The year was 2100 A.D.
Humanity had finally broken the chains of its cradle.
Interstellar travel was no longer a dream whispered in science fiction—it was reality. Massive exploration fleets crossed the dark oceans of space, probing distant stars, charting unknown regions, and searching for new resources and habitable worlds. Humanity believed the universe was finally opening its gates.
But what they found was not a new world.
It was a waiting thing.
At the very edge of the solar system, far beyond Pluto's orbit, long-range deep-space scanners detected an anomaly—something that should not exist. It had never appeared on Earth's observatories, never reflected light, never emitted energy. As if the universe itself had been hiding it.
A black structure.
An obelisk monolith.
Perfectly smooth. Perfectly vertical. Floating in absolute silence, unmoving, untouched by time.
No radiation.
No heat signature.
No known material composition.
Just presence.
As the exploration ship Voyager IX approached, every system onboard began malfunctioning—sensors glitching, AI stuttering, quantum drives destabilizing. And yet, the monolith did nothing.
It simply waited.
When humanity made first contact, the universe blinked.
For less than a nanosecond, the entire solar system shook.
Not an explosion.
Not destruction.
Not light.
A pulse.
A silent wave that passed through space, planets, and matter itself.
The world did not end.
But the world changed.
Across every planet in the solar system, portals appeared.
On Mars.
On the Moon.
On orbital stations.
And most of all—
On Earth.
The sky split open.
The earth quaked. The continents moved. This caused a major catastrophe all over the world. But the real danger came later.
Gates of unknown energy tore through cities, oceans, forests, and mountains. From them came creatures that did not belong to any known ecosystem—monsters, beings of unknown biology, unknown laws, unknown origin.
Nations fell in days.
Civilization burned in weeks.
The old world order shattered.
At the beginning humans were able to fend off the creatures albeit barely.
Nations with weak military fell. The remaining banded together against this exernal threat.
As humanity was about to plunge in darkness a ray of hope appeared.
People started to awaken. They gained powers with a wide range of diversity. Some boosting strength while others providing powers like controlling fire and bringing storm st will. The entire human power structure changed.
There was a dawn of a new era. The awakened humans with their remaining military strength fought back. Nuclear weapons were used exhasting all reserves. It would have been catastrophic if it had been done previously but the new earth withstood it. It was covered by a strange energy which made it far more resilient than before. Humans called it aether.
Humanity survived.
Survivors gathered into heavily fortified Safe Zones—isolated human territories protected by walls, energy barriers, and elite defenders. Outside those zones, the world no longer belonged to humans.
It belonged to the new ecosystem.
Monsters ruled the lands.
Portals ruled reality.
And the unknown ruled fate.
Earth was no longer just a planet.
It had become a battlefield.
A hunting ground.
A proving world.
And far beyond the stars…
The black obelisk still floated in silence.
Unmoving.
Watching.
Waiting.
Because the discovery was never an accident.
It was an invitation.
And humanity had already accepted it.