Ethan stood on the rooftop of his penthouse, his eyes narrowed as they pierced the veil of night stretched endlessly above the city. The skyline glittered like a constellation of artificial stars, each light a flicker of life continuing below—oblivious, routine, predictable. Cars weaved like fireflies along the roads, neon signs blinked with advertisement and distraction, but to Ethan, it all looked... distant. Insignificant.
There was a hum in the air tonight. Not the mechanical kind that cities often produce, but a vibration—subtle, metaphysical—resonating with something buried deep within him. It wasn't new, but it was louder now, undeniable. The call.
A slow breath escaped his lips, and for a moment, the air around him shifted, the molecules trembling as though recognizing the gravity of what he was becoming. Reality itself warped, rippling faintly around his body as though space was bending in anticipation.
He stood alone, yet not alone. He was at the brink—the edge of something immeasurable. His past, with its bruises, its failures, its relentless pursuit of strength, felt like a faint echo in comparison to the threshold before him now.
The training, intense and cruel as it had been, had only scratched the surface. He had pushed his body beyond the realms of human endurance—days spent under gravity hundreds of times normal, bones cracking and healing, muscles shredded and rebuilt. His spirit had been broken, then reforged in fire. But none of it—none of it—had prepared him for this moment.
And so he didn't think.
He didn't plan. He simply let go.
Instinct took over, the deepest recesses of his being answering a call older than time. The space around him began to tremble, distorting like heat rising off sun-scorched asphalt. A thin, high-pitched frequency sliced through the silence, sharp and piercing. His atoms separated, danced, twisted—and then, as though pulled by an invisible force—
—he vanished.
No flash. No sound. Just absence.
When Ethan reappeared, he was not standing on the earth anymore.
He was in the void.
Stars surrounded him like ancient gods, blazing with indifferent majesty in the cold vacuum. There was no wind, no air, no sound—yet Ethan heard everything. The thrum of galaxies spinning, the whispered deaths of stars, the heartbeat of the cosmos itself. He hovered there, suspended between dimensions, untethered from everything he once knew.
For a breathless second, he drifted, still and silent. Then—
His body responded.
It was not a transformation. It was an awakening.
His aura burst from him in a violent surge, a tidal wave of pure, unrestrained energy. Crimson light, furious and alive, erupted from his core, spiraling outward in feral tendrils. It didn't just glow—it snarled, twisted, writhed like it had a will of its own. His energy was no longer an extension of him—it had become him.
The transformation was immediate and irreversible.
His once auburn-streaked hair now cascaded in wild, untamed locks of hellish crimson, glowing like molten lava in zero gravity. Each strand moved with a purpose, like the tongues of a living inferno. His eyes—his very irises—disintegrated into pure red light, the glow of a sun contained behind his gaze. Around him, a dome of radiant energy expanded, consuming everything within miles.
He flexed his fingers.
The moons of a distant planet quaked.
Not a grunt of effort. Not a strain. Just movement—and the celestial bodies responded as though they recognized their new god.
A smirk tugged at his lips. He lifted a hand. Far away, one of the moons began to tremble, pulled from its orbit as if seduced by an invisible command. Slowly, it floated toward him, a mountain-sized mass drifting like a feather.
He closed his fist.
The moon shattered.
No explosion. Just dust—atomized and scattered across the void.
A pulse of crimson light radiated from his body, reaching far, crashing into distant constellations like a wave upon ancient shores. He could feel it—the universe trembling in awareness. He was no longer Ethan, the boy who struggled to survive. He had become something more. Something... elemental.
Mastered Ultra Spirit Form.
The words echoed within him, not as a name but as a revelation.
He kicked forward—not through space, but through existence itself. In an instant, he stood on the surface of a planet whose name he didn't know, whose atmosphere should have torn him apart. The air was thick with foreign gases, the sky a pale green.
The moment his feet touched the surface, the planet reacted.
The crust beneath him splintered, great rifts opening like scars across its face. Continents shifted. Oceans boiled. The core beneath him wept. The very planet feared his arrival.
He walked slowly, each step a tremor felt across tectonic plates. He looked to the horizon, where distant mountains buckled beneath invisible pressure.
Then—far away in the blackness of space—a supernova erupted.
He hadn't even looked at it. His mere existence had caused a star to die.
He raised his palm.
A tiny dot of energy formed at the center of his fingertip. It pulsed, condensed, smaller than a pebble, but vibrating with the power of universes. He flicked it forward—casual, effortless.
The sphere sailed through the air, vanishing in a blink.
Moments later, a distant star collapsed, imploding into nothingness, its light consumed before it even had a chance to scream.
Silence.
Ethan clenched his fists. The sensation was addictive. This wasn't just power—it was dominion.
He could feel everything. Galaxies spinning. Nebulas crying out in awe. Gravity itself bowing before him. He was still Ethan... and yet something far more ancient had awakened within him. A dormant force that had slept in his bloodline, waiting for one who could endure the suffering, the isolation, the madness of evolution.
He was that one.
Time lost meaning. He floated above the broken planet, eyes closed, breath slow. His senses stretched for light years. He saw civilizations evolving. He watched black holes devour stars. He glimpsed ancient beings that slumbered between realities—and they sensed him. Some turned away. Others kneeled in reverence.
He no longer needed to speak. His presence alone commanded.
He raised both hands, and from the darkness, a cluster of asteroids accelerated toward him, forming a ring of orbiting stones—like a cosmic throne. Around him, particles aligned, magnetic fields shaped themselves, and energy bent to his will.
Ethan, the once-flawed mortal, now stood among the stars as a force untouchable.
He whispered to the void, and the void answered.
This was what it meant to be more than a warrior. More than a god. He wasn't powered by hatred or vengeance. He was driven by something purer—transcendence. To evolve, not to rule, but to understand the limitless nature of being.
But even in this peak, he knew... this was not the end.
Power like this wasn't a destination.
It was an invitation.
And somewhere in the fabric of the universe, something else stirred.
Watching.
Waiting.
For him.
Ethan opened his eyes, two radiant stars of crimson.
"Let him come," he said, his voice both whisper and thunder. "I've only just begun."