Darkness.
Not the comforting kind found beneath closed eyelids or in the dead of night, but the cold, endless void that comes when breath ceases and the world forgets your name.
He didn't remember how it ended.
A fleeting moment—pain? Cold? Silence?
Then came the fall. Or perhaps it was a drift. Downward. Sideways. Through something that didn't exist. Time and space unraveled until even thought felt like a foreign thing.
There was no sensation of air, no movement of limbs, no pulse to remind him he was alive—because he wasn't. But still, he moved, in some sense of the word. Or perhaps he simply was, and the universe moved around him.
Time ceased to matter. Seconds stretched like centuries; centuries collapsed into the space between heartbeats. He couldn't tell if he had been falling for a moment or for an eternity, and slowly, horrifyingly, it dawned on him that there may no longer be a difference.
He floated—drifted—sank—rose. Every direction at once. There was no light, yet everything pulsed with a dim awareness, like the inside of a forgotten dream. Shapes surged in the distance, or perhaps within his own mind—impossible geometries that twisted through dimensions he could feel but not comprehend.
Memories came and went, not as thoughts, but as echoes—not his own, perhaps not even human. The warmth of a mother's hand, the scream of a battlefield, the stillness of a mountaintop under a dead moon. Were they pieces of his past lives, or fragments of other souls caught in the same endless drift?
There was no ground beneath thought, no ceiling above soul. No rules. No order. Only the slow, spiraling awareness that everything that had ever mattered—names, faces, love, regret—was being unspooled like thread in a windless void.
And he wasn't alone.
Something loomed—not near, not far. Watching without eyes. Listening to his silence. Not hostile… not kind. Patient.
The kind of patience only eternity could teach.
He couldn't scream. He couldn't speak. But he could feel—and in that feeling, he reached for meaning.
And then…
a voice.
And then… a voice.
[You are not yet gone. You are not yet chosen. You are simply… between.]
It echoed within him, not heard by ears but felt in bone, as if his very soul had grown an ear to listen.
"Where… am I?"
[That depends on what you choose. You have died, yes. But fate is not finished with you. You may return.]
"Return? Reincarnation?"
[Of a kind. You may carry nothing of your past but memory. Your soul will be woven anew. And in return… you may ask for five things.]
There was a weight to that statement, a gravity that pulled at something deep within him. Wishes, desires… bargains.
"What kind of requests?"
[Any you choose. Power. Knowledge. Appearance. A truth forgotten. A weapon born of your wrath. There is a price, but it is not always blood. Choose carefully… for you will live with your choices. And you may die by them again.]
The space around him stirred, like ripples on the surface of an unseen ocean.
[Speak them now. One by one. Five requests to shape your next life.]
He took a breath, though he had no lungs. There was no rush—only eternity bearing down on him like a patient god.
"…I don't want to be alone. Ever again."
The silence stirred. Not with judgment, but with ancient interest.
[A soul's ache older than words. Not power. Not glory. But connection. You wish for presence, eternal company, the death of solitude.]
He said nothing, but the truth of his request burned like a star inside him.
[So it shall be.]
The void shivered. Something vast and unseen bent closer, folding the empty space between them like silk. The sensation of thousands—no, millions—of voices passed through him in an instant. Screams. Songs. Cries of war. Laughter and lullabies. Lives that were not his… but would become.
[You shall carry no chains, yet bind others to you. You will not dominate with cruelty, but absorb with purpose. Those you defeat, those who yield—foes, monsters, even souls lost to time—you shall take them into your being.]
A mark burned into him—somewhere beyond flesh, deep in the metaphysical marrow of who he was.
[The Skill is called Legion. Through it, you shall never walk alone. You will carry voices within you, echoing at your side. You may summon their strength, borrow their wisdom, call their hands to fight. Their forms, their memories, their skills… yours to call upon.]
He trembled, not in fear, but in awe. Something vast began to take root inside him, like a great hall forming around a throne he had yet to sit on.
[You shall become a host. A vessel of many. But beware: even unity has its cost. A chorus may drown a single voice if the soul forgets its own song. Do not lose yourself among the many.]
And then, a pause—pregnant with meaning.
[This is your first request. Granted.]
He felt it then. The shift. The weight of something immense settle quietly within him. Not heavy. Not oppressive. Just… present. Like the warmth of unseen companions standing behind him in a place beyond time.
For the first time in his new existence, he did not feel alone.
The presence within him shifted—still. Waiting. Listening.
[Speak your second.]
The first request had anchored him—no longer alone, never again. But it had not silenced the weight he carried. A deeper burden still clung to him, older than solitude. Woven into the fiber of his former self.
He closed eyes he no longer had and whispered the second truth.
"…I don't want to feel the ache of my past life. The fear. The limits. The slow decay of hope. I don't want to be bound by the chains of humanity—its fragility, its end."
Silence.
Then, something vast inhaled—not breath, not wind, but time itself folding around his request.
[Then you seek release from the body you once wore. From the brittle shell. The shivering nerves. The heart that breaks under its own beat.]
[You do not wish to be more. You wish to be other.]
The presence grew colder and hotter all at once—timeless, pulsing behind the veil. It surrounded him now, not as a thing with shape or sound, but as an idea taking root.
[So be it.]
A sensation rose through him—not pain, but shedding. Like old skin falling away in silence. A transformation that did not twist or rend, but unfolded.
He felt something ancient curl within him. Not a beast. Not a god. But something known only by myth and instinct. A force shaped in majesty and memory, slumbering beneath mountains and time.
It whispered not in words, but in hunger. In stillness. In vastness.
[Your essence is rewritten.]
[You will not crumble with the years. You will not fear the cold. You will not weep from wounds unseen.]
[Where man shatters, you shall endure.]
Something deeper settled into him, heavier than bone, lighter than flame. It coiled quietly at the base of his soul—waiting, watching, not yet revealed. But he knew it was there.
And so would the world.
[You have cast off the flesh of your former kind.]
[You are no longer born of man.]
[You are becoming.]
The words carved into him—not like blades, but like a throne being built. A space within reality reshaped to hold something the world had not yet remembered it feared.
[This is your second request. Granted.]
The Legion within him stirred, sensing the shift. Respectful. Silent. As if even the echoes of souls now shared their vessel with something greater than they could name.
And in the place where a man had once drifted, something other now waited to wake.
The silence did not return as it had before.
It lingered now—close, warm, surrounding him like a veil woven from breath and eternity. The presence was no longer distant. He could feel it just beyond thought, watching with a patience too vast to measure.
The voice did not prompt him this time.
He spoke on his own.
"My third request is… to never lose this."
A pause.
"To never be severed from this place—the vastness, the silence, the openness of time and space. The space I am birthed from."
He felt the words ripple outward, not like speech, but like a prayer spoken across the surface of a boundless ocean. No echo returned. Only presence.
And then—something new. The voice returned, not in solemnity, but with something else beneath its tone now.
[Ah…]
Amusement.
Intrigue.
Approval.
[You see it already.]
[The veil. The thread. The root of what is and what was. Few ever feel it… even here.]
He felt it—the awareness—like a hand trailing gently across the soul. He wasn't asking for power. He wasn't asking to change what he was.
He was asking to remember.
To stay tethered to the womb of creation itself. To never forget the silence between stars. To carry the space that bore him into the world beyond.
[This request is rare. Not of hunger, nor fear, nor pride.]
[You do not seek to command the cosmos—but to remain within its breath.]
There was a slow unfolding inside him.
No blaze. No thunder. Just a single, steady pulse—like the first beat of a heart that had never stopped.
[Then take this.]
[An affinity, ancient and infinite. Not a weapon. Not a name. A seed.]
He felt it settle at the center of his being—so small, yet impossibly deep. A connection not to things, but to being itself. He could feel the threads beneath the surface of thought, a living stillness, the undercurrent of all souls, all form, all motion.
Not control.
Not domination.
Resonance.
[Through it, you may reach. You may listen. You may touch what lies beneath flesh and flame.]
[And if you nurture it… it may grow.]
[To heights no mind has measured. To depths no voice has named.]
[But be warned—connection is not passive. To feel all things is to invite sorrow, joy, and truth alike.]
[This is your third request. Granted.]
And for a moment, just a moment, everything stilled.
Time no longer passed. It held its breath.
And in that breath, he saw… not images, not visions—but potential. A thousand lifetimes, a thousand paths, each one gently illuminated by that unseen tether now pulsing within him.
He was still alone in the void.
And for the first time… that truth did not hurt.
There was no wind. No sky. No form to cast a shadow. But the ache that had once gnawed at the edges of his soul was silent now—soothed, or perhaps simply seen for what it was.
He could still feel the vastness stretching out around him. The endless dark. The eternal hush. But it was no longer a prison—it was a cradle.
He breathed, not with lungs, but with presence. Letting the stillness fill him.
He thought of what he had claimed:
The first gift—Legion—the company of many, bound to him through triumph and surrender, waiting like echoes behind the veil of his soul. He would never walk alone again, even if no one stood beside him.
The second—his unmaking. The shedding of mortal frailty, of fragile bone and brittle time. Something else had awakened in its place. Something vast. Something wordless. His shape now veiled even from himself, but no less real—a quiet storm curled within, watching with ancient patience.
The third—connection. Not just to this place, but to the pulse beneath all things. A thread tied not to power, but to essence. A seed that might one day bloom into something unimaginable, if nurtured. If understood.
He let these truths settle within him. Not as boasts, but as truths. Threads of identity woven into something new.
And yet…
The voice did not speak.
The presence did not press him.
It waited.
He turned inward, deeper than thought, seeking the next desire. The next piece of himself to unearth, to shape, to declare.
But there was nothing.
Not yet.
His soul, once frantic with need, now stood still—listening. Searching. But no hunger rose. No ache called out. For the moment, he felt only the vastness… and the strange contentment of not knowing.
And that, too, was a gift.
He smiled—if such a thing could exist in this place—and let the silence stretch.
He had time.
And the next request would come when it was ready.
He lingered in silence.
Not with dread. Not with yearning. Just stillness.
But the void… noticed.
Not the voice.
Not the presence.
The void itself.
That endless expanse—silent and still—watched. It had always been there, vast and indifferent, but now it turned inward. It focused. And he felt it.
Something vast and faceless shifted beneath the skin of nothingness.
A ripple.
A breath that had not stirred in eons.
Then a sensation—a pressure that did not touch, yet crushed. A gaze that saw not the body, but the soul beneath the soul. And it looked at him… with interest.
Not warmth. Not even curiosity.
Recognition.
As if it had been waiting.
And when it saw his pause, his stillness, his moment of silence between requests, it moved.
A coldness surged through the formless space—not wind, not temperature, but a vast absence. As though something ancient and cruel had awakened and leaned down, whispering without words:
~Then I shall choose.~
There was no permission. No question.
The void reached into him, past the boundaries of what he understood, and touched something deep—something unformed, unready.
A fourth request, unspoken… but not unknown.
He tried to resist—not with will, but with instinct. His essence flared, but the void was already inside it.
~This is the fourth.~
~You would not ask, so I will give. Not what you desire. Not what you dream. But what you are missing.~
A cold root sank into his being. No pain. No fire. Just wrongness—a shifting weight that felt like being hollowed and filled at once. Something foreign, ancient, true in the way madness is true.
He screamed, though he had no mouth. But there was no sound—only silence that bent in response.
And then… connection.
Not the living thread from before. Not the warm tether to soul and song.
This was older. Cracked. Cold.
It reached outward in all directions—and things answered.
Not people. Not gods.
Things without names. Concepts that should not breathe—and yet, now knew him. Felt him. Turned toward him in the dark.
Some recoiled.
Some laughed.
Some waited.
He felt them—not as friends, not as allies, but as reflections in a shattered mirror. They were now aware of him. As he was now part of whatever they were.
And within his soul, something pulsed once—a rhythm alien and incomplete, waiting for something to open it further.
A new gift. A fourth brand.
But this one whispered nothing.
It simply was.
And the voice—the voice—returned, now hushed beneath the void's presence, as if forced to speak through gritted teeth:
[This is your fourth request. Granted.]
But the words did not echo this time. They lingered—like smoke that would not rise, or blood that would not dry.
He felt whole…
And yet, less himself.
The silence returned.
But now, something else waited in it.
And it was watching.
He knew his pause had cost him.
The void's cold touch was no mercy. It had carved a fissure deep within him—something cracked and raw beneath the surface of his soul. Yet even in that fracture, he felt a strange growth—a terrible, necessary bloom.
He did not shrink from the wound. Instead, he reached for it.
"I wish to mend what has been broken," he whispered into the silence that had become his world. "I ask for a guide. Something to walk beside me through this endless dark."
The voice—ancient, patient, and no less vast—responded, softer this time, as if it understood the weight of his plea.
[So you choose not to surrender to the fracture.]
[You choose to walk the knife's edge, rather than fall into the abyss.]
[Very well.]
From the depths of the stillness, a spark ignited—a sliver of light born from the voice itself. It was small, faint, but impossibly alive: a fragment of the ancient presence, broken off like a shard of starlight.
[Take this.]
[A system—your compass and your keeper. Born from me, but bound to you.]
The shard settled into him, sliding beneath the surface of his fractured soul like oil into water, twisting the shifted power balance with effortless grace.
Where before the gifts warred within him—Legion's many voices clashing with the cold unknown of the void—the shard wove them into harmony. It did not erase the fracture, but it held it, steadying the trembling pieces.
[It will guide you.]
[It will teach you.]
[It will protect the source of your power—yourself.]
[It serves only one master: you.]
He felt the weight inside him shift, subtle but profound. The chaos quieted. The dark pulse steadied.
His gifts no longer pulled him apart. Instead, they wove together, a tapestry strengthened by the delicate thread of the voice's fragment.
He was no longer adrift.
A path stretched out before him—uncertain, demanding, but real.
Growth.
Mastery.
Survival.
The shard whispered promises only he could hear. It offered clarity where there had been only storm. It promised progress where there had been only drifting.
And for the first time, he felt—amid the endless void—the faintest spark of hope.
Silence followed. It was not emptiness, but calculation—as though the void itself weighed his soul on some ancient scale.
Then the voice returned, softer now, almost amused.
[So be it. You will awaken soon… in a world that will not know your name. But you will carve it into fate once more. Rise, Child of Choice.]
The darkness cracked.
Light, cruel and brilliant, poured through—
And he was born again.