In the beginning, there was only darkness.
Not the darkness of night, nor the emptiness between stars.
A silence before time ever began.
Then, one by one, lights appeared.
At first, there were only a few—small points of light hanging in the endless void.
Before long, they became too many to count.
They drifted through the darkness like distant stars, each burning with a different light.
Each light was a universe.
Each universe followed its own history.
Some flourished.
Some had already fallen.
Some had never known peace.
No two were ever the same.
Every light told a different story.
Even so, creation did not end there.
Beyond the countless lights, where no universe could reach, two vast figures watched without a word.
One was the Dragon of Dreams.
The dragon from whom countless dreams were born.
Across the multiverse, every being who spoke the name Great Red believed they had seen the legendary dragon.
They had only seen a fragment.
The Great Red they knew was only an avatar, a small part of a being whose true form had never entered any universe.
Opposite it rested the Serpent of Infinity.
Silent.
Unmoving.
Eternal.
Across endless realities, every Ophis known to gods, devils, dragons, and angels was another avatar.
The true Serpent remained beyond creation, where even time held no meaning.
Neither dragon spoke.
Neither needed to.
Their presence alone dwarfed entire universes.
And beyond even them…
Something moved.
Far outside creation lay the Outer Void.
No law of creation reached that place.
It was older than stars and older than the universes themselves.
There, ancient beings watched.
They had never belonged to any universe.
They had never been part of creation.
To them, entire universes were no more than ripples on water.
Whether they were guardians, observers, or something else entirely…
No one within creation knew.
The countless lights drifted on.
Worlds were born.
Worlds fell.
Stories began.
Stories ended.
Among those countless worlds, one had only just begun its story.
One small light burned among the countless others.
Within that world…
On an ordinary morning in Kuoh…
Rafsan Barbatos opened his eyes.