It began 106 years ago, a mere week after humanity first broke the bonds of Earth and touched the void of space. The world was still reeling from the triumph of its first venture beyond the atmosphere when the skies erupted in an unprecedented meteor shower. To the common people, it was nothing more than a dazzling celestial display, but the world’s leading governments knew better.

  The meteorites were not ordinary rock. They burned with an ethereal glow, pulsing in colors unseen by human eyes. Upon impact, they released vast amounts of energy, warping the very land where they fell. Soil hardened into crystalline formations, rivers shimmered with unnatural hues, as if infused with an otherworldly essence.

  For the next fifty years, a silent war was waged—not with weapons, but with ambition. Every major nation raced to collect and harness the meteorites, now named Cosmosium. It became the crown jewel of technological advancement, a limitless energy source that powered military vehicles, industrial machines, and even entire cities. But despite decades of experimentation, every attempt to weaponize it into a tool that a single soldier could wield failed.

  Then came the consequences.

  As the years passed, the air itself changed. Factories, warships, and transports powered by Cosmosium bled invisible fumes and radiation into the world, altering the environment slowly, silently, irreversibly. No one noticed at first. No one suspected that with every breath they took, with every step upon the tainted earth, something deep inside them was shifting.

  By the 80th year after the Cosmosium showers, the world began whispering of the impossible.

  Reports surfaced at first dismissed as superstition of people defying human limits. A man who lifted a burning car with his bare hands. A woman who survived a fall from a skyscraper without a scratch. A child whose cries shattered glass across an entire block. The governments, having unknowingly bred an age of anomalies, reacted with fear and control.

  It was then that the world saw the rise of global organizations created to study, capture, and control the "Enhanced." And quell every rumours hoping to keep the existence from the ordinary citizens

  Among them, the most formidable was Global Organization for Research and Enhancement GORE, the ruling force of Aldoria, home to the metropolis of Culer City. To maintain dominance in the new era, GORE rekindled the race for Cosmosium technology, not for industrial use but to develop tools capable of subduing these emerging anomalies.

  They gathered the finest scientists and engineers forming a coalition to push the limits of what was possible. At the forefront of this effort stood a brilliant yet enigmatic mind—Dr. William Markyov who amongst other scientists first theorized that Cosmosium did not merely alter environments—it altered biology, believed that exposure over generations had rewritten human genetics, unlocking abilities beyond comprehension. But while the government saw these discoveries as a means to empower themselves by weaponizing the Enhanced, he saw something else: he saw them as the next step in human evolution. To him, this was not an accident of nature but an opportunity to create something greater. He believed that power was the only true currency in the universe, and those who wielded it would stand above all others.

  In time, the team’s efforts bore fruit—the birth of Enhanced Technology. These advanced weapons and devices allowed ordinary humans to stand toe-to-toe with enhanced individuals, bridging the gap between natural evolution and artificial augmentation. Exosuits that amplified strength, gauntlets that generated kinetic blasts, neural enhancers that boosted reflexes—all of it was a game-changer in the power struggle between enhanced beings and the rest of the world.

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  But for Markyov, one of the leading minds behind these breakthroughs, it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t satisfied with merely studying enhanced individuals or designing tools to counter them. His ambitions stretched far beyond what his peers at the Global Organization for Research and Enhancement (GORE) deemed acceptable. Markyov wanted more. He wanted to create something greater.

  His experiments grew bolder, more radical. He didn’t just test on people—he experimented on the very fabric of the world itself. He sought to force evolution where nature had refused to act. People, metals, plants, animals he twisted and refined them, exposing them to conditions no living thing should endure, attempting to craft the ultimate form of existence. The line between science and madness blurred as his work ventured into areas that even his colleagues found abhorrent.

  GORE had once prided itself on pushing the boundaries of human potential, but Markyov’s vision strayed too far from what even they considered acceptable. When whispers of his unethical experiments spread, other nations took notice. What began as quiet disapproval soon escalated into full-scale intervention. The world could not allow a man like Markyov to continue his work unchecked. Under immense pressure, GORE was dismantled. Its members were scattered, its research facilities raided, and its classified projects buried.

  But Markyov refused to be buried with them.

  Rather than face the consequences of his work, he erased every trace of his existence. He abandoned his name, his history, and everything that tied him to GORE. Markyov the scientist ceased to exist.

  And in his place, The Maker was born.

  He vanished into the shadows, but his work did not stop. Freed from oversight, from restrictions, from the shackles of bureaucracy, he now had the freedom to truly create. His ambitions no longer had limits—only purpose.

  And soon, the world would witness what that purpose truly was.

  Driven by a ravenous hunger for power, Markyov's actions were unremorseful and full of calculated cruelty. He wasn't merely stealing cosmosium; he was plundering the very fabric of potential, twisting it to his own vile designs. The artificially replicated cosmosium, a pale imitation of the genuine material, pulsed with an unstable energy, a testament to his reckless ambition. He sold this dangerous substance and the enhanced techs to the highest bidders, criminals, and power-hungry warlords, each transaction a dark pact forged in greed.

  His experiments were a sickening horror of inhumane experimentations. He abducted not just individuals with cosmosium-altered DNA, who remained powerless, but regular individuals too and subjected them to torturous procedures. Their screams echoed through his hidden laboratories, a chilling soundtrack to his relentless pursuit of power. Their lives were just disposable elements in his quest to unlock the secrets of superhuman abilities. His hired help, a motley crew of enhanced and hundreds of regular criminals, who were his instruments of terror, their raids leaving a trail of chaos and fear.

  He reveled in the cat-and-mouse game with CDE, the organization formed to replace the defunct GORE. Each successful heist, each evaded capture, fueled his arrogance. He reveled in the shadows, his activities kept from the public eye. The failures of his experiments did nothing to deter him, each setback only stoking the fires of his obsession. He was a force of nature, a malignant presence that threatened to unravel the very foundations of order. Now, with the CDE's new enhanced operative having infiltrated his lair, he would ensure that this intruder would serve as his next test subject.

  Earlier, Lucian had briefed Jace, emphasizing the importance of apprehending "the Maker" alive. This time, the restraints were off. This abandoned warehouse, a labyrinth of shadows and forgotten machinery, was deemed the most likely location of Markyov's operations.

  Jace crashed through the rusted ceiling, the impact sending a shower of dust and debris raining down. Moonlight, slicing through the gaping hole, illuminated the interior. The air hung thick with the stench of chemicals and decay. He moved cautiously, his senses straining to detect any sign of life. The warehouse was a maze of stacked crates, tangled wires, and shadowy spaces.

  As he navigated the darkness, searching for a light switch, his foot landed on a pressure plate. A metallic click echoed through the warehouse, and before he could react, he felt the floor give way. He attempted to leap away, but his head slammed against a protruding pod cover, the impact disorienting him. Then, with a sickening hiss, the pod began to fill with a viscous, gel-like substance, trapping him like an insect in amber. The darkness closed in, and he felt a cold dread grip him.