That night was too quiet.
Not peaceful—quiet in the way that made your skin itch, like the city was holding its breath.
Noah walked the street alone. The noise and light of the festival were gone, replaced by the dim glow of old streetlamps. Dried blood clung to his hands in thin, dark lines, catching the light when he passed under the flicker. Shadows stretched across the pavement, warped by the unstable mana humming through the air.
An hour had passed since he'd left the school area.
The city wasn't asleep. Not anymore.
Drones floated overhead, their red eyes sweeping the streets. Soldiers patrolled in black combat gear, rifles hanging loose but ready, eyes sharp for anything that didn't belong.
Two of them stepped in front of him.
The armor, the rifles, the mirrored visors—they might as well have been a wall.
"Where are you coming from, kid?" one of them asked. "Didn't you hear the rift alert 30 minutes ago?"
Noah lifted his head. His eyes were empty. "I'm sorry. I'll go home now."
The soldier looked him over. Torn, blood-stained uniform. Bare feet. Skin pale. Eyes that looked like they'd stopped caring a long time ago. He knew the type.
"…Bullied?" His voice softened.
Noah didn't answer.
"Let us take you back."
"It's fine," Noah said, stepping past them. "I live close."
"You sure?"
A slow breath left him. "I'm leaving now."
They let him go. One of them shook his head. "Poor kid."
The other checked the street. "Come on. Patrol."
They moved on. Noah kept walking.
This was the world now—where strength was everything, and weakness was an open wound.
A billboard flickered to life on the side of a building. At the top of the Awakener rankings was a crimson-eyed young man smiling like he owned the Empire—Victor Edenfield.
[The Young Prodigy: Ranked #1 Among the Empire's Young Awakeners!]
Noah's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. He didn't slow down.
This wasn't the Earth he'd known. This was the Albion Empire, a nation older than memory.
But it hadn't always been like this.
Centuries ago, Earth had been ordinary. Then the meteor came.
It didn't just crash—it bled mana into the world, twisting the rules of life itself. Animals became monsters. Rifts tore open, spilling horrors from somewhere else.
Humanity nearly ended.
And then, people started changing.
At eighteen, they awakened—powers as wild as they were dangerous. Others turned to cultivation, strengthening body and spirit, climbing realms that began at Human and ended at Divine. Seven realms. Five stages each. The higher you climbed, the more the world bent around you.
This was no place for the weak.
Noah had known that from the start.
He reached his apartment at the edge of Blackridge City—a crumbling block of concrete and peeling paint. The door creaked as it opened.
Inside, a bed. A TV with a cracked screen. A kitchen barely worth the name.
He sat on the bed without washing his hands. His heartbeat slowed, but his mind wouldn't.
He had killed them.
No—he had erased them.
And he felt nothing but the quiet satisfaction of a debt paid in full.
The rush faded.
Sleep came creeping in.
Before long, his eyes closed.
Somewhere in the city, festival banners still fluttered in the wind, though the school grounds lay deserted after the earlier alert.
For Noah, the night's celebration had ended the moment it began.