Chapter 1: The Author’s Arrival

The world was unraveling.

Skyscrapers sliced into a bleeding sky. Neon lights flickered against storm clouds that weren't made of water but data and fire. In the distance, Earth's crust split into rings of red and obsidian — remnants of the latest convergence between realms. A fracture not of land, but of reality itself.

And at the edge of it all, a man stood still.

He was cloaked in black—an elegant weave of tech-fabric that shimmered like void-glass. Every thread caught light yet revealed nothing. A golden katana rested diagonally across his back, sheathed in a scabbard etched with celestial runes. At his side, a holstered gun glowed faintly gold—its design unfamiliar to any weapon maker on Earth.

His face was hidden behind a full black-and-gold mask, smooth and reflective. If one looked hard enough, they might think the mask stared back.

They called him Author.

But no one remembered naming him that.

And no one ever saw him arrive.

He simply... was.

10 minutes earlier — Earth, Sector Delta, Border of New Seoul

Ares Kaelion staggered through the rubble. His body, long thought immortal, bled dark red over stone. The tattoos across his arms—the ancient runes of Heaven's Key—were dimming. He grunted, clutching his side.

Behind him, smoke and shadow followed.

And then — a voice. Familiar. Cold.

Lucian: "You should've handed it over, brother."

Ares turned slowly, defiance in his eyes. "You'd burn the realms for power. The Key... doesn't belong to you."

Lucian stepped out of the darkness. Clad in ash-black armor, his white-blond hair streaked with blood, Lucian's eyes shone with voidfire. In his hand, a jagged blade forged from Hell's essence.

"I am what this world needs. And you are in the way."

They clashed — light against shadow, heaven against hell. And far above, standing on an invisible ledge that no one else could see, Author watched.

He opened a small journal made of folded void-metal and began to write.

Author (quietly): "First fracture confirmed. Ares is five minutes from divergence. History is tilting again."

Meanwhile, in the ruins of Old Archive Tower...

A girl ran. Black boots over broken marble. Blood on her sleeve.

Syra Kaelion, fourteen, eyes like shattered stars, moved through the falling debris with practiced grace.

She didn't know where her father was. Only that something had gone very wrong. The communicator on her wrist crackled.

"...Syra—do not trust anyone. Especially him. The Key—"

Static.

Syra's breath hitched. "Dad...?"

Then a scream echoed from the other side of the plaza.

It was her aunt. Collapsing.

Lucian stood behind her, sword slick with fresh betrayal.

Syra screamed—but her scream never left her mouth.

Time froze.

Literally.

The moment shattered like glass. The debris hung mid-air. The blooddrops hovered, gleaming like rubies in sunlight. Everyone paused.

Except one.

Author stepped into the frozen moment, boots whispering over glass-like air. He looked down at Syra, frozen mid-run, mid-scream. Her eyes wide with grief, confusion, and something else: potential.

He reached out and touched her forehead gently.

"Not yet," he whispered. "Not here. But you will remember this differently."

He turned. Stared into the face of frozen-Lucian.

Then he vanished.

Time snapped back.

Syra blinked—and suddenly she was behind the Archive tower. No blood. No scream. No Lucian.

Her wrist communicator beeped calmly. The last five minutes... erased.

"...what the hell?" she whispered.

Somewhere across realms, Author scratched out a line in his journal and rewrote it.

Hours Later – Hunter Academy, Neutral Zone

Syra sat silently in the admissions chamber, still shaken but saying nothing. Her hair tied tightly back, uniform pristine despite what she'd been through. Around her were other applicants—teenagers from across fractured territories, all seeking licenses to fight in the hell-torn world.

She didn't speak.

But she listened.

And far, far away, Author watched her through a cracked monitor in an ancient observatory where time and space had no dominion.

Author: "She doesn't remember what I did. Not yet. But the echoes will come."

He paused.

Then smiled behind his mask.

"And when they do, she'll be ready."