Dust clogged my windpipe, burning like crushed glass. Coughing violently, I rolled over onto my hands and knees. Gray, powdery ash coated everything as far as my eyes could see, stretching out into an endless, empty horizon. This was the Planet Void, a cosmic graveyard where every newly awakened soul was given a barren rock and told to build a god. Memory of my sudden, quiet death on Earth flashed through my mind, replaced instantly by the cold reality of this desolate landscape. I had been a research geneticist, spending my days analyzing code and cellular structures until my heart simply gave out. Now, I was a Planetary Lord. Floating directly in front of my chest was a golf-ball-sized sphere of pure, empty crystal. My planetary core. It felt completely hollow, devoid of any warmth or life, mirroring the dead rock beneath my boots. Every other Lord who arrived in this place had a core that hummed with inherited power, pre-loaded with templates from the Universal Archive. Mine was a complete blank. But as I stared into its clear, glassy depths, I didn't feel despair. I felt a dangerous, bubbling excitement. "Awake already, loser?" A mocking voice sliced through the silence of the void. Turning my head, I saw a shimmering blue barrier slicing the gray landscape in half. Standing on the opposite side of the boundary was Julian, a fellow newly assigned Lord from my sector, wearing a smirk that made my knuckles itch. His planetary core glowed with a vibrant, golden light, hovering proud and loud above his head. Behind him, his territory was already beginning to shape itself, the ground shifting into polished, black volcanic stone. "I expected you to be crying," Julian sneered, crossing his arms as he stepped closer to the barrier. "Look at your rock. It is literally just dirt. You do not even have a basic atmosphere yet." Shrugging, I brushed the ash off my trousers and stood up. "It has character," I muttered, offering him a lazy grin. "A blank canvas. You should try it sometime, Julian. It is much more fun than painting by numbers." Julian laughed, a harsh, grating sound that echoed across the empty plains. "Fun does not keep you alive when the cosmic harvest begins," he said, tapping a floating holographic screen linked to the Universal Archive. "The universe does not care about your creativity, Kael. It cares about power. Standardized, proven power." Golden runes spilled from his fingers, weaving into a massive, glowing summoning circle on his side of the border. "Behold the difference between us," Julian boasted, his chest puffing out. Heavy, metallic thuds shook the ground, rattling the loose pebbles at my feet. Out from the golden light stepped a towering brute, easily eight feet tall. Gray skin like weathered granite covered its massive frame, shot through with veins of pulsing, molten iron. A massive iron halberd rested on its broad shoulder, and its crimson eyes burned with mindless, violent hunger. It let out a guttural grunt, its massive jaw dripping with thick, dark saliva that hissed as it touched the volcanic stone. "An Iron-Blood Orc," Julian whispered, his face alight with smug satisfaction. "A Tier-3 legendary template. I spent my entire family inheritance to unlock this archive entry. What do you have, Kael? Nothing." Roaring like a wounded engine, the giant beast sprayed saliva against the barrier that separated our domains. Dirt and pebbles rattled on my side of the line, kicked up by the sheer acoustic force of the monster's voice. My pulse quickened, but not with fear. A strange, wild euphoria bubbled up in my chest. Looking at the massive, brutish orc, I only saw a dead end. "He looks heavy," I noted, tilting my head. "How much does he eat? Because your planet looks like it only grows weeds." Julian's face twisted in anger, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists. "He eats the flesh of weaker lords' creations," Julian spat, pointing a finger at me. "Enjoy your final hours, Kael. When the beginner shields drop, my orcs will paint this gray dirt red with your blood." With a wave of his hand, Julian turned and walked back into his glowing fortress, his massive orc marching close behind him. Silence reclaimed the gray plains. I looked down at my own blank core, which was now humming softly in the quiet. "A Tier-3 legendary," I murmured, a slow smile spreading across my lips. "So boring. Why copy someone else's homework when you can write the book?" Closing my eyes, I reached out and touched the cold crystal core. Deep within my mind, a hidden interface flickered to life. Unlike the Universal Archive, which offered pre-tested races with fixed evolutionary paths, my interface was a vast, empty void. This was Origin Creation, my unique, uncatalogued system cheat. It allowed me to build life from the atomic level upward, free from the constraints of the universe's established laws. No templates existed here. No pre-approved designs limited my choices. Just raw, chaotic evolution waiting to be molded. "Let us start with something simple," I whispered to the empty air, feeling the thrill of a scientist entering an untouched laboratory. Focusing my mind, I began to draft the blueprint of my first species. Muscles were too expensive to maintain in a barren wasteland. Bones were too brittle and required calcium I did not possess on this lifeless rock. I needed something fluid, something that could survive on nothing but the ambient energy of the void. Selecting a basic water-carbon base, I stripped away all unnecessary organs. Every useless sensory organ was discarded. No eyes, no mouth, no lungs. Instead, I designed a simple, flexible membrane capable of absorbing external energy through osmosis. Inside this translucent body, I placed a tiny, highly volatile core of raw aether. This core would act as both heart and stomach, digesting anything it touched and converting it into pure energy. They would not need food. They would eat the very ash of my dead planet, turning waste into power. "You will be fragile," I said, staring at the glowing blueprint in my mind. "But you will adapt. You will have to." With a decisive mental tap, I initiated the creation process. Waves of pale blue light erupted from my blank core, spilling onto the gray ash at my feet. Energy pooled together, bubbling and swirling like boiling water. Slowly, a small, gelatinous shape began to rise from the glowing puddle. It was no larger than a melon, completely translucent, and pulsed with a soft, ethereal blue light. A tiny, flickering spark hummed at its center. Wobbling slightly, the soft body adapted to the gravity of my planet, before settling into a gentle, rhythmic pulse. "Welcome to the world," I whispered, kneeling down in the dirt to get a closer look. Reaching out, I gently poked the jelly-like creature. Cool to the touch, it vibrated slightly against my fingertip as if reacting to my presence. It was incredibly fragile, almost like a bubble waiting to pop. Yet, there was an undeniable beauty in its simplicity. "An Aether Slime," I declared, my voice filled with a quiet pride. Suddenly, a sharp, high-pitched chime rang in my ears. A massive crimson alert flashed across my vision, burning with an ominous intensity. [WARNING: Species 'Aether Slime' detected. No historical data found in Universal Archive. Analyzing survival probability...] [Analysis complete. Baseline survival rating: 0.01%. Extreme risk of immediate extinction.] Before I could even process the warning, a low, rumbling vibration shook the ground beneath my feet. Looking up, I saw a massive, dark shadow slowly looming over my planet's border, blotting out the distant stars.

Chapter 1: Dust and Mockery