The light was everywhere.
Aarav tried to blink, but there was no body here—no eyes to close, no hands to raise, no heart to hammer against his chest. Just awareness, floating in an infinity of white.
Am I dead?
The thought came slowly. He grasped at memories, anchors in this sea of nothing.
Vayuna. His apartment on the forty-seventh level. The soft blue glow of his data-screens. His passion project—an evolutionary algorithm he'd been building in secret for two years. His mother's voice calling him for dinner. His father's heavy footsteps. His sister Mira's laughter.
Then the sky had torn open.
A wound in reality itself, bleeding light and sound and something else—something that pulled at the very core of his being.
And then nothing.
Until now.
WELCOME, SUMMONED ONE.
The voice was not sound. It was understanding, poured directly into his consciousness. Ancient. Vast. Terrifying in its impersonality.
YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN. YOUR WORLD IS ONE OF BILLIONS. YOU WILL NOW RECEIVE PURPOSE.
Aarav tried to speak, to ask questions. But he had no mouth, no voice. Only thought.
Chosen for what? Where is my family?
The voice did not answer. Instead, images flooded him.
A world. Seven continents, each vaster than all of Orion. Creatures that defied imagination: dragons whose wings blotted out the sun, forests that walked on ancient roots, mountains that breathed with the rhythm of some immense, sleeping life.
And beyond it all—a void. And in that void, things. Ships made of consumed realities. Armies that marched through nothing. Eyes like dying stars, watching. Waiting. Hungry.
AETHEL DIES.
The name crashed into him. Aethel. This world.
THE COSMIC DEVOURERS COME.
The images shifted. Worlds crumbling. Civilizations screaming. Gods falling, their divine light extinguished like candles in a hurricane.
THEY HAVE CONSUMED A THOUSAND WORLDS. THEY HUNGER FOR THE THOUSAND AND FIRST.
Aarav's thought-voice was steadier than he felt. And what am I?
YOU ARE THE SUMMONED. THE LORDS. EIGHT POINT FOUR BILLION SOULS, PLUCKED FROM YOUR WORLDS, GIVEN NEW PURPOSE.
YOU WILL RECEIVE TERRITORY. YOU WILL RECEIVE POWER.
YOU WILL DRAW YOUR TALENT.
The white light before him condensed. Swirled. Became a pillar of blazing gold that stretched beyond comprehension. Within it, he sensed infinite possibilities—strength, speed, magic, command, creation. All waiting.
REACH. DRAW. BECOME.
Aarav reached.
He had no hands, but he reached. The moment his consciousness touched the gold light—
Everything changed.
The pillar screamed.
Gold light turned to black, then white, then colors that had no names—hues that should not exist, that opened doors in his mind he hadn't known were there. Cracks spread through the pillar like lightning frozen in crystal, each fracture releasing something ancient, something that had been waiting.
Somewhere, he felt billions of voices cry out in confusion. Billions of Systems, all glitching for a fraction of a second.
And in his consciousness, something bloomed.
It was not a talent. It was a return—a piece of something ancient, something that had been waiting since before the first universe existed, for a mind that could understand it.
The pillar shattered.
The white void shattered.
Aarav fell.
---
He fell through colors and sounds that had no names. Through the screams of dying stars and the laughter of newborn gods.
And then—
He gasped.
Air. Real air, cold and sharp, filled his lungs. Ground. Real ground, hard and rocky, pressed against his back.
He opened his eyes.
Gray sky. Heavy with snow clouds. Mountains in the distance. And around him—a valley of ruin.
Broken walls. Crumbling huts. Fields gone to weed. And people—thin, desperate people—staring at him from doorways with eyes that held equal measures of hope and fear.
A man knelt at his side, weathered face creased with lines of hard living. He wore battered leather armor and carried a rusted sword.
"Lord," the man said, his voice rough. "You've come. The World Will promised a Lord would come."
Aarav sat up slowly, staring at his hands. His hands. Solid. Real. The same hands that had coded algorithms on Vayuna.
"I'm Aarav. Of Orion. What is this place?"
"You were Summoned, Lord. Like the others. The World Will brought you here to save us. To save Aethel."
Aethel. The name from the vision.
"The Devourers," Aarav whispered.
The man's face went pale. "You know of them?"
They have consumed a thousand worlds. The words echoed. They hunger for the thousand and first.
"I saw them," Aarav said quietly. "In the white place."
The man bowed his head. "Then you know why you're here, Lord. Eight billion saviors."
Aarav looked around the valley again. At the broken walls. The starving people. The howling in the distance.
"And we start here."
"It's... it's not much, Lord."
No. It wasn't.
[ AETHEL - COSMIC INTERFACE v.??? ]
[ HOST: AARAV OF ORION ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TERRITORY ASSESSMENT: THE UNTAMED VALLEY
├─ RANK: F
├─ POPULATION: 87
├─ FOOD: 12 CYCLES (AT CURRENT CONSUMPTION)
├─ DEFENSES: NEGLIGIBLE
└─ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY (NO INTERVENTION): 3.7%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The words appeared not before his eyes, but in his awareness—colder than the winter wind, more impersonal than the void itself.
What is this?
AETHEL.
Just that. One word. The name of the world, spoken like a god introducing itself.
A System? The vision mentioned—
AETHEL.
No elaboration. The world did not owe him answers.
What talent did I draw?
A pause. Longer than it should have been.
[ AETHEL - TALENT REGISTRY ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ERROR ]
[ ERROR ]
[ ERROR ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TALENT NOT FOUND IN COSMIC REGISTRY.
TALENT GRADE: UNCLASSIFIABLE.
TALENT ORIGIN: UNKNOWN.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ NOTE: YOU ARE THE FIRST. ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aarav's blood ran cold. The first? First what?
AETHEL.
No answer. But then, slowly, reluctantly—more information appeared.
[ AETHEL - TALENT: DESIGNATION PENDING ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ PROVISIONAL ANALYSIS ]
├─ GRADE: [ BEYOND MYTHICAL ]
├─ CATEGORY: [ NONE ]
├─ PRECEDENT: [ NONE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TALENT MECHANICS (INFERRED) ]
├─ ONCE PER CYCLE: EVOLVE ANY ENTITY IN YOUR TERRITORY
├─ EFFECT: ADVANCE TARGET BY EXACTLY ONE RANK
├─ SCOPE: LIVING BEINGS, STRUCTURES, WEAPONS, CROPS, RESOURCES
├─ PERMANENCE: ABSOLUTE AND IRREVERSIBLE
└─ COST: TERRITORIAL MANA
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ WARNING: THIS TALENT HAS NEVER BEEN OBSERVED. ]
[ WARNING: YOU ARE ALONE. ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"You've gone very still, Lord." Varen's voice broke through. "Are you well?"
Aarav looked at him. Really looked.
[ AETHEL - ENTITY ANALYSIS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TARGET: VAREN (NATIVE)
├─ RANK: F (FRAGILE)
├─ HEALTH: ADEQUATE
├─ LOYALTY: DEVOTED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The information came automatically. The System was part of him now. Cold. Impersonal. Always watching.
"I'm well," Aarav said, pushing himself to his feet. "Tell me everything about this valley. Every threat."
---
The survey took two hours.
What Aarav found was worse than he'd feared.
[ AETHEL - TERRITORY COMPLETE ASSESSMENT ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TERRITORY: THE UNTAMED VALLEY (RANK F)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ FOOD ]
├─ WHEAT FIELD: F-RANK (YIELD: INADEQUATE)
├─ STORED RATIONS: 12 DAYS
└─ PROJECTED SHORTFALL: -38 DAYS BEFORE WINTER ENDS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ DEFENSES ]
├─ PALISADE: E-RANK (40% DAMAGED)
├─ DEFENDERS: 23 ABLE-BODIED
└─ THREAT: BROKEN FANG GOBLIN TRIBE (~200)
├─ TIME TO OFFENSIVE: 14-21 DAYS
└─ CURRENT MILITARY CAPABILITY: 0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ RESOURCES ]
├─ WELL: E-RANK (ADEQUATE)
├─ IRON VEIN: UNTAPPED (3H EAST, GOBLIN TERRITORY)
├─ ANCIENT WOODS: E-RANK (2H SOUTH, GOBLIN TERRITORY)
└─ MANA POOL: 347/1000
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ACTIVE QUESTS ]
├─ PRIMARY: SURVIVE FIRST WINTER (54 DAYS)
├─ REGIONAL: ELIMINATE BROKEN FANG TRIBE (14-21 DAYS)
├─ WORLD EVENT: LORD RANKING COMPETITION (30 DAYS)
└─ PERSONAL: UNDERSTAND YOUR GIFT (0.01%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aarav stood at the damaged palisade, staring at the eastern tree line. The numbers scrolled through his awareness, cold and precise. Aethel did not offer comfort. It offered data.
"Varen, how often do the goblins raid?"
"Every few weeks, Lord. Testing. When they realize we have a Lord now... they'll come faster."
Fourteen days. Maybe twenty-one. Fifty-four days until winter. One evolution per day.
Food first. Then walls. Then soldiers.
He looked at the wheat field—trampled, half-harvested, struggling.
[ AETHEL - ENTITY ANALYSIS: WHEAT FIELD ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TARGET: WHEAT FIELD (F-RANK)
├─ YIELD: 3.2 UNITS PER CYCLE (INADEQUATE)
├─ HEALTH: POOR
└─ PROJECTED LIFESPAN: 3-4 CYCLES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ EVOLUTION SIMULATION: F → E ]
├─ YIELD: +300% (9.6 UNITS PER CYCLE)
├─ DISEASE RESISTANCE: +200%
├─ MANA COST: 300
└─ CURRENT MANA: 347/1000
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ WARNING: MANA WILL DROP TO CRITICAL LEVELS ]
[ WARNING: FULL RECOVERY: 38 CYCLES ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Varen, gather everyone at the field. One hour."
"What are you going to do, Lord?"
Aarav's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I'm going to evolve a wheat field."
---
An hour later, eighty-seven people stood in a loose circle around the field. Thin. Tired. Desperate. But their eyes held a flicker of something that might have been hope.
Aarav stood at the edge, one hand resting on the rough stalks. He could feel the mana now—a current of cold energy running beneath the soil, through the plants, connecting everything. It felt like the System itself. Impersonal. Vast. Waiting.
[ AETHEL - EVOLUTION PROTOCOL INITIATED ]
[ TARGET: WHEAT FIELD (F-RANK) ]
[ MANA COST: 300 ]
[ CONFIRM? Y/N ]
Yes.
Power surged through him.
It came from somewhere deep in his core—a place he hadn't known existed. It flowed down his arm, through his hand, into the wheat. And as it flowed, he felt connection. The field wasn't just dirt and plants anymore. It was his.
The wheat began to glow.
Soft green at first, barely visible. Then brighter, spreading like fire through dry grass. The people gasped, stumbled back, but Aarav held on, pouring his will into the transformation.
[ AETHEL - EVOLUTION IN PROGRESS ]
├─ MANA CONSUMPTION: 47%... 62%... 88%...
├─ CELLULAR RESTRUCTURING: 34%... 59%... 91%...
└─ ESTIMATED COMPLETION: 12 SECONDS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The stalks thickened. Grew taller. New shoots erupted from the soil, pushing upward with visible speed. The color deepened from pale yellow to rich, healthy emerald.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it stopped.
The light faded.
Silence.
[ AETHEL - EVOLUTION COMPLETE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TARGET: WHEAT FIELD ]
├─ PREVIOUS RANK: F
├─ CURRENT RANK: E
├─ YIELD: 12.8 UNITS PER CYCLE (+300%)
├─ DISEASE RESISTANCE: HIGH
└─ SOIL HEALTH: REGENERATING
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TERRITORIAL MANA: 47/1000 ]
[ NEXT EVOLUTION AVAILABLE: 23H 47M ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aarav opened his eyes.
Before him stretched a wheat field that belonged in a farmer's dream. Lush. Dense. Heavy with grain that seemed almost to glow. Three times the size it had been.
A woman fell to her knees, weeping. A man laughed—actually laughed, a sound so unexpected that several people flinched. Children ran forward, stopping at the edge, staring with wide eyes.
Varen approached slowly, his weathered face working through emotions Aarav couldn't name. "Lord, that was... that was..."
"It was one field," Aarav said, but he was smiling now. A real smile. "Tomorrow, we do the palisade. The day after, we find someone worth evolving into a soldier. One step at a time."
He looked at the people—his people now, his responsibility—and felt something settle in his chest. Purpose. Determination.
Behind him, the howling came again from the eastern woods. Closer this time. Hungrier.
But for the first time since he'd arrived in Aethel, Aarav didn't flinch.
[ AETHEL - SYSTEM STATUS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ HOST: AARAV OF ORION ]
[ TERRITORY: THE UNTAMED VALLEY (RANK F) ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TALENT: UNKNOWN ]
├─ GRADE: BEYOND MYTHICAL
├─ USES REMAINING (TODAY): 0/1
├─ NEXT USE: 23H 47M
└─ NOTE: NOT RECOGNIZED BY COSMIC REGISTRY
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TERRITORY STATUS ]
├─ FOOD: ADEQUATE (+12 DAYS AT REDUCED RATIONS)
├─ MORALE: HOPEFUL (+5% PRODUCTIVITY)
├─ SECURITY: VULNERABLE (GOBLIN THREAT: 14-21 DAYS)
├─ MANA POOL: 47/1000 (CRITICAL)
└─ MANA RECOVERY: 8 UNITS PER DAY
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ KEY ASSETS ]
├─ VAREN (CAPTAIN): F-RANK (LOYALTY: DEVOTED)
├─ WHEAT FIELD: E-RANK (NEWLY EVOLVED, ABUNDANT)
├─ PALISADE: E-RANK (40% DAMAGED)
├─ IRON VEIN: UNTAPPED (GOBLIN TERRITORY)
└─ POPULATION: 87 (ALL F-RANK)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ACTIVE QUESTS ]
├─ PRIMARY: SURVIVE FIRST WINTER (54 DAYS) - 2%
├─ REGIONAL: ELIMINATE BROKEN FANG TRIBE (14-21 DAYS)
├─ WORLD EVENT: LORD RANKING COMPETITION (30 DAYS)
│ └─ YOUR RANK: 4,872,331,009 / 8,400,000,000
└─ PERSONAL: UNDERSTAND YOUR GIFT - 0.01%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ COSMIC REGISTRY - MYTHICAL TALENT HOLDERS ]
├─ TOTAL: 8,400 / 8,400,000,000 (0.0001%)
├─ #3: SERAPHINA VANE - ANGELIC LEGION
├─ #4: DRAKOS BLACKWOOD - DRAGON BLOODLINE
├─ #5: ELARA MISTBORN - ELEMENTAL UNITY
└─ YOUR STATUS: NOT LISTED (TALENT UNCLASSIFIED)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ FINAL NOTE ]
[ YOU ARE THE FIRST. ]
[ YOU ARE ALONE. ]
[ WORLD 'S WILL WATCHES. ]
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End of Chapter 1
Next Chapter: The Wall Must Hold