Prologue: Echoes of Divinity
The Last Assembly
In the heart of the Divine Realm, where celestial rivers flowed with stardust and the heavens shimmered with the light of ancient power, stood the Temple of Divine Unity—a sanctum forged when the Primordial Universe first breathed existence into its gods. Once a beacon of harmony, the temple now bore scars—fractures from eons of war, its marble pillars chipped, and its once-lustrous dome dimmed by shadows of decay.
The gods had gathered. Not for celebration, but for farewell.
A deep silence hung in the air, broken only by the voice of the God of Time, aged and weary.
"We no longer possess the strength to resist them head-on. The next assault may very well be our last breath."
Beside him stood the God of Space, his once-vast aura now constrained, as if even the cosmos had abandoned him.
"Sigh... Who would have imagined it? The noble gods born from the Primordial Flame, reduced to this. The God of Wisdom and the God of Foresight spoke true—this future we tread was never the optimal path. It was only an illusion... and we chased it blindly."
One by one, the remaining gods turned their gazes to the shattered skies. The Void Universe loomed beyond, a malevolent realm whose very laws repelled existence. Unlike the harmonious flow of the Primordial Universe, the Void thrived in anti-creation. It devoured, unmade, and desecrated all that the gods held sacred.
The God of Wisdom finally spoke, voice calm but absolute.
"It is time."
And so began the Rite of Inheritance.
Pooling what remained of their divinity, each god forged a shard of their essence into what would be known as the Divine Sparks—tokens of their power, knowledge, and laws. These Sparks were sealed into an Inheritance Nexus, a device crafted with the last breath of the Primordial Flame, capable of traversing the realms to locate successors whose souls resonated with the Divine Law.
They did not choose blindly. Across the mortal realms, scattered among billions of stars and worlds, were individuals born with the rarest affinities—wielders of fate's final gambit.
The Final Spark
But the gods had not gathered merely to pass on their legacies. They had gathered to die.
When the final Spark was sealed, they would ignite their divine flames—sacrificing their very existence to create a Celestial Barrier that would delay the Void Universe's incursion. It would not last forever, but it would grant time. Time for the successors to awaken, to learn, and to rise.
As the Nexus activated, Divine Sparks dispersed across countless realms:
A silent youth born under a blood moon received the Spark of the God of War, his pulse quickening with every beat of ancient battle drums.
A veiled maiden, blind since birth, was chosen by the God of Perception, her sight replaced with true vision beyond the veil of time.
A beast-child in the wilds of a fragmented world received the God of Beasts' essence, his roar splitting the heavens.
And then came the last.
The successor selected to receive the dual legacies of Time and Space.
A boy whose soul sang in harmony with the rhythm of ages and the folds of the cosmos. He alone bore the potential to become a god greater than the two before him. To mend what was broken. To reshape fate itself.
But fate is a cruel weaver.
Before the transfer was complete, the invaders struck. Divine-level entities from the Void breached the outer defenses. The gods, sensing the impending collapse, activated the Celestial Barrier prematurely.
All gods began pouring their essence into the seal. But the Inheritance Nexus had not severed its connection.
The dual successor—the boy—still linked to the Nexus—became the unwilling vessel of all the gods' essence, their Divine Flames, and their last wills.
The overload was catastrophic.
The barrier, sensing the divine overflow, began pulling the Nexus and the boy into its core, intending to use him as fuel. But he was not a god—not yet.
The technique rejected him.
And in a blinding flash of celestial rupture, the Nexus and the boy were hurled into the Chaos Void—a place beyond universes, where time fractured and space bled into nothingness.