Prologue: The Zenith of The Ancient War

The sky was no longer blue; it was a fractured mosaic of obsidian and bleeding violet. High above the crumbling peaks of the Himalayas, the very fabric of space groaned under the weight of the Foreign Race. Their "Void-Arks" didn't fly; they simply existed, anchored in reality by laws that mocked the Earth's natural order.Below them stood the three beings who had spent centuries trying to kill one another, now bound by a Heavenly Pact that tasted of blood and iron."They are hungry," the Zombie Ancestor rasped. He stood atop a literal carpet of a billion unmoving undead, his grey eyes reflecting the flickering stars. His Essence was a cold, stagnant void that caused the very air to frost. "They do not want our lands. They want the 'Marrow' of this world.""Let them try to take it," the Monster King roared. In his beast form—a titan of golden scales and seven wings—he looked like a fallen sun. He flexed his claws, and the shockwave alone disintegrated a squadron of Foreign Scouts diving from the clouds. "I have waited a thousand years for a hunt this grand!"In the center stood the Sovereign, a man who looked like he was carved from white marble. His Liquid Essence flowed through his veins like molten silver, illuminating his skin. He didn't look at the monsters or the zombies. He looked at the sky, his eyes piercing through the Foreigners' "Erasure Beams.""This is not a hunt, King," the Sovereign said, his voice calm but heavy with the weight of 1,500 years. "This is a funeral. Either theirs... or ours."The Foreigners launched their first "World-Eater" pulse. It was a wave of pure anti-matter designed to delete everything in its path.The Sovereign stepped forward. He didn't use a shield; he used Law."Domain: The Eternal Anchor!"With a snap of his fingers, space itself hardened. The anti-matter wave hit an invisible wall and shattered like glass."Now!" the Sovereign commanded.The Monster King launched himself into the stratosphere, his golden roar tearing a hole in the vacuum of space. Simultaneously, the Zombie Ancestor raised his hand, and the billion-strong horde below began to vibrate, their collective "Negative Marrow" forming a dark spear that pierced through the heart of the nearest Void-Ark.Explosions of white fire blossomed in the vacuum. It was a battle that would never be written in the history books of the Underground City, for there would be no one left on the surface to tell it."We cannot win this today," the Ancestor whispered as a second fleet of Arks appeared in the rift."Then we buy time," the Sovereign replied, his Essence beginning to burn as he prepared the Pact-Seal. "We bury the world. We hide the seeds. And we wait for a Seven-Star to finish what we started."As the three titans charged into the final, blinding light of the Foreigners' core, the world below began to sink. The earth opened its mouth, and the last of humanity was swallowed into the darkness of the deep, hidden away by a sacrifice that the future would eventually call a "myth."