Darkness.
Cold, suffocating, endless.
Kai drifted through the void, his body weightless, his mind fragmented. His last memory was pain—overwhelming, raw, suffocating. And then—silence.
Am I dead?
His thoughts were weak, unraveling like threads slipping through trembling fingers.
He tried to move, but there was nothing to move. He had no body, no form—just his consciousness, floating within the abyss.
The darkness was alive, pulsing, stretching endlessly in every direction. No sky, no ground, no walls—just an infinite void swallowing everything, including him.
Is this hell?
A flicker of fear slithered through his broken mind. He had heard tales of the afterlife—the fiery depths where souls were punished for eternity. He had never feared death before. But this? This was worse than nothingness.
Then—a voice.
Deep. Ancient. Reverberating through the void like thunder rolling across forgotten lands.
"You fear the darkness, yet it is where all beginnings start."
Kai stiffened—or he would have, if he had a body.
The voice was vast, echoing through the void, carrying a weight that felt older than time itself.
Kai tried to speak, but there was no sound, only thoughts trapped inside his own existence.
The voice continued, its tone neither kind nor cruel, simply absolute.
"You were cast aside, broken, abandoned. Yet, your spirit resisted."
Kai's mind sharpened. Yes. He had resisted. He had sworn vengeance. He had refused to fade quietly.
"You are not dead, yet you no longer belong to the world as you once did."
Kai exhaled—or at least, he felt the sensation of release.
"Who are you?"
Silence. Then—
"I am what remains of an era long forgotten."
The space around Kai shifted, the void stirring like a great beast awakening from slumber.
"Before humans, before awakening, before the world you know—there existed before us."
Kai felt something stir within him—a presence, a weight, an ancient force unraveling before his thoughts.
Us?
"The Ancient Beasts."
Kai's mind shuddered, his awareness expanding as visions erupted within the darkness.
For the first time, he saw—
A world before humans.
Towering creatures—vast, powerful, divine in their existence—roamed landscapes untouched by mortal hands. Some wreathed in flames, others sculpted from stone, their bodies humming with energy beyond understanding.
Their eyes gleamed like molten gold, their wings stretched across the skies, their roars split mountains, their abilities eclipsed anything he had seen before.
They were gods without worshipers, rulers without kingdoms.
"We were the first power—pure, untainted, limitless."
The voice did not carry sorrow. Only truth.
"But all things end."
Kai saw it—their fall.
The beasts faded, their forms crumbling into dust, their energy dispersing, sinking into the earth itself. Extinction.
"Why?"
The voice hummed through the void. "Balance."
The world shifted—new creatures rising, humans born from the ashes, weaker but adaptable, multiplying, consuming, replacing what had once been great.
"We were lost. Forgotten. Our power splintered, scattered, hidden beneath the ruins of time."
Kai's mind felt stretched, struggling to absorb the weight of it all.
Then—the darkness pulsed.
"I gathered it."
A deep tremor rolled through Kai's thoughts.
"Every ability, every strength, every force the ancient beasts once wielded—I have reclaimed it."
Kai inhaled sharply.
"And now, I choose to grant it to you."
The words slammed into Kai's mind.
Grant it… to him?
The void shifted, the presence surrounding him growing heavier, final.
"But power must be earned."
Kai felt something press into him, something heavy but familiar—like chains wrapping around his very soul.
"You will receive a system—a path toward unlocking what was lost."
Visions surged through Kai's mind—interfaces, structures of glowing symbols, levels, thresholds of power waiting beyond locked gates.
"If you succeed, you will wield strength beyond human limits. You will become something more."
The voice paused, and for the first time, it carried something almost like amusement.
"You seek vengeance, do you not?"
Kai's thoughts sharpened, his rage igniting like embers flaring into a roaring blaze.
Yes.
"Then earn your power."
Kai felt the void pull—something within him shifting, preparing, binding itself to his very existence.
Then—the world shattered.
And Kai fell—
Straight into the beginning of his new life.