"January 30, 2026. The Earth suffered the greatest destruction humankind had ever witnessed. A brilliant, dark golden meteorite streaked across the sky, rapidly approaching the earth; the bright golden object vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Various institutions were baffled; the bright object that had passed overhead was undetectable even with their best telescopes. After two months of trying to discover what the bright object was and where it had fallen, they had still found nothing."
"July 1 of the same year. One hundred million people had disappeared since the fall of the golden object. Governments tried to calm the slowly brewing chaos while investigating why such a disaster was happening, but their efforts were fruitless—they failed to uncover anything. The world's chaos came to a sudden halt when, on August 3 of the same year, over ninety-eight percent of men disappeared, and eighty percent of the women vanished with them."
"August 5 of the same year. Civilization collapsed. With the near-complete disappearance of the global population, human civilization was on the verge of total collapse. If not for a brave group of people who stepped forward to confront the human collapse, quickly taking the reins of humanity, civilization would have been destroyed. They thus prevented its destruction and formed the GREAT RENASCIENT EMPIRE."
"Although civilization was saved from internal collapse and extermination by nature, there was something we failed to consider, or better said, something no one expected. On December 5, 2028, a significantly large number of strange monsters began to appear in the world. And with the appearance of these monsters, people with special abilities beyond human capabilities also began to appear. But, it didn't take us long to learn the cost of such abilities"—a cost few would be willing to pay.
A beautiful woman with intense red hair looked at the crowd of students listening attentively to her words, nodding appreciatively when she saw they were paying attention.
"Could any of you tell me what the price is that few are willing to pay, despite gaining the power of superhuman abilities?" the woman asked the students. Soon, a handsome student with white hair raised his hand.
"Tell me, Mr. David, what is the reason behind the users' fear of using their special abilities?" Looking intently at the young man named David, the woman at the podium waited for his answer.
"The main reason we Awakened, like us, don't use our abilities lightly is that a single use of our abilities can shorten our lifespan by up to a year. That is also why we are the last line of defense in case of a breach by the strange monsters." All the students present looked at him before beginning to applaud David.
"Impressive, Mr. David, truly impressive." Just as the woman at the podium finished speaking, the bell rang, announcing the end of the first class taught at Santa Humanidad Academy.
"Alright, class is over. Please report to auditorium room number five; we have a meeting to announce your partners for the expeditions into the territory of the strange monsters," said Marie as she headed to her desk to finish writing the next topic.
David left through the door with the other students. As he headed to auditorium number five, he began to observe his surroundings; after all, the academy would be his place of residence for the next 5 months.
Enormous pillars of volcanic rock,over forty meters high and fifty wide, loomed in the distance. Small houses surrounded the two huge pillars, and of course, there were the large halls behind them. These halls, which looked more like ancient libraries, gave the entire premises a very serious atmosphere.
The academy seemed like a place made solely for training and teaching soldiers,and anyone could tell thanks to the excessively military vibe felt there.
Walking along the stone path while following the crowd, he lost himself in his thoughts again, this time thinking about the creatures he would face.
The territory of the strange monsters is the place where the mysterious creatures that began appearing when humans reestablished society reside.These monsters represent a relentless plague that destroys everything in their path. Even when people with special abilities were sent to deal with them, they only managed to slow their advance, not exterminate them.
With that information and knowing the low survival rate of people who go to that place,he obviously didn't want to go. But he had no way to evade that responsibility. There are very few ability users in the world currently; from what he knew, there are fewer than ten thousand, and the survival rate is ridiculously low.
As he pondered the information he currently had, he entered one of the enormous pillars found at the academy, stopping when he reached the front of a hall that screamed from all sides, 'I am the most imposing thing you will see today.' Truly, the doors of the hall were extremely high, with large heads of nine-antlered stags nailed to both sides of the door.
Upon entering,the first thing he saw was the place full of students. Something he found curious was that this university only accepted 100 students, although 'accept' isn't the right word; the correct word would be more like 'intimidate to recruit.'
Lost in thought, he took a seat in an empty space in the last row and stopped thinking about so many things that, for now, were irrelevant to him.
"Welcome, warriors. My name is Daniel Coreon. As you know, once you enter this university with abilities, it means you will fight against those creatures that threaten our survival as a species. So you are no longer students; you are warriors who will be trained to fight on the front lines and repel those disgusting creatures." On the stage's podium stood a man of about fifty with black hair and Japanese-Asian features.
"As I assume you know,you were recruited because you have abilities, even if you haven't Awakened them yet. So I'll be brief. Once you form a group and awaken your abilities, a screen with certain characters and parameters of your abilities will appear before you. One of the most important parameters that will appear on your panel will be one called Vital Essence. That is what will allow you to advance both in your abilities and in your strength and stamina. That is all you need to know for now; the rest you must discover for yourselves as soldiers destined to help humanity," said Daniel from the podium, as he descended the stairs.
"I had never heard that we could become stronger by having abilities. I only knew that having abilities is the most unfortunate thing that can happen to you in life," David whispered. He truly didn't know that people could become stronger through abilities, and from his observations of his surroundings, it seemed his classmates didn't know that information either.
Daniel returned to the podium, but this time he was accompanied by someone—a girl with features somewhat similar to Daniel's, though more Asian than European.
"Alright,allow me to introduce Miss Yukino Riku, your student representative and the one who will inform you of who your teams will be." As Daniel spoke, the girl next to him approached the podium's microphone. Once she had it, she glanced at Daniel, and he retreated from the stage.
"Daniel already introduced me, so I'll skip that part. The first thing I want to say is: we are human. No creature can walk all over us. No creature can look down on us. We are the ones who look down on others, understand?!". Once she was alone on stage, Yukino didn't talk about forming groups; instead, the first thing she said was that we are superior to any other race.
Some might have expected someone to argue, but that didn't happen. Instead, all the people in the seats stood up and applauded, including me, because after all, I think like her too.
In this world where the human will is on the brink of collapse, the solution of the empire's leaders was to instill human supremacy—the supremacy of humans over any existing species. Even if it means dying for our fellow humans, it's worth it. That is the empire's motto.