Not long after everything happened, the storm clouds over the small city started to clear, revealing the soft light of dawn. At the same time, five planes appeared on the horizon, heading straight for the building.
Rhea sighed and walked over to the window as several figures rushed in. They glanced at the three in the back, then at her, quickly asking what had happened.
She kept it short. "Those two are the brothers of the rookie I was guiding. They were the ones who awakened."
"The Altar reported two ancestral awakenings!" one woman said seriously.
"Yes, I confirm it," Rhea replied, and the group collectively forgot how to breathe. "Don't worry. They'll go to the capital with their brother and live with him from now on. I'll be responsible for recruiting them."
The newcomers cast one last look at the three in the back, then at the bloody mess around the room. They were clearly stunned and deep in thought.
"We'll head back and confirm it. You need to come too and write a report." The woman said. Without another word, everyone nodded and left.
Well, almost everyone. One guy stayed behind. He was good-looking, about the same age as Darian, with short black hair and grayish-blue eyes like Rhea's.
"Mom... what the hell..." He muttered, but she just nodded. "Let's go back. We won't need to use the Artifacts."
Rhea turned toward Darian and his siblings. As soon as she got close, she stopped, shocked...
She activated her power, and a yellowish glow appeared in her eyes. She could feel a dense and pure healing energy inside the two.
It was restoring their bodies completely. The process only took five seconds, and by the end, all their physical wounds were gone.
Darian let out a breath. "They were just lightly injured and super malnourished. Looks like those bastards didn't have time to do anything worse..."
The guy behind them noticed something. He crouched down and picked up two small black needles from the bloodstained floor.
"These are Mind-Hell Needles," he said gravely. "I heard a lot of them showed up recently in the market, coming from the Celestial Order Empire."
Rhea nodded. "They couldn't hurt them too much, or it'd ruin the effect of the artifact they were planning to use. These needles destroy the mind but let you record all the memories to be analyzed later with another artifact. It's some sinister stuff from a demon-dominated universe."
Darian scoffed, pissed. In today's world, if someone had the money, they could easily buy all kinds of Artifacts on the black market.
They all came from other universes—unnatural things with weird effects. Using the stuff Spiritual Guardians earned by helping in other universes, the empires were allowed to bring these Artifacts over.
Rhea motioned for the guy to keep the needles, then turned to Darian:
"Earth's empires have different policies about Artifacts. In New Arcadia, where we live, only High Humans get access to them. But other empires sell some stuff to the underworld or to whoever can pay. Plus, there's smuggling from other planets in our universe. In the end, it's basically impossible to stop this stuff from spreading."
Darian scoffed again. Life was already tough enough for regular humans, and now there were unpredictable things like this everywhere? He himself had bought that poison earlier without having any clue where it came from. No normal human knew.
The strongest combat Artifacts were probably reserved for Spiritual Guardian missions. But other weird and useful items were thrown around recklessly by the Empires.
"Let's go," Rhea said, helping Darian carry his siblings outside.
They boarded a plane and calmly took off toward the capital.
During the flight, Darian turned to Rhea and asked the question that wouldn't leave his mind:
"What do you know about this ancestral awakening?"
Rhea looked at the two twins thoughtfully, then answered seriously, "It's super rare these days. I've only heard of one happening almost a hundred years ago. But in the past, when there were no Spiritual Guardians yet, this happened to all the first awakeners."
She paused before going on:
"It still happens, but as you can imagine, anyone who goes through this becomes something totally abnormal and powerful. And now… two of them awakened at the same time."
Darian narrowed his eyes. "What exactly makes them so special, practically speaking? You guys must've studied this a lot."
"Yeah. They awaken with a natural blessing and a fully developed spiritual root. Basically, the entrance test doesn't matter to them. Actually, they don't even need a Summoner—but they still make a contract anyway, which helps Mannaz a lot. That's why a selection happens in that universe to pick their partner."
Rhea noticed the look on Darian's face twisting and added:
"Yeah, they're a scary and unfair cheat. All six Celestial Altars send out a warning to the Empires and reveal the location of a new awakener the moment they show up. Over time, we figured out how to identify an ancestral awakening. So they don't need to take the test if they don't want to. I mean, they already have a blessing. Why risk their lives in such a dangerous place?"
And so, they kept flying back toward the imperial city, with Darian staying quiet.
He was deep in thought about everything he'd learned, everything he'd experienced, and especially... about this little planet humans called Earth.
Right after arriving in the city, the first thing Darian asked for was all the history of Earth he could possibly get his hands on.
***
In the middle of the 21st century, that's when Earth finally collapsed.
Unexplainable phenomena broke out all over the world. No matter how hard the governments tried to cover things up, it became impossible to deny. Some people said Earth was being invaded by aliens, others started weird religions to try to explain it all. In the end, society was a total mess.
That's when a secret organization, one that had already been pulling strings behind the scenes, finally revealed itself.
They presented themselves as humanity's salvation—a global alliance of the most powerful nations. And just like that, they started giving people the answers they were desperate for. First, they brought info about the very first Artifact, now known as the Celestial Altar.
It had appeared on its own in a remote part of what used to be Europe. It was a direct channel to the Heaven's Will. That's a kind of universal consciousness that manages all universes and, for some unknown reason, decided to act directly.
It was Heaven's Will that set the rules for awakenings, recruitment, and everything about the Spiritual Guardians.
At the start, only four altars existed. But then Heaven's Will revealed more to that organization.
Three sunken continents on Earth would rise again. And sure enough, in the 22nd century, the planet began to change forever.
First, a massive chunk of land rose in the Atlantic Ocean, between what used to be Mexico and Africa—around the size of Australia. Religious folks immediately claimed: "That's the legendary continent of Atlantis."
Right in the center, a Celestial Altar was already there. That place is now the Aeternum Atlantis Empire.
A few months later, another landmass rose up between South Africa and Australia. This one was also ancient and legendary—Lemuria. Once again, there was an altar already waiting. Today, that area is known as the Aurora Coalition Empire.
The year after that, up north where Siberia and northern Russia used to be, an even bigger landmass came up. It wasn't as well-known, but still part of old legends. Its name: Hyperborea. Like the others, it had an altar too, and eventually became the Polar Circle Empire.
Obviously, the sudden appearance of those three continents caused devastating earthquakes, massive tsunamis, and an unthinkable number of deaths.
But by the early 23rd century, humans started exploring those new lands and found out they were insanely fertile. Crops grew five times better there than anywhere else—literally. The science behind it made no sense. Over time, people from all over the world moved in.
By the end of that same century, a new and insane chapter began.
The most powerful countries on Earth united, erased their borders, and formed six giant organizations that split control of the planet.
Governments and legal systems were aligned to make cultural transition easier. But that process was bloody as hell—full of religious, ethical, and political conflict.
And as always, that secret organization was pulling the strings from behind the curtain. That was also when the world learned about the High Humans.
At first, everyone thought it was just a publicity stunt. But… those High Humans showed off overwhelming power and shut down conflicts like it was nothing. They 'calmed' people down real fast.
After all that, Artifacts from other universes were made public and started spreading among humans.
In the 24th century, that mysterious organization—the one that once called itself humanity's guardian—just vanished.
The Empires only said that its work was done, since Earth was "at peace" now. But people who know the real history suspect the truth is something else entirely.
By the 25th century, Earth had become a world marked by abandonment.
Abandonment of the past… and of regular humans, of course.
Hundreds of once-great cities that had held millions were now completely abandoned. The global population had dropped drastically—down to under two billion people.
With fewer people to fill the vast land, society got restructured. The six Empires that ruled Earth all followed a similar structure: at the top, the Imperial Cities, only open to a tiny elite; below that, the Mortal Cities, where the rest of the people lived.
But there were still folks living on the fringes of this system. In abandoned cities, small communities survived off the grid. Some areas still had power and leftover tech, so they were used as temporary shelter by a group known as the underworld dwellers.
These were criminals, fugitives, and people who simply refused to bow to the Empires. Sometimes, they'd get the basic infrastructure in those cities up and running again, turning them into rough hideouts.
The Empire knew they were there… and just chose to ignore them. It was like, whatever happened to regular people didn't really matter. As long as they weren't a direct threat to the Imperial Cities, they could do whatever the hell they wanted.
This underworld was usually set up near the most strategic Mortal Cities, trading and dealing with the locals. But their biggest business was smuggling goods between Empires. That's why some Mortal Cities ended up split between three groups: the Underworld, the Human Law, and the Empire Police.
The Empire Police, though, were mostly just for show. They were there as a reminder that the Empire still had authority—but they almost never stepped in. Thing is, Artifacts, strange items, and all sorts of weird stuff flowed freely among normal people.
The Human Law was basically the traditional set of rules humanity came up with centuries ago. Not much had changed. Crimes between people of the same rank were still punished normally, but… if you had connections to the Empire, High Humans, or enough cash to buy underworld protection, you could get away with anything.
In short, most regular people in the 25th century lived under the law of the strongest. Everyone knew someone who got killed for no reason—just because someone powerful decided it.
Fear and oppression were constant. Knowledge, tech, and everything valuable for humanity was locked up inside the Imperial Cities.
For everyone else, chaos ruled. Any connection to the Empire, a High Human, or any kind of protection was a priceless lifeline.
Even so… if you had someone to protect you, your life could be pretty chill. It'd feel like living in paradise.