Apollo didn't wake up to a celebration of his new sponsor. Or to a divine chorus praising him. Certainly no sympathetic voice consoling him through his "hostile" transformation.
Not even close.
He was still trapped in his personal hell-hole; a waste-drenched alley, neighbours with an overflowing bin, sacks of bloated rubbish, and a face pressed against an old sock.
Embarrassingly, this was becoming the only place he could call home. A sigh escaped his punctured lips.
He certainly wasn't ready for any guests to come over.
'Not that I know of anyone who could come over.'
An unyielding throbbing in his skull told him the questionable scenery was the least of his problems; his body felt as though it were shredded and stitched back up by multiple jagged, blunt knives. The pain was immediate, and eating wholly at whatever sanity he had left.
[User Synchronisation Failed]
[Percent Absorbed: 3%]
[Allowing User to employ Skill: "Zero"]
His vision didn't only return, it was like his brain had been plugged straight into a live wire, and now every discarded soda can was screaming in 4k UHD. Every light was too blindingly bright, every shadow too desparingly deep, every colour erupted into fifty different shades that carved into his brain.
It certainly wasn't "beautiful." It was a tactical assault against his shattered nervous system.
Worst of all, his chance of sleeping in was eviscerated. He'd been looking forward to a week of mastering the art of doing nothing. But the System seemingly didn't have the word "patience" in its vocabulary.
Embraced in the world's disgusting intimacy, he could even discern the individual pattering of rat feet on the asphalt and the unique smell of every condiment packet he used to flavour his uninspiring "cuisine" of rotten fruit and pathetic bread. The subtle switch from slightly windy to- well, suspiciously less windy?
And then there was the liquid drenching him, whatever it was. But strangely, he couldn't feel the "juices" sticking against his skin?
'Not that I would want to. Gross.'
He wasn't sure if the puddle was rain mixed with fruit rot or the dinner he'd tried to "delight" himself with the night before. The thought made him shudder. Which was a mistake. Shuddering hurt.
I guess some mysteries really were definitely better left unsolved...
Focus, he told himself. He tried getting up, but the agony gave him no break. Strangely, an uncanny feeling coursed through him despite his lacklustre situation.
A smirk tugged at his dejected face.
He lifted his battered arm. Beneath the mud caking it, there was nothing about his figure that seemed wrong. All five fingers, no massive gaps, a pathetic lack of muscle, and his elbow bent the right way. But inside... There was a silence that felt like a profound scream. A hollow energy emanated from his core. What flowed through his veins wasn't blood, but a lack of... something.. Anything..
[User Body Insufficient]
A bright red screen flashed. And pain spiked as if thousands of needles punctured his body from every angle.
'What the hell do you mean, insufficient?' he snarled. 'Are you my Mum or what?'
[User Body cannot withstand Skill: "Zero"]
That was all that his mind computed before hell came crashing down again.
And the world did come crashing down.. His dreams.. Dreams?
'Wait.. What?'
A slow, yet steady talk.
A calm, yet powerful order.
It came from both everywhere and nowhere all at once, he tried turning his head but to no avail.
An uneasy feeling of dread flooded his mind, or whatever cracked piece was left after his short overstimulation.
"Apollo Luminara, I hereby declare.. You and whatever sympathy you scraped up from those in insufferable situations beneath us-"
Cold dread pierced him..
"Here? Why the hell here!?" He shouted out, but alas.. His voice carried no weight, a simple tone washed out by a potent force.
"Leave." It was simple, precise.. And all that took to break him completely.
In the Luminara household, the fourteenth birthday wasn't a party, it was a job interview with the universe, as if there wasn't much to do.
You stood in the Solar Chamber, draped in white silk that cost more than a commoner's house,
'It had been passed down for generations, though I'm not sure which generation last cleaned it'
, and waited for a "Sponsor", a celestial entity or primordial pressure, to reach down from above.. Or where ever they actually lived, and hungrily claim you.
Most Luminaras were snapped up within seconds; Fire gods, Light spirits, even a peripheral sun-deity if you were having a slow day.
Of course that slow day would tax onto the rest of your life, forever labeled as useless, not sought after, and just straight up weak..
Apollo's fourteenth came and went in a deafening, embarrassing silence.
"Technical glitch," he'd joked to his brother, who had just been sponsored by a High spirit of Illumination. "The gods are probably just stuck in traffic. Big traffic jam on the astral plane. You know how it is."
It would have been better if he spat in his face, the silence sliced at him..
Then came fifteen..
Then sixteen...
The magic system was clear, you had until eighteen for a sponsor. But the Luminara family didn't do "last minute". To them, a two-year delay wasn't a slow start,
It was a defective product.
"We are a house of beacons, Apollo," his father had said, standing at the head of the Great Table.
He wasn't looking at Apollo; he was looking at the empty space where a Sponsor's mark should have been glowing on Apollo's neck, shame seared Apollo's face as he tried to look down.. Yet he simply couldn't.
"A beacon that doesn't shine has better uses."
"Technically," Apollo had started, his voice cracking just enough to break the bravado he tried to build up, "The law says I have until eighteen. I just need time to-"
"You need to leave," his father interrupted. The words were cold, devoid of the burning fire and more like Winter's icy dread. "You are sixteen. You've had three ceremonies. You've sat in the Solar Chamber for a combined total of ninety-six hours, and not even a low-level imp has so much as looked at you. You are trash. Real human trash."
He was escorted to the gates by family guards, men he'd grown up with, who now looked at him like he was a contagious disease.
As the massive gold-leafed gates of the Luminara estate slammed shut behind him, Apollo stood in the rain, his expensive designer shirt soaking through. Proving not to be waterproof, a shame for the price that was paid for it..
"Well," he muttered, shivering as he looked at the dark, looming skyline of the citadel. It's bright lights and bold advertisements breaking the the horizon "Eighteen is overrated anyway. Who wants to be sponsored by a fiery, tempered fire god when you can be sponsored by.. Uh... A very persistent case of hypothermia?"
'But the joke was over now huh?'
Time flashed by as he struggled on the streets.. The name Luminara that he carried on his back only became a burden.
Becoming something he came to loathe..
But everyone else loved them, as Apollo sunk deeper and deeper in his self made hole- Luminara only grew further. His brothers becoming renown heroes. The clan itself embodied venerability as they struggled forward on the frontline of the world tree.. Representing humanity as a whole.
It made sense for them to discard the weak links.
'Only made sense..' Repeated gradually, yet made no effect on him, as he sunk further and further down..
His only saving grace was that his sponsor would be powerful,
So incredibly potent that he could wipe out the Luminaras in one fell swoop..
...And so birthed his disappointment, laced with a quiet, jagged kind of malice.
He had spent years waiting for a god to look at him, only to realize that the gods didn't want him. They were afraid of him. Or perhaps, they just didn't recognize him. Because while his brothers were busy being beacons, Apollo was becoming the very thing that beacons were meant to keep at bay.
[Biological Reinforcement Complete]
[User Body Adjusted to Minimum Threshold]
The red screen vanished, replaced by a deep, abyssal violet text that pulled at his vision, like a black hole sucking in his emotions of malice and greed.
[Skill: "Zero" is now active]
[Current Sponsor: The End of the Line]
Apollo looked down at his mud-slicked hands. The pain hadn't left, but it had changed. It was no longer a weight; it was a weapon. He stood up, the movement fluid and silent, like a shadow stretching across a grave. The pain seemed to have been subsided
'Hypothermia was a bad joke' he thought, testing the cold hunger in his chest. I think I liked the silence better when it wasn't answering me back.
[User is Ready to Challenge "Internal Domain" to Create First Domain]
[Will you Accept?]
A cold laugh lapped in his face as he read the screen..
'Internal Domain? Hah, His voice turning gravely dark.
"Yes, and hurry up, you wouldn't want a 1-star review for buffering would you?"
As he clicked 'Accept' in the theatre of his mind, the alleyway didn't fade, it simply ceased to be. exist. The smell of the rotten fruit, the patter of the rats, and the damp cold of the rain were deleted.
He wasn't standing in a new world. He was standing in his world.. And he would conquer it all the same.
"Start running Luminara.. The all powerful 'Nothing' is coming for you" As he dramatically tripped over the first step of the staircase. Face first on the red golden carpet..
"Dammit" He muttered inwardly.