Three years before the main story started.

In Arhal City, a thirteen-year-old boy with blonde hair and emerald green eyes stood on top of a building, looking down at the streets below.

His expression was bored, his chin resting on his palm.

"So boring. What should I do?"

He glanced toward the distant skyline.

The city was alive with noise.

Trains and cars moved, and countless advertisements were displayed on open screens. But none of it interested him.

"Should I just watch those cartoons again?"

"No, that was even more boring."

He tapped his fingers against the railing.

"I should ask Uncle about more interesting things to do."

-RUMBLE

The sky above darkened. Dark clouds rolled in from the horizon, swallowing the sunlight and casting the entire city into an unnatural twilight.

The boy’s eyes widened. He had seen storms before, but nothing like this.

The clouds were too vast, too fast, as if something was pushing them.

-RUMBLE

A loud thunder echoed across the city. The sound was deafening, shaking the building beneath his feet.

The boy’s legs went limp. He fell backward, landing hard on his butt. His hand slid across the rooftop floor and stopped against something solid.

A book.

He glanced down.

The cover was golden and black, the patterns on its surface unfamiliar, ancient. He had never seen it before.

He did not know where it had come from.

-PIT -PAT

The rain began to pour. Cold droplets struck his face, snapping him out of his daze.

The door to the rooftop opened. A middle-aged blonde man stepped out, his face tight with worry.

"Junior, come here, or you will catch a cold."

The boy nodded, clutching the book to his chest as he ran toward his uncle.

...

That night, inside his room, the boy lay in bed with a fever.

His uncle sat beside him, his arms crossed, his expression a mixture of concern and exasperation.

"You caught a cold."

The boy gave a wry smile in response.

"I will call a doctor tomorrow. Sleep well."

The boy was not a ranker. His uncle could not give him a recovery potion without risking side effects.

So, all he could do was wait.

The uncle left the room, closing the door behind him.

The boy watched the falling rain through the window.

The droplets streaked down the glass, blurring the city lights into smears of yellow and orange.

"Stupid rain, when are you going to stop?"

He slowly fell asleep.

On the other side of the room, on the study table, the golden-black book began to glow.

The pages did not open. The cover did not lift.

But light bled through the binding, soft at first, then brighter. The book floated into the air, hovering above the table as if held by invisible hands.

Then it crumbled.

Gold and black dust scattered through the room, swirling like a miniature storm before drifting toward the sleeping boy.

The dust settled on his skin, his clothes, his face. It seeped into his pores, his nostrils, his slightly parted lips.

For a brief moment, his body glowed in gold and black intertwined.

Then the light faded.

And the boy’s consciousness fell.

...

He stood in an endless white plane. Just white, stretching in every direction, infinite and empty.

The boy looked around, his heart pounding.

"Where am I?"

There was nothing. No people. No sounds. No wind. Just the white, pressing against him from all sides.

Then his eyes paused on a book. It floated in the distance, its golden-black cover identical to the one he had found on the rooftop.

"Isn’t this the same book?"

Thinking this was a dream, he took a step forward. Then another. Then he reached out and touched the cover.

His consciousness blanked.

...

When he opened his eyes again, he was greeted by three moons in the sky.

One was silver, cold, and distant. The other two were blue, their light overlapping in patterns that he had never seen before.

"What?"

A sword was impaled through his body.

The blade had entered just below his ribs and exited through his back. Blood soaked his clothes, warm and wet.

Around him, bodies lay scattered across the muddy ground.

Men and women, young and old, dressed in armor he did not recognize.

The sounds of battle echoed in the distance: clashing steel, cries for help, screams of agony.

For a thirteen-year-old boy, it was too much. The shock. The pain. The confusion. His mind could not process what his eyes were seeing.

A healer found him. She was old, her hands rough, her face lined with years of war.

She pulled the sword from his body and muttered words he could not understand. Her hands glowed.

The wound closed.

Days passed.

He learned that the boy whose body he now occupied was also thirteen years old.

A bastard son of a baron, sent to the battlefield in place of the baron’s eldest son.

The people here wore different clothes. Their language was different. Their technology was primitive.

This was not his world.

Years passed.

Fifteen years later, the once-young boy was now a twenty-eight-year-old war veteran.

He worked directly under the emperor himself.

He had accepted that he had been transmigrated into another world. He had accepted that he would never see his uncle again.

But he had also learned something.

In this world, there were beings who lived for hundreds of thousands of years. Celestials.

The word ignited a flame in his chest.

Who would not want to live forever? He began his journey to become a celestial.

Years later, he started a rebellion.

Using the king’s own secrets against him, he overthrew the throne and ascended to power.

He became the new ruler. He built an empire.

Twenty years passed.

He was forty-eight years old. He had finally gained a clue.

The so-called celestials had been hiding among common people, watching, waiting, never interfering.

He located one.

He knew he was not the celestial’s match, so he used his entire army.

They surrounded the celestial, thousands of soldiers forming a ring of steel and magic.

He demanded the method to become a celestial.

The celestial smiled. And said nothing.

That day, he learned how insignificant he truly was.

His empire, the one he had stolen, built, and bled for, was erased. His troops were slaughtered. His cities burned.

He barely escaped using an artifact he found during his search for celestials.

But after losing everything, his desire to become a celestial became even firmer.

Such power. He wanted it. No matter the cost.

...

Sixty years passed.

He was one hundred and eight years old, but he still looked thirty. His power had grown. His influence had spread.

He traveled beyond the seas to lands where celestials did not hide.

They ruled openly, worshipped like literal gods. The people bowed to them. The world bent to their will.

Becoming a subordinate to a celestial was not hard.

With his powers, he was one of the strongest beings under the celestials.

Under the celestial’s guidance, he learned about the pathway.

The way to become a celestial was to walk a pathway. And when the time came, the pathway itself would open.

So, he waited patiently.

...

Two hundred and twenty years passed.

He was now 328 years old.

This day, for the second time in his life, he saw something unbelievable.

In the sky, a massive black serpent coiled around one of the blue moons.

Its body was longer than the horizon, its scales darker than the void between stars. Its eyes were twin suns of molten gold.

"World Devouring Serpent."

The name surfaced in his mind unbidden, as if the universe itself was whispering it to him.

He watched as countless celestials flew into the sky to fight the serpent.

They were like moths attacking a flame.

With a single breath, millions of celestials died. Their bodies rained down like meteors.

Among them was the celestial he served.

The serpent’s gaze turned toward the earth.

Then suddenly, a second sun appeared in the sky. Seeing that second sun, a name entered his mind.

"Sovereign of Eternal Flames."

He stared at the second sun, transfixed, unable to look away.

Then a cold yet ethereal voice reached his mind.

"Hmph."

Instantly, his body and soul began to burn. The pain was beyond agony.

His eyes were the first to go. The light in them was snuffed out like candles in a storm.

"Why?"

That was the only question rolling through his mind.

"ARRGHHH"

...

The thirteen-year-old blonde-haired boy woke up screaming.

He sat upright in his bed, his chest heaving, his hands gripping the sheets.

But he could not see anything.

The door burst open. His uncle rushed in, his face pale with worry.

"What happened, junior? Are you alright?"

The boy’s mind raced. Myriad thoughts collided and scattered.

This was his room. His uncle’s house. The rain was still falling outside.

He bit his lip and said,

"Uncle?"

The uncle nodded, kneeling beside the bed.

"Yes, yes. What happened?"

The boy’s voice was small.

"I can’t see."

He lost the ability to see.

And he had come back to his world.