Five thousand years ago...
The planet Gandalia was living through an era unlike anything history had ever witnessed.
An era in which the greatest races clashed, continents trembled, and war spread from one land to another until its echoes covered the entire world.
The Primordial War.
It was not a war between scattered kingdoms, nor a struggle over land or resources.
It was a war in which the seven supreme races of Gandalia participated.
Humans.
Angels.
Demons.
Beasts.
Vampires.
Werewolves.
And Elves.
The war continued for many long years, and throughout it, the balance of power shifted countless times.
Kingdoms fell.
Bloodlines vanished.
Vast lands were transformed into fields of death.
But what remained most deeply engraved in the annals of history was not the number of armies that had participated in the war...
It was the names that had risen above them.
And among those names was one that would later become a symbol of the strength of the entire human race.
But all of that had become the past.
Five thousand years had passed since the beginning of the Primordial War.
And in the present...
The human race had retreated to its last stronghold.
The Continent of Zeta.
Zeta was small compared to the vastness of Gandalia, but it was by no means a poor land.
Dozens of enormous modern cities were spread across the continent, each one home to millions of humans.
Skyscrapers rose toward the heavens, wide roads bustled with vehicles, towering buildings dominated the cities, markets never seemed to rest, and entire human communities continued to live their daily lives.
From the outside...
Zeta might have appeared prosperous.
But hidden behind that prosperity was a truth every human knew.
Humanity had lost most of its territory.
With the end of the Primordial War, the other races seized vast portions of human lands, along with countless resources that had once been under humanity's control.
Only one continent remained to the human race.
Their ancestral continent.
Zeta.
And at the heart of this continent...
There existed a land unlike any other.
The Sacred Land of Humanity.
This was where the earliest humans had lived before the Primordial War.
This was where ancient human civilization had begun.
From this land emerged the generations that led humanity throughout the ages, until humans rose from a weak race to become one of the supreme races of Gandalia.
For this reason, the Sacred Land was not merely a place.
It was an origin.
A symbol.
A witness to an era when humanity stood at the peak of its glory.
And at the center of the Sacred Land...
stood a colossal palace.
A majestic and luxurious palace whose towers reached toward the heavens, surrounded by enormous walls and ancient engravings documenting the glory of the human race.
Its design was not merely a form of architecture.
Every part of it carried an overwhelming sense of sovereignty.
As if the entire palace itself represented the authority of humanity.
But behind those magnificent walls...
there was a secret unknown to most humans.
A secret that had remained dormant for thousands of years.
Deep within the palace...
there was a passage known only to a few.
And at the end of that passage...
stood an ancient black gate.
The gate was enormous, its surface covered with the marks of time.
There were no guards stationed around it.
Nor were any needed.
A faint pressure emanated from the gate, a pressure powerful enough on its own to stop anyone who attempted to approach it.
Beyond the gate...
there was a hall.
An incredibly ancient hall.
So ancient that the word ancient itself was no longer sufficient to describe it.
There was nothing modern about this place.
Even the cosmic energy filling the hall seemed different.
It was dense, immense, and pure...
Yet it carried a strange sensation.
A sensation of ages.
As though the energy itself had existed here since a distant era.
As though it had witnessed generations being born and dying.
Witnessed empires rise and fall.
And then remained here...
waiting.
At the deepest point of the hall...
there was a throne.
A black and imposing throne.
It was not merely a piece of furniture.
It radiated a strange pressure that made the surrounding space seem to bow before it.
And upon that throne...
sat a man.
His body was frighteningly thin.
His skin clung tightly to his bones, leaving them clearly visible.
His hair was white and dry, hanging lifelessly around his body.
He did not move.
He did not breathe.
He made no sound.
If someone had seen him for the first time, it would never have occurred to them that they were looking at a living human.
They would have mistaken him for a dried corpse...
or an ancient mummy that had been forgotten in this place for thousands of years.
One moment passed.
Then another.
Suddenly...
his eyes moved.
A simple movement.
Yet it was enough to shatter the silence that had lasted for five thousand years.
His ancient eyelids trembled.
Then his eyes opened.
Two black pupils appeared within them.
Black as black holes.
There was no light in them.
No warmth.
But there was something else.
Authority.
An authority that could only belong to someone who had once stood at the very peak of the world.
Silent dominance.
Terrifying majesty.
A sensation that made even the place itself seem as though it remembered its master.
The man moved slowly.
He raised his head.
Then he opened his mouth.
A hoarse voice emerged from his throat.
A deep, ancient voice filled with the traces of time.
As though the very words themselves had struggled to emerge after a silence that had lasted for ages.
Then he said:
"I have returned."
In the next moment...
the hall trembled.
The voice was not merely loud.
It carried a strange power that surged in every direction.
The walls shook.
The ground trembled.
And the dense cosmic energy within the hall danced as though struck by a hurricane.
Then the voice broke beyond the boundaries of the hall.
It passed through the black gate.
Rushed through the corridors.
And swept across the entire palace.
The moment it reached the outside...
everything changed.
The guards froze in place.
The officials stopped in their tracks.
The servants suddenly raised their heads.
Even some experts who had been meditating within the palace opened their eyes at the exact same moment.
They did not know what had happened.
But their bodies knew before their minds did.
Fear.
Everyone felt that something terrifying had awakened.
Something that should never have awakened.
The bodies of some guards trembled.
Others collapsed to their knees without even realizing it.
No one knew where the voice had come from.
And no one knew who the owner of that voice was.
After a few moments...
the voice disappeared.
Silence descended.
The officials looked at one another.
Then they began moving rapidly.
They had to inform the rulers of humanity.
They had to find out what was happening.
They had to know who had dared to unleash such a voice within the Sacred Land.
But before anyone could leave...
the voice returned.
This time, it was deeper.
More authoritative.
And even more terrifying.
The man said:
"This time..."
He paused.
As though the entire world were waiting for his next words.
Then his voice emerged from the depths of the hall:
"This great one will never allow the past to repeat itself."
BOOM!
The voice swept through the palace once again.
The walls trembled.
The expressions of the officials changed.
Even some experts felt a chill run through their bodies.
But what frightened them the most...
was not the power of the voice.
It was the words themselves.
The past.
What past?
And what had happened five thousand years ago?
Who was this man who spoke as though he himself had lived through those ancient ages?
No one had the answer.
And deep within the palace...
the man remained seated upon his throne.
He did not move.
His black eyes stared silently ahead.
Then...
something strange appeared before his eyes.
A light that had not been there moments before.
Words materialized before him, their source unknown.
[System Activated.]
His eyes remained fixed upon the words.
After a moment...
another message appeared.
[Welcome Back.]
The man remained silent.
He did not understand what the strange phenomenon before him was.
Yet he did not appear frightened.
He simply continued staring at it coldly, while the ancient hall around him slowly returned to silence.
Outside the hall...
no one knew what had happened.
Throughout the palace...
the officials began moving in panic.
But deep within the Sacred Land...
an existence that had remained dormant for five thousand years had awakened.
And without anyone knowing...
a new era in Gandalia had begun.
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