Chapter 1: Ashes Of The Apex
.....
The atmosphere of the planet was no longer air; but it was a pressurized soup of ozone, scorched metal, and the terrifying scent of alien musk. High above, the sky crackled with the death throes of human dreadnoughts. Huge and Massive ships, which are miles long, were being snapped in half like dry twigs by the brute force of the Rakshasa fleet.
On the ground, the capital city was a graveyard of glass and destruction.
Among the ruins, the Rakshasas race moved like mountains made of flesh. They were colossal in size, easily twelve feet tall, with human-like skin and muscles that looked like bundles of steel cables. Their hair was the most striking feature. It was long, wild manes that defied gravity, floating in the air like golden flames. On each of their forearms, three jagged bone-spikes pulsed with a rhythmic, and sickening light from their battle suit.
CRUNCH.
A Rakshasa soldier brought its massive foot down with force, flattening a main battle tank as if it were a soda can. The alien let out a guttural roar. The sound of the roar vibrated through the concrete and shattered the eardrums of the nearby cowering soldiers.
"Help! Someone! Please!" a voice cried out.
There was a small child. A boy who looked 10 years old, He was trapped under a fallen support beam, while he kept staring up in horror as a Rakshasa giant loomed over him. The alien didn't use a gun or a laser. It didn't need to. Although it had a great sword strapped to its back, it didn't use it. It simply raised a fist that weighed as much as a small house, aiming to turn the boy and the street into a red smear.
But suddenly.
WHOOSH.
The air around the boy and the Rakshasa move.
A man had appeared. The Rakshasa hadn't seen him flying down or moving there; he simply existed in the space between the alien's fist and the child. He wore a long, and white military trench coat that fluttered in the wind of the destruction. His hair was white, and standing up in messy spikes, and despite the apocalypse around him, he was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses.
This was Kaelen Vance. Also known as The Zenith. The man who sat at the peak of the Demi-God rank.
"You know," Kaelen said, his voice sounded smooth and annoyingly calm. He didn't even bother to look at the alien. He was busy checking his fingernails. "I was actually having a very peaceful nap before you guys decided to drop by. It's quite rude, really."
The Rakshasa giant alien paused, its golden eyes narrowed. It sensed no power from this human. And No pressure. To the alien, Kaelen Vance looked like a small fly.
The alien swung its fist. The fist moved faster than sound, creating a sonic boom that leveled the nearby shop fronts. BOOM!
Kaelen didn't dodge. Neither did he block. He just looked up and smiled. In a wide, and bright grin that looked completely insane in the middle of a war.
"My turn to set the rules, wanna know a secret." Kaelen whispered nonchalantly.
[NO GOD: ORDER — DENY KINETICS]
The massive fist of the Rakshasa stopped. It didn't hit a shield or anything. It simply lost the ability to move forward. The giant's muscles surged with more force and power, its golden hair glowing with the intensity of a sun as it tried all its best to push through, but it was like trying to push against the concept of reality itself.
"What's the matter, big guy?" Kaelen chuckled, as he steps forward and pat the alien's knuckles. "Forget how to punch? Here, let me show you how it feels when The Zenith doesn't want you here."
Kaelen lazily snapped his fingers.
SNAP.
Suddenly, the giant's arm didn't just break. it folded into itself. The bones in the arm shattered into dust as the alien's own massive weight was turned against it. The creature let out a scream that sounded like a tectonic plate shifting. "GRAAAAAAAARGH!"
"Quiet down, too noisy" Kaelen said, his voice suddenly becoming cold. His playful "Gojo-like" smirk vanished from his face, now replaced by the terrifying presence of a true Apex. "I've decided that in this square mile, gravity is a suggestion. And I suggest you leave."
With a casual wave of his hand, Kaelen Vance didn't just hit the alien. He erased its place in space. And the twelve-foot monster was launched into the sky like baseball, screaming as it broke the sound barrier, and disappearing into the clouds until it was just a tiny, fading spark.
Kaelen turned his attention to the shivering child. He reached down, lifted the several-ton steel beam with one hand as if it were a toothpick, and he winked. "Don't worry, kid. I'm here. And as long as I'm here, Everything crumbles before me."
.....
"Wow..."
Mo Seven exhaled, his breath fogging up the hologram screen of his com-brace. A device similar to a phone but super advanced. He sat in the back of a high-tech classroom, his eyes glued to the grainy, historical footage of that day. the day the Zenith ended the war. It appears that everything that had just happened was being watched by him in his com-brace.
"Kaelen Vance," Seven thought, his fingers tracing the holographic image of the white-haired legend. The man who could tell the world 'No' and the world actually listened. That's not just power. That's... Real freedom.
Seven looked down at his own hands. They were thin. Calloused from chores, and training. In a world where your "Divine Essence" determines if you were a king or a slave, Seven was a person without a divine essence. He was A Null.
"Still watching fairy tales, Seven?"
A sharp, and mocking voice sliced through his thoughts. Seven didn't need to look up to know who it was. It was Kaito. A boy with a divine essence called [Flame Pulse] and an ego the size of a moon.
Kaito leaned over Seven's desk, his shadow blotting out the holographic screen of the Com-brace. "You know, it's actually sad. A trash like you watching a Demi God, the Zenith. It's like a crippled dog watching a racehorse. Do you actually think that if you watch it enough times, you'll suddenly grow an ability?"
The classroom erupted in snickers after kaito spoke.
"Maybe he thinks if he stares long enough, he'll manifest the ' divine Essence of Staring'," a girl laughed from the front row.
Seven slowly closed his com-brace. He didn't look angry in the slightest. Instead He looked bored. "Kaito, don't you have a fire to go light somewhere? Or is your ability only good for warming up your lunch?"
The room went silent. Kaito's face turned into a deep, and angry red. Small sparks of orange light flickered around his fingertips. It Popped and Sizzled.
"You've got a big mouth for a guy who's going to be cleaning toilets for the rest of his life," Kaito hissed. "Meet me in the usual alley after school, if you dare. Or are you going to hide behind the Mo family name again? Oh, wait. Even your own father calls you a 'stain'."
Seven felt a sharp pang in his chest at the mention of his father, but he kept his face like a bored stone. "I'll be there, Kaito. Just don't cry when a 'trash' makes you look stupid." He yarned.
As Kaito walked away, while muttering threats that Seven couldn't hear, Seven leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes.
"I'm a stain. A trash. And a Null."
If only they knew. Seven wasn't just some random kid. He was a man who had died in another world. He remembered Nigeria on the planet called earth. He remembered the heat of the sun in Lagos, the chaos of the streets, and the day he died. He had been a technician, a man who understood how things worked. He had seen a bomb, and realized the evacuation was going too slow, and ran into the heart of the fire to lock the blast-doors.
"I died for people who didn't even know my name," he thought internally. "I thought that meant something. I thought the universe would reward a hero."
Instead, he had met the God-like Being.
He remembered the white hall he had found himself after dying in that bomb. There was a spirit-like entity that called itself a God. It hadn't looked at him with pride or pity. It had looked at him with disgust, as if he were a bug that had crawled into a clean room.
"You've disrupted the balance," the godly Being had said to him, its voice was cold and mechanical. "You saved lives that were meant to end. You've created a karmic debt that someone has to pay. And since you're the one who caused it, you'll be the one to suffer."
"Suffer? I saved people!" Seven had shouted back. Trying to argue. "Is that how this works? You do the right thing and you get punished?. This if fucked up"
"In this universe, yes," the godly Being replied. "You will be reborn. But I will strip you of every gift and power. You will have no power, no luck, and no love. You will be a Null. A empty void or vessel. You will watch everyone around you climb to the heavens while you rot in the dirt. That is your 'hero's reward'."
"The dirt," Seven thought, opening his eyes as the school bell rang. "Well, Mr. God... I've spent seventeen years in the dirt. And I'm starting to like the view from down here. It makes it easier to see where to trip people up."
The alleyway that was behind the academy was damp and smelled of recycled water and rust. Seven stood at the entrance, his bag slung over his shoulder. Kaito was already there, flanked by two of his cronies. Ryu and mako.
Mo Seven was an average looking seventeen year old guy. he had Brown iris and black hair, with a slim but also muscular figure.
"Look at him," one of the lackeys named mako laughed. "He actually showed up. He really thinks he's in a movie."
Kaito stepped forward, his hands already glowing with a low, and orange heat. "This isn't a movie, Seven. This is a reality check."
Kaito suddenly lunged forward. He was fast, boosted by the spirit points he had gained from hunting in the spirit dimension. He threw a punch that was aimed straight at Seven's jaw.
Whoosh.
Seven moved. He didn't have any divine essence, but he had spent years studying every move Kaito made. It's not the first time something like this has happened. He had analyzed the way Kaito's shoulder dipped before a strike. He quickly stepped to the left, the heat of the fist grazing past his cheek, and he used Kaito's own momentum to shove him toward the wall.
THUD.
"You... you rat!" Kaito yelled, while spinning around. He was embarrassed now. He raised both of his hands, and a wave of heat washed through the alley. "Let's see you dodge this! [Flame Burst]!"
A small explosion of fire erupted from Kaito's palms.
Seven didn't panic. He knew this move too. "Kaito only has two moves that he uses when fighting, a flaming fist or small flame burst" He calculated. He looked to the side and saw a puddle of water on the ground and dove, rolling through the wet trash to keep the flames from catching his clothes. He quickly came up while swinging, his fist connecting squarely with Kaito's nose.
CRACK.
"Gah! My nose! You broke my nose!" Kaito screamed, while clutching his face as blood leaked through his fingers.
For a second, Seven felt a surge of triumph. "Tactics over power," he thought. "I can win."
But then, the air temperature changed.
Kaito's eyes went dark with anger. The heat in the alley didn't just rise; it became suffocating. Kaito wasn't just a student. he was a cultivator with a Divine Essence. Unlike seven who's someone without a divine essence he's a Null... was just a human.
"I'm going to kill you," Kaito whispered.
He didn't punch this time which surprised seven. "Shit a new move" seven thought. Kaito just pointed a finger. And a condensed beam of concentrated heat shot out. Seven tried to dodge, but he wasn't fast enough. The beam hit his shoulder, searing through his skin.
"AAARGH!" Seven cried out, falling to his knees. The pain was like a hot iron being pressed into his flesh and bone. Sizzle. Hiss.
Kaito walked over, his face twisted in rage. He kicked Seven in the ribs. CRUNCH. Seven gasped, his lungs were burning as he curled into the shape of a shrimp. Huff... huff... He tried to grab Kaito's leg, but Kaito just unleashed another burst of flames, blasting Seven back into a stack of metal bins.
BANG! CLATTER!
Seven lay in the trash, his vision swimming. His shoulder was a blackened mess, and his ribs felt like shattered glass. He watched through one swollen eye as Kaito stood over him, while breathing heavily.
"You're trash, Seven," Kaito spat, kicking dirt onto Seven's face. "You don't belong in this school or this world. You're just a mistake. Don't ever look me in the eye again."
Kaito and his friends walked away, their laughter echoing in the narrow alley.
Seven lay there in the dark shadows. The pain was moving in waves, threatening to pull him into unconsciousness. He reached into his pocket, his trembling fingers brushing against a cold, and black coin that he had found among his dead grandfather's things. the only person who hadn't looked at him with disgust.
"Is this it?" Seven thought, he felt mind slipping. "Is this where the 'hero' ends up? In a pile of garbage, beaten by a spoiled brat?"
He gripped the coin tight, his blood smearing across its surface. The coin fell from his hand.
"No."
"If the Gods wants me to be a Null. A empty vase.. then I'll be the Null that swallows everything."