✦ PROLOGUE: The End and The Beginning ✦
The sky of the Aethelgard Galaxy was bleeding.
It was not a metaphor. Literal drops of golden, cosmic blood rained down upon the shattered remains of a billion planets. The void of space, usually an abyss of silent black, was illuminated by the violent clash of dying stars and shattered dimensions.
This was the Epoch War. A battle that had raged for exactly one hundred and twenty years, dragging ancient gods, mega-factions, and primordial entities into a meat grinder of unprecedented brutality.
Floating above the graveyard of a million dreadnoughts stood a single man.
He wore a trench coat as dark as the event horizon, its edges fraying into raw shadows. His eyes, cold and apathetic, reflected the destruction of the cosmos. He looked bored.
Behind him stood five women, their auras alone enough to collapse the surrounding space. One held a scythe that dripped with the concept of 'Death' itself; another floated amidst a constellation of shattered time-runes. They were not mere companions; they were the Five Calamities, queens of their respective domains, watching the slaughter with chilling elegance.
"Is this all the Universal Coalition could muster?" the man murmured, his voice cutting through the vacuum of space, echoing directly into the souls of the surviving enemy forces.
A colossal being of pure light, a Rank 19 Supreme Sovereign of the Coalition, trembled. Half of his divine body had been eaten away. "Monster..." the Sovereign choked out, vomiting golden blood. "You defy the 20 Categories... You defy the Heavens! What are you, Leo?!"
Leo tilted his head. A slow, chilling smile spread across his face.
He raised his right hand.
Suddenly, the space behind him tore open. It wasn't a portal. The fabric of reality simply gave up. From the tear, a blinding array of exactly twenty-one distinct colors erupted.
Ten thousand years ago, the universe had laughed at these colors. They had called them cute. They had called them useless.
Now, from the red hue stepped out a colossal, armored General radiating a Rank 20 aura, commanding an undead army of three billion star-devouring knights. From the azure hue, a serpentine dragon made of pure absolute zero coiled around a dying sun, freezing it instantly. From the black hue, a shadow entity began consuming the very concepts of light and hope from the enemy ranks.
Twenty-one unique, Mythical-transcendent entities. Twenty-one apocalyptic powers.
"What am I?" Leo whispered, as a translucent, blue system screen manifested before his eyes.
[Ding! Host has engaged the Universal Coalition.]
[Mission: Eradicate the False Gods.]
[Reward: Rank 20 Evolution - 'The Void Singularity'.]
"I am the one who rewrites the rules," Leo said. He snapped his fingers.
The twenty-one entities surged forward. The Five Empresses joined the fray. The scream of the Rank 19 Sovereign was cut short as the universe itself was plunged into absolute, beautiful ruin.
[10,000 Years Earlier - Sector 7, Outer Rim Slums]
Smack!
A piece of chalk bounced off Leo's forehead, leaving a white smudge just above his left eyebrow.
"Leo! Are you sleeping with your eyes open again?"
The shrill voice of Instructor Vance snapped Leo back to reality. The suffocating smell of cheap synthetic ozone and unwashed bodies filled his nostrils. He was sitting in a cramped, rusted classroom of the Sector 7 Preliminary Awakening Academy. Outside the filthy window, smog choked the neon-lit slums.
Leo blinked, his grey eyes dull. He rubbed his forehead, looking at the fat, red-faced instructor. "Sorry, sir. I was just thinking about the Awakening Ceremony tomorrow."
The classroom of forty ragged orphans erupted into laughter.
"Thinking about the ceremony? What for?" mocked a boy with spiky hair from the front row. "You've got a core resonance of 0.01%! You're more likely to awaken a literal rusty spoon than a Soul Weapon, Leo!"
"He's probably hoping for a Rank 0 Normal Category 'Dustpan' to help him clean the academy toilets faster!" another girl chimed in, causing more raucous laughter.
Instructor Vance slammed his hand on the metal desk. "Silence! Though... they are not entirely wrong, Leo. The universe is fair, but it is also cruel. Tomorrow, you all turn sixteen. It is your final chance to awaken. If you fail to manifest a Soul Weapon, you will be sent to the outer rim mines as manual labor. That is the reality of our brutal world."
Vance adjusted his collar, looking at the class with a mix of pity and disdain. "Remember the theory. Twenty Main Categories. Ranging from Normal to Mythical. Even a 'Normal' Category Element or Weapon can secure you a job in the city guard. A 'Rare' makes you a noble. An 'Epic' makes you a general. We won't even speak of 'Legendary' or 'Mythical'—those are myths for the inner-core planets."
Leo tuned out the rest of the lecture. He rested his chin on his hand, looking back out the window.
He didn't care about their mockery. He was used to the darkness of this life. As an orphan who had survived the brutal gang wars of the lower sectors, he knew that power was the only truth. He had trained his physical body to the absolute limit of a non-awakened human, surviving on scraps and sheer willpower.
Tomorrow, Leo thought, feeling a strange, pulsating heat deep within his chest. A heat that had been building up for years, threatening to tear his soul apart. Tomorrow, everything changes.
The next day, the plaza of the Academy was packed. The colossal obsidian monolith—the Awakening Stone—hummed with ancient, terrifying energy.
One by one, students walked up.
"Failed."
"Failed."
"Normal Category: Iron Sword."
"Failed."
Tears, screams, and rare cheers filled the air. The brutal reality of the 20 Ranks started here, at Rank 0.
"Next! Leo!"
The crowd fell silent, a collective sneer on their faces. Leo walked up the steps, his expression calm. He placed his calloused, scarred hand against the freezing obsidian monolith.
Thump.
His heart beat once.
Suddenly, the sky above Sector 7 turned pitch black. Not the black of smog, but the absolute black of deep space. The Awakening Stone vibrated violently, hairline fractures appearing on its indestructible surface.
Instructor Vance stepped back in sheer terror. "W-What is this? This pressure...!"
Deep inside Leo's mind, a dam broke.
He didn't just feel one connection to the universe. He felt twenty.
A raging inferno. A roaring storm. A dragon of pure destruction. A scythe of death. A spatial rift. Twenty distinct, Mythical-level Soul Weapons violently clawed their way into his soul, demanding to be unleashed. The sheer power threatened to disintegrate his physical body on the spot.
No, Leo gritted his teeth, blood leaking from his eyes and nose. If I show this now, the Mega-Factions will dissect me before I reach Rank 1. Suppress it! SEAL IT!
With monstrous willpower, Leo forced the twenty Mythical weapons deep into the abyss of his soul, chaining them with his own life force.
But nature abhors a vacuum. As he sealed the twenty, a strange, unprecedented twenty-first energy slipped out.
Fwoosh!
The oppressive dark sky vanished. The cracks on the stone sealed. The terrifying aura evaporated instantly, replaced by a soft, warm light.
Floating above the palm of Leo's hand was a tiny, translucent spirit. It looked like a chubby, semi-transparent human baby. It was glowing softly, slowly shifting between twenty-one different, mesmerizing colors.
The baby yawned, rubbed its eyes, looked at Leo, and let out a cute, high-pitched giggle. "Goo."
The entire plaza was dead silent.
Then, an uproar of laughter shook the academy.
"A BABY?! He awakened a glowing baby?!"
"What category is that?! 'Useless'?!"
"It's a Normal Category! No, it's worse! It has zero attack power! It's just a toy!"
Instructor Vance sighed, rubbing his temples in utter disappointment. "Rank 0. Category: Unclassified/Normal. Utility: Unknown. Combat Power: Zero. Step down, Leo. You are a disgrace to the Awakening."
Leo stood there, staring at the floating, giggling 21-colored infant. The crowd's mockery washed over him like wind against a mountain. He didn't care about their laughter. He didn't care about Vance's disappointment.
Because right at that moment, as the baby giggled, a mechanical, cold voice echoed exclusively in his mind—a voice that would spell the doom of the current universe.
[Ding! The 'Akashic Singularity System' has successfully booted.]
[Host has forcefully sealed 20 Mythical-Grade Soul Weapons.]
[Host has awakened the 21st Anomaly: The Genesis Legion (Currently in Gestation State).]
[Scanning Host's Status...]
[Name: Leo]
[Rank: 0 (0-Star Novice)]
[Soul Weapon Displayed: The Prismatic Nephilim (Genesis Legion - Seed Form)]
[Hidden Soul Weapons: 20 (Mythical Grade - Sealed)]
[System Message: To feed the 21 Entities and unlock your true armaments, the Host must consume the souls of the strong. Welcome to the path of the Omnisoul Monarch.]
Leo looked at the cute baby floating above his hand. He slowly closed his fist, and the baby vanished into his soul.
He turned around and walked down the steps, a faint, imperceptible smirk playing on his lips.
Let them laugh, Leo thought, stepping into the shadows of the slum. The slow burn has just begun.