The snow fell so violently, so unnaturally, it was as if the heavens themselves were vomiting ice upon the earth. This was no act of nature—it was punishment. Lightning screamed across the sky, not as flashes but as jagged tears in the firmament. Thunder cracked like the sky itself was shattering.
Beneath this storm, the continent we once called Europe—now ravaged and renamed—lay dying.
Once the southern heart of Poland, now nothing more than a corpse-strewn no-man's land under the iron grip of the so-called Northmen Union. Here, in this lifeless tundra, three hundred thousand soldiers marched, armed to the teeth and clad in the finest armor that the post-apocalyptic world could offer. But armor meant nothing against cunning. They had marched straight into the jaws of hell—an ambush meticulously engineered by a legendary tactician from the east.
The Russian Empire's banner now waved above piles of bodies.
The year was 2068.
But it began in 2022—when the world collapsed.
The very laws of physics twisted, broken by something no human foresaw: the System. A force that rewrote reality itself, nullifying advanced technology and unleashing monstrous creatures onto every continent. Beasts of every kind—some feeble, others godlike—descended upon humanity's last cities.
Yet the System was cruel, not unjust. It granted humanity a perverse form of salvation: power, to those who endured.
What followed was chaos. Borders shattered. Nations fell. From the ruins rose five titanic factions. In Asia Minor, the Yellow Sea Union. In North America, the iron-fisted North American Empire. In the east, the Russian Empire returned from history's grave. And across fractured Western Europe, the Northmen Union formed—an unholy alliance of desperation and might.
And now, in 2068, the First Great Awakener War ignited.
The battlefield—once fertile Polish soil—was now nothing but frost, steel, and rot. The Northmen had charged with arrogance, convinced of their divine right to victory. But the Russian winter showed no mercy. Hunger gnawed their bellies. Cold cracked their bones. And the ambush sealed their fate.
Three hundred thousand soldiers—turned to frozen meat.
Isaac stood among the corpses of friends, monsters, and strangers. His face, void of emotion. His comrade of ten years lay motionless beside him—eyes wide, mouth half-open, as if his final scream had frozen mid-breath. He thought of the man's daughter. His wife. Of the Northmen cities that would burn next. A whispered prayer crawled from Isaac's lips, half-delirious, half-defiant.
"O Lord of mercy… how many innocents will die for our pride?"
The snow did not stop. It blanketed the world in silence, smothering the screams. Blood soaked the white, turning it crimson in rivers that never stopped flowing.
And then it happened.
Something vast and malevolent descended upon Isaac—like the hand of a cruel god. His muscles seized. His stomach churned, bile rising to his throat. His bladder nearly gave way. Panic clawed at him—but he did not fall.
Not until the Russian general stepped forward.
One meter away, a man wrapped in blackened steel, eyes glowing with hateful delight, smiled like a devil.
He spoke one word, soaked in magic:
"Kneel."
And Isaac's body obeyed. His knees hit the blood-soaked snow, bones grinding against frozen mud. His body betrayed him.
The general's voice echoed again, mockery in every syllable.
"One hundred elite knights. Thirty-fourth Regiment. Winterstorm Division. Slain by a single Northman captain. You."
"Pathetic."
A boot slammed into Isaac's ribs. Another pinned his skull to the ground, grinding it into the filth.
"The Russian people would weep with laughter if they knew how we fell. But Her Majesty Catherine IV—ruler of this empire, queen of the reawakened east—has a reward for your accomplishment."
The general leaned close, breath like ice.
"You will die here. Slowly. Screaming. The most miserable death a man can suffer."
Isaac chuckled.
The laugh was dry, cracked, broken. Not from amusement, but from the memory that came flooding back—the day the world ended, and humanity was first forced to crawl.
He was just a boy back then.
Twenty-two. A college student. Ordinary. Unremarkable. His world was textbooks, part-time jobs, cheap coffee, and dreams far too big for his quiet life. His family wasn't wealthy, but they were warm. His mother smiled like spring sunlight. His father, stern but always watching over him with quiet pride. In a world still untouched, he was content.
Then came the collapse.
The year was 2022.
The sky fractured. The laws of physics twisted. From the cracks in the world poured nightmares—monsters that tore cities into ruin, devoured humanity's achievements, and extinguished half the global population within a year.
But somehow… his parents survived. By luck. By timing. They were in Berlin when the government's last units managed to hold the line.
When he found them again—after days of running, after weeks of despair—it felt like the gods had smiled upon him. While others screamed over graves and ruins, he had his family. He wept in their arms. For a while, he believed he was the luckiest man alive.
But the world wasn't done with him.
Berlin, still gasping for breath, became a warzone again. A plan was forged—an alliance to take the city back from a monstrous orc overlord that had entrenched itself in the ruins. A promise of liberation. A lie.
Their so-called allies betrayed them on the eve of the assault. In the chaos, the orc horde returned stronger, and the allied camp was surrounded. Annihilated.
And then came the raid.
The traitors entered the refugee camp as scavengers. But they weren't looking for supplies. They dragged women screaming from their tents. Set fire to clinics. Slaughtered anyone too weak to fight back.
He remembered the exact sound his mother made when they broke down the door. A short gasp. A single cry.
He hid.
Under the bed. Eyes wide, body trembling, mouth pressed shut by his own hand.
He watched them beat her. He watched them tear her apart. She looked for him once—just once. Her eyes met his. A second frozen in eternity. And then she was gone.
He didn't scream. He didn't move.
He only lived.
Later, when the fires cooled and the looters grew bored, they found him. Dragged him out. Shackled. Branded. Sold into chains.
He spent ten years as property—barely a man, barely a mind. His name forgotten, his soul rotting. No dreams. No tears. Just quiet survival.
Until the Northmen Union rose.
With their rise came new laws. Slavery was abolished. Chains broken. But what was freedom to a broken thing?
He wandered until conscription found him. Forced into the army—just another body for the meat grinder.
But there, among steel and blood, something strange happened.
He discovered he could fight. The sword felt natural in his hand, like an extension of the rage he buried long ago. He learned quickly, killed efficiently. Not because he was brave. But because he had nothing left to lose.
He climbed, step by step. A survivor among soldiers. A veteran among killers. In time, they called him Captain. He led twenty men—none knew the truth.
That he was the greatest coward among them.
He hadn't awakened during the system's gift to humanity. Hadn't received a bloodline or a blessing. Because the system, in its cruel fairness, only chose the brave.
And he… had hid.
He had watched.
Now, kneeling in the snow before a laughing Russian general, he felt no fear. No sadness. Only acceptance.
He would die. And it would be just. Maybe even honorable—for a man like him.
The general raised his sword. A long, cruel blade. It gleamed against the stormlight. Isaac closed his eyes.
A final breath.
A single thought: "I'm sorry, Mom."
Then—
A thunderclap.
Not from the sky.
But from above.
A jagged bolt of lightning tore through the clouds like the wrath of a forgotten god, slamming into the frozen earth with blinding force.
Somewhere Else.
Somewhen Else.
In a Realm Not Bound by Time or Flesh.
She ran.
Wings torn, lungs burning, blood staining the divine aether like stardust turned crimson. She was once praised among the heavens—a seraph of seven wings, unmatched in grace and power. Now, she was a fugitive. A traitor. A condemned soul.
She had angered Him.
The System Overlord. The being beyond godhood. Beyond comprehension. The architect of reality. The one who rewrote the laws of existence in 2022 with but a thought.
And now He screamed—not with voice, but with ripples of agony that fractured galaxies.
She had stolen His Eye—a fragment of His omniscience. A thing never meant to be touched, much less taken.
The punishment was immediate.
One hundred six-winged angels pursued her—each one a walking apocalypse, each capable of annihilating continents with a glance. They did not ask questions. They did not feel mercy. They flew with silver blades and divine fire.
And they caught her.
Spears pierced her wings. Arrows tore through her torso. Holy light scorched her from the inside out. She fell—burning, bleeding, breaking.
As she spiraled through layers of reality, the stolen Eye slipped from her grasp—falling, tumbling, vanishing into the mortal universe below like a dying star.
Through shattered lips, she whispered with her last breath:
"Lord Lucifer... I loved you. I'm sorry. I failed. I failed to free you from the divine prison... I failed to bring you the All-Wish Realm..."
And then she was no more.
A single, final flash of light. The kind that comes only with execution by divine decree.
________________________________________
Back on Earth.
Rzeszów Battlefield, Year 2068.
The blade descended toward Isaac's neck.
Time itself seemed to slow. The general's grin stretched, twisted with cruelty. The snow hung in the air like ash suspended in oil. The scent of blood and steel choked the wind.
And then—
The heavens shattered.
A bolt of lightning—not white, not blue, but something older, more primordial—ripped down from the clouds like the scream of a dying god. It struck with such force that the earth cracked beneath Isaac's knees, vaporizing snow and flesh alike.
The sword was gone.
The general was thrown back, his armor melting.
And Isaac…
Isaac opened his mouth to scream—and the light entered him.
It poured into him like molten reality, burning through his throat, coursing down his spine, flooding his soul with something not meant for mortal vessels. And then he heard it.
A voice.
Ancient. Limitless. Neither male nor female, but a will woven into words.
"One wish. I grant it."
Isaac could not speak. He could barely think. His mind, spiraling, latched not onto hope, but memory—scars of regret, guilt, and grief. The image of his mother dying. His cowardice. The years in chains. The battles. The silence.
The shame.
He didn't ask for revenge. He didn't ask for power.
He thought, I wish I had never hidden.
And the Eye, misinterpreting his broken heart, made its choice for him.
"No directive detected. Reading mind-state...
Wish selected.
Timeline anchor confirmed.
Time reversal initiated."
A chime echoed through the wind like a ticking clock breaking the sky.
"Reversing time... 3... 2... 1...
Begin."
And then the world folded.