moments ago, was in disarray. His eyes darted from one colossal entity to another, his mind reeling as the laws of the universe he understood were rewritten by a child.
"What's going on... this can't be!" Ren muttered, his voice trembling with a terror he had never felt . "Did he... did he just override my domain? I don't understand... what is happening?!"
He looked up at the towering, alien visages of the Lords of Skills, their disdainful gaze making his very soul feel like it was withering. Finally, the "Sky God" threw his head back and let out a harrowing scream that echoed through the dimension:
"What the hell is this?!"