CHAPTER 2
Silence. The valley, once filled with the roar of chaotic gravity, now froze in a chilling stillness. The knights stood motionless, their eyes fixed on the figure who had just erased a "catastrophe" with a single, gentle touch.
Elara, leader of the silver-armored knights, struggled to steady her breathing. As an advanced High-Mage, she knew what she had witnessed was not magic. Magic required rituals, mana flows, incantations. This man before her did none of that. He did not borrow power from nature; it seemed as if he commanded nature itself to obey.
"Who… who are you, really?" Elara finally mustered the courage to speak. Her legs trembled as she stood, picking up her blue sword, which now seemed like a blunt toy in the presence of the Sovereign.
The Sovereign turned slowly. His eyes emitted no emotion, yet there was a depth in them that made Elara feel as if she were staring into the bottomless abyss itself.
"I am an uninvited guest," he replied calmly. "And you are the inhabitants of a burning house."
The Sovereign stepped toward a severely wounded knight. Without touching the injury, he merely observed the damaged part of the body. To him, the wound was merely corrupted data. He snapped his fingers, and in an instant, torn flesh fused back together, broken bones recalibrated, and blood returned to its rightful place.
It was not healing. It was Status Restoration.
"A miracle…" whispered the recently restored knight, staring at his hands in disbelief.
"Not a miracle," the Sovereign corrected. "Just the return of what should be. However, this physical body…" He paused, observing his slightly trembling palms. "...is extremely limiting."
Every act of restoration he performed in this world felt like trying to craft fine calligraphy with a sledgehammer. His physical vessel throbbed under the pressure of his inner essence, struggling to contain itself.
"Master," Elara stepped forward, lowering her dignity as a knight in search of answers. "This world, Orestes, is approaching apocalypse. The phenomenon you call 'decay' is everywhere. If you possess the power to heal it, please… come with us to the Holy City of Aethelgard."
The Sovereign fell silent. The city's name mirrored its original name in the Outer Rim—a coincidence, which for an entity like him, could not merely be coincidence. Were remnants of his presence in this lower world from eons past still lingering?
"The city is named after an ancient legend," Elara continued, noticing the faint doubt on his face. "A legend of the Sovereign of the Edge, who will return when the laws of this world crumble."
The Sovereign gazed at the horizon, where the purple sky darkened further due to widening cracks in reality.
"Aethelgard," he murmured. "An echo from a place I once left behind. Very well. Show me the way. I want to see how far the damage has spread from the 'hands' that tried to replace me."
As they began moving, the Sovereign sensed something. Beyond the haze of fractured reality, something was watching—an entity that had mastered the world's "Level" system and felt threatened by the presence of something that could not be quantified by numbers.