As he walks, the city seems to notice him.
From behind, he cuts a tall, unmistakable silhouette against Mara City's neon haze. His coat—dark, travel-worn, and tailored for movement rather than fashion—rolls and snaps in the artificial wind between skyscrapers. The hem occasionally parts just enough to reveal the quiet promise of violence: a pistol seated perfectly at his belt, not flashy, not hidden either. It's there because he expects trouble, not because he seeks it.
His right arm is encased in a nano-machine gauntlet, a living architecture of metal. It flows like mercury trapped in discipline—panels folding into one another, edges sharpening then softening, textures shifting between matte and mirror-sheen. Veins of faint light pulse through it, not glowing so much as breathing. No joints are visible, yet every movement is impossibly smooth. The gauntlet never repeats a design for long, constantly reconfiguring itself as if bored of perfection.
Anyone who knows tech recognizes it instantly:
Clint King's work.
And Clint King never builds prototypes for people who don't matter.
His hair is short, practical, slightly tousled—someone who values function over vanity. His posture is relaxed but deliberate, the kind that comes from surviving enough fights that panic no longer serves a purpose.
The air around him feels… compressed.
Not hostile. Not friendly.
Just heavy.
He carries the aura of someone who has already calculated how this street could go wrong—and has quietly decided he'd survive it either way. There's no arrogance in it, just certainty. The nano-gauntlet subtly reacts to his mood, tightening its form when eyes linger too long, loosening again once the threat passes.
Streetlights reflect off the gauntlet in shifting patterns, and for a split second, it almost looks liquid enough to drip onto the pavement. It never does.
He walks at an unhurried pace, hands loose, shoulders at ease. Not a tourist. Not a local. Something worse for troublemakers—a professional with unfinished business.
He doesn't scan the street openly. He doesn't need to. His awareness radiates outward, effortless, practiced. Every reflection in every window is logged. Every sudden silence in the crowd is noted.
This is a man who has learned that fear advertises weakness, and confidence invites challenges. So he chooses neither.
People part without realizing why.
A group of lower-district runners stops laughing as he passes. A street vendor suddenly finds the courage to look busy elsewhere. Even the city's background noise seems to dip for a breath as the nano-gauntlet shifts, catching the light in a way that feels intentional.
No one speaks to him.
No one bumps into him.
No one asks questions.
Some think he's corporate muscle.
Others think he's a bounty hunter.
A few whisper that he's one of the Kingdom's sanctioned ghosts—the kind who clean problems before they become public.
They all agree on one thing:
You don't interfere.
Ahead, rising above the grime and chaos of the lower district, stands the Joy Unity Hotel—a polished monolith of glass and gold accents. The best establishment this part of Mara City can offer. Neutral ground. Expensive silence. The kind of place where deals are made behind smiles and reinforced walls.
As he approaches, the nano-gauntlet subtly tightens, its surface forming clean, elegant lines—less fluid now, more formal.
Because he's arrived somewhere that matters.
The doors of the Joy Unity Hotel part without a sound.
Inside, the lobby is cathedral-wide—white marble laced with mana-filaments that glow faintly beneath the floor, chandeliers of crystallized light hovering rather than hanging. Security arrays hum quietly behind decorative walls. Every detail whispers the same message:
Neutral ground. Absolute discretion. Excessive protection.
Arsenal steps in.
The city noise dies behind him as the doors seal. His coat settles. The nano-gauntlet flows, smoothing itself into an elegant, restrained configuration—polished, ceremonial, almost noble. Mana remains dormant, coiled within his weapons like restrained thunder.
Conversations falter.
Hotel staff straighten instinctively, eyes lowering just a fraction too late to hide recognition. Some guests feel it before they see him—the pressure, the quiet certainty that something lethal has entered a place that prides itself on safety.
And then the air changes again.
From the center of the lobby, a figure turns.
He is elderly, but not frail. Tall, spine straight, robes woven with steel-thread scripture that glints with runic intent. A halo-like construct of rotating sigils floats behind his head, slow and deliberate. His presence doesn't dominate the room—it claims it.
A Sanctum High Custodian.
Second only to the Supreme of The Order of the Steel Prophecy.
The Custodian inclines his head first.
Respect.
"Arsenal," the elder says, voice calm, reinforced with mana yet restrained by discipline. "Bearer of the SYSTEM Title. Master of all weapons. Living convergence of steel and arcane."
Arsenal stops a few steps away. His hand does not move toward his pistol. It doesn't need to.
"You walked into my city," Arsenal replies evenly, eyes sharp, unreadable. "And my hotel. That means you want something."
A faint smile touches the Custodian's lips—approval, not amusement.
"Direct. As expected."
He gestures, and a thin barrier of silence unfolds around them, muting the lobby without disturbing it. To outsiders, they are simply two figures standing in polite conversation.
Within the veil, the Custodian's presence deepens.
"The universe is approaching a convergence point," he says. "Prophecy and probability agree on that much. The Order of the Steel Prophecy exists to ensure that when steel is raised… it is raised by the right hands."
Arsenal's nano-gauntlet ripples once, reacting to the word steel.
"And you think those hands are mine," Arsenal says flatly.
"We know they are," the Custodian answers. "You are one of the strongest individuals in Aetherion Spiral. Not because of mana alone. Not because of technology. But because you understand weapons as truth made physical."
He steps closer, lowering his voice.
"The Supreme has authorized me to extend an offer no other being alive has received."
The sigils behind him rotate, aligning.
"Join the Order of the Steel Prophecy."
A pause.
The silence stretches.
Arsenal's gaze drifts briefly to the upper levels of the hotel, to exits, to invisible kill-lanes only he seems aware of. Then back to the Custodian.
"And if I refuse?" he asks.
The elder does not flinch.
The Sanctum High Custodian is still smiling—confident, certain that history is bending toward him.
"Join us," the Custodian says. "When the Great Reset comes, levels will fall like dust. Only Crown Titles will remain. The Order must secure its Arsenal."
The nano-gauntlet flows, restless.
Arsenal tilts his head slightly.
"Tell me something," he says calmly. "Does the Supreme still believe the prophecy is about me?"
The Custodian hesitates.
Just long enough.
"Yes," he answers. "And so do trillions."
Suddenly, the SYSTEM blared in front of every living being in the omniverse. Gods, immortals, mortals, monsters, and beasts alike received the same system message. No, a system announcement.
[WARNING: NEXUS EVENT INCOMING
THE GREAT RESET – INITIAL PHASE
SCANNING FOR CROWN TITLE HOLDERS…
SCAN COMPLETE
AWARDING PRIVILEGES
NEXT PHASE IN:
6:23:59:59]
That is when Arsenal moves.
There is no warning. No flourish. No malice.
His pistol clears the holster in a motion so efficient it looks like reality corrected itself to allow it. Mana floods the weapon—not outward, but inward, compressing until the barrel hums with impossible density.
The Custodian's eyes widen.
"Wait—"
Bang.
The shot doesn't travel forward.
It folds.
Space collapses around the Sanctum High Custodian's chest, not piercing flesh but negating authority. His protective sigils shatter like scripture written on glass. His body freezes mid-step, then fractures—not into gore, but into ash and light, his connection to the Order severed so completely that even resurrection protocols fail to trigger.
The silence field implodes.
The lobby erupts into screams.
Arsenal lowers the pistol.
"To shake the Order," he murmurs, almost apologetically. "One pillar has to fall."
Security fields activate. Kill-squads teleport in.
Too late.
Arsenal raises the pistol again—not at them, but at the air itself.
He fires.
Reality splits like glass struck at its weakest truth-point. A jagged doorway opens, showing nothing but void threaded with abyssal currents.
Arsenal steps forward.
As he walks through the rupture, it seals behind him.
Somewhere far away.
Deep within the Order's highest spire—beyond temples, beyond archives, beyond the chambers where Cardinals argue over verses—the Supreme pauses mid-step.
A heartbeat passes.
Then another.
The halo of scripture behind the Supreme fractures—not shattering, but misaligning, runes drifting out of harmony like a choir that has lost its pitch.
The Supreme exhales.
"…So," they murmur.
Around them, the Omniversal scrying arrays flare violently. Steel-script flames gutter out. A thousand prophecy engines attempt recalculation and fail simultaneously.
Only after countless failures did lines of text were sent by the Panopticon of Forged Fate.
[PROPHECY THREAD: SEVERED
Custodian Node: TERMINATED
Cause: UNREADABLE]
They already know who did it.
Arsenal always removes obstacles cleanly.
The Supreme does not scream.
Does not strike the floor.
Does not curse Arsenal's name.
The Supreme turns toward the central reliquary, where a great blade and an ancient firearm are suspended in stasis—relics believed to belong to the prophesied Hero. For the first time in centuries, doubt creeps into their gaze.
"He wasn't the Hero," the Supreme whispers.
The Supreme closes their eyes.
For the first time since founding the Order, they feel something unfamiliar.
Fear.
Not of Arsenal.
Not of the Demon King.
But of having acted too soon.
"If the Arsenal struck first," the Supreme says softly, "then the Hero is still hidden."
They turn sharply, robes whispering like drawn steel.
"Seal all active search operations. Pull back every agent. No more recruitment. No more interference."
A nearby Hierophant hesitates. "Supreme… the Order exists to find the Hero."
The Supreme's gaze snaps to them—sharp, ancient, suddenly very human.
"No," they say. "The Order exists to ensure the Hero survives long enough to choose."
Silence follows.
The Supreme looks once more at the empty space where the Custodian's presence once resonated across the Order's network.
Then, quietly:
"Arsenal has declared independence from prophecy."
A pause.
"And by doing so… he has protected it better than we ever did."
And the Supreme finally understands:
The Era has begun—
and control is already slipping from their hands.
***
Abandoned planet, Kulmine.
Dark. Dreary. Desolate.
An abandoned planet, long stripped of civilization, where abyssal monsters roam unchecked—creatures that feast on mana corruption and forgotten wars. The ground trembles in the distance as something massive howls.
Clint King – Arsenal – emerges beneath the dead sky.
Arsenal walks calmly toward a cave at the base of a broken mountain.
From the outside, it is unremarkable.
Inside, the rock opens into precision-cut corridors, mana-shielded walls, and deep underground chambers humming with hybrid tech. Weapon racks line the halls—cold steel beside arcane firearms, prototypes beside relics.
This is not a hideout.
It is a forge-temple.
Arsenal descends deeper, removing his coat.
"So, it has begun. Plunge this world into chaos," he says quietly to the universe with a mocking smile. "While I reap all benefits for myself."
However, Arsenal freezes mid-step as his head turns to a certain direction.
The forge sounds the alarm half a second after but Arsenal wills it to silence.
"Just what is that?" His nano-gauntlet ripples from his will forming complex circuits before running his mana into it. A barrier covers the entirety of the broken mountain. "…That's definitely not one of the abyssal creatures. No way, a human?"
***
It happens without spectacle.
No summoning circle.
No trumpet of fate.
No divine proclamation.
Just a tear—brief, imperfect, almost embarrassed to exist.
High above Kulmine's dead plains, space folds inward and releases a single human body.
A barely adult male.
He falls.
The air does not resist him.
The planet barely acknowledges his presence. He strikes the ground hard enough to crack stone, then lies still—unconscious, breathing shallow, clothes utterly wrong for this world.
No SYSTEM alert rings out across the Omniverse.
No prophecy engine catches fire.
The Hero arrives quietly in the omniverse.