The world once measured power through armies, economies, and history books filled with stories about wars and borders. But after the Awakening began, none of those numbers mattered anymore.
No one knows where it truly started. Some remember a storm that circled the globe in a single night. Others speak of instruments that screamed when a child was born whose existence could not be measured. There are people who believe power had always been buried inside humanity, like dormant ore waiting for someone desperate enough to dig deep.
Whatever the truth is, the moment awakeners appeared, the world changed forever.
The first awakeners rose without guidance. Gravity bent beneath their feet. Flames obeyed their hands. Cities trembled at their mistakes. Humanity realized that the next global war would not be fought with missiles, but with individuals who could level a district with a single breath.
So order did what order always does. It named things. It measured. It ranked.
Iron marked the beginning, the most common and humble awakening. Bronze and Silver carried weight in society. Gold forced governments to negotiate. Platinum rewrote battlefields. S Rank introduced the idea that a person could be a natural disaster. And SS Rank… that was where the numbers stopped mattering.
Three beings stood above the world. Three Pillars the nations could not afford to anger. Three individuals who alone prevented war. They were the balance, the deterrent, and the final keystones of humanity's fragile peace.
To watch them move was to understand fear.
From the moment the Ranks were established, awakeners became the most valuable resource on Earth. Governments built organizations to control them. Corporations created guilds to buy them. In the cracks left between those giants, rogues refused both chains, living by power alone.
Humanity learned to live with awakening. It integrated Iron and Bronze into everyday life. It respected Silver and Gold. It honored Platinum and S Rank. It feared SS Rank.
It believed the system covered everything.
It only had one blind spot.
Every year, fourteen-year-olds across the world stepped into Focus Chambers. Their futures were decided in a burst of light. Some gained nothing. Some gained enough. A rare few gained power that pushed history forward.
But power itself was not the only risk.
The world forgot a simple truth. The Rank System was built on an assumption.
One person.
One life.
One destiny.
It never prepared for someone who could live several lives at once.
It never prepared for a boy who would divide instead of transform.
It never prepared for Noah Reed.
Light erupted within the Awakening Chamber. The Focus Crystal fractured from within, splintering into a web of jagged light. Noah collapsed before anyone understood what had happened.
Officials argued. Specialists panicked. The system failed to classify him.
And in the silence that followed, something far stranger happened.
Elsewhere, in a world of iron walls and falling snow, a boy stood barefoot in a fortress courtyard beneath a roaring lion banner. Soldiers charged him with spears raised, yet the boy moved with impossible intuition, stealing a weapon out of pure instinct. He did not know his name there. They gave him a new one. Lucian Vale. Heir candidate. Weapon of a frozen throne.
In another world, under stained glass sunlight, a boy awakened within a cathedral. Priests gathered in awe and fear as golden light rose from his palm. The cathedral named him Noah Dawn and called his gift a miracle, though half of them wondered if it was heresy.
Far away in a city of steel and neon, a different boy opened his eyes in a lab. Metal bones strained against restraints designed never to fail. Logic replaced fear. He broke free not because he hated his captors, but because they had no right to command him. He took no name, so they gave him a number. Subject Seven.
Under a crimson moon, a frightened predator tore free of hunger. A boy with fangs tasted power by taking what belonged to another. The night gifted him its own cruel title. The Bloodborn.
Four boys. Four names. Four worlds.
One consciousness.
Noah Reed did not awaken fire. He did not awaken flight. He awakened a legion. He divided. He extended. He reached through the walls of reality the way a child reaches for something he finds interesting.
Every skill a clone learns, he learns.
Every scar a clone earns, he earns.
Every victory a clone conquers, he conquers.
No system can measure that.
No government can permit that.
No rank can restrict that.
Not when power multiplies.
The world once believed the Pillars were the limit.
It is about to learn there is a difference between holding the world up…
And changing what the world is.
The Age of Ranks belongs to the Pillars.
The Age of Genesis begins now.