Evan was still buried under the rubble, with no time to come to terms with the changes in his body, when a sharp sense of danger washed over him.

He could perceive powerful auras coming from above, auras far too strong to belong to A-rank fighters, most likely Overlords at the very least.

He could tell the situation was bad, especially because he could also feel an even more oppressive presence among them, one that gave him a strange sense of familiarity, or rather, the energy it radiated was something he knew all too well, void energy.

He could piece together what was happening up there, but beyond all of that, one thing was clear: he was in danger.

He had to get out.

He summoned Shadow, who appeared in his shadow and from there began to slowly emerge, carving out space in the debris around him.

He could already feel the air thinning down here, not to mention he wasn’t even sure how deep he was buried anymore. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

With Shadow’s help he managed to create enough room to get back on his feet, and once he did, he used Shadow’s summons to slip through the gaps in the rubble and find the fastest path upward.

His goal wasn’t just to escape, it was to get far away from the city.

He could tell the battle above was fierce, and showing up there would most likely get him killed, so he moved away from his position underground, having Shadow’s summons dig like madmen.

It took at least half an hour before he finally dug his way to the surface.

With the summons’ strength and their near-infinite stamina, they managed to dig a small tunnel far enough to carry him outside the city’s perimeter.

In other words, he should have been more or less safe, but the moment he poked his head out of the ground, the first thing he saw was a colossal hand descending from the sky, and an enormous bird of fire hurling itself against it.

’Shit, how did things spiral this far?’ he thought, realizing he was anything but safe.

He also noticed other figures in the distance, and through Shadow’s sight he could see that their vital force was terrifying. It was clear they were anything but ordinary, perhaps even above Overlord rank.

He understood that at this rate he’d be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, so he had to move fast.

The exit point was the nearby forest, where the Bluehorn Earth Dragon had appeared from, or rather, what remained of the forest’s outer edge.

Using Shadow’s ability he erased all traces of his presence, to avoid drawing the attention of the beings above, and without wasting another second he bolted into the forest and put distance between himself and the city.

He had gotten out in time, but what followed made things deteriorate further in ways that nearly killed him on the spot.

He watched the fire woman get hurled against a mountain in the very area he was running through. He saw the strange blow that struck the colossal hand dead-on, and then the devastating explosion that put an end to everything.

He had lost count of how many times he had nearly died today, and after witnessing all of that, he wasn’t even sure how he was still alive.

***

Three days passed since BranLeaf had been completely wiped out. The people of the city, or at least those who had escaped in time, finally managed to return, and when they did, all they found was a deep, vast crater.

BranLeaf, one of the most prosperous and largest cities in the kingdom of Solren, had vanished from the map entirely.

The king had returned, after making certain no Hollow was still present, and as soon as he did, he immediately began mobilizing forces to contain the situation and assist those who had lost their homes.

News of the events spread like wildfire, and in no time all six kingdoms were thrown into turmoil once again.

The fear of the Hollows, which in the past had eaten away at everyone’s spirit day after day, had returned, and with it the terror of the Calamity Dragon.

The kingdoms had begun to move. Because after this incident, it was clear that things were about to change. The peace that had held for the last few centuries was most likely coming to an end.

But none of that mattered to Evan, because he was far more preoccupied with his own current situation.

---

[Name: Evan]

[Age: 15]

[Rank: D]

[ESS: 12%]

[Bloodline: God of Life (1%)]

[Divine Clone]

> [God Of Death]: 25%

> [God Of War]: 16%

[Skills]: 3

[Storage]

---

Evan had spent the last few days recovering his strength, and having finally done so, he decided to examine the changes within him.

He could feel a strange energy inside himself, warm, revitalizing, and assumed it had something to do with his new divine fragment, but the problem was that he had no idea where it was.

He dove into his sea of consciousness and found only his two clones, and a small greenish sphere of light that showed no signs of opening or expanding. It wasn’t even as large as the cocoons the other two clones had been born from.

He tried asking the System, butall he got was a System screen next to the sphere that read:

[Analysis in progress...]

It had been like that the entire time, and even now, three days later, nothing had changed.

So he decided to check his status screen instead, where changes related to him were usually displayed, and sure enough, the moment he opened it he noticed something significant.

The section dedicated to his bloodline, which had remained completely empty all this time, now showed something.

The God of Life bloodline line.

It was unexpected, to say the least. Who would have ever imagined he’d receive a bloodline this way, but he didn’t fail to notice that the bloodline was sealed. He couldn’t access it beyond a certain point, and only then did he understand what that 1% shown on the screen meant.

It seemed he could only access a tiny fraction of that bloodline.

He didn’t know whether to feel happy or confused.

What use was something he couldn’t actually use?

He also had countless questions regarding what that woman had told him before he was abruptly pulled out of that strange dream, but no matter how much he thought about it, he found no answers there either.

In the end he decided to set all of it aside. It was clear that he wouldn’t find the answers by endlessly dwelling on it.

He closed the System screen and set aside the beast bone after finishing the last of the meat attached to it.

He was currently in a section of the forest mainly inhabited by Rank E and Rank D beasts.

This was the outermost region of the forest that had survived the battle.

The areas once inhabited by Rank F beasts and unawakened creatures had disappeared entirely.

He had found a spot nearby to rest while he recovered and figured out his next move, and today, with his wounds finally healed, he was ready to leave.

He had noticed that his injuries, though not life-threatening, had been healing at a strangely high speed.

Being D-rank, it was normal to recover faster than weaker Awakened, but this rate was too fast even for his current rank.

It was clear his new bloodline had something to do with it.

He gathered his things and stored them in his dimensional space, then pulled out the kingdom’s map and fixed his gaze on a particular point.

’It’s about time I visited the royal capital,’ he thought, seeing that there weren’t many other options nearby.

It was at least several weeks away by normal travel, but at his current speed he might make it in a week.

***

[Royal Capital — Awakener Academy]

In the training area reserved for first-years, two figures stood facing each other.

One was a girl of about sixteen, with long black hair tied neatly into a ponytail, wearing the Academy’s standard training uniform.

A wooden sword rested firmly in her hand. Her expression was blank and cold, as she looked down at the other figure on the ground before her with complete indifference, as though he were nothing more than an obstacle she had already grown tired of.

The other was a chubby boy, also around sixteen, with short messy black hair and a round face, currently in a miserable state. He had just been thoroughly beaten during today’s combat training sparring match, his body aching from the relentless exchange.

That boy was none other than Percival, whose days of peace had come to an abrupt end the very moment he set foot in the Academy. And the cause of all of it was no one but the girl standing in front of him.