[ SYSTEM ALERT ]
[ ONE ASCENSION SYSTEM ABILITY HAS GONE MISSING ]
[ CAUSE: EXTERNAL OVERRIDE ]
"…Stolen?" Lucas whispered.
His fingers trembled.
"Which ability…?"
His breath hitched.
He could not believe what had just happened.
Another player had attacked him.
He jumped out of bed and scanned the room, eyes wild. He yanked the curtains aside, checked behind furniture, even ripped open a few drawers.
Nothing.
No presence.
No intruder.
He rushed into the hallway, aura flaring.
Empty.
Guards at the far end flinched under the pressure, but no one suspicious was in sight.
Lucas gritted his teeth, his face turning red with anger as he stormed back into his room.
He checked again—every corner, every shelf, every artifact placement.
Nothing had changed.
"Status," he snarled.
═══════════════════════════
[ STATUS ]
════════════════════════════
Name : Lucas Evan Imperius
Race : Human
Class : Paragon of Ascension
Rank : S-Ranker
Potential : SS
[ System Bond : Ascension System ]
Talent : Origin Flux (S)
(Innate dominion over all forms of energy—to absorb, refine, convert, or nullify energy within limits.)
Level : 1002
EXP : 6,430,118 / 10,000,000
────────────────────────────
[ ATTRIBUTES ]
────────────────────────────
Strength : 1,240
Agility : 1,910
Durability : 1,600
Intelligence : 1,450
Will : 1,100
Charm : 99 (Cannot exceed mortal limit)
Luck : 65 (Unchangeable)
────────────────────────────
Attribute Points : 320
Ascension Points : 8,470
────────────────────────────
[ INNATE ABILITIES ]
• Advanced Combat Sense
• High-Speed Analysis
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ BLOODLINE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✦ Name : Imperius Starblood Lineage
✦ Nature : Ever-Mutating
Description :
A living bloodline that evolves with every generation.
Each child awakens a different mutation, creating a unique power never seen before.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ CURRENT MUTATION ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✦ Ability : ⟨Resonance Emperor⟩
Authority over vibration and frequency.
Shatter mountains with a whisper.
Silence spells by breaking their harmony.
────────────────────────────
[ Skills ]
────────────────────────────
• Reinforced Body (C)
• Cleaving Strike (B)
• Killing Intent (A)
• Phantom Step (A)
• Mana Circulation (A)
• Aura Coating (A)
~Scroll for more…
────────────────────────────
[ ASCENSION SYSTEM FUNCTIONS ]
────────────────────────────
• System Shop
- Consumables
- Skill Scrolls
- Buff Modules
- Weapon Blueprints
- Training Simulations
• Ascension Trials
- Low-rank missions (Completed: 129 / ?)
- Mid-rank missions (Completed: 50 / ?)
- High-rank missions (Completed: 4 / ?)
Failure will have permanent penalties.
Rewards: Skill Rank-Up Rights, Bloodline Reinforcement, Rare Titles.
• Evolution Slots (2/3 Unlocked)
Forces skills beyond natural limits.
• Emergency Recovery (Locked – 1 Use)
Consumes 20,000 AP.
~Unlock condition: Complete the 5th High-Rank Mission.
────────────────────────────
[ KILL RECORD ]
────────────────────────────
Anomalies (Players) : 2
A-Rank Monsters Slain : 248
S-Rank Monsters Slain : 2
Gate Bosses Defeated : 211
Rogue Awakeners Killed : 39
~Scroll… for more
Titles:
• The Imperius Heir
• The Man Who Conquered the Death Valley
• Merciless Executioner
~Scroll… for more
────────────────────────────
Lucas scrolled.
He checked everything once.
Twice.
Three times.
The functions were intact.
The bloodline was intact.
The skills list seemed unchanged.
He let out a shaky breath.
"Looks like this system has gone insane…" he muttered. "There's nothing missing…"
Then a thought hit him like a hammer.
His face drained of color.
"No… no… no… it can't be that, right…?"
His body began to shake.
"It can't be that…"
He didn't want to believe it.
But a cold dread gnawed at him.
Mustering his courage, he spoke in a low voice.
"Open the Sacrificial Inventory."
Silence.
No window appeared.
No spatial distortion.
No familiar tear in reality.
Usually, a separate dimensional space opened—his hidden vault, where he had stored all his true valuables. Artifacts, hidden cards, skills, rewards from the harshest missions—all locked away there.
That inventory was not normal.
It was one of the most powerful functions of the Ascension System.
Now—
Nothing.
"Do it again," he growled. "Open the Sacrificial Inventory!"
Still nothing.
No response.
No sound.
No ripple.
"Damn it… damn it…!"
He slammed his fist into the wall.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the stone.
"All my hard work…"
He punched again.
"All my hard work is gone!"
The door creaked open.
"Young Master Lucas, are you—"
A maid stepped in.
She never finished the sentence.
Blinded by rage, Lucas didn't even see who it was.
He whirled and grabbed her by the collar.
His fist crashed into her face.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Blood splattered across the floor.
"It was you, right?!" he snarled. "You were the one who did this! How dare you try to outsmart me!"
He hit her again.
"I am the heir of the Imperius family—Lucas Evan Imperius himself! The one who will come out on top no matter what!"
The maid gurgled weakly, eyes unfocused.
Then, finally, Lucas froze.
His breath came out in harsh pants.
Reality slid back into focus.
He looked down.
The maid was barely conscious, her face a swollen, bloody mess.
"…Shit," he muttered. "I lost control."
He exhaled slowly.
"Good thing I usually suppress my strength."
He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a high-rank healing potion.
Without much care, he uncorked it and poured the shimmering liquid over her.
The wounds closed almost instantly.
Bruises faded.
Bones knit.
Her breathing steadied.
Her eyes fluttered open.
She stared at Lucas's twisted expression as if she were looking at a monster.
Lucas tossed a bag filled with essence stones toward her.
It landed beside her with a dull thud.
"Don't utter a single word about what happened here," he said coldly. "Do you hear me?"
The maid nodded repeatedly, eyes wide with terror.
She didn't even pick up the essence stones.
She scrambled to her feet and bolted from the room, fleeing as if her life depended on it.
Lucas watched her go.
"Fuck," he muttered. "I'll have to do something about her later."
His phone buzzed.
He glanced at the screen.
His breath hitched.
There were only a handful of people in the world Lucas truly feared.
His father.
Adrian Evan Imperius.
His mother.
Sylvia Evan Imperius.
And his eldest sister—the one who had refused the position of heir herself.
Jessica Evan Imperius.
A name the entire world knew.
Lucas gulped hard and picked up the call.
"H-Hello, sis," he said. "How are you—"
Her voice came through, calm but carrying a razor's edge.
{ What happened. }
Just hearing that tone made sweat bead on Lucas's forehead.
"W-Whatever do you mean… I wonder…" he forced a laugh.
{ I will not ask again. What happened, Lucas. }
Each word felt heavier than the last.
Lucas took cold, shallow breaths.
"Believe me, I didn't do anything," he said quickly. "He made an oath on his own and lost the duel. Now he's nowhere to be found."
He swallowed.
"Believe me, sis, I didn't have anything to do with it… he brought all of it on himself."
Silence.
Only his own heartbeat echoed in his ears.
The voice came again, dull and deadly.
{ What did Mother do. }
"She didn't say anything," Lucas replied immediately. "She didn't even try to stop him."
Silence again.
Lucas's heart pounded harder.
His hand shook around the phone.
{ One final question. Where is he. }
Lucas licked his lips.
"No one knows," he said. "He has disappeared."
"Hello? Hello? Believe me, sis, I didn't do anything, okay? I—"
The line went dead.
Lucas slowly lowered the phone.
He stared at his reflection in the dark screen.
"Even with a system…" he muttered. "I am no match for her."
He clenched his jaw.
"Just what kind of monster are you, Jessica…?"
----------
[ Null Realm ]
A place of eternal darkness.
The Null Realm—the origin point of the apocalypse and the foreign invasions. A world of shattered skies and endless gray, where mountains floated and reality itself seemed to glitch.
Massive corpses of titans lay scattered across the broken landscape. Some had horns like spires, others wings like shattered continents. Their dead eyes stared eternally at a sky that no longer cared.
A team of Awakeners walked past the enormous bodies, their armor humming with contained power.
"Did Leader really do all this…?" one whispered, voice tinged with awe and fear.
"You're acting like you're seeing it for the first time," another replied, gulping.
The first man sighed.
"I can never get used to this view," he said. "Even if I see it a thousand times."
The others laughed nervously.
They walked deeper.
Among the corpses was one titan that dwarfed all others, its body like a fallen mountain range. Its skull alone could have housed a city.
On top of that corpse—
Sat a woman.
Jessica Evan Imperius.
She sat casually on the titan's shoulder, one leg crossed over the other, as if using a god's corpse as a mere chair. Her long black hair fell down her back like a silk curtain, swaying gently in the strange, windless air. Her eyes were a deep hade of black.
She wore black combat gear with crimson accents, lightly armored, stained here and there with titan blood. A massive greatsword rested lazily beside her, half-buried in the titan's flesh.
She looked like a war goddess incarnate—beautiful, lethal, and utterly unbothered by the field of apocalyptic carnage beneath her.
She rose to her feet in one smooth motion.
"Pack everything," she said, her voice steady. "An emergency has come. We are leaving immediately."
The team of Awakeners straightened, their faces hardening.
"As you command," they replied in unison, without hesitation or question.
Because when Jessica Evan Imperius gave an order—
The world moved.