Voilà le chapitre 2 complet :
Chapter 2 : The Beginning
The tremor grew stronger and stronger. Trees began shaking until they fell. Arthur's house shook so hard that large cracks appeared across the walls and ceiling. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the tremor began to weaken.
Arthur was already out of bed, moving toward his sister's and mother's room.
"Mother, Rose! Are you okay?"
If you had been standing in front of Arthur at that moment, you would have seen something rare on his face. A real expression. The unease he had felt earlier had become something tangible, something real, and now it sat openly on his features. He didn't know yet if both situations were linked. He didn't stop to think about it.
From his sister's room came a scream.
"Arthur! Help me, please."
The fear in her voice activated something in him that bypassed thought entirely. He moved.
Her room was a complete mess. In the corner, Rose was pinned under her bookshelf. How it had fallen, no one knew, but that didn't matter. What mattered was the blood seeping out from beneath it.
"I'm here. Calm down."
He sounded steady. He wasn't. He was scared in a way he rarely allowed himself to be, scared of seeing her wounded, scared of what the blood meant. Rose had always been his weak point, the one crack in everything he kept sealed.
He grabbed the shelf and pulled. It was heavier than it looked, but his body didn't seem to care about that right now.
In one motion he lifted it aside. Rose was underneath, disheveled, a glass shard about six centimeters long embedded in her arm.
"How did this happen? Are you okay? Rose, answer me."
It was perhaps the first time he had ever sounded that worried out loud. Rose felt it land somewhere in her chest, warm and unexpected. Her brother, always so composed, was making that face?
"I'm fine," she said, trying to sound more confident than she was. "But I'll need help with this."
She was looking at the wound, clearly attempting to keep her voice steady so he would worry less. It didn't entirely work.
"Let's find Mom. She'll know what to do."
As they walked toward their mother's room, strange sounds drifted in from outside. Neither of them paid attention. They had other things to focus on.
"Mom, where are you?"
Arthur moved ahead, frowning. From the corridor, their mother's room looked empty.
"I'm in the bathtub. Are you both okay?"
She was standing inside it, gripping the edge, wearing the worried expression that seemed to have been part of her face for years.
"What happened to you, Rose?" Her tone shifted the moment she saw the wound. "You're bleeding. Come here, hurry. Arthur, go get some clean fabric."
Arthur returned seconds later with cloth. They cleaned the wound, wrapped it carefully. The cut wasn't deep enough for stitches.
"Do you know what's happening?" Rose asked, still looking confused.
"I don't know. It felt like an earthquake, but there was no aftershock, and this region shouldn't have any." Arthur turned toward the window to look outside.
That was when the blue message appeared in front of him, suspended in the air like something out of a video game.
//
Earth has welcomed its first evolution.
Prepare yourself.
This is not the world you used to know.
\\
It appeared before everyone. Human and animal alike. Whether they could understand it was another question entirely, but that wasn't the point.
A second message followed almost immediately, this one addressed to Arthur alone.
// Congratulations! You have awakened your elemental affinity.
You possess Order and Chaos affinity.
You will receive the corresponding cultivation scripture….
Anomaly detected….
Opposite primordial forces are conflicting….
Fusion failed….
System calling on Heaven's authority….
Fusion restarted….
Successful.
The Eyes of Heaven have intervened and forcefully merged the two laws.
Order and Chaos now balance each other.
\\
His vision blurred. The floor came up to meet him. Just before he lost consciousness, he heard his sister scream his name.
Above an unknown city, a gigantic eye became almost visible in the sky. It stared downward with an intensity that had no name, fixing itself on a single house among thousands.
Then it closed. And slowly disappeared.
What had just occurred was not yet known to the wider universe. But across the plains, ancient powers felt fate tremble.
...
In an unknown place, above an ancient palace, a woman whose bearing defied description opened her eyes and looked toward a still pond. "The wheel of fate has reversed," she murmured. "A new era has begun."
...
Deep inside a dark cave, two enormous reptilian eyes opened. Pupils contracted slowly. A low voice filled the darkness. "An anomaly is born. Fate has reversed. Heaven mourns the loss of its power. Ancient beings are waking. From this moment, the fate of the mortal plain is uncertain."
The eyes closed again. But the waking of an ancient being is never without consequence.
...
//
System restarting.
The Heavens sacrificed a portion of their power to force the fusion of primordial forces.
The Chaos and Order scripture is being created.
The host's body has begun to change.
1%
2%
3%
4%
5%
6%
7%
8%
…
20%
…
80%
…
98%
99%
100%
The Chaos and Order Physique is born. The host will wake soon.
\\
Rose was sitting beside him when he opened his eyes, tears drying on her cheeks. She felt a hand reach up and brush them away before she had time to react.
"Arthur! You're awake." Her voice cracked slightly with relief. "A lot has happened while you were out. I'll tell you everything, but first you need to say 'System.'"
He sat up slowly. Said the word.
The blue window returned.
//
Species: Human (Primordial)
Name: Arthur Walker
Age: 19
Realm: None
Soul Strength: None
Element: Chaos, Order
Talent: Chaos and Order Primordial Body
Cultivation Method:
Chaos and Order Primordial Scripture
State: Indeterminable
\\
Arthur stared at the words for a long moment.
Primordial. Chaos. Order. Indeterminable.
He read them again. Then a third time.
Primordial. Chaos. Order. What did any of that mean? What had happened to him while he was unconscious? What had happened to the world in the span of a single night? And that eye in the sky, had he imagined it, or had something actually looked at him?
Who was he, exactly, before tonight? And who was he now?
The questions came faster than he could process them, stacking on top of each other without answer, without order. For the first time in a long time, his mind had nothing to hold onto.
He was still staring at the window when he heard footsteps in the doorway.
Lily stood at the threshold. Her expression was difficult to read, somewhere between resolve and something older, something that looked like it had been waiting for years. Neither Arthur nor Rose noticed her at first.
She reached into her pocket. In her hand were two rings, small and worn, engraved with symbols neither of them had ever seen.
She began walking toward them.