Many years ago, long before the world of Kael'Ar became the peaceful planet humanity knew, the world was a very different place.
It was an age when humanity had yet to understand the true scale of existence.
The universe was already ancient.
Long before humans had built cities, kingdoms, or civilizations, countless gods had emerged throughout existence. Some were born from concepts, some from natural laws, some from the faith of civilizations that no longer existed, and others simply appeared as beings possessing power beyond the comprehension of mortal life.
And almost all of them shared one desire. The throne. There was no single ruler over the universe.
There were countless territories, countless dimensions, countless domains, and countless gods who believed that they were worthy of ruling them all.
That belief eventually became the beginning of an endless war.
God fought god.
Territories were conquered and destroyed. Ancient beings disappeared from history. Some gods were killed, while others gained enormous territories and became rulers of entire cosmic regions. There were also those who simply abandoned the struggle altogether, retreating into distant realms and refusing to participate in the conflict for the throne.
But while the gods fought among themselves, their eyes eventually turned toward a small planet that seemed insignificant compared to the vastness of existence.
Kael'Ar. At first glance, there was nothing particularly extraordinary about it. It was simply a planet filled with life.
Humans lived there. Animals roamed its lands. Civilizations rose and fell, and generations passed without ever realizing that beings far beyond their understanding were watching them from the heavens.
Yet Kael'Ar possessed something the gods noticed immediately. It was unclaimed. No god ruled the planet. No divine authority had been established over it.
And naturally, some gods attempted to change that.
They descended upon Kael'Ar expecting humanity to submit.
They were gods. Humanity was not. The people of Kael'Ar refused. They fought. They had no circuits. They possessed no supernatural abilities capable of matching the gods.
They had no understanding of the cosmic laws surrounding them.
Yet they still fought.
Generation after generation, humanity resisted the beings who descended from the heavens. Their struggles were meaningless in comparison to the gods' overwhelming power, and countless humans died without ever coming close to victory.
But humanity had something the gods had underestimated.
Potential.
Years passed…Then decades. And eventually, something changed. The first humans began awakening powers that had never existed within their species before. Circuits. At first, nobody understood what they were.
The people who awakened them could manipulate forces beyond ordinary human capability. Their bodies became stronger. Their minds became sharper. Their abilities began developing in ways that defied the laws humanity previously understood.
And eventually, those humans realized something terrifying. They could fight the gods. The first Circuit Beings were born.
For the first time in history, humanity possessed warriors capable of standing against divine beings.
And they won. Gods who had once descended upon Kael'Ar believing themselves invincible were defeated by humans.
Humanity gained hope.
For a brief period, it seemed as though the people of Kael'Ar had finally earned their freedom but hope did not last forever. Power changed humanity.
The same strength that allowed them to fight the gods slowly awakened something else within their hearts.
Greed. The First Circuit Beings began looking at one another differently. They were no longer simply humans defending their world. They were powerful beings capable of changing the world.
And some began asking themselves a dangerous question.
Why should anyone else stand above them? That question would eventually become the foundation of the First Circuit War. But before that war began, something happened that changed everything.
An ancient god invaded Kael'Ar. The being was vastly more powerful than the gods humanity had previously fought.
The First Circuit Beings gathered together. They attacked it with everything they possessed. The battlefield became a catastrophe.
Mountains disappeared beneath the force of their attacks. The sky itself seemed to tremble as dozens of powerful Circuit Beings fought alongside one another against the ancient god.
Yet despite their combined strength, they could not kill it.
They injured it. They pushed it back. They wounded its body. But they could not finish it and then someone arrived. A man walked onto the battlefield. He did not announce himself. He did not carry an army.
He simply stood there and looked toward the ancient god. His name was Evion Vok Magnolias. The ancient god turned toward him.
Evion's expression remained calm. Then his left eye began to glow faintly.
Nothing dramatic happened at first. There was no explosion. No enormous attack. No overwhelming wave of energy.
The ancient god simply began to disappear.
Its body started breaking apart into countless particles.
The ancient being struggled. It tried to resist, It tried to use its power but nothing worked. The particles continued disappearing until the ancient god was completely erased.
Silence descended upon the battlefield.
The First Circuit Beings stared at Evion.
They had just witnessed something they couldn't comprehend. He had not defeated the ancient god through physical strength.
He had not overwhelmed it through conventional power. He had simply looked at it.
And it died. That was the moment fear entered the hearts of the First Circuit Beings.
Evion Vok Magnolias became the person they feared most.
It was also the day they learned about the Soul Circuit and the Koketsu.
Evion possessed both. The first user of the Soul Circuit. The first known wielder of Koketsu. The combination made him something humanity had never seen before.
Unfortunately, fear rarely remains fear for long.
Someone always finds a way to turn it into hatred.
Certain gods began whispering into the ears of the First Circuit Beings.
They told them that Evion would eventually rule over them.
That his Soul Circuit was too dangerous. That Koketsu made him fundamentally different from them. That allowing him to continue growing would eventually mean the end of their freedom.
The whispers spread. Suspicion became distrust. Distrust became division and division became war. The First Circuit Beings turned against one another.
Some stood beside Evion. Some opposed him. Some refused to choose a side.
And others simply watched as their fellow Circuit Beings destroyed one another.
The First Circuit War had begun.
It was not merely a battle between humans.
It became a conflict between ideals, fear, ambition, and power. Entire regions of Kael'Ar were destroyed. Countless Circuit Beings disappeared.
Some survived and vanished into the world.
Others became legends.
And eventually, the war ended. But the fear never truly disappeared. It became something deeper. Something embedded into the very history of the circuits.
Generations passed.
The Soul Circuit eventually disappeared. For many years, nobody possessed it. Koketsu also became incredibly rare.
A few individuals managed to obtain it throughout history, but they eventually died, taking their knowledge with them. Then Koketsu disappeared again.
The era of the First Circuit Beings slowly became nothing more than ancient history.
Until one day, a soul from another world arrived.
Arata Kurogane.
His soul was transmigrated into Kael'Ar. And somehow, against all probability, he obtained both. The Soul Circuit and Koketsu. The second man in existence known to possess both since Evion Vok Magnolias.
That was why Kitakim had asked Arata the question.
Would history repeat itself?
Would the existence of another Soul Circuit user possessing Koketsu cause the same fear to spread again?
Would the world once again turn against someone simply because they possessed a power nobody understood?
Unfortunately for those who believed history was destined to repeat itself, they had made one critical mistake. They assumed Arata was comparable to Evion. He wasn't.
Evion Vok Magnolias had been the first. He had been the beginning of the Soul Circuit's history.
He had been the person who first demonstrated what the Soul Circuit and Koketsu could become but Arata Kurogane had walked a different path.
He had already surpassed the point where Evion once stood.
And that was the irony of the current war. The ancient Circuit Beings believed they were recreating history. They believed they were confronting another Evion.
They believed they were standing at the beginning of another First Circuit War…but they were wrong. They were not facing history. They were standing before something that history had never seen before.