The air tasted like ash and ozone. Below, the final, shattered ramparts of the last human fortress crumbled into dust. Kael, a man forged in ten years of brutal war since the worlds merged, was alone on the rooftop.
He was the strongest—the Ninth-Level Aura Master, the peak of human capability. But the man facing him was not a monster; he was a god.
The Ascendant, Xylos, stood against the backdrop of a dying sun. He wore armor made of solidified midnight, and a strange, calm sorrow was etched onto his impossibly flawless face. Xylos was not a product of this war; he was the source. He was the highest being from the Upper Dimension, and he had come to claim the conquest personally.
Kael dragged his greatsword, its edge chipped and dulled from countless battles, and raised his voice against the wind. "You will not take this world!"
Xylos tilted his head, a gesture of mild curiosity, as if looking at a stubborn insect. His voice, which sounded like gentle thunder echoing through a deep valley, reached Kael clearly. "A valiant effort. Futile, but valiant."
Kael didn't wait. He channeled every ounce of his remaining Aura—the brilliant, white-hot energy that was the physical manifestation of his life force. The energy boiled off his skin, turning him into a blinding beacon of rage and despair. He launched himself forward, a streak of white light aiming at the heart of darkness. This was his all-or-nothing move, the strike that had shattered armies of monsters.
Xylos simply raised one hand.
No complex magic circle appeared. No chant was uttered. There was no theatrical display of power, only a gesture of supreme, effortless finality. A single, dull purple beam—the color of a fading bruise—shot from his fingertip.
It didn't just hit Kael. It hit the space Kael occupied.
The white-hot Aura that protected the man, the Aura that had taken thirty years to cultivate, vanished instantly, like a candle flame snuffed out by a tidal wave. Kael didn't feel pain. He didn't feel fear. He felt nothing but a flash of chilling, profound realization: We never stood a chance.
The light that was Kael, the last hope of humanity, dissolved into nothingness. The world went silent, then dark.
He should have been gone. Extinguished. Obliterated from reality.
Instead, he was falling through a cold, confusing chaos. It wasn't the void of death; it was too structured, too fast. He felt a colossal, alien presence—a being of pure, indifferent power—grab his essence, not gently, but with crushing force.
A thought, not a voice, echoed in the non-space: You asked for strength. Here is time.
Then, Kael's dispersed consciousness was slammed back into a tight, too-small container. It was agony—the feeling of a universe trying to fit back into a grain of sand.
Kael gasped, sucking in a lungful of air that smelled heavily of dust, old wood, and drying herbs.
He bolted upright, his heart hammering against his ribs, ready to unleash a final, desperate Aura blast. But his arms, thin and pale, refused to obey. He looked down, horrified.
He was in his own bed. The sheets were scratchy cotton, the mattress was thin and lumpy. Sunlight streamed through a small, curtained window, casting patterns on the floor of a familiar, simple room. It was the room he hadn't seen since he was seventeen, when he'd left home to join the frontier defense.
He scrambled off the bed, stumbling over his own ridiculously small feet. He ran to the cracked, full-length mirror leaning against the wall.
Reflected there was a boy: thin, slightly gangly, with dark, messy hair and wide, terrified eyes. He looked, maybe, thirteen years old.
Trembling, Kael touched his face. Soft, unlined skin. No scars from the war. He didn't just look young; he was young. He raised his hand and instinctively searched for the familiar pool of power in his core. It was there, but it was infinitesimally small, a tiny candle wick where a raging bonfire should have been. He was back to the lowest stage of Aura development.
He spotted a tattered wall calendar hanging by the door. His breath hitched as he read the date.
May 14th.
He remembered that date. It was exactly ten years after the worlds had merged. It was three years before he'd ever picked up a sword, and exactly twenty years before The Ascendant, Xylos, would descend to finish the conquest.
Kael sank to his knees, his mind racing through two lifetimes of memories. He had failed the first time. He had reached the absolute peak of the human path, Level 9, and he had been erased with a flick of a finger.
Now, he was thirteen, a nobody. He had twenty years.
The terror of facing Xylos was quickly consumed by a cold, burning hatred. The alien being had given him a second chance, a mocking opportunity. He wouldn't waste it.
He stood up, his small body already filling with a resolve that belonged to the Level 9 warrior he once was.
Level 9 is the ceiling? I will break it. I will shatter the limits of this world and become something they could never imagine.
Xylos, he thought, his young eyes now blazing with an ancient, deadly promise. I'm coming for you.