Yearn Hikaru was not born in the modern world.
He was born in the Zodiac Era after Renzen mysteriously disappeared.
An age where reality itself was unstable. Where beasts did not simply exist, but evolved every year. Where sorcerers were not heroes, but soldiers in an endless cosmic war between races that barely understood what "peace" meant.
Back then, humans were not dominant.
They were prey.
Devils ruled the lower realms.
Dragons ruled the skies and dimensions.
Humans survived in between.
Yearn was born from something that should never have existed.
His mother was human. A priestess of the Zodiac Clan.
His father was a dragon-devil hybrid general who defected from the Devil Dominion.
Their union was considered blasphemy.
A child with three bloodlines.
25% devil.
25% dragon.
50% human.
A demi-human abomination.
From the moment he was born, the Zodiac Clan knew one thing.
He was unstable.
Not because of power.
But because of what he represented.
If a being like him could exist, then the boundaries between races were meaningless. The entire structure of the world would collapse.
So they did not celebrate his birth.
They hid it.
Yearn was raised in a sealed sanctuary beneath a floating Zodiac Temple. A place outside normal time flow, where no one except the elders could enter.
He never saw the sky.
Never saw a city.
Never saw another child.
Only stone walls, glowing runes, and endless training.
From the age of four, he was tested.
Devil blood test.
Dragon resonance test.
Human soul integrity test.
Every year.
Over and over.
They were not raising a child.
They were analyzing a weapon.
Yearn learned early that he was different.
Not because they told him.
But because no one ever touched him without barriers.
Even the elders spoke to him from behind seals.
As if he was already a disaster waiting to happen.
The only one who treated him like a person was a woman named Saeryn.
A low-ranked Zodiac researcher.
She brought him books. Old stories about the world.
About humans building cities.
About dragons sleeping in stars.
About devils who once protected realms instead of destroying them.
She told him something once that changed everything.
"The world used to be balanced. Before the war. Before power became everything."
Yearn asked her what balance meant.
She said, "It means no one exists just to be sacrificed."
That sentence stayed in his mind forever.
When Yearn was ten, the sanctuary was attacked.
Not by beasts.
By the Zodiac Clan itself.
The elders had discovered something terrifying.
Yearn's existence was stabilizing the realm.
Dimensional storms around the sanctuary were calming.
Mana fluctuations were normalizing.
Even devil portals were becoming less violent.
Yearn was unconsciously equalizing reality.
He was not a weapon.
He was a system core.
And that scared them more than anything.
Because if Yearn matured…
He would become something above Zodiac authority.
So they made a decision.
Erase him.
Not kill him.
Erase his concept from history.
They planned to extract his dragon and devil cores, seal them separately, and rewrite the records.
Saeryn overheard everything.
She ran.
She broke seals that were never meant to be touched.
She reached Yearn's chamber with blood on her hands and terror in her eyes.
"They're going to dismantle you," she said.
Yearn did not understand the word.
So she explained it.
"They will turn you into parts."
That was the first time Yearn felt fear.
Not of death.
Of losing himself.
They tried to escape through a dimensional gate.
They almost made it.
Almost.
A Zodiac Lord intercepted them.
One of Renzen's direct servants.
A being who could erase entire bloodlines with a thought.
Saeryn was killed instantly.
Not violently.
She simply ceased to exist.
Her soul dispersed into raw mana.
Yearn watched the only person who ever loved him vanish.
Something inside him broke.
Not emotionally.
Conceptually.
His devil blood reacted.
His dragon core awakened.
And his human soul tried to hold it together.
The space around him collapsed into golden-black distortion.
The Zodiac Lord retreated.
Not because he was injured.
But because reality itself rejected his presence near Yearn.
For the first time in history, a Zodiac servant was repelled by a child.
The elders realized the truth.
Yearn was no longer controllable.
He was becoming a singularity.
A living balance point.
So they tried something worse than execution.
They tried to seal him outside time.
A forbidden technique used only on gods.
A World Anchor Seal.
Yearn understood what was happening.
If sealed, he would not age.
Not die.
Not live.
Just exist in suspended awareness.
Watching eternity pass.
But Yearn made his own choice.
He used his equilibrium power on himself.
He created a Boulder.
Not a normal rock.
A compressed world fragment.
A dimensional prison made of dragon law and devil entropy.
A place where time flowed infinitely slow.
He sealed himself inside it willingly.
Not as punishment.
As preparation.
Before closing his consciousness, he left one condition embedded into the seal.
"I will awaken when this world reaches a point of collapse."
"When balance no longer exists."
"When humanity needs a system more than gods."
Then he slept.
Not for years.
Not for centuries.
For over ten thousand years.
The Zodiac Era ended.
Renzen became legend.
Devils were defeated.
Dragons disappeared.
Humanity rebuilt.
Forgot everything.
And the Boulder remained.
Buried beneath layers of history.
Until modern Tokyo.
Until dimensional distortions began increasing.
Until Absolute Ranks appeared.
Until Tengen Orasu broke the limits of reality.
Until the world once again became unfair beyond repair.
The Boulder cracked.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
Yearn Hikaru awakened in an age that had forgotten him.
But his body had not aged.
His soul had not degraded.
His bloodlines were still active.
He emerged not as a child.
But as something beyond species.
Not fully devil.
Not fully dragon.
Not fully human.
Something balanced between all three.
An ancient demi-human god walking into a modern world.
And when he saw it…
The cities.
The hierarchies.
The Radiances.
The Masters.
The abandoned districts.
The invisible people.
He understood immediately.
Nothing had changed.
Power still decided worth.
The strong still ruled.
The weak still vanished quietly.
The system had simply evolved.
So Yearn did what he was created to do.
He did not choose revenge.
He chose correction.
If the world could not maintain balance naturally…
Then he would enforce it.
Not as a king.
Not as a hero.
But as an ancient system waking up to fix a broken universe.
Slaughter Manifesto was not born from greed.
It was born from ten thousand years of observing a world that never learned.
Yearn did not see himself as a villain.
He saw himself as the final update.
A demi-human relic from the Zodiac Era.
The last being who still remembered what balance was supposed to mean.
And the only one willing to rebuild reality from zero.