Eon emerged from the sea at night.
The waves were calm.
He stood on a small island—unmapped, covered in moss and stone. His bare feet touched the ground gently. The stars above looked the same as they always had… but the air felt different.
He looked to the east.
Beyond the horizon, the land of humans shimmered with lights. Cities. Machines. Towers of metal and glass.
So much had changed.
But the feeling that tugged at him was old.
He knew what it meant.
"They've returned," he said.
"The Conquerors."
A long time ago—before history was written—they came.
From beyond the stars. From cracks in reality. No one really knew.
They did not want to live on Earth.
They wanted to consume it.
Eon had fought them before—when he was still a young guardian. He had driven them away once. But not forever.
He had known they would come again.
So he had chosen to wait.
To rest.
To hide.
Until now.
---
Rin sat in her small apartment, heart racing.
She couldn't sleep.
The symbols still burned into her memory.
She kept seeing strange windows in the corner of her vision. Like menus from a game. She tried to swipe them away, but they stayed.
One screen floated quietly in front of her:
[TALENT TREE LOCKED][SYSTEM PENDING SYNCHRONIZATION][RECOMMENDED ACTION: AWAKENING TRIAL]
"I don't understand any of this," she whispered.
But she knew something deep inside had changed.
She no longer felt… normal.
---
Eon reached the edge of the small island.
A boat passed in the distance. A fisherman, unaware.
Eon watched it. He hadn't seen a boat like that in decades. Not since he last walked the world above.
"I'll need to blend in," he said.
He focused.
His armor faded.
His glowing lines sank beneath his skin.
His long hair shortened.
Now he looked human again—a quiet man with tired eyes and simple clothes.
But beneath that skin, the Origin Flame still burned.
And he was not the only one awakening.
Flashback – Before Time
Eon once lived among beasts.
Before humans rose.
Before language existed.
He was born from the sea, crawled onto land, learned to walk, to run, to fight.
He had faced things humans would one day call monsters—giants made of bone, creatures of wind, serpents with a thousand eyes.
But his greatest enemy had always been the Conquerors.
He remembered the first Rift.
It had opened in the sky—like a hole being ripped open by hands of shadow.
From it, something had fallen.
A beast. A weapon. A soul made of teeth.
He had fought it for days.
He had bled. He had burned.
But he won.
And he learned…
That power alone was not enough.
You had to remember. You had to evolve.
Back in the present, Eon stepped into a small fishing village on the edge of Luzon.
No one noticed him.
He walked among people like a ghost.
He bought a coat from a shop, nodded at a child, and kept moving.
His ears twitched.
He heard a crack in the air. A whisper only Sparks could hear.
Another gate opened.
And far away, in a city tower, Rin stood near her window—watching a new Rift form above the skyline.
She wasn't alone anymore.
And neither was Earth.