The Anomaly's Path

”What is happening in this world...?”

I stood there in the clearing, my mind spinning. Five affinities? Six? The history, the lore I knew from the game was crumbling second by second.

I was truly shaken now.

When I first learned there were no status screens or ’Paths’ in this War of Faith era, I thought I could adapt. I told myself it was just a primitive version of the world. But then Roran told me that the peak of humanity was Grandmaster—not a single Transcendent in sight.

...And now, he was talking about people wielding five or six affinities like it was common knowledge.

Were we even living in the same world?

We weren’t just living in different eras. It felt like we were living in different realities.

No—what did he even mean by having that many affinities? This was absurd. It felt like they had no restrictions in the past.

In the present era, the restrictions were absolute. You could not touch mana until the age of ten. Your body simply would not respond to it. You had to wait for your core to awaken, and even then, that was just the beginning.

After that came the Path Trial.

Your soul would leave your body and enter a trial realm built from your own memories, your own regrets, your own fears. The trial would throw everything you ever hated about yourself in your face and make you fight through it. And if you lost? If your will broke? If your soul could not take the pressure?

You... died.

Not in the trial. In real life. Your body would just stop. Like someone had flipped a switch.

Power was not something you were born with in the present era. It was not a gift from your bloodline or your family name. It was a reward. Something you had to earn through sweat and blood and tears and years of suffering.

That was the world I came from.

A world where power was given only to those who proved they deserved it.

But this era—the War of Faith—those walls did not exist. People used mana from birth. They awakened abilities without trials. They had no System.

It was strange.

Why?

What could have possibly happened between then and now to change the present so much? Why could we not have more than two affinities anymore? Why could we not touch mana until the age of ten?

The present era had more mana in the air than this era. Thicker. Richer. Easier to breathe. Yet we had fewer freedoms.

...And then there were the ranks.

In the present, we had reached Sovereign. People had climbed past Grandmaster, past Transcendent, and kept going.

But here? In this era? No one had even heard of those ranks.

What if there was no Transcendent in this era simply because no one had reached it yet? That was possible. I remembered reading some lore about the War of Faith.

It was said that the era ended with the demons retreating, hiding across planets, waiting for their lord to return. By the end of that era, many strong people were born, and they became legends of their own worlds.

We never learned much about those people—their ranks, their powers and their true strength.

But knowing how famous they became, they must have been incredibly strong. Some of their families are still known in Aetheris today. The Celestial family is one of them. The Royal family is another.

Other races and families with long histories trace their ancestors back to that time. The first leader of the Celestial family came from this era.

But one question still remained unanswered.

What happened at the end of this era to completely change how power worked in the present?

Could it have something to do with the gods?

For some reason, the thought sent a chill down my spine.

As far as I knew, after the Abyss King was defeated and sealed, the gods and goddesses retreated from the world to recover. Many of them fell during the battle. But what did that have to do with the end of the War of Faith?

There was a very significant gap between the two eras. Centuries, maybe more. A lot could have happened in that time. I don’t know.

Did the gods come back by the end of the second era? What if they saw their people being massacred and decided to destroy the demons completely? But the question still remained—what did that have to do with restrictions?

It did not make sense.

The present era has more restrictions, yes. But people in the present are still stronger than they were back then. The mana in the air is richer. The ranks go higher—Transcendent and Sovereign. None of that existed in the War of Faith.

So why would the gods impose limits if those limits only made us weaker?

What would the System want me to find in this Path? Why we have less freedom? It did not make sense.

Unless...

A chill crawled down my spine. People only impose restrictions when they are afraid. They only build fences when they want to keep something in—or stop something from getting out.

Suddenly, my whole body went cold. A single thought made me freeze.

What could gods—beings far beyond mortal understanding—possibly fear?

The only answers I could think of were each other. Or something worse than themselves.

Maybe they were not afraid of mortals rising against them. Maybe they were afraid of what mortals could become if left unchecked. What if they were afraid of mortals rising beyond them?

What if the restrictions—the age limit, the Path Trials, the limited affinities—were not for our benefit?

What if they were meant to stop someone? Or everyone?

The Path Trials, the age limits, the capped affinities... they were not gifts.

They were filters. A way to shape us. A way to control the speed of our growth. A way to make sure that anyone who climbed too high was someone the gods had personally ’vetted’ through the System.

And the gods?

In the present era, they are awake. Arthur is proof of that—he is the Goddess’s Apostle. Chosen by her. Blessed by her. And from what I remember of the game, there are other apostles too. Other gods. Other chosen ones.

But what kind of gods are they?

Are they protectors? Are they tyrants? Or are they something in between?

I thought about the legends. The stories always painted the gods as saviors. They defeated the Abyss King. They saved the world. They gave humanity a System to grow stronger. They blessed their chosen apostles with power.

But was the System a ladder... or was it a leash?

Wait...!

My eyes widened slightly. What if the status screen was given to us for watching us? To not only control us but also to keep an eye on us? The thought was far-fetched, but I could not help but think it.

Suddenly, a being appeared in my mind that kept nagging me.

The one who is behind my transmigration. What could that being’s role be here? What if ”they” were a god? A different kind of god? One who did not agree with the others?

Or was it something else entirely? Something trying to show me the truth before the ’leash’ was ever put on humanity?

Was it trying to show me this? That there is something else going on behind the scenes?

What about Nova?

I already guessed that the being sent Nova to me because it wanted to keep an eye on me. But what if it sent Nova to me because it wanted to save me from other gazes?

But why?

Why would it do that? What could it possibly want from me? And why only me? What can I give it?

Who are you really? A friend? Or a foe?

I was missing a lot of things. The pieces were scattered everywhere, and I did not have enough of them to see the full picture. But I felt like I was walking toward a secret that had been buried under thousands of years of worship and lies.

But Roran did not give me any more time to wander through the dark corridors of my mind.

He poked me hard in the chest with the tip of his wooden sword, snapping me back to the humid jungle air.

”Stop daydreaming, kid,” he said. ”Having three affinities is just having three tools in your bag. If you do not know how to swing the hammer, it does not matter if you also own a saw and a chisel.”

I blinked and shook my head. But the thoughts didn’t leave. They never really left. They just moved to the back of my mind, waiting.

What could gods possibly fear? What did that being want from me? Why was I brought here? Was it to uncover something? To stop something? Or was I just a piece on a board, moved around by hands I could not see?

I did not have the answers. Maybe I would never have them.

But I could not stand here forever, drowning in questions that had no answers.

I had to survive today. I had to survive tomorrow. I had to get stronger. Because if there really was something hiding beneath the surface of this world—something the gods did not want me to see—then I needed to be strong enough to face it when it finally showed itself.

I pushed the cosmic questions into a corner of my brain and locked the door.

”Fine,” I said, gripping my practice katana tighter. ”So how do I use them? I have used the black lightning, but it just... happens. I do not know how to trigger the others.”

Roran’s eyes narrowed, and that predator’s grin returned to his face.

”That’s your first mistake,” he said. ”You are waiting for them to ’happen’ to you. An affinity isn’t a guest in your body, Leo. It is the door. And right now, you are standing in front of it, too afraid to turn the handle.”

He stopped pacing and looked at me intensely.

”You have black lightning affinity, right? What are the other two?”

”Black flames,” I said. ”And... space.”

Roran’s eyebrows shot up, and for the first time since I had met him, I saw a flicker of genuine surprise in his eyes. Not the fake surprise nobles used to flatter each other. Real surprise.

”Space?” he said slowly. ”That’s rare. Dangerous, too. I have only heard stories about people with space affinity. If you mess up even a little, you could leave half your body behind.”

I swallowed hard. ”I will try not to do that.”

”You will try not to do that,” he repeated with a snort. ”Reassuring.”

He walked around me in a slow circle, his eyes scanning my body like he was looking for something hidden under my skin.

”We will start with space,” he decided.