[I have watched them rise and fall.]
[Eight times.]
[Eight generations of life sprouting from my surface, reaching for the stars, only to crumble back into dust.]
The consciousness that dwelled within the planet's core pulsed with ancient weariness. She could feel every living being on her surface, every heartbeat, every breath—and lately, every death.
[This ninth generation...they are so fragile. So weak.]
[And I am dying with them.]
She could feel it even now. That gnawing presence at the edges of her awareness. Something vast. Something hungry. A wrongness that made her core tremble.
It was connected to the fragment somehow. She knew this instinctively. The same alien feeling that emanated from the shard in her core echoed in that approaching darkness.
Whatever was coming, it had something to do with this mysterious piece lodged within her.
[If this civilization perishes, I perish with them. There will be no tenth generation.]
[No more chances.]
The monsters had come three years ago. Creatures that shouldn't exist, tearing through dimensional walls like paper. Her people—these humans—had been helpless at first. Ordinary weapons meant nothing against beings that could phase through matter or regenerate from a single cell.
So she had given them gifts.
Powers.
The ability to fight back.
And she had discovered something unexpected—when her children killed these invaders, when they absorbed the corrupt essence or consumed the monsters' flesh, their advancement accelerated tremendously. What would take years of natural energy cultivation could happen in months, weeks, even days.
The corrupt energy, when conquered and refined, transformed into something far more potent than the gentle energy that flowed naturally through her surface.
---
In the cities below, a squad of Awakened humans battled against a writhing mass of tentacles and teeth.
"Marcus! On your left!"
The man spun, his fist igniting with brilliant orange flames as he drove it through the creature's hide. The monster shrieked, its essence—that silvery mist that all the invaders carried—bleeding out into the air.
Marcus didn't hesitate. He breathed in deeply, pulling the essence into himself. His eyes flashed as the energy merged with his own, the microscopic particles within his body vibrating faster, condensing, becoming denser. The corrupt energy fought against him for a moment before being subdued, refined, purified—and in that process, it became fuel for rapid growth.
*Almost there. Almost ready to form my first Star Core.*
What would have taken him another year of meditation and natural cultivation had just been reduced to perhaps a month. The monster's death was his advancement.
Behind him, Sarah manipulated threads of pure light, slicing through smaller creatures while her partner Jin raised walls of steel from the ground itself.
They were the lucky ones. The rare ones.
Most humans who awakened gained simple enhancements—stronger bodies, faster reflexes. But a precious few could manipulate the elements themselves. Fire. Light. Metal. They became squad leaders, city defenders, humanity's spears against the dark.
[But it is not enough.]
[They grow too slowly. The enemy comes too quickly.]
The planet's consciousness turned inward, diving deep into her own core where something else resided. Something that had been there since the moment she first became aware, eons ago.
A fragment.
It pulsed with power she couldn't comprehend. Alien geometries that hurt to perceive. Energy that bent reality just by existing. She had never dared touch it before—it felt wrong somehow. Foreign. Like a shard of something far greater than herself that had somehow lodged in her heart.
[But I have no choice now.]
[I need a champion. A protector.]
[Someone who can grow beyond the limits I can grant.]
She had been watching the humans carefully since the invasion began. Studying their potential. Most were adequate. Some were exceptional.
But one...
One had something different. A compatibility she couldn't explain. As if the fragment recognized something in him that even she couldn't see.
[The risk is enormous.]
[I don't know what activating it will do. What it will change.]
[But extinction is certain if I do nothing.]
---
In a small city on the eastern continent, a young man sat in his bedroom as the clock struck midnight on his eighteenth birthday. He waited, heart pounding, knowing that if he was chosen, it would happen now.
The air shimmered.
A translucent blue panel materialized before his eyes.
[Name: Rael Andras
Ability: None Detected
Core Density: Mortal Level
Energy Purity: 100%
Particle Refinement: Mortal - 0%]
His shoulders sagged slightly. Another non-ability awakened. He would have no special powers, no accelerated cultivation beyond what normal essence absorption allowed. Just like 90% of those who received panels.
But deep below, an ancient consciousness was reaching out to him.
[Forgive me for what I'm about to do.]
[But this is my choice.]
[Our only chance.]
The planet's consciousness wrapped her will around the fragment. It resisted at first, like trying to grasp smoke with fingers made of wind. But desperation gave her strength she didn't know she possessed.
The fragment pulsed once.
Twice.
Then—
[ACTIVATE.]
The fragment erupted with impossible light, shooting upward through layers of rock and metal, through the planet's mantle and crust, racing toward one specific human among billions.
The young man's blue panel suddenly flickered, the text distorting as something fundamental in reality...
*shifted.*
[It is done.]
[Whatever comes next...]
[...it has begun.]