Sunny immediately understood that what he was seeing could not be real.
This had to be an illusion.
The air around him felt wrong—too still, too heavy, as if the world itself were only pretending to exist. The house, the window, the cage surrounding everything outside… none of it felt natural. It was like stepping into a dream built from fear and memory.
Then a shadow moved.
Sunny's eyes sharpened at once.
From the darkness ahead, one of the shifter-like creatures he had once killed slowly emerged. Its body was twisted and unnatural, its limbs jerking with eerie stiffness. The sight of it sent a chill down Sunny's spine. He remembered how difficult it had been to kill that creature the first time. Back then, even surviving had felt like a miracle.
And now it was here again.
Before he could fully react, another figure appeared.
Then another.
A Kreal servant stepped out of the darkness, its presence oppressive and suffocating. Behind it came a bird-like creature Sunny had never personally fought before, but he guessed Prime Shifter must have killed it while he was still with Sunny. Then a horse-like beast emerged, snorting dark mist, its eyes glowing with malice.
One after another, different creatures appeared before him.
Sunny's heart pounded.
Every one of them represented a creature that had died somewhere along his path.
He narrowed his eyes.
"So this is your game?" he muttered. "Is this the work of the Illusion Master?"
Instead of panicking, Sunny chose to check his profile.
At once, the familiar information appeared before him.
Legacy Name: God of the Universe
Legacy Lineage: Lineage of Zeus, Lineage of Demon
Lineage Rank: Empyrean, Abyssal Demon
Legacy Realm: Demi- Exalted
Legacy Relics: Indestructible Spear, Ivy bear charm, Angel Spirit
Legacy Powers: Illusion Master, Open Thought, Emotional Sense, Mental Whisper, Focus Surge, Mental Push, Memory Glimpse, Calm Mind, Psychic Awareness
Legacy Feature: Exalted Burn
Legacy Flow: Flawless
Legacy Skills: Soul Organ Attack
Fitness: 36/100
Lifespan: 0/200
Soul Shard: 1/30,000
Sunny stared at the words, but one detail made his body go cold.
Lineage of Demon.
He had known about Zeus
He had seen hints of strange changes in himself.
But demon?
That word alone made him shiver.
Still, this was not the time to freeze. The illusion was still around him, and the dead creatures were watching as if waiting for a command—or perhaps for his fear.
Sunny raised his hand and activated one of his new powers.
Illusion Master.
The world around him distorted instantly.
The fake house, the false walls, the cage outside the window—all of it shattered like fragile glass. The illusion peeled away layer by layer, revealing another space beneath it.
Sunny found himself standing inside his spirit sea.
The dead creatures were still there.
They stood in silence, staring at him, unmoving, almost obedient. It was no longer like they wanted to attack him. It felt as though they were waiting for him to decide what they were.
Sunny took a slow breath.
Then he tried something else.
"Angel Spirit," he called.
A dark vapor appeared before him.
It floated in the air like black smoke, thick and mysterious, shifting constantly but never taking a clear shape. Sunny frowned. He expected more, but all he saw was vapor.
Then the realm sorcery whispered into his ear:
Angel Spirit, Imp State, Gas Form. Shards: 0/50.
Sunny blinked.
"Shards?" he murmured.
The explanation was incomplete, but he understood enough. Whatever Angel Spirit truly was, he could not fully use it yet. He needed fifty shards, and right now he had none.
With a quiet sigh, he dismissed the dark vapor.
Then he turned toward the creatures.
One of them—a Kreal servant—suddenly rushed toward him.
Sunny remained calm.
"Stop."
The creature froze instantly.
His eyes widened slightly.
So they really were under his control here.
He turned to the figure of his mother, who had appeared among the dead forms with hollow eyes and lifeless stillness.
"Hug me," Sunny said softly.
She stepped forward without resistance and wrapped her arms around him.
For a moment, Sunny did not move.
Even knowing this was only a construct born from his spirit and illusion, he still felt something twist painfully inside his chest. A deep loneliness. A longing he could not easily put into words. He closed his eyes briefly, then gently stepped back.
One by one, he dismissed them all.
The creatures vanished.
His false mother vanished.
Silence returned.
Now alone, Sunny looked deeper into his spirit sea—and immediately noticed something impossible.
There were three spirit cores.
He froze.
Every person was supposed to have only one spirit core. Sen had told him that before. It was common knowledge.
But floating within his spirit sea were three distinct spherical cores.
The first shone with radiant white light.
The second was dark—so dark it seemed to drink in everything around it.
The third glowed with a bluish brilliance, strange and uncertain, unlike anything he had ever seen.
Sunny stared at them in disbelief.
"How…" he whispered.
He had no answer.
He did not know when they had formed.
He did not know what they meant.
And he definitely did not know whether this was a blessing or a disaster.
Before he could think further, the spirit sea faded.
The next moment, Sunny opened his eyes and found himself lying on a hospital bed.
His head was heavy, but his vision slowly cleared.
He saw Han.
He saw Tomu.
And, to his surprise, he also saw Sen.
"He's awake," Han said immediately.
Tomu's face looked green with irritation. Without saying anything, she turned and walked out of the room.
Sen looked relieved, but only for a moment. Then his expression sharpened.
"What exactly were you thinking," Sen asked, "when you decided to spy on Han?"
Sunny stared at him in shock.
"How do you know that?" he asked. "And why am I in a hospital bed?"
Han stepped forward first.
"Just when I was about to be killed, you stepped in and saved me," he said. "You struck the humanoid angel, even after it transformed into that five-meter form. Then you collected the golden key… and after that, you collapsed."
Sunny listened in stunned silence.
Han continued, "At first I thought you died. I activated my third eye, and I saw that an unknown weight was crushing you. Sen told me it was Heavenly Burden—his flaw. I carried you back to the shelter, but Tomu was angry and refused at first. I had to plead with him to heal you. After that, I brought you back to the human world while you were still unconscious. Tomu helped too."
Sunny was speechless.
So using Sen's power had nearly killed him.
Sen spoke again, repeating his earlier question with a colder tone.
"Why were you spying on Han?"
Sunny hesitated, then answered honestly.
"I wanted to know why he saved me in the sanctuary," he said, "and why he didn't use his vampire power to defeat me during the sparring event."
The room went silent.
Sen looked at Han.
Han looked down.
Then, without another word, Sen turned and quickly left with Han beside him.
Sunny stared after them, stunned.
A realization hit him heavily.
Sen had done all of this because of him.
Before Sunny could call them back or ask what that really meant, they were already gone.
The next day, Sunny went to the holographic game center.
He wanted answers, but more than that, he wanted to test his limits.
Once inside the machine, the familiar forest appeared around him.
Then the monsters came.
Sunny summoned the Indestructible Spear and activated three of his newer powers: Focus Surge, Calm Mind, and Mental Push.
His mind became sharp and still.
His emotions settled.
The fear that usually built in overwhelming battles disappeared like smoke.
The monsters rushed him all at once, but Sunny no longer fought them like a desperate initiate. This time, he fought with structure, precision, and control.
He used Mental Push subtly, disrupting the AI monsters' decision-making. Their movements became unstable. Their attacks began to clash with one another. Some injured themselves trying to strike him. Sunny moved with clean footwork and used Dashing Spear again and again, striking where they were weakest.
His body flowed through combat.
Each movement led into the next.
Each dodge created a trap.
Each thrust forced the battlefield to obey him.
Outside the simulator, Fengli had entered the monitoring room.
When he saw Sunny fighting, he stopped in shock.
He watched the screen carefully, unable to look away.
Sunny was not just surviving.
He was controlling the pace of the entire battle.
For someone at his level, that was absurd.
Fengli could hardly believe it. When he himself had been at Sunny's stage, he had failed repeatedly before mastering even a fraction of that kind of battlefield structure.
Inside the simulation, the fight grew fiercer.
Sunny kept using Dashing Spear at high speed, placing himself exactly where he wanted to be. The creatures followed his flow, not realizing they were being manipulated.
Then, at the height of the battle, while Sunny's attention was focused on one target, a newly spawned monster struck from a blind spot.
Everything went black.
Sunny was eliminated.
When he came out of the simulator, he was breathing hard, but smiling.
He collected the printed result.
Skill Range: Intermediate
Pressure Skill Completion: 70%
Recommended Skill: Lock Manipulation
Practice Begins: Tomorrow
Estimated Completion: One Month
Sunny's eyes lit up with satisfaction.
He had done far better than before.
Soon, he would officially enter Level Two Initiate Training.
What he did not know was that the simulation he had just cleared to that degree was already considered Level Two difficulty, not Level One.
Meanwhile, Fengli had recorded the entire fight.
Impressed and unable to keep it to himself, he uploaded the video to LifeNet, the popular platform where people posted battles, training clips, and combat analysis.
Since Fengli was already well known, the video exploded with attention almost immediately.
Comments flooded in:
"Who is this guy?"
"Look at how he planned the whole fight."
"I watched his match with our favorite internet goddess, Tomu. I thought he won by luck, but now I'm not so sure."
"His power feels like he's bending the enemy's decisions."
"This focus is insane."
"There's no way he's just a normal initiate."
"Level Two monsters are hard even for advanced initiates."
"The way he made the AI injure themselves was crazy."
"He lost at the end, but no way the machine gives him less than Intermediate."
"This guy is going to be famous."
Sunny, of course, knew none of this.
He simply folded the result paper in his hand and walked away, quietly satisfied with his improvement.
But without realizing it, that battle had become the first real step in his rise.
The first spark.
The first moment the world had begun to notice his name.