Prologue

On the ruins of the church roof, I looked at the desolation around me... The town was nothing more than a mass of rubble. On the horizon, from my high position, I could see the columns of fire and smoke of thousands of fires... The earth shook, and the clouds ran through the sky as if they were fighter planes.

There was no longer a shred of mana left in my body, the opening of the last portal had drained every last bit of my reserves.

Only ten million... I could only save ten million people on the entire planet...

With all my effort and all my sacrifice, I only managed to save ten million.

I climbed down from the roof with my own foot and reached the square. Among the demolished houses, I saw a bar that, by a miracle, was still standing... It was empty and abandoned. I jumped over the counter and grabbed a bottle of the best wine I could find. If death had to come to me, it would be better if I did it with a sip of good wine on the lips.

The noise of helicopter blades echoed in the square, and with military efficiency, four armed people were pointing assault rifles at me...

"You are a difficult man to find, Lion, the cheater." Said the blonde woman, looking at me intensely.

In the blink of an eye, the four paramilitaries were unconscious, and I was holding the woman in the air with one hand by the neck...

"You could have saved them all, and yet you didn't do anything. You're going to die."

The woman tried to breathe as much as she could...

"What I… I… if… if you can save another twenty million..."

"Not even the end of the world justifies making macabre jokes; there are no operational Athair facilities left, and I have no mana left on my body, Birta, there is nothing left but waiting for death."

"Don't call me Birta, call me Data…"

But before moving forward let me tell you how we got to this point in history...