In the beginning, there was not a word, but a calculation.
Before the first star kindled, or the first galaxy spun itself into a spiral of shimmering light, there was the Law. It was not a law written in a book or carved into stone; it was the framework of reality itself. A cosmic, self-correcting equation. An action, and its inevitable, equal, and opposite consequence.
Mortals, in their desperate need for comprehension, would eventually give it a thousand names. Fate. Destiny. The Will of the Gods.
But to the universe, it was simply Karma.
It is the music of creation, the "Cosmic Hum" that thrums beneath all things. Every atom vibrates in accordance with its measure. Every soul, from the smallest mote of dust-life on a forgotten moon to the star-spanning consciousness of a celestial, has a place in its symphony.
The universe knows all. It sees all.
When a starving child shares their last crust of bread, the universe sees. A thread of light, pure and golden, is woven into the child's spiritual ledger. When a king, fat on the labor of his people, hoards his grain while a famine rages, the universe sees. A strand of shadow, thick and viscous, wraps itself around the king's soul.
These are not metaphors. They are physics.
The Hum is a perfect, impartial accountant. It does not judge in the way mortals do; it does not comprehend "good" or "evil." It comprehends only balance and imbalance. Order and Chaos. An action that aligns with the harmony of the Hum adds to your light. An action that creates dissonance, that takes more than it gives, that disrupts the symphony, adds to your shadow.
It is a system of merit. Or is it?
The universe is vast, and its ledger has more pages than there are stars in the sky. And the first rule of any system, from the simple to the divine, is that its complexity is also its weakness. The Law of Karma is not one, singular edict. It is a library of them.
There is the "Local Karma" of a young world, like the planet Toten. Here, the rules are simple, binary, and direct. The Hum is loud and obvious. Those who align with it are granted stewardship over the world's base elements: the fire, the water, the earth, the air. Those who fall into shadow find themselves wielding the raw, destructive power of Chaos, a force that burns them from the inside out, a dissonance so loud it screams. On Toten, the ledger is written on the skin. Power is visible, judgment is swift, and the rules are known to all.
It is a simple, orderly system, a nursery for young souls, governed by a logic a child could understand.
But Toten is a single note in an infinite song.
Beyond its quiet, atmospheric cradle, in the deep and terrifying majesty of the cosmos, other laws apply. Here, the "Cosmic Hum" is a different beast entirely. Here, there are "High Systems," karmic jurisdictions that dwarf the understanding of lesser worlds.
What is the "merit" of a star? What is the "good deed" of a black hole?
In this grand, cosmic theater, the stakes are not elements, but the fabric of reality itself. The "good" act is not sharing bread, but the alignment of a star-spanning empire—the Aethel Imperium, the Cygnus Ascendancy—ensuring the prosperity of trillions by bending spacetime to its will. The "bad" act is not hoarding grain, but a war that unbalances a galactic sector, snuffing out civilizations as a man might thoughtlessly step on an anthill.
The beings who operate on this level, the "High Karma" bloodlines, see the universe as a game of chess. They are the players. Worlds like Toten are the pawns. And in the service of a "good" cosmic outcome—the preservation of their Legacy—the sacrifice of a pawn is not only acceptable, it is merit-worthy.
This is the great, terrible secret of the Hum: Karma is tiered. The eagle does not answer to the laws of the chickens.
And in the clash of eagles, the universe itself can crack.
A war, ancient and terrible, was fought between these High Systems. It was a war of ascension, a conflict so vast it threatened to tear the Great Ledger itself. And in this war, a "good" act of desperation was committed. A "bad" act of necessity was done.
To save their last, most precious thing—their son, their heir—two monarchs of the Aethel Imperium committed the ultimate heresy. They sought not just to defy their enemies, but to deceive the universe itself.
They found a blank page.
They smuggled a soul of divine, cosmic potential—a being destined to command the Hum of galaxies—and hid it where the universe would never think to look. They took a nascent star and buried it in a jar of common clay. They hid their eagle in the one place the other eagles would never search: a chicken coop, on a simple, "Local Karma" world at the forgotten edge of the galaxy.
They performed a final, terrible calculation. They locked his power. They bound his soul. They muffled his cosmic signature until it was so faint it registered as nothing. They made him a void, a silence, an anomaly that the local System of Toten could not parse.
The Ledger of Toten, which saw all, saw a young man named Mali. It saw him, and for the first time in its existence, it had no line to write. The page remained blank.
The universe knows all. It sees all. Karma is absolute, and its judgment cannot be escaped.
...Or can it?
For the first time in an eon, the Great Ledger is silent. The System is perfect, the equation is balanced. And yet, in a quiet, overlooked village, a boy with no Karma at all—a statistical impossibility, a walking, breathing paradox—is about to stumble.
He is about to touch a girl so full of "Local Karma" that she is a paradox of her own, a battery of pure power threatening to explode.
The void is about to touch the spark.
The silence is about to be broken.
And the universe, so certain of its own perfect calculations, is about to learn what happens when a number that does not exist is suddenly, violently, introduced to the equation. The jar of clay is about to crack, and the star inside is about to remember what it is.