In the evening, Gabriel stood at the tallest part of the tower, looking through a round window at the sprawling, beautiful city of Paradise.

His arms were crossed as he watched everything. Suddenly, he noticed a young man approaching the tower and opened a rift.

The man stepped into it and appeared a few metres behind him.

"Troubled?" Gabriel said as he turned to face the young man, who brought down his hood, revealing his ocean-blue eyes and face.

"I am. All my life, I've believed Adam, the first summoner, saved mankind and vanished. Cain took advantage of this and began a world conquest, but ended up dead, defeated by my knights back when they were in their own world and killed by the Authorities."

Godfrey looked out the window. "His followers cast a huge dark shadow over the world, but now I feel like the entire planet is in the palms of this being."

Gabriel looked at him. "Cain could be considered a Saint Tier back then. It was natural, King/Queen Tiers couldn't harm him."

"What?!"

Seeing Godfrey's reaction, Gabriel chuckled. "Your dungeon raids are few, Godfrey. Make it your life goal to clear not just green gates but blue gates and red gates. Keep count; the more you do, the more you'll discover about other worlds, summons are at the end of the day beings from these dungeon worlds. Cain's Dark Seraph was most likely a Saint Tier upon his moment of Awakening, and he was already favoured by the mana tree, as was Adam."

Gabriel approached the window and leaned against it. "Adam isn't a hero like you think. He's a selfish and self-centered man whose only goal was to clear dungeons and get stronger. He didn't care about the state of the world; he just saw means to grow, and when it was exhausted, he left Earth seeking to challenge greater beings."

He sighed. "Cain, on the other hand, is different. He was once a sculptor that created both figurines and life-sized statues. An ordinary man with a very ordinary life, until the apocalypse came and he was one of the first few to awaken. One of his abilities allowed him to enter a space of abundant clay, where he could mold beings, summons, whatever he desired, and life would be given to them. It made him realize he might as well be a god."

Gabriel looked at Godfrey. "While Adam killed dungeon monsters, Cain spent time in a space unconfined to the concept of time and began to create."

"Do you know what I think?"

"What?" Godfrey asked.

"I think Cain might be the instigator of the prejudice toward humanoid Summoners. Authorities rule the outside world, Paradise is ruled by Vagabonds, Sanctuary is ruled by Fanatics. He has split the world into three factions and made us fight ourselves while he watches," Gabriel said.

"I just need to get stronger. I guess he's behind the scenes all this while, waiting to revive his main body," Godfrey responded, conviction burning in his ocean-blue eyes.

He couldn't allow fear to break him. Even if Cain was a god, he wouldn't just bend the knee to him, especially when he wanted his knights.

That meant nothing good for him.

***

In a dark room, an alluring beauty whose ability made her too captivating to be resisted by men was on a screen, kneeling with both knees.

She wore a silver robe with the hood partly covering her head. She also tied her eyes with a black cloth. This was the Grand Silver Moon, trained and prepared as the spouse of Cain by his followers.

"My Lord, what has happened in Brooklyn has changed the tide. The public will favour the boy, and members of the table might have a change of mind," her authoritative voice was now sweet and reverent.

"Is that so?" a voice came from the silhouette seated on a leather chair in the dark room. His eyes were fixed on the screen.

"We believe it to be so. Guilds are already making their moves, and with the relationship of the authorities with him, there is a huge chance he will not consider becoming an agent," Nerissa replied.

"Didn't people rise up for his mother? Didn't the President speak up for her? Isn't he on our side now? Do not fret, let him return, but keep the bounty. The greed of man is something that is always consistent," the man in the dark room said confidently.

The world wasn't so hard to fool, especially when he had been there since the start of this new age. Those fools thought they saw Adam's writing on the mana tree, like Adam would ever care.

It was he who wrote it; it was he who was breeding them, manipulating everything to his desire, including their power ranking.

Whatever he set as the limit would be a mental limit in their minds, meaning he had made them shackle themselves, thinking if the strongest couldn't get there, how could they?

The shackle would not remain forever but it was already doing its job.

"What should we do for you?" Nerissa asked reverently.

"Initiate more. Feed them with beast summons and allow them to open parishes in hopes of entering Sanctuary. They should keep the world busy."

"As you wish," Nerissa bowed, and the television went dark.

The man in the dark room spun his chair, grunting softly. 'The Primal Heart Stag, a creature whose healing powers only get better upon death, is what I need to have this world truly locked in my grasp. It's much more efficient than more slaughter and I feel excited at imagining an age where people exalt objects like I exalted my sculptures. With those items they can be resurrected and it will be a world I created. All men will be grateful.'

As he spoke to himself, someone knocked at the door.

"Sir, you have a guest."

He rose to his feet, his imposing height and build intimidating in the darkness, but the moment he opened the door, the man who appeared wore a white suit, had white hair, a full beard with a mustache. He had sharp features and an amicable face.

The woman in a tight suit gestured toward the corridor. "Right this way, Mr. Manhattan."

'Soon… all of me will be aware upon the awakening of my true body. And as for Adam, I doubt he lives.'

***

"Achoo!" A man with long, golden-brown hair packed with a golden band yet still reached his waist sneezed as he opened a huge double door weighing countless tons.

He held a staff in one hand, and behind him was an infernal world, but this infernal world was filled with corpses, hundreds of thousands of corpses.

He rubbed his nose while descending the staircase toward a swirling gate. 'I've been sneezing for a century. I'm immune to all types of plagues at my level, but it seems like this sneezing might be incurable, or my strength still isn't enough? I guess killing a two-thousand-year-old demon prince is nothing compared to sneezing. What say you, monkey?'

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