The night was heavy with silence. Only the rustle of wind against the hut's wooden walls broke the stillness. Renji lay swaddled in rough linens, barely three days old, his body fragile, but his mind restless.
In the modern world, he had been nothing. Invisible. Now, even as a newborn, his awareness was sharp—too sharp. His infant body struggled against instincts it couldn't follow. He wanted to move, to act, but his limbs only wriggled uselessly.
And then—he felt it.
A pressure.
A presence.
The hairs on the back of his father's neck bristled. His mother stiffened. Even Renji, trapped in the frail shell of his baby form, sensed the hunger that crawled closer through the darkness.
The door creaked. Shadows stretched. A low growl rolled into the hut.
A wolf.
Not the kind from his old world's fairy tales. This one was larger, its eyes glowing faintly red, its fur bristling like living iron. It padded forward with slow, deliberate steps, saliva dripping from its maw.
Renji's tiny heart hammered. His body trembled. He couldn't even lift a finger to defend himself.
And then—
[Trial Detected.]
[Initiating survival protocol…]
[Reward Unlocked: Dominion Interface Access – Basic Tier.]
[Skill Gained: Mystic Eye (Lv.1)]
A searing light flashed behind his eyelids. When his vision cleared, the world was different.
The wolf's body glimmered with faint, spiderweb cracks. His instincts screamed that those were weaknesses—break points. For a split second, time itself felt slower, stretched thin like glass about to shatter.
Inside his head, Renji panicked.
"What the hell…? What was that?! Why am I seeing… lines? No, no, this is insane. Mystic Eye? That sounds like something ripped straight out of an anime. Don't tell me this is permanent—"
His infant body betrayed him. Instead of words, a sharp, desperate cry burst from his lungs.
"Waaah!"
But the cry wasn't ordinary. Power thrummed in the sound. The very air wavered, like ripples across a pond. The wolf faltered mid-step, its body seizing for a heartbeat too long.
Renji's father didn't hesitate. With a shout, he grabbed the iron poker from the hearth and lunged. His strike landed true—guided, perhaps, by Renji's unnatural cry. The poker pierced one of the faint cracks Renji had seen.
The wolf yelped, collapsing with a thud. Blood spilled across the dirt floor.
Silence reclaimed the hut. Only Renji's continued cries filled the room, high and thin but strangely steady, almost deliberate.
His mother rushed to his side, clutching him close, her face pale with fear and awe.
"His eyes…" she whispered. "Did you see them? They… glowed."
Renji blinked, vision still hazy. His parents couldn't possibly understand what he had just witnessed.
Inside, his thoughts spiraled.
"That wasn't just luck. That was me. The system… no, this power—it's real. Mystic Eye. My cry… it froze that beast. Holy sht. I'm a damn three-day-old nuke."*
The system's words echoed once more, cold and detached:
[Trial Complete.]
[Survival assured. Future trials will escalate in difficulty.]
Renji let out a softer cry, his little fists clenched. But in his head, his voice was steady.
"Fine. If that's how this world plays, then bring it on. I may be just a baby now… but I'll grow. And when I do—this Dominion system, this world, even fate itself—will bow."
The hut was quiet again, save for the sound of his parents' relieved breaths. They saw only a fragile child, blessed perhaps by the heavens.
But inside that fragile shell was a boy already planning, already scheming.
The Lord of Eternal Dominion had just opened his eyes.
---
Far beyond the hut, atop a jagged ridge overlooking the village, a figure cloaked in shadow watched. His presence was faint, almost dreamlike, yet his eyes burned through the darkness—two golden orbs that pierced reality itself.
He had seen the flicker of light in the newborn's gaze.
He had felt the ripple when the child cried.
A thin smile curved across his lips.
"So… the heir awakens. Earlier than expected." His voice was calm, smooth, and terrible in its certainty. "This world may yet amuse me."
The golden eyes blinked once—and the figure vanished into the night.