Chapter 1: Dreamlike Crack
Year 6050, approximately two centuries after the end of the Third Intergalactic War.
Hidden Quadrant, Unknown Galaxy... Planet Entropian, cradle of the vanished divine race.
The planet was plunged into total darkness. No star shone in the sky. Its atmospheric mantle had been torn apart for centuries, leaving behind only an unstable, corrosive void. A thick, black, acidic rain fell relentlessly, burning on contact the few metallic debris and remnants of collapsed structures.
The ground was flooded with a dense, silent, blackish liquid, stretching as far as the eye could see. In places, it bubbled for no apparent reason. Meteors struck continuously, carving vast craters into the already fractured soil.
Amid this apocalyptic landscape stood an immobile, entirely white figure, kneeling before a monumental statue. Around it, twenty other figures stood in the shadows, scattered in a semicircle at precise distances.
Their presence was oppressive. Each emitted a cosmic energy so dense it could annihilate entire systems. Their mere existence was enough to freeze local time. Each was listed in the archives as one of the most powerful beings in the universe, ranked in the top 1000. All had mercilessly slaughtered: entire solar systems, thriving civilizations, children and adults. Billions dead by their hands alone.
They had come from everywhere.
Some had known slavery from birth, sold, broken.
Others were born in filth, with no gifts, scorned by all, before discovering their potential.
A few had been saved on intergalactic battlefields, about to die in anonymity.
Some had seen their home planets annihilated, their races reduced to nothing.