Chapter 346 - 1: The Cosmic Era

Chapter 346: Chapter 1: The Cosmic Era

The soft, melodic chime of Ash Apeiron’s personal terminal pulled him from sleep.

He blinked once, then twice. A holographic screen hovered above his bed, casting a cool blue glow across the small dormitory room. The latest episode of Eternal Sovereign’s Return had dropped at midnight. The notification still pulsed gently in the corner of the display.

Ash sat up slowly. His joints popped as he stretched his arms over his head. He had already watched the first forty-eight episodes twice. He had paused frames, rewound fight scenes, and even kept the original novel open on a second screen so he could compare every adaptation choice. Last night he had stayed up just long enough to finish the new episode before forcing himself to sleep.

Worth it, he thought, a small smile tugging at his mouth. Still... I hope they don’t rush the third arc.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. The floor was cool under his bare feet. He pulled the curtains aside. Crisp morning air rushed in, carrying the scent of wet grass and distant spirit herbs. Outside the window, the sprawling campus of Azure Cloud Martial Academy stretched across rolling green hills. In the distance, at the center of the academy sat the massive Awakening Hall already glowing with a soft, pulsing blue light in preparation of what was happeneing today.

Today was the day.

Every eighteen-year-old on the continent waited for this day. It is the day their futures were decided.

Ash’s smile stayed easy and genuine. It reached his eyes.

He really didnt care about it, all he really wanted was a long life. A very, very long life. Long enough to watch every season, every movie, and every OVA of every good adaptation that would ever be made.

Cultivation was simply the most reliable way to get there.

If he awakened even a decent martial soul or spirit root, the path to two or three hundred years of healthy, vibrant life would open up. Anything higher would just be a pleasant bonus.

He was not a genius. His academic grades sat firmly in the middle of the class. His physical training scores hovered right around average. But his social life? That was excellent. Ash was the kind of person who could talk to almost anyone and somehow leave them in a slightly better mood than before.

He washed quickly, changed into the crisp gray academy robes, and stepped out into the corridor.

On the way to the cafeteria he spotted the cleaning auntie sweeping the side path. She looked tired, shoulders slightly hunched. Ash slowed his steps and offered her a warm smile.

"Morning, Auntie Lin. The flowers by the east dorm look even better this week."

The older woman’s face softened. "You always notice, Ash. Go eat something proper. Today’s a big day."

He nodded and kept walking. A few minutes later he passed the twin brothers from Class B. They were already arguing about last week’s disastrous sparring matches. Ash joined in for half a minute, making both of them laugh, then continued on. Near the herb gardens he saw a nervous girl from the alchemy track struggling with two heavy crates of spirit herbs. She looked ready to drop them. Ash simply took one of the crates without asking.

"I’ve got this one," he said. "Which way?"

She mumbled thanks, cheeks pink, and led the way to the storage hall. He set the crate down carefully, gave her a quick thumbs-up, and left before the conversation could grow awkward.

By the time he reached the Awakening Hall, the wide stone plaza was already packed. Hundreds of students in identical gray robes stood in orderly rows. Teachers and examiners moved between them with glowing datapads, checking names and identity chips. The atmosphere felt expectant, but not overly tense. In this modern era, almost no one openly mocked low ranks. People were too busy planning their own long lives to waste energy putting others down.

Meaning there was no such thing as faceslapping in this universe. It was very rare to be seen.

Ash found his place in the third row. He waved at a few familiar faces. One of them, a broad-shouldered youth named Rylan, grinned and flashed him a thumbs-up.

"Don’t worry, Ash," Rylan whispered loudly enough for the students nearby to hear. "Even if you get something average, I’ll carry you through the early ranks. We’ll still be watching shows together at a hundred and fifty years old."

Ash laughed, the sound light and natural. "I’ll hold you to that."

As he waited, his mind drifted to the history every child learned in school—the same history that still felt hard to fully imagine.

A few hundred years ago, Earth had been ordinary. Small. Crowded. Connected by invisible networks of satellites, undersea fiber cables, and wireless signals.

Then on a very faithful and normal day,portals began opening up.

At first they were rare—strange tears in the sky and ground that leaked an unknown energy. Within months they appeared everywhere. Cosmic energy poured out in violent waves. The planet itself began to grow.

Earth expanded more than twenty times its original size in less than a year.

Continents stretched and cracked. Entire mountain ranges rose or collapsed overnight. Oceans deepened into abyssal trenches that swallowed coastal cities whole. The sky seemed to climb higher. The horizon retreated farther than any human eye could follow. Gravity fluctuated wildly during the expansion. Buildings collapsed. Bridges snapped. Roads tore apart like paper.

It was literally hell on earth. Armageddon.

And with the physical destruction came the total collapse of modern civilization’s invisible backbone.

Satellites were flung out of orbit or simply crushed by the shifting gravitational fields. Global positioning systems failed first. Then emergency communication networks. The internet died in stages—first the satellite links, then the undersea cables as the ocean floors rearranged themselves. Banking systems crashed within days. Digital currency became worthless numbers on dead servers. Power grids overloaded and blacked out entire regions as the planet’s magnetic field twisted under the flood of cosmic energy.

Airplanes fell from the sky. Ships lost their navigation. Hospitals could no longer call for help. Governments that had relied on instant information were suddenly blind and deaf.

Panic was absolute.

Billions had died and Billions more found themselves cut off from the systems they had depended on their entire lives. Food distribution collapsed. Clean water systems failed. Cities that had been centers of order turned into islands of chaos overnight. The old world—the world of smartphones, online banking, global trade, and instant news—ended not with a war, but with the simple fact that the planet had grown too large, too fast, and too strange for its own technology to survive.

In the years that followed, the survivors learned a brutal truth: the age of pure technology was over. The age of cosmic energy had begun.

Ash exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the tall Awakening Pillar ahead.

That was the world he had been born into—a world that had already burned its old foundations and rebuilt itself on something far more dangerous... and far more powerful.

And that was only the beginning.

Animals mutated under the flood of energy. Ordinary snakes shed their skins and became dragons that coiled around mountain peaks. Wolves grew wings of pure wind and turned into celestial beasts that hunted across the clouds. Tigers ignited with internal fire and evolved into scarlet flame beasts. Even humble house cats sometimes awakened spiritual intelligence and became spirit foxes capable of illusion arts. The world that had once been familiar became a place of myth made real.

Humans above the age of eighteen underwent their own transformation. The cosmic energy forced open their Gene Locks one by one, and with that opening came the awakening of martial souls. The first generation of awakeners fought desperate battles against the alien invaders and mutated monsters that poured through the portals. Scientists reverse-engineered alien technology. Martial artists refined the new energy into cultivation systems.

Humanity, pushed to the brink, united and survived.

Now the roles were reversed. Humanity had become the invaders. Through the stable portals, fleets and elite squads crossed into alien worlds, plundering resources, technology, cultivation methods, and anything else of value. The Azure Cloud Martial Academy was only one of many institutions training the next generation of powerhouses for that ongoing expansion.

A deep chime rang across the plaza.

The ceremony was about to begin.

Ash straightened his back, feeling the quiet thrum of anticipation settle in his chest. Whatever martial soul or spirit root appeared today, he would work with it. He would cultivate steadily. He would live long.

And along the way, he would keep watching every good story the multiverse had to offer.

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