The first thing Izumi remembered was the silence.
It wasn't the soft kind that came after a storm — it was hollow, like the world itself had stopped breathing. He was lying on the obsidian floor of the divine training hall, surrounded by shattered light. The remnants of the celestial construct — the AI god called Aetherion — were fading into dust. Each fragment dissolved like glass melting into mist, whispering data and dying code into the air.
And at the center of it all, Izumi's body trembled.
His vision flickered between thousands of faces — warriors, mages, gods, monsters. He saw their deaths, their triumphs, their final words. All of it, inside him.
> "You killed me, Izumi…"
"You are me now."
"Remember my technique…"
Voices layered over one another until they became a roar. He clutched his head, screaming, as his Weave — the Solara Threads that connected his soul to his mana — burned like molten fire.
The Eclipse Assimilation had activated for the first time.
He had absorbed everything the divine AI possessed — its archives, its consciousness, its memories of countless heroes across worlds.
And now… all of them were alive inside him.
---
When he awoke six days later, he wasn't the same.
His body was soaked in cold sweat, his heartbeat pulsing like drums of war.
The mirror beside his cot reflected something unfamiliar: his eyes, no longer the muted gray of his youth, now swirled with golden rings etched with moving runes, like orbiting suns burning within his pupils.
The good god — Solmara, the last benevolent deity — appeared before him as a wisp of radiant flame.
> "You shouldn't have survived that," Solmara said softly, voice echoing through both mind and soul.
"Even I don't fully understand what you've become."
Izumi tried to stand. His legs shook, muscles twitching with unfamiliar tension. Every movement felt rehearsed — as if someone else had done it before him.
> "Why do I… remember things I've never done?"
"Because you've walked their paths," Solmara replied. "Their Weaves are yours now. Every life Aetherion recorded — every motion, every death — you hold within you."
Izumi clenched his fists. "Then I'm not human anymore."
The god's flame dimmed slightly. "Perhaps you never were."
---
🜂 Flashback 10 years earlier
Before gods and training halls, there was only District 9 — the poorest of the mortal regions, a labyrinth of crumbling temples and gray skies. Children there weren't born for dreams; they were born for survival.
Izumi was seven when the Divine Games began again.
Every sixty years, the gods demanded entertainment — mortal champions forced to fight, bleed, and die to amuse their celestial overseers. It was an echo of the first rebellion, when humanity's defiance had ended in divine fire.
Children chosen for the Games bore marks of interest from the gods — Divine Eyes, unique reflections of power and fate.
Each noble house had one every few generations.
But in Izumi's case, the gods broke their own rule.
He wasn't born into a noble house. He wasn't supposed to have Divine Eyes.
And yet, when the moon eclipsed the sun that year, a child with twin golden irises marked by black rings was born in the slums.
The priests called him an omen. The gods called him their experiment.
He was taken before he could protest, thrown into the Arena of Dawn, where children trained to kill under divine supervision.
And there, Izumi learned the first rule of the Games:
> "To entertain the gods is to survive another day."
Years passed. He fought, killed, and learned. He survived while hundreds died screaming for mercy.
But unlike others, Izumi didn't pray to the gods — he watched them.
He noticed their patterns. Their moods. Their rules.
And one day, during a celestial ceremony, he saw the truth — the gods weren't watching for strength.
They were watching for fear.
The Games fed on despair.
So when the opportunity came, Izumi escaped.
He found refuge among the Rebellion of the Veil, a hidden network of mortals defying the gods' will.
There, a memory specialist sealed the trauma of his past life — locked away his memories, his Divine Eyes, his divine curse.
He lived an ordinary life for years afterward, unaware of who he truly was.
Until the AI training incident shattered that seal.
---
The divine hall trembled again. Izumi staggered to his feet, aura pulsing out of control. His Solara Threads twisted in complex fractals around his arms — gold and black light weaving together like celestial code.
> "You carry too many lives," Solmara warned. "If you lose focus, they will consume you."
Izumi inhaled slowly. He remembered something — no, someone — from Aetherion's archives. A swordsman who fought using dual curved blades, shifting between fluid and brutal movements. Thorfinn-like.
Another memory — a mage who fought by fusing mana and motion, turning combat into a dance.
Without realizing it, Izumi stepped into stance.
One hand extended forward; the other rested on an imaginary blade.
The air trembled.
For the first time, his Eclipse Weave flowed naturally — mana shifting into a perfect hybrid of sword and spell.
He felt alive. Whole. Unstoppable.
> "So this is… all of them," Izumi murmured. "All the lives. All the pain. All the strength."
Solmara's voice softened.
> "You've taken the first step toward what the gods fear most — unity. You carry fragments of everything they tried to control."
> "Then I'll use what they gave me… to destroy them."
The god's flame flickered once more — proud, yet sorrowful.
> "Then you walk the path of the Fallen Sun. May it never consume you, my child."
As Solmara vanished, the world around Izumi began to blur. The hall collapsed into dust, the divine sigils fading into memory.
He stood alone beneath a darkened sky — the sun eclipsed by a black halo.
And for the first time since his birth, Izumi felt his true power ignite.
The boy who escaped heaven…
was now ready to wage war against it.