In the crushing silence of the earth's deepest scars, a seal that has withstood the turning of a hundred thousand Mahayugas begins to fracture. As the scavengers of a dying Iron Age drill into the dark, they seek wealth—but they have only awakened the Primal Source.
[Part 1 of 5]
The silence was not merely the absence of sound; it was a physical weight, a primordial pressure that had held steady for hundreds of billions of years.
Deep beneath the crust of a world that had been reborn, renamed, and recycled a hundred thousand times, lay a chamber that shouldn't exist. It was carved from Aethel-Stone—a material that existed before the first "System" was ever coded, a substance so dense that it didn't just block scanners; it warped the very concept of "location."
Inside, Jin lay in a stasis that transcended the cycle of life and death.
To the dwellers of the surface, he would look like a relic of a forgotten myth. His form was draped in a shroud of Void-Silk, a fabric woven from the dead stars of a Golden Age so ancient that its constellation names had long since been erased from the celestial records. His heartbeat didn't exist in a rhythm; it was a single, heavy pulse that occurred once every ten thousand years—a slow, tectonic thrum that kept the soul-seal intact while the universe outside went through its frantic, messy cycles of birth and destruction.
Then, the vibration came.
It was an ugly, discordant scratching. It lacked the harmonic resonance of the ancient Soul-Arts Jin had once commanded. This was the sound of a Mythic-Grade Thermal Drill, a piece of high-tier technology powered by the thin, polluted mana of the current Kali Yuga. It was a tool designed by those who mistook greed for progress.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...][KALI-PROTOCOL v.100,000 DETECTED][ANALYZING REALITY...][WARNING: VIRTUE LEVELS AT CRITICAL MINIMUM][MANA PURITY: 0.0001% — STATUS: "DISCORDANT WASTE"]
Jin's consciousness flickered. It was like a leviathan stirring in the deepest trench of an infinite ocean. He didn't open his eyes—not yet. He didn't need physical sight to perceive the insects crawling on the roof of his sanctuary.
[NOTIFICATION: 432,000,000,000+ YEARS SINCE LAST REBOOT]
The number didn't surprise him. He felt the seal on his sarcophagus—a seal he had placed himself at the peak of a Satya Yuga that was now nothing more than a ghost—shudder under the assault of the drill.
"Keep it steady! The mana-oscillator is hitting the Red Zone!" a voice shouted, muffled by millions of tons of rock.
The language was a debased, simplified version of the High-Vedic tongue. It was a "Slave-Language," designed by the Architects to keep the soul-potential of this cycle limited, stripping away the metaphysical weight of words until they were merely shells for basic communication. Jin's [Truth Eye] translated the intent behind the filtered shouts with ease.
"Captain, if this core is as pure as the sensors say, we won't just be an R-Rank scavenging crew anymore! We could jump straight to SR-Status! We could get a permit for the High-Tier Sector and leave this dust-bowl behind!"
R-Rank... SR-Status... Jin's mind echoed the terms with a cold, dry amusement. They were playing with labels like children playing with mud in a graveyard, unaware that they were standing at the edge of an abyss that had swallowed gods.
CRACK.
The ceiling of the Inner Sanctum didn't just break; it yielded. A shaft of artificial, neon-violet light cut through the gloom. It was a sickly, synthetic color—the result of mana being forced through mechanical filters to make it "usable" for the modern world.
Down the shaft dropped three figures. They were encased in Unique-Grade hazard suits, polished chrome gleaming under the neon glow. They carried mana-rifles and scanners that beeped with frantic, high-pitched urgency. They landed on the floor of the tomb, their heavy boots treading upon dust that was once the bones of kings from a cycle they couldn't even imagine.
"Thermal vision on," the lead scavenger commanded, his voice distorted by his mask. "Search for the 'Source Point'. If anything moves, use the Soul-Disrupters. I don't care if it's an 'Ancient'—nothing survives a Code-Red shock."
Jin watched them through the stone lid of his casket. He saw their "Rare" and "Legendary" gear—worthless trinkets of a dying era. He felt their weak, fluttering hearts, fueled by the impure energy of a world that was gasping its last.
It was time.
"Rise," Jin whispered.
The word didn't travel through the air. It traveled through the very essence of the earth, a command that overrode the laws of the current "System" and spoke directly to the spirits of the fallen.
[Part 1 of 5 Complete]