A large coastal city glittered below, beautiful glowing lights tracing the skyscrapers in the dark of night. Along the highway, luxury cars moved fast and loud without a care in the world as if consequences were only for the poor.
A matte-black Lamborghini blended in and roared down the road with the top down, low and aggressive like a stealth fighter on wheels. In the passenger seat, two stunning girls are squeezed together, staring back at the two luxury cars trying to catch up to them, laughing and holding on to each-other as the wind whips each one brunette and blonde long hair back. They both have their arm around other to keep balance, both leaning into the thrill of the speed as the brunette giggled with joy.
"Kael, you were right, those losers can't keep up with you!"
Kael, in the driver's seat rolled his eyes, as if it was an obvious thing and didn't say a word as if he was bored. Wind tore at his black hair and whipped it back from his forehead.
Under the passing streetlights, his face flashed in and out of clarity: sharp cheekbones, a mouth halfway to a smirk, and eyes so dark they seemed to drink the light rather than reflect it. His skin was pale, the kind of pallor that came not from illness but from overindulgence, too many late nights, too much smoke in luxury lounges, too many girls.
And yet, he was still handsome and charming, like a heartthrob celebrity that would have millions of fangirls checking his every move on social media.
In a sense, he was a celebrity as he belonged to the Highcrests, a family so influential that even though there was no official throne, if the Highcrests said they were the #2 family in the continent than no one would claim #1.
In the passenger seat, the brunette giggling a little too loudly, was Selene Lynwood. Small freckles on the bridge of her nose, and eyes so green they looked almost jeweled, wearing a skirt that showcased her perfect legs. She looked like the gold standard pretty and popular girl of school. Her laugh had a bright, musical edge, like she had been raised with everything at her fingertips, with the utmost care in the world that allowed her to be careless.
In fact, she was raised with everything. Selene was a Lynwood, born into one of the oldest noble houses on the continent, a family whose crest still hung in great halls and whose name was written into treaties, charters, and the history of half the realm. She'd been raised between an ancestral estate and the capital's most guarded districts, taught languages, etiquette, and politics long before she was old enough to care. But at eighteen, Selene wasn't interested in court games or the weight of legacy. She wanted late nights, reckless joy, and the kind of freedom she'd only ever heard about, and Kael provided exactly that.
Beside Selene sat an innocent and beautiful looking girl with a blonde ponytail that kept slipping loose as the car jolted and surged. Her face had a pleasing blush and was softer, but just as alluring as Selene's, her demeanor quieter.
Julia was shy by nature, the kind of girl who watched more than she spoke, but the speed had shaken her out of any careful restraint. She had both arms wrapped tightly around Selene's thin waist, clinging to her as if afraid the next sharp turn would send her flying. If Selene hadn't begged her to come, she wouldn't have risked her life like this. Her grip was desperate, almost pleading, yet her eyes told a different story.
The stunning golden/yellowish eyes slightly squinted from the wind, not frightened, but strangely alive, like she was scared and thrilled in the very same breath, letting out a laugh as she saw her friends trying to catch up from behind in their Ferrari and Porsche.
Kael looked to the right at the two stunningly beautiful girls in his passenger seat and shook his head at his fortune.
He has already kissed Selene, but she stopped him after he tried to go further. Noticing the frustration on his face, she told him that she had a gift for him tomorrow if he won the racing competition they had set up between their friends.
Kael didn't know what the gift was but looking at the two girls together he couldn't help to let his thoughts wander.
Shaking off his thoughts, he tapped the accelerator and the Lamborghini surged forward, devouring the highway.
The city blurred into a smear of light. A salty breeze rolled in from the ocean, carrying the scent of salt and far-off rain.
Then in an instant, the air changed.
It was not gradual, not like weather. It was a hard, violent shift, as if reality itself had flinched.
Above the glittering coastal skyline, the night sky shuddered.
For a single heartbeat, the stars dimmed, as if something enormous had passed in front of them. The clouds, thin and high and barely visible moments ago, twisted into a spiral, tightening around a point that did not belong there. The darkness stretched, pulled taut like fabric, and then tore.
A seam split across the night sky.
Not lightning. Not a storm.
A raw, vertical gash of blinding white opened over the city, wide as a river and impossibly deep, like the sky had been peeled back to reveal something that was not meant for human eyes. The edges of the tear burned with strange light. Fractured halos. Shimmering bands of light that bent in ways that made the mind recoil.
For a second, the city below kept moving as if nothing had happened.
Cars still raced.
LED signs still pulsed.
Music still thumped behind tinted windows.
Then the sound hit.
A low, impossible hum that did not enter through the ears. It crawled straight into bone. Every streetlight flickered. Everything electrical malfunctioned. Every window in every skyscraper caught the same reflected glare, turning the city into a thousand mirrors.
And then it descended.
White mist poured out of the tear like a waterfall made of sunlight.
It was not just light. It was presence. Weight. Intention.
It cascaded over the coastline, over the towers, over the highways, over everything living. It struck the ocean first, and the water erupted in a wide, silent bloom, waves freezing mid-motion for a fraction of a second as if the sea itself was stunned.
Then it washed across the land.
Across the city.
Across the people.
Every living being felt it.
Not as fear.
Not as heat.
But as something ancient reaching down and touching the core of their existence.
In hospitals, patients gasped awake.
In nightclubs, dancers stopped moving.
In penthouses, the elite dropped their glasses.
In alleyways, the starving and forgotten stared up with tears they did not understand.
For a split second, the entire city, rich, poor, loved, abandoned, was equal.
Because the energy did not care about money.
It did not care about influence.
It simply recognized life and branded it.
On the highway, Kael's Lamborghini roared forward until the engine sputtered.
The dashboard lights exploded into warnings. The car did not die, not completely, but it faltered like an animal suddenly struck by instinctive dread.
Selene's laughter cut off.
Julia's grip tightened so hard it hurt.
And Kael. Kael's hands clenched on the wheel as the air inside the car thickened, charged with a pressure that made his skin prickle. His eyes flicked upward.
Even at full speed, even surrounded by the roar of engines and wind, he could feel the sky tearing open.
And something inside him, something he did not know was there, answered back.
The spiritual energy reached him like a wave.
It passed through the windshield as if glass did not exist.
It sank into his chest.
Into his blood.
Into his bones.
For a fraction of a second, Kael saw himself from the outside. He saw the shallow thrill, the smug certainty, the illusion of invincibility.
Is this what they call ego death?
Then the energy sank deeper.
And the world erupted into screams.
Not from the city.
From the souls of the people inside it.
Some fell to their knees, choking, as if their bodies could not contain what had entered them. Some laughed hysterically. Some went dead silent, eyes wide and blank, like puppets whose strings had been cut.
And some.
Some lit up.
A flicker beneath the skin. A faint glow in the eyes. A sudden, terrifying clarity.
The air itself began to sparkle with drifting particles, like ash floating upward instead of down. Streetlights stabilized, then burned brighter than before, their light sharpening into something too clean, too pure.
Far above, the tear widened.
And from within it, something moved.
Not a person.
Not a creature.
A shape. Vast, slow, and watching.
A presence that did not feel like it had come to save anyone.
It felt like it had come to choose.
The city glittered below, still beautiful, still alive, still ignorant of what it had been five minutes ago.
But the world had just been touched by the divine.
And nothing living would ever be normal again.