Chapter 1 – The Day the Sun Returned
How long has it been… since I felt sunlight?
The warmth slid across Den's face, slow and lazy, like a cat stretching after a nap. His eyelids trembled before letting the light in.
It was… blinding.
Not because it was bright, but because it felt real. The kind of real you can't fake in dreams — the kind that seeps into your bones.
---
Den wasn't anyone special.
He wasn't rich.
He didn't have the kind of face people turn twice to look at.
What he did have was an annoyingly sharp brain.
Genius-level observation.
Inhuman intuition.
An instinct for patterns that most people needed years to learn.
But here's the catch — Den give a shit.
Not about fame, not about money, not even about proving himself.
Why bother? Everything was a hassle.
It was easier to stay in his room, reading webnovels, eating instant noodles, and ignoring the world outside.
The less you cared, the less you could be disappointed.
And that's how Den lived.
Until he didn't.
At fifteen years old, Den — the so-called "lazy genius" — stepped into a crosswalk and met his end at the hands of an unremarkable delivery truck.
Fuck you truck-kun.
He would have found it funny… if he'd had time to think about it.
---
Another World – Terrarium
On the far side of reality, there was a world called Terrarium.
In the Empire of Tera, past its bustling cities and stone-paved roads, lay the quiet farming village of Roselle.
There, in the pale light of morning, a boy was training.
Wood cracked against wood as a dark-haired youth hammered away at a training dummy. His lean frame moved with the discipline of someone who had repeated these motions thousands of times. Sweat streaked down his face, dripping from his chin into the dirt.
Anyone watching would see a boy working hard.
But anyone listening would hear something else — the desperate rhythm of someone trying to close an impossible gap.
And he was losing.
CRACK!
The wooden sword split in his hands. The dummy barely had a scratch.
The boy's jaw tightened. He could still hear the villagers' voices in his head — laughing, pitying, mocking.
"AS IF I'M GONNA GIVE UP!" he shouted, the sound raw enough to scrape his throat.
He hurled the broken sword into a growing pile at his side, then dropped to the ground, chest heaving.
His name was Ash.
No last name. Just Ash.
A stubborn fool chasing the one thing everyone told him he couldn't be — a Pathwalker.
And he knew they were right. He was behind in strength, behind in talent, behind in everything that mattered.
But quitting? That wasn't in him.
Not now. Not ever.
---
Later that day, Ash lay under the shade of a tree, eyes half-closed against the sun. His breath slowed. The weight in his limbs was heavy, but not enough to crush him.
Sleep came quickly.
---
Three months had passed since Den died.
Or maybe it had been longer. In the dark, time had no shape.
He drifted in a place without sound, without weight, without him.
He was almost ready to let go completely.
That's when the light came.
The sunlight.
Warmth.
Air.
The feeling of grass under his back.
Then — pain.
"Fuck!!!!!!!"
It wasn't in his skin or muscles. It was deeper.
A pulling, tearing, fusing sensation in the very center of who he was.
And there was someone else here.
A second soul, burning just as bright, colliding with his own.
Memories — not his — slammed into him: a village, training dummies, broken swords, a dream that refused to die.
---
Something in the air shifted.
> [System Notice]
Two souls detected in one vessel.
Elimination attempt… failed.
Initiating fusion protocol.
Fusion successful.
Pathway evolved → Path of the Paradox Soul
---
Den gasped and sat up. His heartbeat was wrong — too strong for his frame. His mind felt split and whole at the same time.
Suddenly runes of this body urgently opened up
---
[Rune Display]
STR: 10
AGI: 12
DEF: 7
Path Flow Proficiency: 30
Rank: E (Evolved +)
Martial Style: None
"Fucking hell?"
---
End of Chapter 1