Year 2005.
It began on a night that should have been ordinary.
The sky above Earth split open with light—an otherworldly glow that spilled across continents. Fwoooosh! The heavens pulsed like molten glass, and for a brief moment the darkness of night vanished. Cities, villages, rivers, and mountains all bathed in a brilliance brighter than day. Shadows were erased. Time itself seemed to pause.
People all over the world stopped what they were doing. In Dhaka, traffic froze as drivers stepped out of their rickshaws and buses, faces tilted to the sky. In New York, neon lights flickered and dimmed under the overwhelming radiance. In Tokyo, the streets glowed like silver. From the Sundarbans' deep mangroves to the deserts of Africa, every pair of eyes looked upward.
Gasps echoed. Ooooh!Aaah! Children cried, dogs barked, bells rang. Humanity stood in awe.
Then—silence. The light slowly faded, swallowed by the endless night once again.
But something had changed.
Men and women clutched their chests, breath ragged. Some felt heat coil in their veins; others trembled as water dripped from their fingertips, sparks danced across their palms, or shadows bent unnaturally at their feet. Power—otherworldly, unnatural, undeniable—had rooted itself within them.
From that night forward, humanity was no longer ordinary. The weak became strong. The powerless awakened.
It was the night Earth entered a new era.
The Era of Awakened.
Year 2025.
The world had grown used to power. Heroes, villains, hunters, guilds—all born from the Awakening. But even after two decades, not everyone was blessed.
Inside Cumilla Modern High School, the tiled washroom echoed with cruel laughter.
BAM!
A heavy body slammed against the wall, the tiles cracking with a sharp crunch! before he slid down onto the wet floor. The boy groaned, breath rattling, as pain shot through his ribs. His name was Johan Navraan, sixteen years old, round-bodied and soft-faced—an easy target.
Dust drifted down from the wall he had struck. Water dripped from a leaky tap. The air reeked of bleach and stale humidity.
Footsteps scraped closer. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The boy who had kicked him, tall and lean, eyes sharp with cruelty, stood over him. His name carried weight among bullies—Logan. He tilted his head, smirking at the sight of Johan struggling to breathe.
"Stand up, you pig."
The words slashed through the washroom louder than the laughter.
Johan's fingers twitched on the wet tiles. His whole body trembled, but still he pushed his palms down, trying to rise.
The moment he managed to stand—
THUD!
Logan's boot drove straight into his stomach. Air burst from Johan's lungs in a choking "Ghhhk!" He folded over, clutching his belly, eyes wide with agony.
Logan leaned close, sneering as his words dripped with venom.
"Didn't I tell you to bring tasty foods for me? Man, your mom really sucks at cooking, doesn't she?"
Hahahahaha!
The cramped washroom filled with jeers. Boys slapped their thighs, some doubled over with laughter, their voices bouncing against the tiled walls. The cruelty rang louder than the dripping tap, louder than Johan's shallow gasps for breath.
Johan's hands clutched at the floor tiles, his fingernails scraping against the grime, while his face twisted in shame.
Logan smirked, feeding off the chorus of mockery like a king among hyenas.
There was nothing Johan could do.
In this world, almost every person had awakened—fire that burned in palms, winds that answered a whisper, lightning that cracked like a whip. But not all were chosen. Some were left behind, powerless, and fragile.
Johan's family was one of them.
In a society ruled by awakened ones, normal people lived like shadows, scraping through life at the mercy of the strong. From the very beginning, weakness was a sentence. And for Johan, that sentence meant enduring.
Thud.
Crack.
The fists, the kicks, the laughter—day after day, he absorbed it all. Pain had become his routine, humiliation his daily meal. There was no choice but to endure.
But there was another reason he suffered more than the rest.
His body.
Round, heavy, and slow. His classmates didn't need another excuse. To them, Johan's fat body was disgusting, pathetic—something to mock, something to break. Their words were sharper than fists, their laughter heavier than kicks.
So Johan endured. Powerless, fat, and alone.
The laughter had faded. Footsteps and voices drifted away until the washroom was silent except for the slow drip of water from a cracked tap.
Later, Johan found himself alone on the school rooftop. The sky above Cumilla Modern High School was the color of burnished steel, heavy clouds pressing low. From up here he could see the crowded streets, rickshaws crawling like ants, the endless tide of life below.
He stood at the edge, fingers curling around the rusted railing. The wind hissed past his ears—whoooosh—whipping his hair across his damp face. His bruises throbbed under his shirt, but the pain was distant now.
He stared at nothing and whispered, "So it's come to this, huh?"
The words vanished into the wind. He closed his eyes.
Then Johan stepped forward.
Clack. His shoe left the edge.
The rooftop fell away and the world tilted. Air tore at his body, cold and sharp like needles. Fwoooosh! The ground rushed up to meet him.
In his mind, a single thought rose like a prayer, heavy and trembling.
I'm sorry, Mother. I'm really sorry. This coward son of yours is leaving you in this hellish world alone.
Darkness began to creep over his eyes, heavy and suffocating. His chest felt like it was tearing apart.
It hurts. It really hurts.
But even though… I don't want to live in that hellish world.
This world is so cruel…
I just want to disappear from this world...
The black swallowed everything.
And then—
A soundless chime. Ding.
Inside the void, a panel of pure white light unfurled before his consciousness, words etched in molten gold.
[ YOU HAVE AWAKENED THE LIMITLESS SYSTEM. ]