Chapter 1: The Day the World Held Its Breath
Across the globe, it was a day like any other. In Kyoto, an elderly dojo master knelt in serene silence, sipping warm matcha as he listened to the bamboo leaves rustling outside his paper-walled home. A continent away in New York, a taxi honked obnoxiously as a man in a hoodie took an exaggerated bite out of a greasy cheeseburger, blissfully unaware of anything beyond the melting cheese. In Paris, a young artist adjusted her canvas by the Seine, muttering to herself about getting the light just right. Everything was normal. Boring, even. The world ticked along on its predictable rhythm.
But in the sweltering heat of a sunny day in the Philippines, something was shifting.
At Tunasan National High School, the air buzzed with the usual hum of an afternoon class. Fans spun lazily. Teachers lectured. Students zoned in and out of focus. In one fourth-floor classroom, a boy sat slouched over his desk, drifting dangerously close to sleep. No one paid him any mind—some took notes, others whispered, a few tapped away at their phones under the desk. He was just another sleepy student in a sea of sleepy students.
Until he wasn't.
A subtle twitch crossed his face. Pain. His eyebrows furrowed, his body tensing as if something deep inside was trying to claw its way out. He lifted his head slowly, scratching his eyes, restless. Agitated. Confused. Panic began to creep across his face like a spreading shadow. Then—he stood. Abruptly. Eyes closed tight, hands clamping down over his ears.
"Shut up!" he shouted, his voice cracking like thunder in the quiet room.
The class froze. Even the usual classroom chaos fell still. The teacher blinked, taking a cautious step forward. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"
"I said SHUT UP!" the boy screamed again, louder, more desperate, as if trying to drown out something no one else could hear.
He kept yelling, over and over—his voice rising into a near-animalistic wail, drawing attention from classrooms nearby. Students and teachers gathered at the door, watching with uneasy curiosity. The teacher took another step forward—then stopped cold.
Blood.
The boy's eyes began to bleed, thick crimson tears tracing down his cheeks. Gasps erupted around the room. Then the boy opened his eyes.
They weren't eyes anymore.
They were pools of red—entirely consumed by blood, glinting like rubies under the fluorescent lights. Without another word, he bolted from the room, pushing past chairs and bodies, screaming as if the world itself was shouting back at him.
Down the hallway. Toward the fire exit.
Then—
He tripped.
A scream tore through the hallway as his body tumbled forward—toward a four-story fall.
But then…
Time. Stopped.
Mid-fall, his body froze, suspended in midair. The world around him blinked into silence. Light—pure white, laced with ethereal rainbow hues—wrapped around him like mist. His bleeding eyes remained open, unfocused. His limbs limp, yet floating.
He rose.
Not by physics. Not by will. But by something far greater.
Students and teachers stared from windows and stairwells, dumbstruck. Then, without warning, a blinding light exploded from the roof—radiating from the boy's body. It expanded outward—first engulfing the school, then rippling across the city like a shockwave, surging into the sky and branching across the entire archipelago.
And then… the world.
Cars skidded to a stop. Planes veered off course. People froze mid-sentence, staring up at the heavens as the wave of light passed through them like wind.
Above it all, the bleeding boy hovered, bathed in celestial glow.
His mouth moved.
And a voice—deep, mythical, and echoing in every language—spoke from him:
"Attention. Earth is now ready for the next stage of its evolution. Attention."
The world, stunned in unified silence, listened.