The night Karl Mitsubishi died, the world screamed.
From the ashes of New York, a blinding explosion carved its mark into the horizon.
The city was gone — the demons were gone — and in the center of it all was nothing but light.
Karl's body had ceased to exist.
No dust. No trace. No fragment of bone or blood to remember him by.
And yet, his soul remained.
It drifted above the scorched ruins like a dying ember, its edges flickering in the wind.
The echoes of his last heartbeat rippled through the ruins — fading, fading… until the world itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then—
A tear split the heavens.
From beyond the veil of blackened clouds, a colossal beam of golden radiance pierced the atmosphere, descending upon the ruins.
It wasn't sunlight. It was something older — something divine. The light trembled with weight, with law.
Reality bowed to its arrival.
The ground cracked. The air warped. The world screamed again as a massive halo descended through the rift — an ethereal structure of divine gears, glowing roots, and symbols older than creation.
It was The Cradle — the judgment mechanism of the Primordials.
Ten silhouettes stood upon it, encased in radiance too bright to look upon.
Their forms were barely human — flickering between abstraction and flesh, light and shadow.
Their combined voices resonated across the dying world like thunder rolling backward in time.
"The lineage awakens.
The next Chosen has been marked."
From below, the golden beam reached downward, wrapping around Karl's flickering soul.
The pull was irresistible — divine authority bending reality itself. His consciousness was weightless, unanchored.
His soul drifted upward, drawn through the light, pulled higher, higher — until he vanished into the rift.
The light sealed shut.
And Earth went silent.
Within the Cradle
There was no sky here. No ground.
Only divine machinery suspended in a sea of living light.
Rivers of molten sap — the lifeblood of Yggdrasil — flowed through the air like golden veins. Every pulse of it was a heartbeat that thundered across eternity.
Karl's soul hung at the center — faint, translucent, fraying like smoke in the wind.
Ten beings surrounded him.
The Primordials.
Each embodied the core concept of creation itself — strength, wisdom, fire, shadow, motion, spirit, and more — yet even they hesitated before what lay in front of them.
The first to speak was Hephaestus, Primordial of Creation.
His eyes glowed like molten metal, his voice grinding like a forge.
"The summoning sequence was successful… but where is the vessel?"
He turned, confused, to the others.
Artemis, Primordial of Wisdom, adjusted her gaze, her silver hair rippling like liquid light.
"There should be a body. Every Chosen is pulled in their entirety — flesh, spirit, and core."
A ripple of energy passed through the Cradle as the others examined the glowing ember that was Karl's soul.
It flickered, weak, hollow.
Kaiser, Primordial of Strength, rumbled,
"The coordinates match. The bloodline signature aligns perfectly with Hephaestus's line. This is your descendant."
Hephaestus frowned deeply, molten sparks crackling at his temples.
"My descendant? Impossible. None of my mortal progeny have been summoned in millennia."
Savitar, Primordial of Momentum, smirked faintly.
"Well, congratulations, forge master. Your blood still runs wild down there. Though I must say—" he gestured toward the faint, barely-there soul, "—your offspring seems… underwhelming."
"Underwhelming?" Hephaestus barked, glaring. "He's missing everything. There's not even enough residue to rebuild the body!"
Artemis's voice cut through the tension, sharp and precise.
"Something went wrong with the summoning. The Cradle detected his lineage and pulled his soul, assuming the vessel was intact."
"But his body was obliterated before the transfer," Thanamira, Primordial of Spirits, whispered. Her voice echoed like wind through a graveyard.
"No flesh, no blood, no bones — not even a spiritual tether. Only the core essence remains."
Hephaestus clenched his jaw, turning his hammer in his hand.
"Then this is a mistake. The summoning was premature. He cannot serve without a vessel. We should release the soul back into the cycle."
Kaiser's eyes flared, a deep, crimson gold.
"Release him? He carries your mark, Hephaestus. You know what that means. His soul cannot return. The moment the Cradle chose him, he was severed from the mortal flow."
"So what do you expect me to do?" Hephaestus roared. "Forge a man from air? There's nothing left to work with!"
"There is the sap," Artemis replied coolly.
"And your creation code."
Hephaestus glared at her.
"That would bind him to Yggdrasil's root. He'd no longer be mortal. He'd become a hybrid entity — a construct with a soul. You'd damn him to eternal instability."
Savitar chuckled.
"Sounds poetic, doesn't it? The man who burned his body to save others reborn as a machine of divine flame."
Thanamira's voice softened.
"Hephaestus… he is still your blood. The Cradle does not choose without reason. Even in error, fate rarely misses its mark."
Hephaestus stared at Karl's flickering soul for a long time.
He could still feel the faint traces of his lineage — the divine signature buried deep in the soul's fabric. But everything else… was gone.
"You'd have me reforge him as a ghost bound to steel?" he muttered bitterly.
"A consciousness in a shell of nanite and root?"
"You forged gods before, old friend," Kaiser said quietly. "Surely your own descendant deserves no less."
Silence.
The forge at the heart of the Cradle began to pulse.
Yggdrasil's roots twisted, dripping molten sap that sizzled upon contact with the divine floor.
Hephaestus slowly lifted his hammer.
"If I do this… he will not be human again.
His existence will be tethered between code and divinity — an eternal paradox."
Artemis's gaze was unwavering.
"Then let that paradox become our next evolution."
The others fell silent.
And in that silence, Karl's faint voice — almost gone — whispered through the light:
"If… I can protect them again… then it's enough."
Hephaestus froze. His molten eyes softened.
"So you still cling to duty, even as ash."
He lowered his head — not in submission, but in reverence.
"Very well, my blood. Let your soul be forged anew."
The Cradle ignited.