The Anomaly's P Chapter 81: The Cracks in History

Chapter 81: The Cracks in History

"What is happening in this world...?"

I stood there in the clearing, my mind spinning. Five affinities? Six? The history, the lore I knew from the ga was crumbling second by second.

I was truly shaken now.

When I first learned there were no status screens or ’Paths’ in this War of Faith era, I thought I could adapt. I told myself it was just a primitive version of the world. But then Roran told

that the peak of humanity was Grandmaster—not a single Transcendent in sight.

...And now, he was talking about people wielding five or six affinities like it was common knowledge.

Were we even living in the sa world?

We weren’t just living in different eras. It felt like we were living in different realities.

No—what did he even an by having that many affinities? This was absurd. It felt like they had no restrictions in the past.

In the present era, the restrictions were absolute. You could not touch mana until the age of ten. Your body simply would not respond to it. You had to wait for your core to awaken, and even then, that was just the beginning.

After that ca the Path Trial.

Your soul would leave your body and enter a trial realm built from your own mories, your own regrets, your own fears. The trial would throw everything you ever hated about yourself in your face and make you fight through it. And if you lost? If your will broke? If your soul could not take the pressure?

You... died.

Not in the trial. In real life. Your body would just stop. Like soone had flipped a switch.

Power was not sothing you were born with in the present era. It was not a gift from your bloodline or your family na. It was a reward. Sothing you had to earn through sweat and blood and tears and years of suffering.

That was the world I ca from.

A world where power was given only to those who proved they deserved it.

But this era—the War of Faith—those walls did not exist. People used mana from birth. They awakened abilities without trials. They had no System.

It was strange.

Why?

What could have possibly happened between then and now to change the present so much? Why could we not have more than two affinities anymore? Why could we not touch mana until the age of ten?

The present era had more mana in the air than this era. Thicker. Richer. Easier to breathe. Yet we had fewer freedoms.

...And then there were the ranks.

In the present, we had reached Sovereign. People had climbed past Grandmaster, past Transcendent, and kept going.

But here? In this era? No one had even heard of those ranks.

What if there was no Transcendent in this era simply because no one had reached it yet? That was possible. I rembered reading so lore about the War of Faith.

It was said that the era ended with the demons retreating, hiding across planets, waiting for their lord to return. By the end of that era, many strong people were born, and they beca legends of their own worlds.

We never learned much about those people—their ranks, their powers and their true strength.

But knowing how famous they beca, they must have been incredibly strong. So of their families are still known in Aetheris today. The Celestial family is one of them. The Royal family is another.

Other races and families with long histories trace their ancestors back to that ti. The first leader of the Celestial family ca from this era.

But one question still remained unanswered.

What happened at the end of this era to completely change how power worked in the present?

Could it have sothing to do with the gods?

For so reason, the thought sent a chill down my spine.

As far as I knew, after the Abyss King was defeated and sealed, the gods and goddesses retreated from the world to recover. Many of them fell during the battle. But what did that have to do with the end of the War of Faith?

There was a very significant gap between the two eras. Centuries, maybe more. A lot could have happened in that ti. I don’t know.

Did the gods co back by the end of the second era? What if they saw their people being massacred and decided to destroy the demons completely? But the question still remained—what did that have to do with restrictions?

It did not make sense.

The present era has more restrictions, yes. But people in the present are still stronger than they were back then. The mana in the air is richer. The ranks go higher—Transcendent and Sovereign. None of that existed in the War of Faith.

So why would the gods impose limits if those limits only made us weaker?

What would the System want

to find in this Path? Why we have less freedom? It did not make sense.

Unless...

A chill crawled down my spine. People only impose restrictions when they are afraid. They only build fences when they want to keep sothing in—or stop sothing from getting out.

Suddenly, my whole body went cold. A single thought made

freeze.

What could gods—beings far beyond mortal understanding—possibly fear?

The only answers I could think of were each other. Or sothing worse than themselves.

Maybe they were not afraid of mortals rising against them. Maybe they were afraid of what mortals could beco if left unchecked. What if they were afraid of mortals rising beyond them?

What if the restrictions—the age limit, the Path Trials, the limited affinities—were not for our benefit?

What if they were ant to stop soone? Or everyone?

The Path Trials, the age limits, the capped affinities... they were not gifts.

They were filters. A way to shape us. A way to control the speed of our growth. A way to make sure that anyone who climbed too high was soone the gods had personally ’vetted’ through the System.

And the gods?

In the present era, they are awake. Arthur is proof of that—he is the Goddess’s Apostle. Chosen by her. Blessed by her. And from what I rember of the ga, there are other apostles too. Other gods. Other chosen ones.

But what kind of gods are they?

Are they protectors? Are they tyrants? Or are they sothing in between?

I thought about the legends. The stories always painted the gods as saviors. They defeated the Abyss King. They saved the world. They gave humanity a System to grow stronger. They blessed their chosen apostles with power.

But was the System a ladder... or was it a leash?

Wait...!

My eyes widened slightly. What if the status screen was given to us for watching us? To not only control us but also to keep an eye on us? The thought was far-fetched, but I could not help but think it.

Suddenly, a being appeared in my mind that kept nagging .

The one who is behind my transmigration. What could that being’s role be here? What if "they" were a god? A different kind of god? One who did not agree with the others?

Or was it sothing else entirely? Sothing trying to show

the truth before the ’leash’ was ever put on humanity?

Was it trying to show

this? That there is sothing else going on behind the scenes?

What about Nova?

I already guessed that the being sent Nova to

because it wanted to keep an eye on . But what if it sent Nova to

because it wanted to save

from other gazes?

But why?

Why would it do that? What could it possibly want from ? And why only ? What can I give it?

Who are you really? A friend? Or a foe?

I was missing a lot of things. The pieces were scattered everywhere, and I did not have enough of them to see the full picture. But I felt like I was walking toward a secret that had been buried under thousands of years of worship and lies.

But Roran did not give

any more ti to wander through the dark corridors of my mind.

He poked

hard in the chest with the tip of his wooden sword, snapping

back to the humid jungle air.

"Stop daydreaming, kid," he said. "Having three affinities is just having three tools in your bag. If you do not know how to swing the hamr, it does not matter if you also own a saw and a chisel."

I blinked and shook my head. But the thoughts didn’t leave. They never really left. They just moved to the back of my mind, waiting.

What could gods possibly fear? What did that being want from ? Why was I brought here? Was it to uncover sothing? To stop sothing? Or was I just a piece on a board, moved around by hands I could not see?

I did not have the answers. Maybe I would never have them.

But I could not stand here forever, drowning in questions that had no answers.

I had to survive today. I had to survive tomorrow. I had to get stronger. Because if there really was sothing hiding beneath the surface of this world—sothing the gods did not want

to see—then I needed to be strong enough to face it when it finally showed itself.

I pushed the cosmic questions into a corner of my brain and locked the door.

"Fine," I said, gripping my practice katana tighter. "So how do I use them? I have used the black lightning, but it just... happens. I do not know how to trigger the others."

Roran’s eyes narrowed, and that predator’s grin returned to his face.

"That’s your first mistake," he said. "You are waiting for them to ’happen’ to you. An affinity isn’t a guest in your body, Leo. It is the door. And right now, you are standing in front of it, too afraid to turn the handle."

He stopped pacing and looked at

intensely.

"You have black lightning affinity, right? What are the other two?"

"Black flas," I said. "And... space."

Roran’s eyebrows shot up, and for the first ti since I had t him, I saw a flicker of genuine surprise in his eyes. Not the fake surprise nobles used to flatter each other. Real surprise.

"Space?" he said slowly. "That’s rare. Dangerous, too. I have only heard stories about people with space affinity. If you ss up even a little, you could leave half your body behind."

I swallowed hard. "I will try not to do that."

"You will try not to do that," he repeated with a snort. "Reassuring."

He walked around

in a slow circle, his eyes scanning my body like he was looking for sothing hidden under my skin.

"We will start with space," he decided.