In the war-torn skies of Aethoria, strength was not merely survival—
It was law.
A merciless decree etched into the bones of existence itself.
Here, mortals did not live…
they climbed—scratching, bleeding, devouring one another in pursuit of divinity. Sects rose like empires and fell like forgotten myths, their legacies carved into the corpses of dying stars.
Among them stood three pillars of human supremacy.
The Hondon Sect, where power was absolute and mercy was weakness.
The Pyeonjaeham Sect, weavers of deception, where truth bent and reality obeyed the cunning.
And the Jonjae Sect…
A place where balance was not taught—
…but demanded.
It was within those sacred, silent peaks that fate… trembled.
Because on that day—
something was born that should not have been.
A child.
Level 9.
In a world where most entered existence as fragments barely touching Level 1, this was not talent.
Not luck.
It was an intrusion.
A violation of the natural order.
Even the air seemed to hesitate as his first cry echoed through the mountains—as if reality itself questioned whether it should allow such a being to exist.
His name had yet to be written.
But his blood… already whispered of eternity.
His parents stood at the edge of legend.
Han Lockhart.
A wandering blade turned living storm, whose iron-grey eyes carried the weight of countless battlefields. His presence alone bent wills, his sword carved silence into chaos.
And Chae-min Elise.
A woman spoken of in reverence and fear alike—her beauty not merely seen, but felt, like the warmth of a dying sun. Golden curls cascading like divine threads, eyes deep as an endless ocean… she was less human, and more a memory of something celestial.
Their love was an impossibility.
A defiance of sect law.
Of bloodlines.
Of fate itself.
And from that defiance—
came a child the world would never accept.
Because miracles…
are only beautiful—
until they threaten power.
The news spread.
Not like fire—
but like poison.
Silent. Inevitable. Corrupting.
The Hondon Sect saw not a child, but a future they could not dominate.
The Pyeonjaeham Sect saw not potential, but chaos they could not control.
And so—
they decided the same truth.
He must die.
It began quietly.
Shadows stretched longer than they should.
Footsteps vanished where none should tread.
Poison kissed the rims of untouched cups.
Then—
the silence broke.
They came.
Not as men—
but as weapons.
Assassins wrapped in killing intent.
Martialists honed beyond humanity.
Dozens… became hundreds.
The forests surrounding the Jonjae Sect became a graveyard before the battle had even begun.
And at its center—
stood two figures.
Han… and Chae-min.
The world trembled when they moved.
Each strike fractured the earth.
Each clash sent shockwaves screaming across the heavens.
Mountains bowed. Skies cracked. Reality itself strained beneath their will.
They were not fighting for pride.
Not for glory.
Not even for survival.
They were fighting…
for him.
But even legends…
can be drowned.
The tide did not stop.
It swelled.
It deepened.
And then—
it parted.
Because something else had arrived.
He did not descend.
He did not announce himself.
He simply…
was.
Space folded where he stepped.
Time hesitated in his presence.
The battlefield—once filled with chaos—fell into a suffocating stillness.
No name was spoken.
Only a whisper.
A title that coiled through the air like death itself.
Green Python.
Level 100.
A being who had long since abandoned the limits of mortality.
No allegiance.
No belief.
No hesitation.
Only contracts.
Only death.
And this time—
the contract was absolute.
Erase the child.
End the Lockhart bloodline.
Leave nothing behind.
When Han moved to meet him—
the world broke.
Not metaphorically.
Not symbolically.
Literally.
Space warped.
Time stuttered.
Causality… faltered.
Even Chae-min's radiance—light that once defied darkness itself—was swallowed whole, crushed beneath a presence that did not belong among the living.
Above them—
the heavens shifted.
Three distant deities, locked in eternal conflict, paused.
Not in curiosity.
But in recognition.
This was no longer a battle.
It was a judgment.
And at the center of it all—
wrapped in fragile cloth, untouched by the chaos—
a child cried.
Unaware…
that the world was tearing itself apart—
just to decide if he deserved to exist.
One day—
that child would be given a name.
But names were meaningless.
Because what he would become…
would not fit within language.
He would not simply inherit a legacy.
He would rewrite it.
And Aethoria—
would never be the same again.