Powerlessness is one of the greatest fears of living beings.
It is the primal terror, the one that gnaws at souls, the cause of the primordial abandonment of all dreams. Humans embody it more than any other: their fragile egos, hidden behind faces filled with despair. Even the abyss itself has never ceased to admire us. Not a place, but an essence. The last space where the unreal and the tangible coexist, it represents the sole surviving remnant of the Creator's and the Created's wrath.
Two figures stand tall in this sacred void. One is naked, their skin like a canvas, where the finitude of all things resides; the other is wrapped in armor so dazzling it seems woven by the blessings of the Divine.
The one closest to God trembles, their primal fear about to take root in this world. They declare:
"This ultimate level? So, you had the means to overthrow him."
The naked man, holding a transcendent truth, nods to their words. An indecipherable smile floats on his lips, poised between contempt and amusement.
"Overthrow him? That word cannot define what I could have done to him. Will he ever even be reached? Only the future will provide an answer to all our curiosity."
Their gazes meet, two abysses of meaning and silence. The moment stretches, taut like the string of a bow, until the only certainty imposes itself: the end is near...
Terra. Ten times larger than Earth, it is a world forged in excess but shattered by a transcendent evil. For over a century, monsters from parallel universes have appeared without warning, like nightmares emerging from a malevolent void. They leave behind ruins and screams in their wake, while life—fragile, valiant, and reckless—struggles to persist.
But Terra is not a world of ordinary mortals. Its inhabitants are superhumans, born with gifts that defy logic. They were created to survive, to dominate, and to oppose their light against the darkness that assails them.
To coordinate this resistance, an organization was born: Yorquin Ranger Terra. For the past century, it has been humanity's last line of defense. Its forces, united under one emblem, fight with a fury that only the fear of extinction can fuel.
In the futuristic city of Deza, a devastating explosion shakes the heart of the city, causing buildings to collapse and inciting unprecedented panic. A blast of fire and dust ravages the first structures, drowning the streets in a cacophony of sirens and screams. Tens of thousands of civilians fall, swept away like victims of an infallible climatic catastrophe.
Then come the monsters. These abominations, their silhouettes deformed by alien logic, emerge from rifts in the ground. Their arrival is a scream of chaos. Each movement they make is a poem of destruction, a ballet of terror. Their role is to paint Deza in a spectacular end, revered by all as the finest artists of annihilation.
At the regional headquarters in Retyu, chaos unfolds on screens overloaded with data. Scanners flash incessantly. The personnel evaluates the monsters' level of danger, caught in a macabre dance between urgency and panic as they struggle to maintain a semblance of order.
The stress forces them to act quickly: they must send an alert to the combat forces available while devising a strategy to end this new invasion. However, the scanners detect an unusual threat, different from all previous ones.
"Commander, this wave of monsters is different. They're coming from inside our planet, a few thousand meters underground. We've assessed their danger level as Rank B."
The commander raises a gaze filled with cold determination. He is ready to deliver his verdict.
"Rank B, you say? This is a state of emergency! Tell all available units on-site to act immediately. Send them a message to inform them reinforcements are on the way. Transmit a report of events to the regional headquarters."
But respite is a luxury. A soldier bursts in, out of breath, his eyes haunted.
"Commander! Our troops in Deza are being completely massacred. Civilian casualties are rising at a terrifying pace. We need heroes, now!"
In Deza, now strewn with corpses, the city trembles once more under an alarming and ominous truth. Its streets, once vibrant with life, are now carpeted with mutilated bodies and debris. Survivors scream, their cries slicing through the air like blades. Heroes are being overwhelmed with such violence that horrifying screams of terror and pain echo throughout the city. The troops in this city are not as strong compared to those of the larger cities.
Amid this carnage, a lone hero remains standing. His armor, shattered in multiple places, barely clings to his exhausted body. Before him, a pregnant woman clutches her little girl, their eyes brimming with a silent prayer. His duty as a hero demands that he rise against the beast.
The hero faces a C-rank creature, but his movements are heavy, burdened with fatigue. Each blow exchanged is a symphony of pain and despair. The grotesque, unrelenting creature pushes him back again and again.
The little girl, tears brimming in her eyes, speaks with a trembling voice.
"Mom... is he going to save us?"
The hero staggers but holds his ground. Not for himself, not for honor, but for them. As the monster's roar reverberates once more, nearly drowning out the girl's voice, destiny hangs suspended, silent, elusive.
The hero realizes his attacks are ineffective against this creature. He cries out in a sharp, desperate tone.
"Damn it!!! This monster is resistant to my light magic. I can't lose. I have to protect them at all costs! Light Magic! Holy Embrace!"
He lets out a cry filled with hope and determination. The monster, however, stands unyielding, unmoved by a spell that cannot even faze it.
The hero decides to persist in his assault, while the mother and her daughter remain frozen, literally paralyzed by fear. He uses every ounce of strength to strike the monster in close combat. Yet its indifference to his relentless attacks forces him to take a faltering step backward.
Immaculate arms, forged of pure light, burst forth from his trembling hands. They coil around the creature, constricting with prodigious force, trying to suffocate the impenetrable beast before him. Yet, the monster does not yield. It stands there, indifferent, almost contemptuous, as though the spell were no more than a breeze brushing against a mountain.
The hero's cry is a mix of hope and fury: he cannot afford to fail. Behind him, a woman clings to her daughter, their faces frozen in paralyzing terror. They remain still, like living statues amidst this inferno of unimaginable violence.
Abandoning the safety of his magic's range, the hero engages the monster in close combat. Every strike he lands carries the urgency of sacrifice, every movement a silent plea to fate. But the massive, implacable creature absorbs his attacks with inhuman coldness, forcing the hero to stagger backward with trembling steps.
"I will give my life for those who must be protected! I will not lose! Light Magic! Blinding Spark!"
An intense light engulfs the battlefield, momentarily obscuring the monster's vision. The hero leaps into the air, channeling all the magic he has left. Suspended above the creature, he gathers every ounce of his magical energy into his hands.
His arms tremble, his muscles scream in protest, but he prepares for a final assault. However, he quickly forgets that the mother and her daughter are still present on the battlefield. Suspended in the sky, vulnerable, he proclaims:
"Source Circle: Lamentations of the Archangel!"
A torrent of magic flows in a constant stream, its velocity breaking through the sound barrier dozens of times over. His arms, tortured by the density of magic, fracture repeatedly. It is a moment far beyond mere survival instinct—our hero feels a profound despair. Upon contact with the monster, all his magic dissipates, nullified by a means beyond the hero's understanding. He plummets, falling into the clutches of the monster.
The creature chuckles. It grabs the falling hero like a limp, broken doll, then swats him away with a devastating blow from its tail. The impact hurls him into a building, which collapses into a cascade of rubble. The shockwave obliterates everything around him.
It was time for him to be consumed. He was not granted the blessing of an instant end; the struggle was futile for the hero, who collapsed under the weight of this challenge. Blood trickled from his lips as he helplessly gazed at the bodies of his comrades strewn amidst the carnage. The end of Deza was inevitable.
He was frustrated by his own incompetence, his words trembling under the weight of a possibly imminent death:
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! If there is a God, any deity, I beg you… Help us!"
In shock, he suddenly falls into a critical state, teetering between life and death. The woman and her daughter seize the brief respite to flee. But behind them, the monster begins its hunt. Its footsteps echo like war drums, its jaws, filled with fangs capable of crushing diamonds, open with macabre appetite. Its nauseating aura, lethal to lesser beings, regards them as nothing more than mere prey.
Then they vanish.
They open their eyes, disoriented, and find themselves at the edge of the city. A figure stands near the lifeless body of the hero. Back facing the monster, a man dressed in red combat gear and a blue t-shirt appears beside the unconscious hero.
"You are brave, young hero. I'll take it from here. You're part of the creatures sowing utter chaos in this city."
The monster growls, its instincts on high alert.
"You... You're strong, I can feel it. You're not like other humans."
The man raises an eyebrow, a mocking smile playing on his lips.
"And you, an insult to creation! Your existence, as pathetic as the marks on your deformed body, disgusts me! You're nothing but a botched experiment. Guinea pigs like you eventually get replaced. Don't worry, you won't be the only one to go."
The monster, unable to bear the disrespect, roars, furious at the affront, and charges. Its claw comes down like a celestial hammer. But the man, with no apparent effort, blocks the attack with a single movement of his arm. He delivers a simple knee strike, which permanently erases this pitiful, lost animal.
The hero partially opens his eyes. He briefly catches sight of the individual who just saved him, but the latter instantly vanishes from his field of vision. The man moves throughout the city, eradicating deviants of any rank in his path. The abominations do not fall in titanic battles; they are humiliated, obliterated with a single blow.
While dealing a total humiliation to his adversaries, the man reflects:
"I'll have to move to a city with stronger heroes; these ones don't really seem up to the task. I won't blame them; after all, this is a rank B threat for them."
Suddenly, a monster intercepts him in his stride with a powerful hammer-fist blow. He halts and blocks the attack, appearing to contain a strike that could have leveled the district where they are. The monster is a green humanoid, its body as elastic as it is robust.
"My name is Greyo, the monster of adaptation. I am a genius who has surpassed the condition of a Terranian. What is your name, human?"
The man steps closer, towering over the creature, and replies calmly:
"My name is Atachi Gosaiblaze, a simple human wanting to go home. Let me explain why I'll finish you off in a moment."
Greyo remains puzzled by this human who plans to recount his life. Atachi begins his brief story:
"First of all, I just wanted to take a good bath, then prepare a delicious meal, and finally rest while watching a series. But you and your gang of monsters not only killed innocents, but also destroyed the city of Deza along with my damn apartment! And I'll never forgive you for that. This is the 15th time I've moved in 2 years… I'm going to eliminate all of you at the source!"
Greyo laughs, a rough and cruel laugh.
"You're hilarious, human. Let me incinerate you and all the miserable beings walking this earth! Nuclear Pierce!"
Thanks to the strange structure of his body, Greyo accelerates the atoms within himself, creating a nuclear explosion concentrated at the tip of his finger, amplifying the attack's lethality. Atachi, meanwhile, is irritated.
Watching the monotonous attack of this unpleasant creature, Atachi, losing his composure, decides to intervene. He snaps his fingers. The explosion, which could have pulverized a planet, dissipates with a mere breath, accompanied by the complete destruction of Greyo's limbs.
Greyo's body, capable of withstanding a planetary explosion, is humiliated by an individual who simply wanted to go home.
"What? I'm down, my limbs have completely disappeared? Could this human be responsible for such a miracle? All my life, I've worked to reach the pinnacle of genetic modification, creating my own species of monsters. This attack should have been fatal to you. Are there races superior to the quintessence of adaptation?"
Atachi doesn't listen. He merely notices the location of the heroes who will soon arrive in these ruins.
The defeated creature notices something utterly shocking about him.
"But wait a second, my body couldn't adapt to this guy. Even my regeneration didn't work. Who is this man?"
"You just got unlucky. You appeared before an individual who isn't the weakest of men. Without too much arrogance, I'd say I'm the strongest man in the world."
Atachi advances toward the soon-to-be-lifeless body. He places his foot above Greyo and finishes the execution, saying:
"I need to find a new place to live. I'll give you the chance for some last words; I hope you've got something interesting to share, misunderstood creature. Speak now!"
"You think I'm going to die at the hands of..."
Atachi cuts him off with a fatal tone; the inevitable is about to occur, and Greyo will be its victim.
"Shut up already! You're boring…"
He exerts force over a short distance. Without touching him directly, a shockwave creates a hole 5 meters in diameter and 10 meters deep. He senses the arrival of the heroes. The event lasted only a single minute.
He disappears to the outskirts of Deza as a simple civilian. Observing his surroundings carefully, he notices no one saw him. He then heads to the rescue center to register.
The toll is grim: more than fifty percent of the city's population—over ten million inhabitants—are dead. Flames consume every intact remnant, leaving behind the portrait of a city destined to be forgotten.
At the center of Deza, the heroes finally arrive after five minutes. However, before them lies neither monster nor human, just a graveyard where all living creatures had the misfortune or fortune to find peace.
Hero — "How is this possible? Command, reporting in."
Commander — "What's the situation upon your arrival?"
Hero — "Commander, all the heroes are dead, except for one, who's in critical condition. But we didn't need to act, Commander; the entire wave has already been annihilated by an unknown individual."