The weight of the crown was not a poetic metaphor.
It was a physical gravity, a crushing pressure that threatened to sink Li Chen's skull against the obsidian backing.
It didn't smell of incense or glory. It smelled of rusty iron. Of old blood.
Beneath his armored boots, the world was nothing but an endless expanse of hot ash, the smoldering remnant of a civilization that had forgotten how to scream.
Before him, ten thousand horrors with scaly skin and sulfur eyes lay prostrate, their foreheads pressed to the volcanic ground.
The silence was absolute.
So dense that Li Chen could hear the hum of the runic essence circulating through the black steel of his sword, hungry, vibrating in sync with his own pulse.
He opened his mouth. His voice didn't sound human. It was the tectonic rumble of a mountain crumbling.
—The Abyss has been claimed.
The phrase resonated, not in the air, but in the very structure of reality. He had spent an eternity being a shadow, a "Nobody" on the margins of existence.
Now, the universe vibrated with the violent frequency of his name.
It was perfect. It was absolute. It was...
—Do you like fiction, Li Chen?
The voice did not come from his demonic generals. It was an acoustic distortion, cold and sterile like the void between the stars, that originated directly in his brainstem.
The throne of dragon bones began to dissolve into black pixels.
The blood-red sky cracked like cheap glass struck by a hammer.
—Wake up, parasite!
¡BAM!
The impact wasn't glorious. It was a hardcover notebook hitting the back of his neck with enough force to send an electric shock down his spine.
Li Chen sat up abruptly, gasping for air. The desk squealed against the synthetic floor, almost tipping over.
His heart, which a second ago was pumping divine ichor, was now hammering against his malnourished ribs with a violent arrhythmia.
Goodbye to the smell of sulfur and victory.
Welcome to the musty smell of chalk, cheap industrial disinfectant, and recycled air of classroom 4-B at Kunlun University.
Reality crashed down on him like a slab of cement.
—Look at him. The "Sovereign" has returned from his imaginary lands.
The voice dripped with that specific arrogance that only feeds on unlimited bank credits and military-grade mana supplements.
Li Chen blinked, focusing his gaze.
Zhao Feng.
He stood before him, adjusting the collar of a tactical jacket that cost more than Li's parents' entire lives. He was the image of Shanghai's elite: perfect skin, bio-engineered musculature, and the gaze of someone who already knows his destiny before the Origin Crystal dictates it.
Behind him, his two lackeys laughed with the synchronicity of well-trained attack dogs.
Zhao kicked the notebook that had fallen to the floor. He did it carelessly, like someone pushing away trash.
—Drooling over your "Portal Theory" notes while dreaming of being a hero—Zhao mocked. —What were you this time? The assassin of a god? Or perhaps the savior of an S-rank princess?
The classroom erupted in nervous giggles.
Nobody moved. Nobody said anything.
At Kunlun University, social hierarchy wasn't a game; it was the prelude to combat hierarchy. Defending an unconnected scholarship student against the son of the Helios Guild's vice president was social and academic suicide.
Li Chen looked down at his hands.
They were rough. Her knuckles were covered in small white scars, reminders of her three part-time jobs carrying boxes on loading docks.
In his dream, those hands could collapse stars.
Here, they barely had the strength to stop the trembling from hypoglycemia due to not having eaten breakfast.
He clenched his fists under the table until his knuckles turned white.
—At least my dreams aren't as pathetic as your need for attention, Zhao.
The silence in the classroom changed texture. It became dense. Dangerous.
Li's voice had come out with a metallic coldness that surprised even the students in the back rows.
Li raised his head, looking directly into the eyes of the heir.
—In my head I'm a king. In yours, it seems you only exist if you have someone to step on.
Zhao Feng's smile froze. Then, it disappeared.
The barometric pressure in the classroom seemed to drop. His eyes gleamed with a spark of predatory malice.
She leaned forward, invading Li's personal space. The scent of her expensive perfume was suffocating, designed to mark her territory.
"Listen to me carefully, trash," Zhao hissed, lowering his voice so only Li could hear the threat. "Tomorrow is the day that separates men from insects."
Zhao held out his hand to the side without looking. His lackey immediately placed a glass of iced coffee in his palm.
"I'll receive a Class A system, maybe even an S. My lineage guarantees it. And you?" Zhao held the glass over Li's open notes. "You'll awaken as a Class F 'Suitcase Carrier.' Or better yet... you'll be a Null."
She tilted her wrist.
—Your parents' genes were waste. And waste only breeds more waste.
The brown liquid fell with deliberate slowness.
He soaked the pages where Li had spent months transcribing advanced-level raid tactics by hand, since he couldn't afford to download the digital manuals.
The ink ran. The strategies for defeating Rank E Beasts turned into grimy stains.
—Get used to the taste of the soil, Li. Because that's where you'll be living.
Li Chen didn't move. He didn't scream.
But his eyes, dark as a bottomless pit, fixed on Zhao's with such icy intensity that the bully felt an involuntary shiver run down the back of his neck.
For a split second, Zhao didn't see the poor student.
He saw a glimpse. A shadow of that man sitting on the obsidian throne.
—That's enough, Zhao Feng!
The spell was broken.
Lin Xiaoyue crossed the classroom with a confident stride. She didn't walk like a student; she walked with the authority of someone whose talent had already been pre-evaluated as exceptional by recruiters.
She was the class representative. A serene, untouchable beauty. And the only person in the entire building who wasn't afraid of the Helios Guild's influence.
"Professor Han is coming down the hall," she said, her tone clinical. "If you want your file cleared before the Origin Crystal analyzes you tomorrow, I suggest you leave."
Zhao snorted, his mask of indifference returning. He wiped his hands with a handkerchief, as if he had touched something foul.
"I was just giving her a reality check, Xiaoyue. Don't worry. Tomorrow the Crystal will put everyone in their place."
With one last venomous look, Zhao and his entourage left the classroom.
The silence they left behind was heavy, uncomfortable.
Xiaoyue approached Li's desk. She took out some silk handkerchiefs and began to dry the coffee that had spilled on the ruined notes.
"You shouldn't let it get to you," she murmured, without looking him in the eye. "Everything changes tomorrow."
Li stared at the smudged ink. Months of work, destroyed in seconds by the whim of a rich man.
"What if he's right?" The question was a broken whisper. "What if I'm just an extra in the story of people like him?"
Xiaoyue stopped. She stared at him.
—Nobody is born to be an extra, Li.
Her voice was soft, but as hard as a diamond.
—But if you let them write your script, you'll end up believing it. You have courage, Li. But courage without power is just an invitation to tragedy.
The rest of the day was a blur of collective anxiety.
Shanghai was engulfed in a media frenzy. Holographic screens on every corner advertised the "Awakening" ceremony.
At 22 years old, a citizen's life was decided in a second.
Under the light of the Origin Crystal, it was determined whether you were a god among men or a civilian destined to clean up the ashes of other people's battles.
As the sun began to stain the skyscrapers a viscous red, similar to dried blood, Li Chen found himself alone in the empty classroom.
Everyone had gone to get ready. He had nowhere to go.
He looked at his worn-out pen.
"I just want one chance. Just one."
He wasn't asking to be a god. He was just asking not to be trash.
Suddenly, reality seemed to bend.
It wasn't a sound. It was a vibration at the base of his skull, so intense that it made his teeth chatter.
[...RECONNECTION PROTOCOL DETECTED...] .
The air became dense, heavy as mercury.
A distorted, neon-blue interface filled with visual static flickered violently in front of their retinas.
[SYNCHRONIZATION STATUS: 1.2%... IN PROGRESS]
[WARNING: EXTREME SOUL LOAD DETECTED] .
Li Chen fell to his knees, holding his head with both hands.
It was not the glorious and warm awakening described in textbooks.
It was painful.
A searing, sharp pain, as if someone were sewing red-hot wires directly into your gray matter.
"Who...?" he tried to shout. His voice was choked by a dry gag.
The blue text began to stabilize, acquiring a cruel sharpness.
[USER INTERFACE: NEXUS v.1.0 STARTING...]
Data began to flow before his eyes, overwriting his vision of the classroom.
Name: Li Chen
Race: Human (Variant: Divine Vessel)
Class: [NONE]
Level: 1 (Exp: 0/100)
Title: The One Who Listens (Effect: Mental Resistance +5%)
Li gasped, trying to understand. Divine Vessel? Title?
But the system wasn't finished. A red, blood-red alert window overlaid everything else.
[SOVEREIGN SYSTEM OF LA CENIZA RESTARTING...]
The pain vanished as quickly as it had come. It was as if the string of a guillotine had been cut.
Li Chen lay on the cold ground, drenched in sweat, his chest rising and falling spasmodically.
He rubbed his eyes, searching for the interface, but it had vanished into a semi-transparent icon in the periphery of his vision.
He stood up, staggering.
As he passed in front of the reflective glass of the door to leave the classroom, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Its reflection.
It wasn't the exhausted, hungry, and humiliated student from five minutes ago.
For a millisecond —a glitch in the matrix, a glitch in reality— the reflection changed.
He saw the man with fiery eyes.
He saw the king sitting on the obsidian throne, surrounded by a silence capable of devouring worlds.
The eyes in the reflection looked back at him. And smiled.
In the city center, the large clock in the square struck seven with a mournful toll. The countdown was over.
Li Chen touched his chest. He felt a ravenous emptiness where his fear had once been.
Something ancient had just awakened within him.
And I was very hungry.