After leaving Aria's room, Kai walked quickly across the sprawling estate. His boots made a steady, sharp tapping sound on the polished floors. He didn't stop to look at the expensive paintings or the gold-trimmed furniture in the passing rooms. He moved with a clear goal in mind.
"The library," he thought. He searched through the old Kai's memories and confirmed that the house had a massive collection of books. If he wanted to make sense of this new life and the strange rules of this world, he needed to find real information.
He walked for several minutes through quiet, winding hallways. Finally, he found it: two towering wooden doors decorated with gold leaf and detailed carvings. The doors were so large they made him feel small, but he didn't care about the wealth they displayed. He pushed them open, and the heavy hinges let out a faint groan.
The sight inside was incredible. It was a massive, single-floor library that felt like a cathedral of knowledge. Endless rows of bookshelves reached toward the high, vaulted ceiling. The air was thick with the smell of old paper, ink, and leather. Dust motes danced in the light coming through the high windows.
He walked past a shelf and saw a book titled Elementary Magic Circle Theory.
"Actual books about magic," Kai noted. "That will be incredibly useful once I understand the basics, but it's not my priority right now."
He kept moving, his eyes scanning the labels on the shelves as he walked through the quiet aisles. Finally, in a dusty corner, he found exactly what he was looking for: a thick volume titled A Brief Recount of the Apocalypse.
"This is it," he whispered. Before he could win in this world, he had to know how it worked.
He grabbed the history book and several other heavy volumes about politics, religion, and the major world powers. He carried the stack to a large wooden table and sat down.
He opened the first book and began to read. As his eyes moved across the pages, his expression slowly changed from curiosity into a deep, dark scowl.
"What the hell? This isn't just some random fantasy world," he thought, his grip tightening on the book. "This is a twisted version of Earth."
The book explained that in the year 2070, the world as humanity knew it came to a violent, screaming end. It began with a massive explosion that originated from deep within the Earth's core—a disaster so powerful it ignored every known law of physics and geology.
The force was unimaginable. It didn't just shake the ground; it tore the tectonic plates apart, pushing entire continents across the oceans like plastic toys in a bathtub.
In a matter of moments, the map of the world was rewritten. Ancient glaciers that had stood for millions of years melted in an instant, sending a wall of water surging across the globe. Sea levels rose so fast that coastal cities were swallowed before the people living there could even realize what was happening.
Global temperatures spiked to lethal levels within hours, turning lush forests into tinderboxes. The sky, once blue, was choked by a thick, suffocating blanket of black ash and volcanic sulfur that blocked out the sun for years.
The old world—the world of high-speed internet, concrete skyscrapers, and advanced computers—was ground to dust. It was an era of total, unmitigated death. Billions of people, along with countless animal and plant species, were wiped off the face of the Earth. Humanity didn't just stumble; it almost disappeared forever.
However, the explosion brought something else with it: Mana. As the Earth's core cracked, it released a shimmering energy that saturated the very air. This wasn't just heat or radiation; it was a mystical force that soaked into every living cell that remained.
The effect was immediate and terrifying. Mana caused fast, permanent mutations in DNA. Docile animals transformed into massive, aggressive monsters—beasts with hides like steel and the sharp intelligence of apex predators.
For the humans who survived, this mana was a salvation, but only for half the species. It granted "Abilities"—genetic mutations that acted as a bridge, allowing the user to pull energy from the air and shape it into reality.
These powers were the only reason humanity wasn't wiped out by the new monsters. They used these abilities to build massive walls, stabilize the weather, and rebuild civilization from the ashes.
But as Kai flipped the page, he found the detail that had truly reshaped history: These abilities were almost entirely exclusive to women.
For a reason scientists still struggled to comprehend, the genetic "hardware" required to host and manifest mana appeared only within the female chromosomal structure.
Men were completely left behind by this new wave of evolution. They had no magic to throw, no shields to summon, and no way to stand against the monsters of the new world.
Because women were the only ones who could command the elements or heal the sick, the old power structures of the world collapsed instantly. Men, who had once ruled through physical muscle and economic control, suddenly became obsolete in the face of supernatural power.
Almost overnight, women became the sole protectors, the high-ranking warriors, and the undisputed leaders of every nation and household.
It went even deeper than just a shift in power. The book explained that mana altered human reproduction itself, as if the energy itself preferred the female vessel.
In every generation following the apocalypse, the birth rate of males plummeted. What was once a balanced split became a staggering disparity. Now, the global ratio was roughly one hundred women for every one man.
In this new world, men were a dwindling, powerless minority. Most were seen as fragile, rare, and ultimately unnecessary for anything other than reproduction. They were the "protected" class—a polite way of saying they were second-class citizens with no voice in how the world was run. They were kept in the safety of the inner cities, far from the glory of the battlefield.