(25 Years Before Present Day)
Humanity, in the year 2025, was in its golden age and on the brink of going interstellar.
With the breakthrough of true Artificial General Intelligence, a new layer of physics was discovered, one that bent space-time itself. Humanity had pushed past the boundaries of its home planet and was finalizing the schematics for the 'Alcubierre-Chen Drive,' a faster-than-light engine that could reach the nearest star system, Proxima Centauri, within months, not millennia.
Companies raced to perfect automation. Drones filled the skies, autonomous factories hummed 24/7, and a new form of fusion-powered space travel was already being tested for mining the asteroid belts. Energy generation had leaped bounds, becoming almost limitless, and the entire global manufacturing industry was automated. Artificial Intelligence replaced most jobs, from trucking and logistics to law and even creative arts.
Protests against this "jobless future" rose all over the world, but the issue was solved almost instantly by the global adoption of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). This policy, funded by the obscene wealth generated by AGI-driven automation, freed humanity. People could pursue their dream jobs, hobbies, and entertainment. It was a new renaissance. Humanity was excited, planning colonies on the Moon, Mars, and beyond, driven by a unified sense of optimism.
But all of it was disrupted.
Without warning, large, towering black spires appeared from deep underground, obliterating the most ancient and mysterious sites on Earth. The three Pyramids at Giza were destroyed, reduced to dust as three massive black spires tore through the bedrock. The Nazca Lines, Easter Island, the Aztec pyramids, the Eye of the Sahara, and Stonehenge—all were replaced by these indestructible, silent, metallic towers. The message was clear: humanity's past was being erased.
Instantly, the world's military forces controlled these sites. Scientists and archaeologists swarmed them, but learned nothing. The spires themselves were made of the densest, hardest metal known, utterly indestructible to every weapon, including tactical nukes. Theories popped up: was Earth an ancient alien empire's graveyard, or was this a first contact from an extraterrestrial civilization? The silence from the towers was the most terrifying part.
For five years, nobody knew.
They quickly learned that these spires were emitting a strange energy. Everyone near them felt it—a tingling on the skin, a sense of heightened awareness. Animals began to evolve at an accelerated rate. Supernatural phenomena were reported globally. Sudden, massive electric outages plagued cities, only for the power to return tenfold, burning out systems. Trees grew absurdly fast; plants and crops flourished at an impossible rate. Every city in the world became a hub of nature's paradise, draped in vines, plants, and flowers, reclaiming the concrete.
Everyone thought the spires were there to restore nature to Earth. They were seen as "Nature's Guardians." Humanity, grounded from its interstellar dreams, started to see the spires positively. Blue motes of light—what would later be identified as mana—were visible everywhere, drifting like pollen. People thought Earth was transforming into a paradise, a return to the Garden of Eden.
That is, until one day, the Rifts started appearing. Cracks in space-time, shimmering like broken glass in the air.
The spires made a massive change that everyone saw. They emitted a pinkish beacon from their peaks, and a massive, shimmering forcefield enveloped the entire world, just above the atmosphere. The interstellar dream was over, replaced by a cage. Everyone was preparing for the worst.
When everyone started to panic, the worst-case scenario arrived. Monsters came out.
From the Rifts poured orcs, unknown quadrupedal beasts, zombies, skeletons, giant spiders, and swarms of massive ants. Flying beasts, wyverns, and dragons claimed the skies. And the worst of all: Titans. A large, bipedal monster with no face that could spew superheated energy from its mouth, leveling city blocks with a single blast.
Chaos and slaughter enveloped every country. No one was safe. Even nuclear bombs were not left unchecked by the spires; any missile launched was deemed "too destructive" and was quickly "put out," its warhead rendered inert mid-flight by an unknown force. Humanity deployed its largest conventional military operations, but tanks and jets were useless against creatures that defied physics. Most of humanity hid in massive underground cities, only to be met with the worst of all: Rifts spawning inside the evacuation facilities, turning the sanctuaries into tombs.
Five years later, most of the world's cities were overridden with monsters and titans. Only half of the human population survived, huddled in small, disparate underground evacuation sites. They had learned the hard way that large concentrations of people in one place would attract Rifts to spawn near them.
Then, by the grace of whatever hope humanity had left, they started Awakening.
Survivors began seeing the game-like holographic interface, invisible to others. They gained supernatural abilities to fight back. The tides turned as more and more humans Awakened, gaining classes and skills.
The Ascension Towers—the spires—finally revealed the Main Quest: Humanity had to produce at least 100,000 Demigods and 10,000 Gods within one thousand years, or else face total annihilation.
At the same time, powerful, supernatural entities ranging from six to fifteen feet tall began to appear. Humans from various cultures quickly recognized them. They were the Gods from ancient mythologies.
Odin, Zeus, Ra, Amaterasu, Quetzalcoatl—all of them.
They were a force to be reckoned with. They helped humanity fight back against the Titans and monsters that had taken over Earth. More and more countries were liberated, but the old governments became nonexistent, their chains of command shattered.
City-states quickly formed, ruled by organizations of Players (Guilds) and the followers of the Gods (Pantheons). This left the normal, Unawakened humans at the bottom of a new, brutal power hierarchy, valued only for labor or, in the worst territories, as breeding stock.
The true government of Earth became the Pantheons of the Gods. Humanity's remnants helped establish a new unified government, agreed upon by the 14 major Pantheons from all over the globe, to manage the newly Awakened humans, now formally called Players.
Civilization and peace were returning under this new government, a global council designed to guide humanity's evolution: The Council of the Ascendant Order. Its members included:
The Heavenly Court (China / East Asia)
Deva Sabha (India / South Asia)
Kami Collective (Japan / Shinto)
Mana Circle (Polynesian)
Dreamtime Circle (Aboriginal / Oceanic)
Great Spirits Assembly (Native American)
Quetzal Court (Aztec / Mesoamerican)
Olympus (Greece / Global West)
Aesir (Norse / Northern Europe)
Tuatha Order (Celtic / Western Isles)
Orisha Conclave (Yoruba / Pan-African)
Annunaki Council (Mesopotamian / Middle East)
Heliopolis (Egyptian / North Africa)
Rod Circle (Slavic / Eastern Europe)
Their main goal was to help humanity evolve into divinity and unite Earth as a one-world government. No human was stupid enough to complain, especially since the Gods themselves were also Players, subject to the System's tasks. Even the Gods complied with the Spires, proving that the Towers were more powerful than the Gods themselves.
The Gods also shared the true human history. They revealed that they, too, had once been human, long ago. The Spires had appeared before, forcing them to participate in the 6th Trial, which they had ultimately failed, triggering the last great reset.
But, of course, human nature wasn't going to just accept this new divine order. As the world moved forward onto a different path, the former elites—the ancient families, corporate owners, and high-ranking government officials who had survived the fall—had a different plan for humanity.
They saw the Gods as threats, and they began to create a contingency. And they knew very well how to steer the rest of the unawakened populace.