The sound of horns.The screech of tires.The sharp pain—blinding and sudden.
And then, darkness.
Zenith never expected to die like that.He had just been walking through a crowded city street, eyes glued to his phone, reading the latest chapter of his favorite fantasy novel. It was a story about a shut-in otaku named Eric who died of a heart attack and was reincarnated into a magical world, blessed with a system.
Ironically fitting.Because as Zenith stepped into the crosswalk, lost in the fictional world on his screen, he didn't see the truck barreling toward him.
The honk came too late.
Bang!
He was flung into the air like a ragdoll, pain blooming across every nerve before the cold pavement met him again.
Blood pooled around his broken body.And as everything faded, his final thought was a curse—not at the truck, not at the novel's cliffhanger, but…
"I never deleted my browser history."
A moment of silence. Then nothingness.
What felt like an eternity later...
Zenith opened his eyes.
He was no longer on a road. No sirens, no concrete, no cold steel. Instead, he was lying in a soft bed, wrapped in warm blankets, sunlight streaming through a wooden window.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
Then it hit him.
"Why… are my hands so small?"
He scrambled out of bed—well, wobbled—and stumbled toward a dusty mirror hanging on the wall. The reflection staring back at him wasn't the high schooler he remembered.
It was a child.
A five-year-old boy.
With wide golden eyes, soft platinum-blonde hair streaked with violet, and a face that was undeniably… his.
His mind raced.And then, boom—like a dam breaking, memories surged into him.
Not just memories from Earth, but the life of the boy he now was. The two merged—Zenith Nova from Earth, and Zenith Nova of this world. Same name. Different soul.
Whether it was divine irony or fate, he didn't know.
But one thing was clear:
He had been reincarnated.
This wasn't just any world.This was Eteria—the very world from his favorite novel.
A place of mana, sword, and sorcery. A world divided into nine continents, each ruled by a different powerful race:
The Dragons of the First Continent
The Phoenixes of the Second
The Spirits of the Third
The Elves of the Fourth
The Humans of the Fifth—his current home
The Dwarves of the Sixth
The Shadows of the Seventh
The Barbarians of the Eighth
And the Monsters of the Ninth, a land no race claimed
Each race awakened their mana core at the age of twelve during the Awakening Ceremony, the moment when a person's magical path was set in stone. Some awakened basic mana, others rare abilities—abilities graded from Common all the way to the mythical Ultimate.
In the novel, the protagonist had started with a Common skill. But he had a secret: a system that let him evolve it into the strongest power imaginable.
Zenith, however, had something else—knowledge.
He didn't need a system.He had read the book. He knew what was coming.
And what was coming… was death.
This world was beautiful now—lush forests surrounding his human city, stone towers rising into skies painted with soft auroras. Mana shimmered in the air like golden dust. It felt like a dream.
But he knew the truth.
This world is destined to fall.
Because the Abyss was real.
It had already invaded once, in the First Abyssal War—a cataclysmic event that brought Eteria to the brink of extinction. Creatures born from void and madness spilled into the world, devouring life, time, even reality itself.
No one race could stop them.
So, the nine races formed an Alliance—a desperate, once-in-an-age unity. Enemies became allies. Kings fought beside commoners. Magic so powerful it tore the sky was unleashed in the greatest war the world had ever known.
And in the end, they won.Barely.
The rifts were sealed. The Abyss pushed back.
But the scars remained.Two continents were now wastelands, cursed with dead mana. Tens of millions had perished.
The Alliance remained to this day—not out of friendship, but out of fear. The royal families still held their fragile bonds, knowing that if the Abyss returned, they would need each other again.
"But the First War… wasn't the end."
Zenith whispered the words as if trying to convince himself they weren't true.
"It was just the beginning."
In the novel, the Second Abyssal War was the true apocalypse.It began quietly. Subtly. Corrupting nations from within, spreading like rot beneath a flawless surface.
And now, as the only one who remembered, Zenith had been given a second chance.
He had seven years until the Awakening Ceremony.Seven years until the world began to collapse.
"I have seven years…" he muttered. "Seven years to prepare. Seven years to change fate."
He looked at his small hands. His tiny frame.
He was just a child.
But his mind was sharp. His soul, burdened with memories of two lives.He didn't have a system, a cheat, or divine favor.
But he had clarity.He had will.And he had time.