Before power chose its champions, before gods were challenged and stars were wounded, the world existed in a fragile balance.
It was called Eldros—a land where magic was not rare, merely uneven. Some were born beneath blazing constellations and touched the System early, while others lived entire lives without hearing its voice even once. Kingdoms rose on awakened bloodlines, and empires were measured not by land, but by the strength of those who could bend reality with will alone.
At the edges of these empires lay places like Kharrow.
Kharrow was not poor by accident. It was poor by design.
Situated beyond the eastern trade routes and shielded by fog-choked hills, the village survived precisely because it offered nothing worth taking. No mana veins. No relic ruins. No awakened families. Generations lived, worked, and died without ever seeing a single System window. Children were taught early that greatness belonged elsewhere.
Aren Vale grew up believing that.
He was the son of a woodcutter, raised among calloused hands and quiet endurance. His days were filled with routine—fetching water at dawn, repairing fences before dusk, listening to elders repeat the same stories of distant wars and legendary heroes who would never pass through Kharrow.
Aren listened politely.
But he always felt something was missing.
At night, when the fog thinned and the sky revealed itself, Aren would lie awake and stare at the stars. He did not know why, only that they stirred an ache he could not name. His mother once joked that he looked at the heavens like someone searching for an answer that had forgotten the question.
What none of them knew was that Eldros itself was changing.
Far beyond Kharrow, the System had begun accelerating awakenings. Ancient seals weakened. Forgotten entities stirred. The balance that kept villages like Kharrow invisible was eroding.
And above the northern mountains—far enough that no villager bothered to look—something unnatural had appeared.
A star that did not shine.
It was small, distant, and easily dismissed as illusion. But it remained fixed while the heavens turned, drinking light instead of reflecting it. Scholars in crystal towers would later name it the Black Star and argue over its origin.
In Kharrow, no one noticed.
No one except Aren.
On the evening before everything changed, he stood alone at the edge of the village, axe resting against his shoulder, and felt an unfamiliar pressure settle over the land. The wind slowed. Birds fled the trees. Even the fog seemed hesitant to advance.
Aren frowned, uneasy.
He could not explain it, but deep in his chest, something ancient shifted—like a door unlocking after centuries of silence.
Far away, powers that had shaped ages turned their attention toward a village that was never meant to matter.
And the world, indifferent and vast, took its first step toward breaking.
Kharrow slept.
The System did not.
Nor did the stars.