In the relentless flow of the crowd, thousands pushed forward like a living river eyes fixed ahead, steps hurried, hearts chasing their own destinies. No one looked down. No one stopped.
On the cracked pavement lay a boy.
His once-white shirt hung in filthy tatters, soaked crimson around the deep gashes across his ribs and shoulder.
Bruises bloomed dark purple and black over his pale skin. Blood pooled slowly beneath him, thick and sticky, mixing with the dust of the street.
His chest rose in shallow, ragged hitches each breath a quiet fight against the weight crushing his lungs.
To the passersby, he was just another broken thing littering the edge of the world. They had seen hundreds like him. They stepped around without breaking stride.
A low, guttural groan escaped his cracked lips.
"Fuck…" His voice was barely a whisper, scraped raw. "My only chance…"
Tears carved clean tracks through the grime on his cheeks. His heart hammered wildly, like a machine on the verge of shattering each beat sending fresh spikes of pain through his wounds.
Blood roared in his ears. His vision blurred at the edges, but he forced his head back and stared upward.
The sky stretched endless and cruelly blue.
That same piercing blue stared back from his own eyes eyes that had once burned with fragile hope.
He remembered.
Just hours earlier, he had stood before the Origin Gate, palms slick with sweat, clutching the single free-entry token every beginner received.
The Origin Realm. The place where mortals could awaken, fuse with beasts, rise from rank 1 trash to Core Transformers whose strength warped reality itself.
Infinite potential… if you survived. If you were lucky. If you had the Coin.
He had entered once for free, like everyone else the first time.
Inside, he had hunted. Killed. Claimed two miserable Rank 1 cores from weak, skittering beasts. Worthless on their own.
Not even enough to trade for a single Coin at the gate's merciless exchange rate.
Most people burned through hundreds of Rank 1 cores just to scrape together one Coin and with that Coin, they could buy another entry.
He had failed.
No more free chances. No more Coins. No more Realm.
The boy dragged himself upright, every movement tearing fresh agony through his torn flesh.
His legs trembled, threatening to buckle. A hundred meters away rose the towering Origin Gate platform gleaming obsidian steps spiraling upward, surrounded by reinforced barriers built by human hands.
Interference fields shimmered faintly in the air as people stepped forward, activating their panels, vanishing in ripples of golden light.
Some were like him: desperate, one-chance dreamers clutching their pitiful cores, praying for better luck next time.
He turned away.
His gaze dropped to the golden panel hovering before his eyes his Interference, the interface every awakened soul carried.
Name: Trion Ilfinith
Core Rank: 1
Stored Cores: 2 × Rank 1
Beast Fused: Starmok (Rank 1)
He looked away quickly, as though the words burned.
Two cores. Maybe enough to trade for a few nights in a cheap med-bay, some bandages, a hot meal.
Maybe enough to pretend he hadn't just lost everything.
He took one limping step. Then another.
The world froze.
The crowd's motion halted mid-stride. Dust hung motionless in the air.
The wind died completely.
Even his own heartbeat seemed to pause trapped in glass.
Only his mind raced, wild and screaming.
The golden Interference panel flared brighter, new lines etching themselves across its surface with sharp, deliberate strokes.
[Requirement met.]
[Would you like to activate your Uniqueness?]
[Uniqueness:]
You may enter the Origin Realm anytime, from anywhere without Coins, without gates, without limit.
[Additional Effect:]
All negative side effects of core fusion and beastification will be completely removed.
[Flaw:]
Core capacity permanently locked at 1. You may never store or fuse more than one core at a time.
Trion's breath caught sharp, painful, alive.
His trembling fingers hovered over the glowing "Accept" prompt.
The sky above remained that endless, mocking blue.
But for the first time in his life… it felt like it might finally belong to him.