The air inside the Global Security Council regional hub tasted of ozone and filtered antiseptic, a cold, clinical weight that pressed against the lungs. Kaelen stood on the scanning plate, her boots clicking against the polished obsidian floor, feeling the invisible fingers of the Soul-Aura Reader probing into her very marrow. The machine hummed—a low, predatory vibration that seemed to judge her ancestors before it even reached her soul.
Deep within her, the Martial God Chu-mu was frantic. He pulled his celestial essence inward, shrinking into a speck of nothingness smaller than a dust mote. He knew that if the GSC sensors caught even a shimmer of the "Atmospheric Void" that clung to Kaelen like a second skin, the alarms wouldn't just ring; they would scream across the planet.
The machine let out a tinny, mocking ping.
[REGISTRATION COMPLETE]
Rank: F (Lowest Tier)
Potential: Negligible
Note: "Recommended for manual labor or low-risk logistics."
The clerk behind the desk, a man whose skin was the color of old parchment and who smelled faintly of stale coffee, didn't even lift his head. He flicked a cheap, grey plastic ID card across the counter. It skidded over the surface, coming to a rest near Kaelen's trembling hand.
"Next! Try not to get eaten by a slime, kid. We're short on paperwork today."
Kaelen gripped the card. The plastic dug into her palm, sharp and humiliating. She walked out of the hall, her heart a leaden weight, passing S-rank candidates who moved with the arrogance of young gods. They didn't see her. To them, she was already a ghost of the working class.
Back in the dusty yard of Ravi & Son, the sun was a bruising orange against the horizon. Kaelen sat on a splintering crate of onions, the pungent scent of earth and sulfur stinging her eyes. She stared at the F-Rank card as if it were a death sentence.
"Do not let their glass toys define you, Kaelen," the voice of Chu-mu vibrated within her skull, sounding like a resonant bronze bell struck in a deep cavern.
Kaelen sighed, her shoulders slumped. "It's hard not to, Master. The machine doesn't lie. I'm a zero. I'm a manual laborer in a world of Awakened heroes."
"The machine sees only what is permitted to be seen!" Master Chu-mu roared, his voice thick with a reverence she had never heard. "Listen to me, Disciple. You think you are weak? In my era, there was a man who didn't originate from the golden palaces or the noble clans of Jianghu. He was a 'Broken Meridian' child from the Southern Lands, born with nothing but a furnace of passion in his gut. Yet, he mastered every martial art in the Murim world—the righteous Orthodox blade styles that could split the moon, the forbidden Unorthodox soul-reaping arts, and even the Heavenly Demon Divine Arts that turn men into monsters. He subverted them all until the very source of demonic qi bowed to his whim like a scolded dog."
Kaelen looked up, her eyes widening. "A man did all that?"
"He did more," Chu-mu whispered, his voice dropping to a terrified, awe-stricken tone. "He was the one who performed the Severing of the Monsoon Heavens. When ten thousand lightning strikes—a divine tribulation—threatened to reset the world, the Sovereign found the noise distracting to his nap under a banyan tree. He performed the 'Void-Quenching Mudra,' and in one heartbeat, the clouds didn't just disperse; he deleted the concept of 'Storm' from the sky for three years. When the Five Emperors tried to poison his wine at a banquet, he drank the liquid death like it was spring water and turned their golden plates into raw dirt just to show them their empires were illusions built on dust."
Kaelen gripped her wooden training sword, her knuckles white. "Where is he now?"
"He unified the Murim by suppressing an entire army of Transcendent Masters simply by walking among them," Chu-mu continued, ignoring her question. "He froze their enmity with the 'Breath of the First Star.' I, a God of War, was left as dust on his feet. He even bestowed upon me some of his self-created techniques, secrets that make reality look like wet paper. And Kaelen... he was of your blood. He spoke of Prana. He moved with the grounded power of Kalaripayattu. He claimed only a cup of Chai could keep his mind grounded while he held the universe together."
"Is he still alive, Master?" Kaelen asked, her voice a desperate hope.
"If he is," Master Chu-mu whimpered, "He would likely be disguised as something so mundane the world would never notice. He always preferred the silence over the roar."
Kaelen stood up, her eyes burning. "I will find him, Master. I will become his disciple, even if I have to crawl to the ends of the universe."
Inside the shop, the air was still, heavy with the smell of turmeric and the rhythmic creak-creak of a plastic chair. Harish was balanced on two legs, a tattered newspaper held up like a shield against the world. He let out a yawn so long and deep that the streetlights outside flickered for a second, their filaments vibrating with the frequency of a dying star.
He felt it—a "mosquito" of intent. A sharp, rich, and arrogant focus was buzzing near his shop's perimeter.
'Another one,' he thought, his eyes scanning a headline about cricket scores. 'Why can't people just buy their lentils and leave? If this girl from the Agnihotri clan breaks my glass door with her 'prestige,' I'm going to make her father mop the entire district for a month. I just mopped that floor.'
He glanced at his hand—the same hand that had once "Severed the Monsoon Heavens" in a past life he had tried his best to forget. He used a fingernail to pick a stubborn piece of spinach out of his teeth, flicking it away with the indifference of a man who had seen galaxies born and die.
"Kaelen!" Harish shouted, his voice cracking with the annoyance of an older brother. "Stop hitting that tree! You're making the mangoes fall before they're ripe! Do you know how much a kilo of those costs? Go wash up; we have a 'rich' customer coming. I can smell the expensive perfume from here. Make sure we charge her double for the 'organic' turmeric—the stuff in the dented jar."
Kaelen dropped her wooden sword in the dirt. Her Hyper-Comprehension suddenly flared, a kaleidoscopic rush of data flooding her brain. For a micro-second, the "dumb clerk" in the shop vanished. She saw Harish not as her lazy brother, but as a towering mountain of shifting shadows that touched the stars, a silent void that made the universe feel small.
"Master Chu-mu..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "I think the Legend didn't go to the ends of the universe. I think he just came home for dinner."
Across the city, the Agnihotri Estate loomed like a fortress of dark marble. Inside the training hall, Shanthi Agnihotri watched her father, Vikramaditya (Four), with growing terror.
He was no longer the man who had raised her. His right arm was a shimmering, translucent limb of starlight and ink, a prosthetic made of cosmic energy that hummed with a sound like a thousand bees. He stood before a reinforced titanium pillar and made a casual "mopping" motion with his hand.
SHIIIING—
The pillar didn't break. It was erased. One moment there was a ton of solid metal; the next, there was a perfectly circular void in the air, a hole in reality that smelled of nothingness.
"Father..." Shanthi stepped into the light, her voice a thin reed. "Your power... your arm... what did you find in that slum?"
Vikramaditya turned. His eyes were wide, glassy, and haunted by a trauma that transcended physical pain. "I went to collect a debt from a clerk, Shanthi," he hissed, his voice a hollow rasp. "And I found the End of the World instead. He didn't kill me. He made me 'Clean.' He gave me this arm so I could properly 'mop the memories' of those who witness him."
"The Agnihotri Clan will have his head for this!" Shanthi shouted, her pride flaring.
Vikramaditya moved so fast she didn't see him. He grabbed her by the shoulders, his starlight-hand cold as the vacuum of space. "Silence! If you even think of his name with malice, the atmosphere will vanish from this room! He is the Atmospheric Void. He is the Origin. If you love your life, never go near that grocery store in xxxxxxxxxxx."
Shanthi backed away, her heart hammering against her ribs. Her father was a king of the underworld, yet he was terrified of a clerk in a lungi. She didn't feel fear; she felt a burning, dangerous curiosity.
"We'll see about that," she whispered to the shadows.
She began to prepare her undercover "investigation," unaware that she was walking straight into the event horizon of a black hole that didn't care for her status.