No one knew what it was — only that it changed everything.
Twenty-three years ago, the sky split open.
It didn't make a sound at first. Just a pressure in the air, like the world itself had stopped breathing. Then light poured through the cracks — not sunlight, not lightning, but something older. Wrong. Violet and gold, jagged and shimmering like broken glass floating through oil. It stretched across the clouds like veins, pulsing with something that felt alive.
And then came the Gates.
Rips in space — towering, twisting holes in reality that bled monsters and fog and silence. Some opened in forests. Some in the middle of cities. Some even underwater. It didn't matter. From them came things no one could name. Not beasts, not demons, not aliens — just... things. Wrong things. Things that looked too sharp or too smooth. Things that shouldn't crawl but did. That smiled without eyes. That laughed without mouths.
They didn't come in armies.
They came one at a time.
And still, they tore through nations like paper.
Humanity wasn't ready. Bullets barely slowed them. Bombs turned cities to rubble without even scratching their skin. Tanks were torn apart like toys. Entire military divisions were gone in minutes.
The world didn't end with a bang.
It ended in silence.
In smoke.
In fear.
And just when people began to accept that it was over—
Something changed.
Without explanation, a small number of people began to Awaken.
Some collapsed in alleyways and woke with glowing eyes. Others simply reached out in panic and found fire in their hands. Speed. Strength. Shadows. Shields. Abilities that defied logic, born from terror and desperation.
They became weapons.
And they fought back.
No one knew why them. No one chose it. But they were all marked by the same thing — a sudden pulse, a ringing in the ears, and a message that echoed in their minds like a voice from another world.
> [You have been registered in the System.]
[Initializing Class Evaluation.]
The first message would always come with pain.
And after that, rules.
Abilities had limits. Cooldowns. Mana. Ranks. Everyone was measured — from E to S. People were bound by contracts they never signed. Some gained strength through training. Others were granted power for reasons no one could explain.
The System didn't speak again.
It only watched.
People adapted. Or tried to.
The old world fell apart — and a new one grew in its shadow. Nations reorganized. Governments rewrote their laws. Guilds formed, built around the strongest Awakened. Cities rebuilt beneath artificial barriers, tight patrols, and propaganda.
The economy shifted overnight. Hunters became the highest class — soldiers, celebrities, commodities.
But beneath all the order, there was still something deeply wrong.
Because no one knew where the Gates came from.
No one knew what caused the Awakening.
And no one asked where the System originated — or why it functioned like a game with rules and punishments and cold silence.
Every answer led to another question.
Every mystery led to something worse.
Some called it a divine judgment.
Some said it was evolution.
Some whispered that it was never meant for humans at all.
But the deeper you looked—
The more everything began to fall apart.
And something at the heart of it all—
Was still watching.