The transition was not a slumber, but a violent expulsion. One moment, Kenji was a titan standing amidst the stardust of a conquered multiverse; the next, he was a piece of meat hitting a cold, wet floor. The scent of divine ambrosia evaporated, replaced instantly by the suffocating stench of ammonia, stale sweat, and the coppery tang of his own fresh blood.
He was coughing, his lungs feeling as though they were filled with hot lead. Every heave of his chest sent jagged ripples of agony through ribs that were definitely shattered. This was not the phantom pain of a simulation. This was the raw, unadulterated reality of a biological body pushed to the precipice of failure.
Kenji opened his eyes. The world was a dizzying tilt of grey concrete and flickering fluorescent lights. He was lying in a basement locker room—the lowest level of the Zenith Guild's headquarters. It was the dumping ground for the "porters," the human pack mules used to carry the loot of the actual heroes.
The System... he thought, his mind clutching at the fading echoes of his godhood. Status. Open... Status...
A spark of violet light flickered in his peripheral vision, but it didn't bloom into the majestic, golden interface he remembered. Instead, a jagged, blood-red window manifested, glitching violently. The text was distorted, scrolling in a frantic, corrupted loop.
[ERROR: SYSTEM INTEGRITY 0.04%]
[WARNING: FUTURE ESSENCE DETECTED — INCOMPATIBLE VESSEL]
[TEMPORAL DISTORTION ACTIVE: MEMORY LEAK IN PROGRESS]
[CURRENT RANK: F (DECREPIT)]
The text burned his retinas. He tried to reach out, to touch the screen, but his hand was shaking so violently he couldn't even form a fist. The "Memory Leak" warning was the most terrifying. Even now, the specific blueprints of the Divine Forge and the intricate faces of his Thousand-Year Empire were dissolving, turning into hazy, unrecognizable shapes.
"No..." he hissed, the word catching in his blood-filled throat. "I won't... let it... go."
He knew the rules of this twisted game. The Monarch of Eternity had played a cruel trick. He had let Kenji live a lie of absolute power only to cast him back into this hell, but with the added torture of knowing what he had lost. The Monarch wanted him to forget, to succumb to the "reality" of being a weakling.
Kenji dragged himself toward a discarded backpack near a locker. His fingers, numb and swollen, fumbled with the zipper. He found what he was looking for: a cheap, spiral-bound notebook and a leaking ballpoint pen.
He didn't have minutes. He had seconds before the most critical data vanished.
He began to write. He didn't write sentences; he drew symbols, coordinates, and names. The pen tore through the cheap paper as he pressed down with desperate strength.
Mizuhara Rin — Not Ice. Fire. Reverse. Find her in the slums, not the academy.
Saotome Maya — Not Saint. Executioner. The clinic is a front.
The Great Gate of Shinjuku — 48 hours early. SSS Mythic Core inside.
The headache intensified, a psychic drill boring into his skull. He felt a part of his brain—the part that held the secret to the "Void Step"—literally snap. The knowledge was gone, replaced by a dull ache. He screamed, a guttural sound of frustration, and kept writing.
"Get up, trash."
The voice was like a whip. It was cold, melodic, and carried an undertone of casual cruelty that made the hair on Kenji's neck stand up. He froze, the pen hovering over the paper. He didn't need to look up to know who it was, but the feel of her aura was wrong. In his dream, her power had been a radiant sun. Here, it was a black hole.
Hanae Akane stood in the doorway. She was wearing a suit of dark, obsidian-infused armor that seemed to drink the light of the room. In this alternative reality, she wasn't the heroic "Sword Maiden." She was the Grand Inquisitor of Zenith, a woman who had built her reputation on the broken bodies of those she deemed "sub-human."
She walked toward him, her boots clicking rhythmically on the concrete. She didn't look at him with hatred; she looked at him with the same indifference one might show a cockroach that refused to die.
"You're still alive, Sato?" she asked, her voice devoid of emotion. "I thought the blow I gave you in the Shinjuku Tunnel would have ended your pathetic existence. You're more resilient than a porter has any right to be."
Kenji slowly closed the notebook, hiding it beneath his chest. He looked up at her through the veil of blood dripping from his forehead. This was the woman he had "owned" in his visions. Seeing her now—dominant, untouchable, and utterly lethal—sent a jolt of pure, dark adrenaline through his veins.
"I... apologize... for the inconvenience," Kenji managed to rasp out.
Akane paused, her eyes narrowing. She noticed something different in his gaze. Usually, the porters looked at her with terror or fawning adoration. This boy looked at her with something else—something that felt like a predatory calculation.
She stepped on his hand—the one holding the pen.
Kenji didn't scream. He gritted his teeth, the sound of his bones shifting beneath her boot echoing in the small room. He stared at her, memorizing the weight of her foot, the scent of her expensive perfume, and the tiny flaw in the enamel of her armor.
"Don't look at me," she whispered, her voice dropping to a dangerous level. "Your eyes are filth. If I see that spark in them again, I won't just break your ribs. I'll peel the skin from your face and make you eat it."
She increased the pressure on his hand until a sickening crack signaled a metacarpal snapping. Satisfied with his silence, she withdrew her foot and turned away.
"The Next Gate opens in six hours," she said over her shoulder. "If you aren't there to carry the equipment, I'll have you fed to the hounds in the training yard. Do you understand, Rank F?"
"Yes... Akane-sama," Kenji whispered.
She left, her presence lingering in the air like a poisonous fog. Kenji waited until her footsteps faded before he opened the notebook again. He used his left hand to scrawl one final note, his blood smearing the page.
Akane — Primary Target. The armor has a hairline fracture at the solar plexus. The 'Black Hole' aura is a parasitic link. Break the link, and she withers.
The red System window flickered again.
[NOTIFICATION: FIRST ANOMALY RECORDED]
[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE THE 'ZENITH' TRIAL]
[REWARD: PARTIAL SYSTEM REPAIR (0.01%)]
[CURRENT STATE: EXTREME WEAKNESS. DEATH PROBABILITY: 94%]
Kenji let out a jagged, painful laugh. The Monarch of Eternity thought he had won. He thought that by stripping Kenji of his power and placing him in a world where the monsters were gods and the heroes were demons, he would break.
But the Monarch had made one fatal mistake. He had left Kenji with the one thing more dangerous than mana: the memory of how it felt to be a king.
Kenji struggled to his feet, using the locker for support. His body was a wreck, his hand was crushed, and he was the lowest form of life in a world designed to kill him. He tucked the blood-soaked notebook into his waistband, feeling the sharp edge against his skin.
"It's okay," Kenji whispered to the empty room, his eyes burning with a violet light that refused to die. "I've climbed from the dirt before. This time, I'll just make sure the dirt stays on their graves."
He began to walk, each step a testament to agony. He didn't head for the infirmary. He headed for the supply room. He knew that in exactly four hours, a shipment of "Low-Grade Mana Potions" would arrive. He also knew, thanks to his crumbling memories, that one of those bottles wasn't a potion at all—it was a misplaced vial of Dragon Heart Extract, mislabeled by a distracted clerk.
If he drank it in his current state, his heart would likely explode. But if he didn't, he would never survive the Gate.
The hunt had begun. Not the hunt for monsters, but the hunt for his own divinity. And this time, he wouldn't stop until the Monarch of Eternity himself was screaming in the dark.