Chapter 0: The Beginning

In the beginning, everything was normal.

The world continued on as it did every other day. Cities were filled with people, vehicles traveled along the streets, and millions of homes depended on something no one ever stopped to question: electricity.

Until, in the year 2115, everything went dark.

Not one city.

Not one country.

The entire world.

For a brief moment, electricity disappeared completely.

The lights of the cities went out. Vehicles stopped working. Buildings were plunged into darkness, and for that brief moment, millions of people wondered what was happening.

But just as quickly as it had disappeared, the electricity returned.

And before anyone could even begin to relax, what became known as the “phenomena” began.

People who had never shown anything out of the ordinary suddenly began developing impossible abilities.

Some could move objects with their minds.

Others could move at speeds greater than those of a car.

Some could even fly.

At first, the world was curious.

Then came fear.

And finally, chaos.

Not everyone used these abilities to help others. People who had never had any power over those around them suddenly discovered that they could destroy property, attack other people, or do things that no police force was prepared to stop.

The problem was that no one knew how these abilities worked.

Not even the people who possessed them.

Some had incredible power. Others could barely use their abilities. Some lost control. Others discovered new capabilities every day.

Authorities tried to maintain order, but they were facing a problem they had never imagined.

How do you stop someone who can move a car with their mind?

How do you stop someone who can run faster than any vehicle?

How do you protect the population when you don't even know what each person is capable of?

For three years, the world tried to find an answer.

By 2118, the situation had begun to stabilize, although the chaos was still far from over.

That was when an organization was created with the purpose of changing the course of humanity.

Its name was L.U.G.H.

Laboratory of Human Genetic Location.

Its objective was to find and recruit people capable of using their abilities to help others. They also pursued those who used their powers to cause harm.

But L.U.G.H. had another purpose.

Research.

They wanted to discover what had caused the phenomena and where the new abilities had come from.

For a while, it seemed that they were finally managing to restore order.

But it only lasted a year.

In 2119, L.U.G.H. made its findings public.

For the first time, humanity received scientific information about the phenomena.

At first, many believed that this knowledge would allow them to build a better world.

They were wrong.

Human greed did what it had always done whenever it discovered a new source of power.

It wanted to turn it into a weapon.

Several organizations and governments began militarizing the abilities. Some people were used as soldiers. Others were exploited as tools or even as mere sources of energy.

Humans with abilities began to be hunted.

And they stopped being seen simply as people with powers.

They began forming groups to protect one another.

It was during this period that the term that would forever change human history was born.

Psyons.

One year later, in 2120, what would become known as the Great Chaos War began.

It was not a war like any the world had known before.

There were no clearly defined sides.

It was a conflict in which anyone could become anyone else's enemy.

Countries against countries.

Governments against governments.

Humans against psyons.

Psyons against psyons.

Humans against humans.

The entire world seemed to have gone mad.

L.U.G.H. attempted to act as a mediator, but even conflicts began to emerge within the organization itself.

And then something happened that no one could explain.

L.U.G.H.'s headquarters were attacked.

Then they were destroyed.

There was no trace of whoever was responsible.

The disappearance of L.U.G.H. left the world without one of its main groups dedicated to understanding the phenomena.

And the war continued.

Over the following two years, the conflicts became so destructive that they began changing the Earth itself.

In 2122, countries that had once been part of great continents were literally torn apart.

Some territories merged with others, giving rise to new nations.

Others became isolated and eventually turned into islands.

But that was not the worst of it.

At different points around the planet, changes began occurring that no one had ever witnessed before.

What became known as the East Pole and West Pole began altering Earth's climate.

The cold intensified to extreme levels.

For a time, it seemed as though the planet was destined to become a new ice age.

But then another phenomenon occurred.

The Earth's magma began to increase.

Heat from the planet's interior counteracted part of the extreme cold caused by the new poles.

Somehow, the two phenomena ended up creating a strange climatic balance.

Earth did not freeze.

Nor did it burn.

But surviving on it remained extremely difficult.

Humanity had stopped thinking about winning the war.

Now, it was only thinking about surviving.

And then, one year later, something happened that many would describe as a miracle.

In 2123, a child appeared.

He was approximately eight years old.

At first glance, he did not seem different from any other child.

He was small.

Fragile.

But he was a psyon.

And he was no ordinary psyon.

He was the most powerful psyon the world had ever seen.

While the adults had failed to stop the conflicts, that child began doing so.

In some places, he used words.

In others, he had to demonstrate his strength.

Little by little, the fighting began to stop.

People could not understand how someone who appeared so fragile could possess such magnificent and, at the same time, dangerous power.

But what truly changed humanity's fate happened when that child used his power to stabilize Earth's magnetic field.

The planet began recovering a balance that had seemed impossible.

For the first time in years, humanity had a real opportunity to rebuild itself.

When he was asked who he was, the child answered:

—Zen.

That was the name he had chosen for himself.

But the world decided to give him another.

Ara.

The Altar.

Because to millions of people, that child had become a symbol of something they believed they had lost.

Hope.

Their prayers had been heard.

And their hopes had taken form.

Over the following months, humans began laying the foundations of a new world.

Cities began to be rebuilt.

Survivors tried to reclaim their lives.

Humans and psyons slowly began searching for a way to coexist.

It seemed that peace had finally arrived.

But it only seemed that way.

Half a year later, another individual appeared.

Another psyon.

Another monster of power.

As powerful as Ara.

His name was Vepar.

Unlike Ara, Vepar did not want to build a better world.

He wanted to rule it.

According to him, only the strongest should have the right to decide the fate of others.

He proclaimed himself:

Vepar, the King of All.

He began gathering followers.

But he would not accept just anyone.

He sought powerful people who were willing to follow him.

He offered no place to the weak.

He eliminated them.

Or used them as cannon fodder.

Others ended up as slaves.

The peace Ara had begun to build was on the verge of collapsing.

Ara made a decision.

He would not allow Vepar to destroy the world so many had fought to rebuild.

He began hunting Vepar's followers down one by one.

Some he managed to capture.

Others he had no choice but to eliminate.

Until finally, only one remained.

Vepar.

The two finally met.

And then began a battle that would once again change the Earth.

For three days, Ara and Vepar fought.

Their powers were so devastating that the entire world felt their consequences.

The battle was especially brutal at the West Pole.

The land that had once been a frozen territory changed forever.

The cold disappeared from some regions.

Ice gave way to territories with completely different climates.

And finally, after three days of combat...

Ara defeated Vepar.

The world had survived.

But when the survivors searched for Vepar's body, they found nothing.

No corpse.

No trace.

Nothing.

Ara never explained what had happened during the final moments of the battle.

To this day, he remains silent about it.

After Vepar's defeat, Ara understood that peace could not depend solely on him.

He needed people who were willing to protect this new world.

People who would not rule.

People who would watch over those who did.

And so, a long search began.

Ara gathered both people he already knew and others who shared his purpose.

Eventually, he managed to gather ten individuals.

They were not called heroes.

They were not called rulers.

They chose another name.

The Forgotten.

They chose this name to remember a simple truth:

Even people who seem insignificant can possess tremendous power to change the world.

Their names were:

Corvus — The Crow Crater — The Cup Caelum — The Chisel Antlia — The Air Pump Vulpecula — The Little Fox Lacerta — The Lizard Columba — The Dove Scutum — The Shield Pyxis — The Compass Ara — The Altar

Together, they helped build the foundations of a new society.

A society where humans and psyons could coexist.

They also established a way to measure the abilities of psyons.

Thus, the classification system was born:

C — Lower-scale power.

B — Considerable-scale power.

A — Useful-scale power.

X — Power on a scale that cannot be ignored.

Y — Large-scale power.

Z — Extremely powerful scale.

Thanks to this system, psyons could be evaluated and receive the help they needed to integrate into society.

The police began adapting.

So did firefighters.

New teams and organizations of psyons appeared to help the population.

Little by little, the fear began to disappear.

Humans and psyons learned to coexist.

And for the following twelve years, the world continued rebuilding itself.

Until the year 2135.

On a planet known as Neon Terra.

The world had changed.

Humanity had changed as well.

But no one could imagine that, in that place, a different story was about to begin.

The story of a boy who did not want fame.

He did not want money.

He did not want power.

He only wanted something that, after everything that had happened in the world, seemed much harder to obtain.

A normal life.

But to achieve it, he would have to venture into the most astonishing and terrifying places of this new world.

He would meet friends who would help him.

Enemies who would test him.

And obstacles that would try to prevent him from reaching his goal.

The question was simple.

Would he be able to achieve it?

Would he have the strength to overcome any obstacle?

That...

we'll see.

End of Chapter