Atunm stepped off the road and onto the sidewalk.
Cars rushed past him, a blur of metal and noise. Horns blared. Drivers shouted at each other for cutting lanes, for driving too slow, for driving too fast, or simply for existing. Nobody seemed to care that the literal Creator of Everything had almost been roadkill thirty seconds ago.
He liked that.
He walked over to a broken lamppost and leaned against it. The metal was cold and rusted under his hand. Trash lay everywhere—empty chip bags, crushed cans, cigarette butts. The air smelled strange. It wasn't the clean, sterile scent of ozone found in Heaven. It smelled of burnt oil, frying onions, and sweat.
It smelled like struggle.
Atunm folded his arms and watched a woman hurry past, dragging a crying child. He watched a man in a suit yelling into a phone, his face red with stress.
If I'm going to stay here, he realized, I should probably know what kind of mess I've walked into.
Technically, he didn't need to ask anyone.
He could simply open his "inner eye." If he wanted to, he could see the entire timeline of this planet. He could see every war, every peace treaty, every secret whispered in the dark, and exactly how the world would end in 4,000 years due to a rogue asteroid.
But that would be boring.
That would be like reading the last page of a mystery novel before reading the first chapter. It ruins the suspense.
"I need context," Atunm muttered, kicking a pebble across the pavement. "Not spoilers."
He wanted the backstory, but he wanted to learn it the hard way. Or at least, the semi-hard way.
"Oii."
He didn't shout. He just spoke the word into the air and waved one finger.
Asclepius popped into existence instantly.
The God of Healing arrived with such speed that he skidded on a discarded wrapper. He flailed, regained his balance, and looked around with wide, terrified eyes.
"Yes! Yes, my Lord! Are we going back?" Asclepius asked, hope blooming in his chest. "I knew this was a bad idea! I can feel the pathogens in the air. This place is a Petri dish! Let's go back right now, I'll prepare a bath—"
"No," Atunm said calmly.
Asclepius froze. His hope died a silent, tragic death.
Atunm looked around at the towering skyscrapers. "I need to know the history of this place. But I don't want to use my Omniscience. It feels like cheating."
"Cheating?" Asclepius whispered. "You are God. You make the rules."
"Exactly. And the rule is: no cheating," Atunm said. "So, go find me some old people."
Asclepius blinked. "…Excuse me?"
"Old people," Atunm repeated, making a vague shape with his hands to indicate a hunched back. "Wrinkled. Grey hair. The kind that sit on park benches and complain about how things used to be better. I want to read their memories."
Asclepius stared at him. "You want me to… abduct the elderly? So you can use them as history books?"
"Borrow," Atunm corrected. "I will borrow them. They won't even know they left. Now go."
Asclepius looked like he wanted to argue, to explain that kidnapping senior citizens was generally frowned upon in most moral frameworks, but looking into Atunm's eyes was like staring into the sun.
"Yes, my Lord," he squeaked.
He vanished with a pop.
Atunm nodded, satisfied. He turned to his left.
Tyche, the Goddess of Luck, was standing near a dumpster. She was staring intensely at a glowing golden scroll in her hands, her fingers tracing complex patterns in the air. She looked like a stressed wedding planner trying to fix a seating chart five minutes before the ceremony.
"What are you doing?" Atunm asked.
Tyche jumped. She straightened her blazer and bowed.
"My Lord! I was… just doing some housekeeping."
"Housekeeping?"
"Yes," she said nervously. "I was blocking the automatic System link."
Atunm tilted his head. "System?"
Tyche hesitated. She bit her lip.
"The Annwn Universe," she explained carefully, "operates on a magical framework created by the Goddess Sury about fifty years ago. It's designed to help humans survive against monsters. It gives them 'Levels', 'Skills', and 'Quests'. It turns their lives into a progression ladder."
"Oh," Atunm said.
He looked at a passing teenager who was staring at a blue holographic screen hovering in front of his face, smiling as he poked the air.
"Like a game," Atunm mused. "That looks fun."
Tyche forced a smile. "Yes. For them. But when you entered the atmosphere, the System tried to attach itself to you automatically. I blocked it."
"Why?"
"Because… well…" Tyche wrung her hands. "The System is designed for mortals. It measures strength in cups. You are an ocean. If the System tried to measure you, it would shatter. It's like trying to catch a falling meteor with a butterfly net."
Atunm frowned. He didn't like the sound of that.
"So everyone else gets to play with the blue boxes, but I don't?"
"You are the Game Master, my Lord," Tyche said soothingly. "You don't need the boxes."
"I want the boxes."
Tyche dropped her hands.
"My… Lord?"
"I want a System," Atunm said, his eyes lighting up with stubborn curiosity. "It will help me blend in. If everyone has floating screens and I don't, I'll look suspicious. Plus, I like the sound of 'Quests'. It gives me something to do."
"But it will break!" Tyche cried, losing her composure. "It wasn't built for your weight!"
"Then tell Sury to reinforce it," Atunm said simply. "Bring her here."
Tyche's hands began to tremble.
"My Lord… Sury is the Architect of Laws. She is currently maintaining the gravity of three different galaxies. We cannot just yank her out of her office without filling out the proper prayer forms—"
Atunm stared at her.
"Do you want to fill out a form?" he asked softly. "Or do you want to see what happens when I get bored waiting?"
Tyche swallowed hard.
"I will summon her immediately."
Tyche reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, crystal chime. She closed her eyes and snapped it in half.
Instantly, the world stopped.
Not slowed down. Stopped.
A pigeon froze in mid-flap above them, hanging in the air like a statue. A car horn cut off halfway through a honk. The wind died. The clouds halted. The entire planet was paused.
Then, the air directly in front of them ripped open.
A woman fell out of the rift.
She was wearing a long, starry robe that was stained with ink, and her hair was a messy bird's nest of constellations. She was holding a quill in one hand and a half-eaten ambrosia cake in the other.
She landed on her feet, stumbled, and dropped her cake. Since time was frozen, the cake didn't hit the ground; it just floated there, suspended an inch off the asphalt.
"WHO?!" the woman screamed, spinning around. "Who rang the emergency chime?! I was fixing a gravity leak in the Andromeda sector! Do you have any idea how delicate that is?!"
She adjusted her robes furiously and looked up.
She saw Tyche looking at the ground. She saw the frozen city. And then she saw the man leaning against the lamppost.
Sury, the Goddess of Systems, turned pale white.
She dropped her quill.
She threw herself onto the ground so fast her knees cracked against the pavement.
"GREETINGS!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "Oh Supreme One! Oh Source of All! Lord Atunm! I didn't know! I didn't see! Please don't unmake me!"
Atunm looked down at her. "Hello, Sury. I need a favor."
Sury kept her forehead pressed to the dirty road. "Anything! You want a new sun? I can make one! You want me to delete a dimension? Just point!"
"I want a System," Atunm said.
Sury froze.
She slowly lifted her head. She looked confused.
"A… System?"
"Yes. Like the one the humans use. Levels. Stats. The ding sound."
Sury looked at him. Then she looked at Tyche. Tyche gave a tiny, helpless shrug that said 'I tried to tell him.'
"My Lord," Sury whispered, sweat beading on her forehead despite the time-stop. "The System is… it's a fragile thing. It's woven from thin threads of magic. It's meant to help humans lift rocks and fight goblins. If I hook you up to it… it's like trying to power a lightbulb with a lightning bolt. The bulb will explode. The house will explode. The street will explode."
"Make a stronger bulb," Atunm said.
"I can't just 'make it stronger' in five minutes!" Sury wailed. "It's a structural issue! You simply exist too much!"
Atunm narrowed his eyes. The air grew cold. The frozen pigeon above them started to vibrate.
"Are you saying you can't do it?"
Sury felt the pressure of his gaze. It felt like the sky was lowering itself onto her shoulders.
"I… I can improvise!" she squeaked.
Her hands flew up. Glowing golden threads appeared in the air around her, weaving together frantically.
"I can't give you a normal User Account," she muttered, weaving magic, tying knots, sweating, and crying a little bit. "But… I can give you the Observer Mode. The Administrator Shell. It won't try to limit you or measure you, it will just… display things. It's a cosmetic overlay."
She grabbed the ball of woven light and pushed it toward Atunm.
"Please don't exert yourself too hard!" she begged. "If you flex your soul, the interface might crack!"
The ball of light hit Atunm's chest and absorbed instantly.
Ding.
A crisp, clean blue window appeared in Atunm's vision.
[ SYSTEM INTEGRATION COMPLETE ] [ WELCOME, ADMINISTRATOR ] [ CURRENT STATUS: BORED ]
Atunm smiled. He waved his hand, and the window followed his movement smoothly.
"Nice," he said. "Very clean."
Sury collapsed in relief. "It's the best I could do on short notice."
"Good job. Now go back to work. I'm unpausing time."
"Yes! Thank you! Goodbye forever!"
Sury grabbed her floating cake, snatched her quill, and vanished into a portal before Atunm could change his mind.
Time snapped back.
The pigeon flapped and flew away. The car horn finished its honk. The wind blew a candy wrapper across the street.
"Well," Atunm said, swiping through his new menu screens. "That settles that."
"I found one!"
Asclepius reappeared.
He was panting heavily, carrying a very confused old man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
The old man was wearing a checkered vest and holding a half-eaten sandwich. He was blinking rapidly, looking around the busy city street.
"One second I was feeding the ducks," the old man mumbled to himself, "and then… whoosh?"
Asclepius set the man down gently in front of Atunm.
"He is eighty-two!" Asclepius announced proudly, wiping sweat from his brow. "He has lived through the Great Fracture! His mind is full of history!"
Atunm stepped forward. The old man looked up at him, squinting through thick spectacles.
"Are you my grandson?" the old man asked. "You look taller. And glowing a bit."
"Hello," Atunm said politely. "I just need to borrow your brain for a second."
"My what?"
Atunm placed his palm on the old man's wrinkled forehead.
[ SKILL ACTIVATED: MEMORY READ ]
He didn't hurt the man. He just skimmed the surface, like reading a book that was left open.
Information flooded Atunm's mind.
He saw the world as it was fifty years ago. He saw the sky crack open like an egg. He saw the first monsters—dragons made of smog, wolves the size of trucks—pouring into the cities. He saw modern military weapons failing. Tanks crushed like soda cans. Bullets bouncing off scales. He saw the "Awakening"—when mana entered human bloodstreams. The first Hunters rising up, glowing with power, fighting back with swords and fireballs in the ruins of New York and Tokyo. He felt the fear. The starvation. The rebuilding of society into fortress cities. He saw the current world: a fragile peace, held together by Hunter Guilds, greedy corporations, and the constant fear of the "Dungeon Breaks."
Atunm pulled his hand back.
The old man blinked, dazed. He took a bite of his sandwich, completely unfazed.
"Wow," Atunm whispered. "This place is a disaster."
He was impressed. Humans were weaker than ants, yet they had survived an apocalypse that should have wiped them out. They were stubborn. He liked stubborn things.
"We are ready," Atunm declared.
"Um," the old man said, chewing slowly. "Who are you people? Do you have any bread for the ducks?"
Atunm patted the old man on the shoulder.
"Go home, old man. You never saw us."
He put a tiny fraction of divine will into the command. Just a pinch.
The old man's eyes glazed over. "I… never saw you. I'm going to find the ducks."
He turned around and shuffled away, humming a tune, completely forgetting that he had just been teleported across the city by a God.
Atunm turned to his two terrified assistants.
"Okay," he said, cracking his knuckles. "I know the history. I have the System. I'm ready."
Tyche looked at the new blue window floating next to Atunm's head.
[ QUEST GENERATED: FIND ENTERTAINMENT ] [ DIFFICULTY: IMPOSSIBLE ]
"Where do we start, my Lord?" she asked weakly.
Atunm pointed down the street. In the distance, a massive building loomed over the city. It had guards, banners, and a long line of people waiting outside. A glowing red sign above the door read: [ HUNTER ASSOCIATION - REGISTRATION ].
"We get jobs," Atunm said, grinning. "I want to hit something."