Boom.
The sky cracked open like the world had screamed.
Kael Draven didn't even have time to lift his head. One moment he was running home through the alley behind Wrenhall High, soaked in rain, clutching his cracked phone, headphones blasting distorted metal—
—and the next, the world turned white.
White—not from lightning, not from death, but from erasure. Like the universe had blinked, and Kael was the mistake it decided to delete.
"He's not supposed to be here!"
A voice—many voices—echoed across nothing. Ancient, furious, fractured.
"Remove him!"
"Fate has been breached!"
Kael opened his mouth to scream, but there was no breath, no throat, no body. Only a swirling darkness below and something vast above.
Then—
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]
A glowing interface snapped into place before him, pulsing violet like a heartbeat.
Welcome, [Kael Draven]
You have been chosen as the Sovereign Core of [VOID REALM - CLASS OMEGA].
WARNING: This Realm Is Unstable.
WARNING: This Reincarnation Is Unauthorized.
Initiating Emergency Soul-Bind Sequence…
"No! Wait—what?! I'm not—I didn't—!"
Too late.
Kael's soul was pulled down, ripped, rebuilt.
He gasped.
Breath. Cold. Air.
He was lying in a crater of cracked black crystal, surrounded by a night sky with no stars, hovering in a space that shouldn't exist.
Before him stood a being made of bone and shadow, with no eyes—only a jagged grin.
"So," the creature hissed. "You're the new god. The Core. The mistake."
Kael stumbled to his feet. His body shimmered between flesh and fractal. His hands left trails of glitching light when he moved.
"What the hell is going on?! Where am I?!"
The bone-thing lunged.
[NEW DOMAIN ACQUIRED: ETHEREAL GRAVEYARD]
[NEW ABILITY: SOULCHAIN — BIND THE DEAD TO YOUR WILL]
Instinct kicked in.
Kael thrust out his hand—and a dozen spectral chains exploded from the ground, wrapping around the creature mid-leap. It shrieked as it was dragged backward, bound in runes Kael didn't understand.
He was shaking. Terrified. Alive.
"You're not supposed to be here," the monster hissed again, even as it dissolved. "And they're coming for you. The Architects. The Watchers. The Real Gods."
"Let them come," Kael spat, heart racing. What was happening to him?
[YOU HAVE DEFEATED A VOIDWRAITH - LVL 27]
[YOU HAVE CLAIMED YOUR FIRST DOMAIN.]
The Realm around him shifted.
Dead stars reignited. Ruins rose from the blackness. And above it all, a throne of bone and crystal began to form—waiting.
Kael turned, breath shallow, eyes wide.
This wasn't reincarnation.
This was war.
And he was already losing.