Change

The wave came from the sky, rolling toward us like a silent tsunami, a massive wall of glowing blue light that stretched across the horizon. It didn't crash or roar like an ocean wave. It didn't bring wind or sound. It was quiet, eerily so, moving with impossible grace, flowing like liquid and air all at once. It illuminated everything in its path, turning the darkness into something almost ethereal, dreamlike. The broken streets, the collapsing buildings, the terrified people—bathed in that brilliant blue glow, it all looked unreal, like a painting more than reality.

For a brief moment, I thought it was beautiful.

Then it hit.

It wasn't like being submerged in water or caught in an explosion. It was everywhere at once, sinking into my skin, into my lungs, into my bones before I even knew what was happening. There was no impact, no force knocking me back.

It simply became part of me.

And then the pain came.

A burning, needling sensation that started just under my skin before ripping its way inside. Like a thousand needles puncturing every inch of me—not from the outside, but from within. My blood turned to fire. My bones cracked under a pressure that wasn't physical but something deeper, something fundamental.

I couldn't think.

I couldn't scream.

I collapsed, the world around me vanishing, the blue glow turning into nothing but a haze behind the agony consuming me. I could hear Chad somewhere, gasping, struggling, going through the same thing. But I couldn't focus. My vision blurred, my thoughts unraveled, and the pain kept going, kept digging, kept breaking me down and rebuilding me in ways I didn't understand.

I wasn't alone.

My parents and sister were still close to the house. I didn't see what happened, but I know now that Simon shielded them. He threw himself in front of my mom and my baby sister, taking the first hit of the mana surge before it reached them. My mom had been holding her tight, keeping her wrapped against her body, and between the two of them, my sister hadn't taken the full force of it.

Most babies didn't survive. Unrestrained mana surging into an undeveloped body was too much. Their systems couldn't process it, and they simply ceased. My sister survived, but only because the mana that reached her had been weakened, filtered through my parents first. It still affected her, still changed her, but not as violently as it had to me and Chad.

A quarter of humanity died that night. Most of them were infants, toddlers, and the elderly. Their bodies simply couldn't adapt fast enough. The rest of us—seventy-five percent—changed. Not into gods, not into something unrecognizable, but more than we had been before. People who had been sick woke up healthy. The weak became stronger. The strong became even better. I don't know how long I was on the ground, how long I endured it. Time didn't make sense anymore. There was only pain, only the feeling of my body being rewritten.

And then—

Blackness.

The world, the earthquake, the sky, the ground—it was all forgotten.

There was nothing left but the pain.

And then, not even that.

The world itself had changed.

Not just the people, not just the land. The very fabric of existence had been rewritten. The rules that governed Earth—the ones that had shaped civilization, science, and life itself—were gone. Now, everything was dictated by mana.

And with mana came the Membrane.

Every world rich in mana had one. Some called it the Heavens, others the Will of the World, some even referred to it as the Cosmic Veil—but it was all the same thing. A bubble-like barrier that surrounded the planet, covering every inch of its surface, regulating what could enter and what could leave.

It wasn't just some passive shield—it was a gatekeeper. It dictated what was allowed inside, kept certain things out, and shifted in response to mana surges. A planet's Membrane didn't just protect it; it controlled its exposure to the greater universe. Too much interference too soon, and a newly awakened world would be destroyed before it had the chance to establish itself.

But Earth wasn't just any newly awakened world.

It had emerged at C-rank, a level of power most planets only reached after centuries of growth. And as mana flooded in, the Membrane thinned, adjusted, recalibrated itself. Every surge weakened it, allowing stronger cultivators, more advanced mana-based technology, and higher-tier lifeforms to make their way to Earth. The stronger Earth became, the less protection the Membrane provided.

As Earth's own cultivators grew stronger, the Membrane adjusted to match them. The restrictions that once kept out overwhelming forces would ease. It was a natural process—the planet's guardians had to be strong enough to defend it, or Earth would become just another resource waiting to be claimed.

And with the mana and the Membrane came portals.

They weren't just cracks in space or random gateways—they were part of the Membrane itself. The moment Earth awakened, it started linking itself to other worlds, connecting its Membrane to the Membranes of planets and realms that resonated with its mana signature. These portals weren't instantly stable—they needed time to fully form—but once they did, they would continue to expand and stabilize as Earth's mana surged.

And it wasn't just other planets that were being connected.

Some portals led to hidden realms, independent spaces, dimensions that had existed alongside Earth but had never been accessible before. Some of these places were sealed lands, pocket dimensions filled with ancient remnants, while others were dangerous, lawless zones, realms that had been cut off from reality until Earth's mana surged enough to bridge the gap.

But no matter where a portal connected, there was one critical rule: the number of organisms that could pass through was limited.

Portals had a natural capacity, a restriction dictated by the Membrane itself. Even as Earth's rank increased and the portals expanded, they couldn't instantly flood the world with an unstoppable army. The flow was regulated, and while invasions could still happen, they wouldn't happen all at once.

Earth wasn't just evolving. It was attaching itself to the universe.

The superquakes? They weren't just some side effect of mana's arrival. The planet itself was expanding, growing, reshaping itself to handle the new reality it had been thrust into. What looked like devastation was actually transformation—but that didn't make it any less deadly.

Another twenty-five percent of humanity died.

On top of those who had already been lost to the Baptism, that meant half of all life on Earth had been wiped out in a matter of hours.

But Earth's transformation didn't just stop with new landmasses and shifting tectonics. The portals were forming—and Earth didn't get to choose where they led.

St. Paul, Minnesota was the first place to get unlucky.

Its first major access point connected to a Goblin homeworld.

Fucking goblins.

Vile, savage little monsters. Opportunistic, vicious, born with a craving for destruction and the kind of feral cunning that made them far more dangerous than their size suggested. Civilized species saw war as a means to an end, but goblins? War was their nature.

The only saving grace was that portals weren't instant. They needed time to settle, to stabilize, and even once they were active, they had natural reset periods, preventing endless armies from flooding through all at once.

But the first wave would still come.

And as Earth's rank rose, more portals would appear.

More worlds, more hidden realms, more dangers.

Of course, portals weren't the only way to reach Earth. Any race with a mana-drive-equipped ship could fold space, traveling to Earth in a week or two. There were already eyes on Earth, already forces preparing to stake their claim.

Because Earth wasn't just another awakened world.

Its potential wasn't just high.

It was S-rank.

And in the vast, unforgiving expanse of the universe, that meant one thing.

Everyone wanted a fucking piece of it.