Chapter 1: The Weight of Dust and Hidden Thunders
The rain in Neo-Dhaka didn't fall; it spat. It was a toxic, acidic drizzle that smelled faintly of ozone and dried blood, a permanent consequence of the Great Convergence fifty years ago when the first Dimensional Rifts tore the sky apart.
Emon wiped the grimy mixture of sweat and rain from his forehead with the back of a calloused hand. He was eighteen, but his eyes—deep, abyssal black—carried the exhaustion of a man who had lived through a century of war. His body, wrapped in a cheap, synthetic waterproof coat, was lean, corded with dense, hyper-compressed muscles built from years of agonizing, relentless labor.
"Hey, Emon! Don't just stand there! The carcass of the Iron-Hide Boar isn't going to process itself!" a harsh voice barked across the loading dock.
It was Foreman Tariq, a Rank 2 (Apprentice) Awakened whose power was minor earth manipulation. He used it primarily to sit on a levitating slab of rock while barking orders at the unawakened workers.
"Coming," Emon replied, his voice calm, devoid of the subservient tremble Tariq usually expected from the Rank 0 laborers.
Emon walked over to the massive, three-ton carcass of the Iron-Hide Boar, a low-level otherworldly creature that had wandered out of an F-class Rift. For a Rank 3 (Adept) Hunter, killing it was child's play. For an unawakened human like Emon, even moving its severed limbs required Herculean effort. Yet, this was his daily life. This was his training.
He dug his fingers into the dense, metallic bristles of the beast. Taking a deep breath, he grounded his stance. Breath in. Compress the core. Align the spine. Exhale. With a low grunt, Emon hoisted the massive severed hindquarter—weighing easily over three hundred pounds—onto his shoulders. The sheer crushing weight threatened to snap his knees, but he forced his legs to straighten. Every fiber of his being screamed in protest, but he welcomed the pain. Pain meant he was still human. Pain meant his physical vessel was growing stronger.
In a world where magic, elements, and supernatural powers dictated everything, physical strength without mana was considered utterly useless. There were exactly 12 Ranks in this world, each divided into three sub-ranks: Initial, Mid, and Peak.
From the absolute bottom at Rank 1 (Novice), progressing through Apprentice, Adept, Veteran, Elite, Master, Grandmaster, Transcendent, Saint, Sovereign, Demigod, all the way to the mythical Rank 12 (Divine). Every time an Awakened broke through a major rank, their inherent power or element would evolve, granting them unimaginable abilities. A Rank 5 Elite could level a city block. A Rank 9 Saint could split an ocean.
And Emon? He was Rank 0. The dirt beneath the boots of the gods.
He carried the heavy meat into the cryogenic storage, his breathing steady and rhythmic. He had been doing this for three years, ever since the orphanage kicked him out at fifteen. He didn't have a tragic backstory of a murdered family driving him to revenge; he was simply a product of a broken, apocalyptic world trying to survive. But he had an ambition that burned hotter than the sun: he refused to be an ant.
After a grueling ten-hour shift, Emon received his daily wage—a meager 500 Credits, barely enough to buy synthetic nutrient paste and pay the rent for his decaying apartment in the slums of Sector 4.
As he walked home through the neon-lit, rain-slicked streets, he looked up at the colossal holographic screens floating above the towering skyscrapers of the inner city. The screens broadcasted the news: [Grandmaster (Rank 7) Hunter, 'Aegis', successfully subjugates an A-Class Abyssal Rift in the Pacific!] The footage showed a man encased in golden light, incinerating a titanic, multi-eyed leviathan with a single wave of his hand.
Emon stared at the screen for a long moment. He didn't feel envy. He felt calculation. He used 40% of his mana reserves for that strike. It was inefficient. If he had compressed the golden flames into a singular piercing point rather than an area-of-effect blast, he could have killed it in three seconds instead of ten, Emon analyzed silently.
Despite being Rank 0, Emon possessed a terrifyingly analytical mind and an obsession with combat theory. He had read every publicly available book on mana circulation, monster anatomy, and elemental physics. He was preparing. Because tomorrow was the Day of Awakening.
Once every year, all eighteen-year-olds were granted access to the Awakening Monoliths. It was a universal truth: every human awakened exactly one power or element. Never zero (though some powers were so useless they might as well be zero), and never two. Just one.
Emon finally reached his apartment. It was a shoebox-sized room with peeling wallpaper, a rusted bed, and a single window overlooking a smog-filled alley. He didn't rest. He immediately dropped to the floor and began his nightly routine: two thousand push-ups, two thousand sit-ups, and a grueling set of flexibility and martial arts katas until his knuckles bled against the concrete wall.
"Tomorrow," he whispered to the empty room, sweat pooling on the floor beneath him. "Tomorrow, everything changes."
The Central Academy of Neo-Dhaka was a sprawling complex of white marble, reinforced glass, and hovering mana-crystals. It was a stark contrast to the grime of Sector 4.
Emon stood in the massive courtyard among thousands of other eighteen-year-olds. The air buzzed with nervous energy, excitement, and dread. This single moment would dictate the rest of their lives. A good combat element meant wealth, status, and power. A non-combat or weak power meant a life of servitude or menial labor.
At the center of the courtyard stood the Awakening Monolith—a towering, obsidian pillar etched with glowing blue runes.
"Listen up, maggots!" boomed the voice of Instructor Vane, a Rank 4 (Veteran) Awakened whose voice carried the weight of compressed wind. "When your name is called, you will walk up, place your hand on the Monolith, and channel your intent. The Monolith will awaken your dormant mana veins and reveal your singular innate ability. Do not panic if it hurts. Awakening is the process of breaking your mortal shell!"
The ceremony began.
"Liam Thorne!"
A nervous boy walked up, placing his trembling hand on the stone. A flash of red light erupted.
"Element: Fire. Grade: C. Rank: 1 (Novice - Initial stage). Good. Next!" the instructor announced. The crowd clapped.
"Sarah Jenkins!"
A green light. "Power: Plant Growth. Grade: D. Rank: 1 (Novice - Initial). Next!"
The process continued for hours. Emon watched in absolute silence, absorbing the data. He noticed how people with higher-grade powers had a denser mana residue lingering around them.
Suddenly, a hush fell over the crowd. A girl stepped forward. She had long, silver hair that seemed to catch the sunlight, and eyes like frozen sapphires. Her posture was impeccable, exuding an aura of absolute superiority, yet there was a deep, unreadable calmness to her.
"Elara Vance," Emon muttered under his breath. He knew of her. Daughter of a prominent Guild Master. A prodigy among prodigies.
Elara placed her slender hand on the Monolith. For a second, nothing happened. Then, a blinding, absolute white light erupted, followed by an aura of pure, freezing cold that dropped the temperature of the entire courtyard by twenty degrees. Ice crystals formed in the mid-air.
The Monolith vibrated violently, the runes turning a brilliant gold.
Instructor Vane's eyes widened in shock. "Element: Absolute Zero Ice! Grade: S! Rank: 1 (Novice - Peak stage)!"
The courtyard erupted into absolute chaos. An S-Grade element! And she instantly skipped the Initial and Mid stages of Novice, starting straight at Peak! She was a monster.
Elara withdrew her hand, her expression completely unchanged, as if she expected nothing less. As she turned to walk back, her piercing blue eyes scanned the crowd. For a fraction of a second, her gaze locked onto Emon. She paused. To her highly sensitive mana senses, almost everyone here felt like a flickering candle. But Emon... Emon felt like an endless, terrifyingly empty abyss. There was no mana, yet the sheer density of his physical presence was suffocating. She narrowed her eyes slightly before looking away.
"Emon!" the instructor finally called out. "Just Emon. No surname."
A few snickers rippled through the crowd of wealthy students.
"The slum rat."
"I bet he awakens the power to clean toilets faster."
Emon ignored them. His footsteps were completely silent as he walked up to the colossal black stone. He could feel the ancient, thrumming energy radiating from it. He took a deep breath, calming his heart rate to a steady, rhythmic beat.
He raised his hand and pressed it flat against the cold obsidian.
BOOM.
It didn't happen in the physical world. The explosion happened entirely inside Emon's mind. His consciousness was violently violently ripped from his body and thrown into an infinite, dark void—his inner soulscape.
Pain. Unimaginable, reality-shattering pain tore through his veins. It felt as though millions of tiny blades were traveling through his bloodstream, shredding his mortal limitations.
In the darkness of his soulscape, Emon looked up. The sky of his mind was tearing apart.
According to the textbooks, a normal Awakened would see a single 'Star' in their soulscape, representing their element.
But Emon saw two.
Far in the distance, a tiny, dull, grey speck of light flickered weakly. It looked pathetic, like a dying ember.
But directly above him, taking up the entirety of the void, was something that defied sanity. It was a massive, swirling vortex of absolute black lightning and crimson dark matter. It radiated an aura of pure, unadulterated Annihilation. It wasn't just an element; it felt like the conceptual embodiment of destruction itself.
No, Emon realized, sheer terror gripping his iron will. If that thing manifests outside... if the Monolith registers that... I'm dead. In a world governed by power, a boy with no backing awakening an apocalyptic, unknown element wouldn't be hailed as a hero. He would be captured, dissected, studied, or assassinated by the ruling Elites who feared a threat to their hierarchy. And worse, he felt that no one was supposed to have two powers. It broke the fundamental laws of the world.
The Black Sun of Annihilation began to descend, eager to manifest, eager to destroy the Monolith and announce its arrival to the world.
"STOP!" Emon roared in his mind.
Drawing upon the inhuman willpower he had forged through years of breaking his own body, Emon mentally grasped the terrifying black vortex. It fought back, sending tendrils of agonizing dark lightning through his soul, trying to scorch his sanity. Emon gritted his teeth, his mental avatar bleeding, and forced the entity down. He wrapped it in mental chains, shoving it deep, deep into the darkest abyss of his soulscape, burying it under layers of his own consciousness.
Hide. Stay hidden until I am strong enough to wield you without fear.
With the Black Sun suppressed, the only thing left in his soulscape was the tiny, pathetic grey speck. Emon let his consciousness connect with it, allowing it to flow into the Monolith.
In the physical world, less than three seconds had passed.
Emon stood before the Monolith, his body drenched in cold sweat, a thin line of blood trickling from his nostril due to the sheer mental strain.
The Monolith hummed. A weak, almost pitiful grey light emitted from the stone. A single, flimsy grey string materialized in the air, floating harmlessly before dropping to the ground like a piece of lint.
Instructor Vane stared at it, then at the Monolith's reading. He sighed, rubbing his temples in sheer disappointment.
"Emon. Power: Basic Thread Generation. Grade: F-. Rank: 1 (Novice - Initial stage)."
For a moment, there was silence. Then, the courtyard erupted into uproarious laughter.
"F-Minus?! Is that even a grade?!"
"Thread generation! What's he going to do, knit the monsters to death?"
"He can become a tailor for the Hunters! Hahaha!"
Even some of the instructors chuckled. It was definitively the most useless power awakened that day. It had zero offensive capabilities, zero defensive capabilities, and seemingly no utility.
Emon looked down at the tiny, weak grey string resting on his palm. To anyone else, it was garbage. A death sentence to a mundane, miserable life.
But Emon's expression didn't change. He simply crushed the string in his fist, turned around, and walked away from the Monolith. He didn't care about the mockery. He didn't care about the laughter.
His heart was pounding like a war drum in his chest, because he knew the truth. Deep within his soul, the apocalyptic Black Lightning was waiting. And even if this 'Thread' power was truly garbage, he would find a way to use it. Hard work was all he knew.
Elara watched his retreating back. The mockery of thousands washed over him, yet his stride didn't break. His spine remained perfectly straight. F- grade? she thought. Then why does he still feel so dangerous?
The rain had stopped by the time Emon reached his slum apartment. Night had fallen over Neo-Dhaka, painting the city in shadows and neon.
He locked his reinforced door and collapsed onto his rusted bed, his entire body aching from the violent awakening process and the sheer mental exhaustion of suppressing his second element.
"Two powers," Emon whispered to the ceiling, lifting his hand.
With a thought, he channeled his newly awakened mana. It was sluggish, weak, like moving mud through a straw. Slowly, from his fingertips, a thin, grey thread emerged. He pulled at it. It was weak. With a slight tug of his other hand, the thread snapped easily.
He sighed. It truly was as weak as regular sewing string.
Next, he closed his eyes and tried to reach for the dark abyss in his soul. Instantly, a violent shockwave of pure agony assaulted his brain.
AGH! Emon coughed up a mouthful of black blood, clutching his chest.
I see, he realized, panting heavily. My physical vessel is too weak. If I try to use the Annihilation element now, my own body will instantly disintegrate. It's an overwhelmingly OP element, but it's locked behind a physical stat check. I have to rely on this garbage thread until my body can handle the lightning.
It was a grim realization. He had a nuclear bomb, but no detonator that wouldn't kill him in the process. He was stuck with a sewing kit in a world of monsters and gods.
Emon wiped the blood from his mouth, his eyes hardening with unyielding resolve. "Fine. If all I have is string, I'll learn to strangle dragons with it."
He prepared to stand up to begin his nightly physical training, refusing to take even a day off.
But suddenly, the air in the room froze.
It wasn't ice magic. It was as if time itself had stuttered. The ambient mana in the room began to spiral violently, converging onto Emon's chest.
Deep within his soulscape, the suppressed Black Sun of Annihilation pulsed, and strangely, the tiny grey speck of the Thread element resonated with it. The two extreme opposite forces—one of absolute destruction, one of subtle creation—clashed and merged for a microsecond.
A mechanical, ethereal sound echoed directly into Emon's cerebral cortex. It didn't sound like a machine; it sounded like the voice of an ancient, cosmic entity trying to speak through a broken radio.
[Host's soul frequency anomaly detected.]
[Dual-Core Awakening recognized. Violates universal laws.]
[Anomaly accepted. Initiating absolute integration.]
Emon froze, his instincts screaming at him to dodge, to fight, but he couldn't move a muscle. A holographic screen, tinted in a terrifying mix of black and abyssal blue, materialized directly in front of his retinas.
[Ding!]
[The Origin Overlord System has successfully bound to Host: Emon.]
[Scanning Host's current status...]
[Primary Element (Hidden): Annihilation Oblivion (Grade: EX) - SEALED due to inadequate physical vessel.]
[Secondary Element (Public): Basic Thread Generation (Grade: F-) - Analyzing...]
Emon stared at the floating blue-black text, his breath catching in his throat. A System? He had read web novels before the Cataclysm, but to actually experience it...
The text on the screen began to blur and rewrite itself at rapid speed.
[Analysis Complete.]
[Error: The world's Awakening Monolith has severely misjudged the Secondary Element due to its dormant state and suppression by the Primary Element.]
[Initiating forceful unsealing of Secondary Element's true nature...]
Suddenly, the weak, pathetic grey thread still dangling from Emon's finger began to change. The dull grey peeled away like dead skin, revealing a thread that was completely invisible to the naked eye, yet Emon could feel it. It felt infinitely sharp, infinitely durable, and connected to the very fabric of space.
[Secondary Element updated.]
[True Name: Void Weaving / Strings of Fate (Grade: SSS)]
[Description: The power to manifest strings made of absolute void. Can sever space, manipulate physical matter at a molecular level, and bind the souls of the weak.]
Emon's eyes widened to the size of saucers. F-Minus? Basic thread? It was an SSS-grade space-manipulation power hidden behind a veil of trash!
[System Initialized. Welcome, Overlord.]
[Generating Initial Quest...]
[Quest: The Path of Blood and Sweat]
[Objective: Your body is severely lacking. Complete the daily training routine to unlock the first System Function and earn your first stat points.]
[Routine: 10,000 Push-ups, 10,000 Sit-ups, 100km Run.]
[Time Limit: 24 Hours.]
[Failure Penalty: The immediate unsealing of the Annihilation Element, resulting in the Host's instant bodily destruction.]
Emon stared at the screen, reading the absurd numbers and the lethal penalty. A normal person would have cried in despair. 10,000 pushups? It was physically impossible for a Rank 1 Novice.
But slowly, a dark, terrifying grin spread across Emon's face. The exhaustion in his eyes vanished, replaced by the burning intensity of a starving wolf that had finally found meat.
"Ten thousand?" he whispered, cracking his bleeding knuckles. "Is that all?"
He dropped to the floor.
One.
Two.
Three.
The slow burn of a legend had begun. In a world of arrogant geniuses and terrifying monsters, the boy with the garbage element and the hidden apocalypse was going to weave their dooms, one string at a time.