As Kallus's holographic form faded from the chamber, the five remaining figures stood still—each of them briefly lost in calculation, reflection, and quiet dread.
The future was shifting faster than any of them could fully grasp. And ready or not, they would have to adapt.
None of them had a choice.
Things were changing—rapidly and irreversibly. And though they didn't speak it aloud, each of them knew: if the Void Fleet hadn't been here… they might not even be alive to worry about the future.
That thought alone sent a cold chill down their spines.
The contents of the eting—the Orc fleet, the Minotaurs, the return of mana, the warships drifting toward their world—were still sinking in. Kallus had only hinted at the Minotaurs' full intentions. He hadn't shared details, but from the way he spoke, death would've been the least of their concerns.
Thankfully, the Void Fleet was here. And that, more than anything, gave them hope.
They didn't pretend the Void Fleet was selfless. They all understood it had its own goals, its own agenda. But those ambitions weren't the problem—what mattered was that, for now, those goals aligned with Earth's survival and growth.
With the Void Fleet's protection—and more importantly, its technology—each of their empires could reach a level that would've taken centuries of blood, sacrifice, and slow progress.
Now, with genetic advancents and accelerated cognition from the Awakening Serum, Earth's people could learn faster, adapt harder, and build at a pace that once seed impossible. Problems that used to take decades to solve now took weeks. Knowledge that once needed lifetis now took years.
A new path was opening before them—a path toward becoming a true interstellar civilization.
And it wasn't far away.
That thought steadied their nerves.
One by one, they left the chamber. So moved to implent the plans forming in their minds—recruitnt, education, influence-building. Others, like Chancellor Bai Zongqi, returned to their fleets to brief their officers, to prepare them for the mission ahead.
The age of helpless waiting was over.
Now, it was ti to move.
anwhile, back in the current tiline...
In one of the orbital space habitats, a boy nad Joshua sat alone on the floor, legs folded in a ditative posture. He was focused—his brow furrowed, his eyes narrowed. In front of him lay an assortnt of small objects: a pencil, a few stones, a crumpled ball of paper. All scattered in a loose semicircle.
And then… one of them began to rise.
The paper ball floated. Slowly. Awkwardly. Barely 15 or 20 centiters off the ground. But it was rising.
Joshua's eyes widened.
He didn't dare move.
The ball hovered, trembling slightly in the air. He could feel sothing moving through him—not just in his body, but around him. Like invisible threads pulling the object up with sheer will.
Then, finally, he opened his eyes fully—and stared at it.
Hovering.
Floating.
He broke into a grin. A slow, stretched smile that grew until he couldn't contain it. And then—he laughed. Loud, almost mad with joy.
The paper ball fell as his focus broke, but he didn't care. Not even a little.
He'd done it.
He was sure of it now. He had awakened sothing. Sothing real.
He didn't know the exact na for it. But he knew what he wanted to call it.
The Force.
It made perfect sense. He was a massive Star Wars fan, after all.
Joshua had discovered the ability shortly after he received the Gene Awakening Serum, like almost everyone else on Earth. At first, it didn't feel like anything—until the headaches started. Blinding ones. And one day, during one of those migraines, the things in his room began to shake. Objects flew. His lamp shattered. A pen lodged itself in the wall. For a second, he thought he was possessed.
The fear erased the headache completely.
Only after calming down did he rember what people had said—about the awakening. About how powers were surfacing in different forms. Most got basic enhancents: superhuman strength, faster reflexes, sharper minds.
So, though, got other things.
Joshua had seen news reports about people who could lift toy cars with their minds—only to pass out minutes later from sheer exhaustion. He had wondered if that might be him.
Turned out, it was.
And just like them, the first ti he fully tapped into it, he blacked out cold.
But now, after days of quiet practice and testing, he was beginning to understand it. To control it.
He smiled again as he looked at the paper ball.
He had awakened "The Force." (psychokinesis)
And now he, too, can walk the way of Star Warrior.
Just thinking about it was exciting—his eyes lit up with a wild gleam, and laughing, he began to dance out of pure joy.
Just as Joshua was dancing around the room, laughing like he'd just unlocked the universe itself, sothing shifted.
He suddenly felt… heavy.
Not taphorically—physically. Like his body was slowly being weighed down by sothing invisible.
He paused, confused. But it didn't seem painful—just odd—so he brushed it off and kept celebrating.
Until the heaviness grew worse.
Much worse.
His legs buckled, and then—bam—he slamd to the floor of his small room, the impact shaking the shelves around him.
He let out a low groan of pain, chest heaving, face twisted in confusion.
Ahh, my face—it hurts!" groaned Jouswas as he lay on the ground, clutching his head with one hand and rubbing it constantly, hoping to soothe the pain—or at least trying to
What the hell was that?
After a few long minutes, he forced himself up, inch by inch, until he was standing again. Sort of. The weight was still there, like gravity itself had doubled—or tripled—on just him.
"What is happening?" he muttered to no one.
I might as well try jumping and see why I'm feeling this much weight all of a sudden," thought Josuay. He crouched slightly, ready to leap—when suddenly, he rembered sothing.
Then he rembered sothing. The first ti he jumped after his awakening—right after getting the Gene Awakening Serum—he'd accidentally smashed his hand against the ceiling like a piledriver. The pain was so intense it nearly made him cry.
He didn't want to repeat that mistake.
But he needed to test this feeling. So, he bolted out the door to try it outside.
Or at least, he tried to bolt.
Sothing was wrong.
His speed—gone.
He wasn't sprinting at 80 or 90 miles per hour like before. No blur of movent, no wind tearing past his ears. In fact, he barely reached a brisk jog.
Five... maybe six miles an hour?
That was pre-awakening speed. Like a normal, fit human.
"What the—?"
He stopped, breath catching in his throat. His mind raced with possible explanations, none of which made sense.
He hadn't overused his power. He wasn't sick. The Force—that strange telekinetic ability he'd awakened—was working earlier.
So what had changed?
And why did it feel like gravity had turned against him?
Though confused, Josuwa still wanted to jump to confirm what was happening, so he stepped outside the house.
Joshua stood in his front yard, eyes fixed on the open sky above.
He clenched his fists, took a deep breath, and whispered,"Maybe it's just gravity… Earth's gravity increasing. That would explain the weight I'm feeling."
Still confused, but determined, he bent his knees and jumped.
Nothing extraordinary.
He barely lifted off the ground—maybe a foot at most. Nowhere near the five-ter jumps he could easily perform just days ago.
That's not right…
And Joshua wasn't the only one feeling it.
Across Avalon, the Indra Empire, the Jiang Dynasty, the Bear Imperium—even in the most remote parts of Earth—sothing was changing.
People everywhere began reporting the sa symptoms:
A sudden, unexplained heaviness
Difficulty moving with the speed or agility they were used to
A subtle but noticeable increase in air density
A sharp drop in temperature, though strangely, it didn't seem to affect the human body negatively
But there was more.
Impurities in the atmosphere—pollutants and microplastics—were vanishing, purged by an unseen force. The air was growing cleaner, purer, almost unnaturally so.
Satellite communications began to flicker and fail. High-tech networks, even upgraded ones, started to show signs of disruption.
At first, no one panicked.
The public brushed it off as so kind of seasonal anomaly, possibly tied to climate fluctuation or regional anomalies. Most were mildly curious—so annoyed about the lost internet or their reduced strength.
But the "powered" individuals—those who had awakened abilities after the Gene Serum—felt it more acutely. They were losing their edge. Their strength, speed, and enhanced coordination were fading.
Whispers turned into online posts.
"Anyone else losing their powers?""Gravity feels weird—like I'm stuck to the floor.""What's going on with the air? I can breathe better than ever, but I feel heavy.""Are the governnts hiding sothing again?"
" Is it the Void fleet"
Finally, after mounting pressure, representatives from the four Earth superpowers held a joint press briefing.
Their statent was brief but direct:
"What the world is experiencing is not a system failure or environntal breakdown. It is a natural effect tied to the planetary shift caused by the central flux of mana. These changes—gravity, air purity, atmospheric density—are all side effects of mana stabilizing across Earth's biosphere."
They called it "The Central Fluctuation."
And it was only the beginning.
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