The rain refused to stop.
It wasn't normal rain either—it reeked of iron, warm and red. It soaked the cracked stone beneath Arin's knees, ran down his face, and smeared across his bare chest where the branding iron had kissed his skin just moments ago.
"CURSED!" the villagers chanted.
"UNHOLY!"
"OFFER HIM TO THE RUIN!"
The priest raised his hand and the crowd fell into uneasy silence. His eyes, sunken deep into a skull-like face, glowed faintly with a blue rune mark—proof of sanctioned magic. His voice rasped like dry leaves.
> "By the decree of Lord Halrius and the Divine Order… Arin Kaelith is sentenced to the Offering."
Chains clinked. Guards dragged Arin to his feet. The boy didn't struggle. What was the point?
He was twenty-one. Starved. Magicless. Branded as a curseborn from birth. His mother had died screaming during his birth. His father? A drunk who vanished. The village believed his soul attracted death.
And now, they were throwing him into the Ancient Ruin of the First Gods—a place from forgotten times, a scar in the world no mage dared touch.
"Just kill me," Arin muttered under his breath. "It'd be kinder."
No one answered. The doors to the ruin creaked open.
---
The ruin was nothing like the world outside.
Here, silence had weight. Light bent strangely. The torches carried in by the guards flickered blue. The scent of rust and flowers filled the air.
The priests shoved Arin to the center platform—a circular dais inscribed with unknown glyphs that pulsed faintly beneath his feet.
"May the gods forgive you," one whispered, before all of them retreated and sealed the gates behind him.
And then… nothing.
Just the hum of ancient magic. The subtle shift of air. The sensation of being watched.
---
Arin stood there for minutes. Then hours. His body shook, soaked, freezing. He sank to his knees, teeth chattering, tears lost in the bloodied rainwater.
> "So this is it, huh?" he whispered to no one. "Not even the gods want me."
And then, he bled.
A deep crack! echoed through the ruin as the glyphs flared white-hot. The platform split. From the center, a jagged obsidian spike tore upward—impaling his side.
Pain. Blinding, soul-scorching pain.
He screamed.
His blood spilled down the obsidian spike—and the world shattered.
---
[System Awakening… Scanning Soul Core…]
[ALERT: DUAL CORE FOUND — CREATION & DESTRUCTION]
[Rewriting Laws of Existence… Initiating Godseed Merge…]
Arin collapsed backward, convulsing.
His vision blurred. Symbols flooded his eyes. Light and shadow warred in his chest. His heart stopped… then roared back to life.
A white core formed in his chest, spinning like a miniature sun. A black one spun beside it—crackling, violent, hungry.
> Creation… and Destruction.
"AAAAHHHHHH—!!"
Energy exploded from his body in a ring of white and black. The ruin shook. Stone screamed as it was created and erased simultaneously. The obsidian spike shattered into dust.
---
The boy who had been nothing… was nothing no longer.
When Arin rose to his feet, his eyes glowed—one gold, one black.
His voice was deeper now. Layered. Like two echoes speaking in harmony.
"I am…"
He raised his right hand—and the air shimmered.
A sword of pure light forged itself out of nothing in his grip. Elegant, ethereal.
He raised his left—and the very ground beneath him disintegrated into ash.
"…I am Creation…"
The ruin ceiling collapsed above him. Arin didn't flinch.
"…and Destruction."
He raised both hands.
And the falling stone—hundreds of tons of divine rock—froze mid-air. Then shattered into dust.
---
The sealed doors burst open in panic.
Guards stormed in, blades drawn, priests hurling magic runes forward.
> "He lives—kill him before the corruption spreads!"
"By the gods! His eyes! Those cores!"
"Unholy!"
One of the guards lunged—blade gleaming.
Arin looked at him, calm.
He pointed.
The man erased mid-air. No blood. No sound. No soul.
Just… gone.
The rest screamed and fled.
Arin took a step forward. The ground built itself beneath his feet—smooth, gold-veined obsidian responding to his will.
He emerged from the ruin like a walking apocalypse.
The sky trembled.
---
A distant mountaintop cracked in two as power rippled outward.
In faraway temples, ancient gods stirred. Scrolls turned black. Mirrors shattered.
One goddess, wrapped in chains of silver stars, awoke in a dreamscape of endless night.
Her eyes snapped open.
> "He has awakened… The Balance Breaker…"
---
Back in the village, people gathered to watch the ruin's doors crack open.
And then silence.
Until he stepped out.
Not as the broken boy.
But as something divine.
He didn't walk. He descended, the earth gently rising beneath each step.
His long, torn shirt now clung to him like a war robe. The wind coiled around him protectively. His eyes burned with galaxies and void.
He looked at the villagers—every one of them trembling.
And he said:
"I asked for kindness. You gave me chains."
One woman fell to her knees. "Please… mercy…"
Arin closed his eyes.
The black core pulsed.
The entire village vanished.
Just like that. Erased from the world.
---
He turned toward the horizon, heart heavy, soul split.
> [System Notice: Creation Points +1000]
[Destruction Points +1345]
[Available Powers: Soulcrafting | Reality Stitch | Void Tear | Genesis Spark]
Arin collapsed to one knee, panting. The system flooded his mind with knowledge, but his body wasn't ready. The dual cores were unstable. If he didn't balance them, he'd tear himself apart.
> "You poor thing…"
A soft voice.
He turned sharply.
A girl stood there, her white cloak fluttering, platinum-blonde hair soaked by rain. Her violet eyes were unlike anything human. She looked young—maybe his age—but carried an ancient calm.
She knelt beside him, not afraid.
"You're… not from the village," Arin said weakly.
"No," she said, gently placing a hand on his chest, right over the twin cores. "I was sent to watch. And help—if it ever awakened."
"You knew about this?"
She smiled softly. "The world always births a balance when the gods tip the scale too far. You… are that balance."
He blinked. "Who are you?"
"Lyra," she whispered. "Priestess of the Forgotten Flame. Guardian of the Last Cycle."
Before he could speak again, his vision blurred. The exhaustion hit like a hammer. His mind collapsed under the system data.
And just before he passed out, he felt her arms around him—warm, steady, real.
> "Don't worry," she whispered. "You are not alone anymore."
---
Far above, beyond clouds and stars, in the Sanctum of the Eternal Pantheon, the gods gathered in a panic.
> "It's too early."
"He was supposed to die!"
"No mortal has ever held both fragments!"
An old god with eyes like dying suns growled.
> "Then we kill him now. Before he grows."
But a softer voice echoed through the marble halls. A goddess in red silk, eyes bleeding tears of gold, smiled.
> "Let him grow."
She touched her lips.
> "I want to see what our little Balance Breaker becomes…"