4 RED, BLUE, PURPLE Date: May 27, 2026 Time: 10:27 AM Location: Adamawa State, Nigeria Smoke drifted endlessly across the ruined city.
Collapsed buildings burned beneath the fractured sky while distant sirens echoed faintly through the chaos below.
Entire streets had frozen over from lingering ice mana, turning sections of Adamawa into a strange mixture of fire and winter.
High above the destruction, AETERNUS hovered silently in his dragon form.
His eight crimson wings stretched across the sky, each slow movement scattering cold mist through the air.
Blue frost flames flickered between the scales covering his massive body while purple energy pulsed faintly beneath them like a second heartbeat.
And directly in front of him— the humanoid creature waited calmly.
Darkness twisted around the monster’s body in slow spirals, almost alive in the way it moved.
Crimson eyes stared at AETERNUS with unsettling intelligence, completely unlike the mindless creatures rampaging through the city below.
Then the creature smiled.
“You,” it said softly, its distorted voice echoing unnaturally through the atmosphere, “should not exist.” AETERNUS narrowed his glowing blue eyes.
The pressure coming from this thing felt wrong.
Not simply powerful.
Experienced.
Like something that had survived countless battles long before Earth ever changed.
His instincts reacted immediately.
Danger.
The creature slowly bowed with exaggerated politeness.
“My name is MALGRATH.” The moment the name was spoken, the surrounding shadows trembled faintly.
AETERNUS instinctively activated his system vision.
Blue light flashed across his eyes, and information appeared instantly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NAME: MALGRATH RACE: VOID REVENANT TITLE: HUNTER OF ANOMALIES RANK: D-RANK (AVATAR) STATUS: PUPPET BODY WARNING: TRUE BODY UNABLE TO ENTER CURRENT REALM ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AETERNUS’s pupils contracted slightly.
Avatar?
So this wasn’t even the real creature.
Before he could think further, MALGRATH chuckled.
“That’s rude.” AETERNUS frowned.
“…What?” “It’s impolite to inspect someone’s information without permission.” The monster’s smile widened slightly.
“Especially when they’re stronger than you.” A heavy pressure exploded outward.
The surrounding clouds distorted instantly.
Even AETERNUS’s wings stiffened slightly in response.
Still, he forced himself to remain calm.
“Why are you attacking me?” For a brief moment, MALGRATH simply stared at him.
Then the creature burst into laughter.
Loud.
Mocking.
Cruel.
The sound echoed across the ruined skyline while distant civilians below froze in terror.
Inside a collapsed supermarket several streets away, a frightened little boy covered his ears and buried himself against his mother’s chest.
“What is that thing?” he whispered.
His mother couldn’t answer.
Outside, the sky itself seemed to tremble.
MALGRATH slowly stopped laughing.
Then his crimson gaze locked fully onto AETERNUS.
“Your question is amusing.” Dark energy twisted violently around him.
“Why would the strong care about the weak’s opinion?” The atmosphere exploded.
AETERNUS moved instantly.
His dragon body surged forward like a crimson meteor, shattering the air beneath his speed.
Massive claws tore toward MALGRATH with enough force to rip through reinforced steel.
CLANG!!!
Black energy erupted outward.
MALGRATH blocked the strike effortlessly using a spear formed from condensed void energy.
The collision sent shockwaves across the city.
Windows shattered kilometers away.
Several already-damaged buildings collapsed completely.
Far below, two Nigerian soldiers taking shelter behind an overturned military vehicle looked upward in horror.
One of them, a young lieutenant named Ibrahim Musa, felt his hands shaking around his rifle.
He had awakened only two hours earlier.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NAME: IBRAHIM MUSA RACE: HUMAN CLASS: SOLDIER RANK: G-RANK LOW LEVEL: 3 AFFINITY: METAL SKILLS: • Enhanced Vision • Weapon Reinforcement ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ And yet— compared to the beings fighting above the city, he felt less significant than an insect.
“What are we supposed to do against monsters like that?” he whispered.
No one answered him.
Above the city, AETERNUS’s instincts screamed.
Danger.
MALGRATH vanished instantly.
Then— BOOOOM!!!
A devastating kick slammed into AETERNUS’s side.
Pain exploded through his body as the dragon crashed through multiple buildings before smashing violently into the ground below.
The earth shook hard enough to throw abandoned vehicles into the air.
AETERNUS roared in fury.
Blue frost flames erupted from his body, spreading across entire streets within seconds.
Roads crystallized instantly while nearby fires froze solid in unnatural ice.
MALGRATH looked downward calmly.
“Interesting,” he murmured.
Then his expression darkened slightly.
“But immature.” Hundreds of dark spears formed behind him.
Then they descended.
The city exploded repeatedly as void spears pierced through buildings, roads, and frozen streets alike.
AETERNUS barely avoided several attacks before one spear tore directly through his wing.
Blood scattered through the sky.
Pain shot through his entire body.
Damn it— This thing was overwhelmingly more experienced than him.
MALGRATH wasn’t fighting emotionally.
He was hunting.
Every movement was precise.
Efficient.
Calculated.
Like a predator dissecting weaker prey.
Rage surged through AETERNUS instantly.
Then something inside him reacted.
Crimson dragon energy gathered naturally around one claw, violent and unstable as it condensed into a dense sphere of destructive power.
His eyes widened slightly.
The energy felt familiar despite never using it before.
As though the dragon instincts buried inside his blood already understood how to wield it.
The power pulsed violently.
Then he fired it.
BOOOOOOM!!!
A massive crimson beam erupted across the sky.
Buildings disintegrated instantly in its path.
Clouds split apart while the beam carved through the atmosphere for kilometers before detonating somewhere beyond the city.
MALGRATH vanished sideways just before impact.
AETERNUS stared briefly at his claw.
Dragon energy… Red.
The name surfaced naturally inside his mind.
MALGRATH smiled faintly.
“So you’re learning during combat.” Then he disappeared again.
AETERNUS’s instincts reacted immediately— too late.
A black spear pierced directly through his chest.
CRACK!!!
Pain exploded through his body.
Blood poured from his mouth.
MALGRATH leaned closer, his voice cold.
“You’re still weak.” Then he kicked AETERNUS downward.
The dragon crashed into the city hard enough to destroy several streets at once.
Concrete collapsed around him.
AETERNUS coughed violently as his regeneration struggled to repair the damage.
For the first time since obtaining his power— fear entered his heart.
Not fear of pain.
Fear of dying before understanding what he had become.
No… I can’t die here.
Not now.
Then suddenly, his ice mana reacted violently.
Blue frost flames erupted around him again, but unlike RED, this power felt calm.
Precise.
Absolute.
The freezing energy compressed beside him into a single glowing point.
Space itself seemed distorted around it as temperatures plummeted unnaturally fast.
AETERNUS stared at it silently.
Blue.
MALGRATH’s smile faded for the first time.
Then instinct screamed something impossible into AETERNUS’s mind.
Combine them.
His eyes widened.
“That’s insane…” But the feeling wouldn’t disappear.
RED gathered in one claw.
BLUE gathered in the other.
The entire city began trembling.
The atmosphere warped violently around him while even MALGRATH’s expression shifted slightly.
“You…” For the first time, the creature sounded cautious.
AETERNUS roared.
Then slammed both powers together.
Silence descended.
For one impossible moment, the world itself seemed to stop breathing.
Then— a magnificent purple energy formed between his claws.
Beautiful.
Unstable.
Terrifying.
The surrounding air collapsed inward around it.
Even light distorted slightly near the fusion.
MALGRATH’s eyes widened.
“Impossible—” AETERNUS fired it.
“PURPLE!” BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!
The world disappeared into violet light.
Everything in its path vanished instantly.
Buildings.
Roads.
Clouds.
Even the atmosphere itself seemed erased as the beam tore across the city with catastrophic force.
Far away, civilians watched the sky turn purple in stunned silence.
Inside a damaged apartment building, a university student named Esther dropped her phone as the light illuminated the entire horizon.
Her system window flickered repeatedly before stabilizing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NAME: ESTHER DANJUMA RACE: HUMAN CLASS: HEALER RANK: G-RANK MID LEVEL: 5 AFFINITY: LIFE SKILLS: • Minor Restoration • Pain Reduction ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ She stared toward the distant battlefield with trembling eyes.
“…Is that really happening?” The shockwave reached her several seconds later.
Back at the battlefield, silence slowly returned.
AETERNUS fell from the sky heavily, crashing into the ruined earth below.
His body trembled violently.
One wing hung partially destroyed.
Several scales were shattered.
Blood covered the ground beneath him.
Pain consumed nearly every part of his body.
But system notifications appeared before him almost immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [YOU HAVE SURVIVED A HIGHER EXISTENCE.] [COMBAT INSTINCTS GREATLY IMPROVED.] [NEW TECHNIQUES CREATED.] • RED • BLUE • PURPLE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Another notification followed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [LEVEL REQUIREMENTS MET.] [RANK UP SUCCESSFUL.] [CURRENT RANK: E-RANK] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ A weak laugh escaped him despite the pain.
I survived… Far above him, distorted space twisted briefly.
MALGRATH’s partially destroyed avatar slowly regenerated within the darkness.
But unlike before— the creature no longer smiled.
Its crimson gaze remained fixed on AETERNUS with cold fascination.
“Interesting…” Then the void swallowed him completely.
And he disappeared.
Three Hours Later Date: May 27, 2026 Time: 1:41 PM Location: Adamawa State, Nigeria Rain fell slowly from the fractured sky.
Each drop hissed into steam when it touched the lingering traces of purple energy scattered across the battlefield.
The surrounding city barely resembled Adamawa anymore.
Entire streets had vanished.
Buildings lay in ruins.
A massive scar stretched across the earth where PURPLE had erased everything in its path.
AETERNUS remained motionless within the crater.
Every breath hurt.
His regeneration slowly repaired broken scales and damaged flesh, but exhaustion weighed heavily on him now.
For the first time since obtaining power, he truly understood combat.
Not fantasy.
Not imagination.
Real battle.
Where hesitation meant death.
Where weakness invited extinction.
His glowing blue eyes slowly closed.
MALGRATH’s words echoed repeatedly inside his mind.
Why would the strong care about the weak’s opinion?
AETERNUS clenched his claws slightly.
Before today, a part of him still thought like an ordinary human.
But after flying through shattered skies, bleeding in battle, and nearly dying against a creature from another realm— something inside him had begun changing.
Not just his body.
His mentality.
The instincts of a dragon.
A predator.
An apex existence.
And yet, despite that realization, another thought still remained stronger than all the others.
His family.
Even now, while lying inside a ruined city after destroying half a battlefield, he still worried about whether they were safe.
That realization grounded him slightly.
Maybe he hadn’t lost his humanity entirely after all.
System windows appeared again before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [DRAGON INSTINCT SYNCHRONIZATION INCREASED.] [CURRENT LEVEL: 26] [RANK ASCENSION AVAILABLE.] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AETERNUS frowned slightly.
The screen expanded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RANK EVOLUTION REQUIREMENTS G-RANK: LEVEL 1–10 F-RANK: LEVEL 11–25 E-RANK: LEVEL 26–50 D-RANK: LEVEL 51–100 C-RANK: LEVEL 101–200 B-RANK: LEVEL 201–400 A-RANK: LEVEL 401–700 S-RANK: LEVEL 701–1000 SS-RANK AND ABOVE REQUIRE: • LAW COMPREHENSION • AUTHORITY EVOLUTION • BLOODLINE AWAKENING • SOUL EVOLUTION • SPECIAL CONDITIONS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AETERNUS narrowed his eyes slightly.
So leveling alone won’t matter forever.
That made sense.
Otherwise truly powerful existences would eventually become common.
Then another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [NOTE:] [LEVEL REQUIREMENTS DIFFER BETWEEN SPECIES.] [HIGHER LIFEFORMS REQUIRE GREATER ENERGY FOR ASCENSION.] [PRIMORDIAL-CLASS ENTITIES POSSESS ABNORMALLY HIGH ASCENSION REQUIREMENTS.] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ A tired laugh escaped him.
“Of course they do…” Then the final screen appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NAME: AETERNUS ASGORATH MORNINGSTAR RACE: PRIMORDIAL DRAGON CURRENT RANK: E-RANK CURRENT LEVEL: 26 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AETERNUS stared at the information silently.
Only hours ago, he had been an ordinary university-aged young man living a normal life in Nigeria.
Now he had become something capable of reshaping cities.
The thought still felt unreal.
Then suddenly— the system windows flickered violently.
A massive pressure descended across Earth itself.
Even the atmosphere trembled.
Slowly, AETERNUS lifted his head toward the sky.
A colossal screen appeared above the planet once more.
So enormous that every human alive could see it clearly regardless of distance.
Across ruined cities, refugee camps, military bases, and collapsing highways— humanity looked upward together.
The final system notification before him slowly faded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [THE ERA OF MORTALS HAS ENDED.] [THE ERA OF EVOLUTION HAS BEGUN.] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Then the message disappeared.
And somewhere beneath the fractured heavens— AETERNUS ASGORATH MORNINGSTAR unknowingly continued moving toward the center of a new world.