The world had changed. Skyscrapers of obsidian glass pierced the heavens, built atop the ruins of ancient kingdoms long forgotten. But beneath the polished surface of this so-called modern age, the same rot festered: bloodshed, war, monsters, and greed.
In the dead heart of the Drenvale Wastes — a no-man's land where even high-ranking Hunters refused to tread — a storm churned the sky into a furious black spiral.
Lightning struck.
And the seal broke.
Chains made of celestial bone shattered, falling into ash. Glyphs older than time blinked out of existence, one by one. A crater opened like a yawning mouth, and from its center, a figure rose — slow, unhurried, inevitable.
Tall. Lean. Shirtless, his body covered in ancient markings that pulsed with faint, gold-red light. Hair like flowing midnight, eyes void of warmth or empathy.
He blinked, once.
The world trembled.
"Seven million years," he murmured, his voice a deep rasp — a sound like the world cracking in half. "Who dares awaken me… so weak?"
The ruins around him collapsed. Monsters — those that roamed the Wastes unchecked — sensed his presence and fled, howling. All except one.
A Class-S Apex Wyrm slithered down a cliff, ten stories tall and plated in soul-forged steel. Its mouth split open with a screech, spewing acid like molten fire.
The man didn't move.
He didn't need to.
He raised one hand — fingers lazily extended — and clenched his fist.
Reality screamed.
The Wyrm twisted midair, bones crushed from the inside out, imploding like a dying star. A shockwave erupted, blowing a hole clean through the sky, and the beast fell to the earth in chunks of steaming flesh.
Silence returned.
The man looked at his hand, scowling slightly.
"Still not fully recovered. Pathetic."
From the shadows, cloaked figures began to emerge — scouts of the modern world's five Great Empires. They had been watching this place for centuries, waiting. Hoping the legends were wrong.
They were not.
The First Calamity had returned.
And he remembered everything.