Rio walked toward the central park. The city around him was oblivious.
They didn't know that the apocalypse would start in the next few minutes.
Rio checked his watch.
11:58 PM.
In the old timeline, this was the moment everything changed.
People called it "Day Zero."
Day Zero isn't actually the first day of the apocalypse but the day the scouts' demons would infiltrate the world and show them a taste of terror.
As Rio stepped on the grass of the park, the atmosphere changed.
Everywhere became silent.
Rio reached the center of the park, where there is a fountain. The water inside it was green while reflecting the pale moon.
He checked his watch. It was 11:59 PM.
Suddenly, the air above the fountain began to vibrate.
It looked like a ripple on a pond, a distortion that made the stone carvings of the fountain appear to bend.
This was a "Mana Rift." It wasn't a Gate—not yet. It was a leak from which mama would leak into this world.
That Mana was necessary to survive the apocalypse. And the same Mana was the beginning of the chaos.
In his previous life, Rio had been blocks away when this happened.
He remembered the news reports. Fifty people, desperate, starving, and scared had fought like animals over the small grey stone that had appeared in that fountain.
People had been stabbed with kitchen knives and beaten with pipes just to get a taste of "Awakening." That single, low-grade stone had started a riot that lasted three days.
But now, the park was empty. Only Rio stood there, his hood pulled low, watching the rift tear wider.
It was now 12:00 AM.
A sharp, glass-like crack echoed through the park as a small, jagged pebble fell from the center of the rift and splashed into the fountain's shallow water.
It was a muddy, dull grey color, with the shape of a walnut.
[Item Detected: Low-Grade Mana Stone.]
[Quality: Inferior.]
[Description: A weak catalyst for mana-vein awakening.]
Rio stepped into the fountain. The cold, green water soaked his boots, but he didn't care.
He reached down and picked up the stone. It felt cold in his palm.
"In the old world, people died for this piece of trash," Rio whispered.
Then, the System reacted.
[Loot Detected: 1x Low-Grade Mana Stone.]
[System Passive: 1,000x Yield Applied.]
[Commencing Purity Extraction...]
Rio's hand began to glow. At first, it was a faint red light, but within seconds, it turned into a blinding, violent violet.
The muddy grey exterior of the stone began to dissipate away, as it turned into dust and disappeared into the air.
He noticed something else, the stone was getting heavier as the seconds passed. The transformation was terrifying.
The dull pebble hummed and vibrated, its edges began to shape into a perfect, multi-faceted crystal.
The light it emitted was so bright that it was almost blinding.
[Yield Successful.]
[Item Transformed: Sovereign's Heart (Mythic Grade).]
[Description: The condensed essence of a thousand mana-veins. Only a host of Infinite Wrath can survive its absorption.]
Rio stared at the violet crystal. It pulsed in his hand, beating like a literal heart.
He could feel it calling to the power inside him. This wasn't just mana; this was authority.
Without hesitation, Rio closed his fist over the crystal.
CRUNCH.
The stone shattered, and a liquid violet scattered around Rio's arm.
It felt like a thousand needles were sewing his veins together with silver thread.
He fell to his knees in the fountain, his head thrown back as his entire body began to glow.
[Absorbing Sovereign's Heart...]
[Mana Circuits: Expanding x1,000.]
[Body Template: Reconstructing...]
In his mind, his status screen appeared.
The blue and white box he was used to seeing started to flicker and glitch. The "F-Rank" title began to spin rapidly, turning into a mess of unreadable symbols and garbled code.
F... E... D... S... SSS... Error...
The screen shattered like a piece of glass, and new words formed in blood-red letters.
[STATUS UPDATED] NAME: Rio RANK: [god tier] TITLE: The First Sovereign CORE: Sovereign's Heart (1% Synchronized) CURRENT STATUS: Apocalypse Initialized.Rio stood up slowly. The water in the fountain was no longer green; it had been vaporized by the heat of his transformation, leaving only a dry, cracked stone basin.
He felt... endless. He felt like the entire city was just a toy box he could crush if he stepped too hard.
"god tier," Rio whispered, tasting the word.
He wasn't an F-Rank. He wasn't even an S-Rank. He was something that the world didn't have a name for yet.
Suddenly, a sound erupted that made his blood turn to ice.
A long, metallic screech that tore through the sky, loud enough to be heard for fifty miles. Rio turned around.
Above the city's skyline, the sky finally opened.
It wasn't red yet, it was a void of absolute, terrifying black.
The first official Gate had opened.
The "Apocalypse" had begun.
In the old timeline, this Gate had stayed open for three days before the first monster stepped out.
But as Rio watched, he saw the black void begin to ripple. Because of his presence, his god tier rank, the monsters weren't waiting.
They were coming now.
Rio looked at his hands, which were still humming with violet light.
He looked at the sky. He was the only thing standing between the city and the void.
"Let them come," Rio said, his voice echoing with a power that made the very ground beneath him tremble. "It's going to be fun taming this city."