So.
I'm a reincarnated soul in a magically-aged body from a dead star clan that got obliterated by gods.
Cool. Totally normal. Not traumatizing at all.
I leaned against the splintered tree — still carrying claw marks from my last near-death experience — and stared up at the sky. Same stars. Same forest. But something inside me had changed. Not just the panic, or the adrenaline, or the lingering demon dust in the air.
Something settled.
The memories I'd just seen — the homeland in flames, the voices of the people who died trying to protect me, the ritual that flung me across the multiverse like magical luggage — they weren't dreams. They weren't fiction. They were mine.
I wasn't just Jordan Woods anymore.
I was also... Sable Nova.
And that came with baggage.
Cosmic, flaming, prophecy-shaped baggage.
'So this is my life now. Cool. Love that for me.'
But along with the existential horror, something else had surfaced. A sensation in the back of my mind — like a door had opened. A vault.
An archive.
I closed my eyes and reached inward.
And there it was.
A presence. Not sentient, but structured. Ancient. A sea of knowledge imprinted on my soul. It pulsed with quiet power, ready to be pulled from like a library wired directly into my nervous system.
'Okay... this is new.'
It didn't have a name. No title. Just data. History. Language. Concepts. Spells. Rituals. Battle forms. Songs. Birth records. Dreams. Everything.
I decided to call it Tomb.
Not because it was dramatic (though it absolutely was), but because it felt like... a grave. A vault of everything my people were. Their last whispers. Their legacy.
As I continued to browse it subconsciously — skimming the surface of centuries of starlit knowledge — I noticed something strange.
It was still recording.
Images I'd seen. Creatures. Flora. Sky maps. It was cataloguing it all automatically.
'So it's like... a magical Google Drive with cosmic Wi-Fi?'
Tomb pulsed in response. Not verbally. Just a confirmation.
I exhaled slowly, rubbing my face. "Alright, Tomb. Guess we're stuck together."
And for the first time, I felt something close to purpose. This body wasn't just a random cosmic mistake. It was built to survive. It was meant to learn. And it was still learning — even now.
I owed it something. I owed them something.
'Find the gods that did this. Return home. Burn their throne to ash.'
But first…
"Let's figure out how the hell I ended up here."
I reached deeper into the Tomb's memory and found it — the ritual. The one that tore a hole through time and space to eject me from a dying world. It was brutal. Complex. Powered by sacrifice and the last reserves of something called Star Dew.
And at the center of it... the Celestial Chalice.
I reached out instinctively.
The Chalice appeared in a shimmer of light, hovering before me like a floating crown jewel.
Elegant. Cold. Powerful.
I grinned — until I saw the reservoir inside.
Empty.
Bone dry.
I stared at it in silence.
Then let out the loudest, most exhausted groan the forest had ever heard.
"Of course it's empty. Why would anything be easy?"
I paced in a slow circle, muttering to myself.
"No, really. Let's send our last hope through time with a cosmic Capri Sun that's already sucked dry. Genius plan. Ten out of ten."
I dismissed the Chalice with a flick and stopped to look around the forest.
And in the grand tradition of lost heroes and ancient bloodlines, I focused hard, narrowed my eyes, and declared with absolute confidence:
"I'm in a forest."
PING
I blinked.
A pulse from Tomb hit the back of my mind like a soft electric nudge — not painful, just insistent. Like a helpful librarian slapping a book into your hands before you even ask.
I smirked.
"Oh, wow. Life's actually helping me for once."
The knowledge flowed up — a spell. Simple. Elegant. Didn't require gestures, sacrifice, or the moon to be in the correct tax bracket. Most of the others I'd skimmed earlier looked like they needed months of prep time, five sacrifices, and a written application.
This one?
Pure observation.
Soul Proxy Creation.
A spell that projected a fragment of your soul outward in a visible construct. It could fly, relay vision and sound, and scout ahead.
I exhaled and held out my hand, focusing.
A soft glow spread from my palm — and then it took shape.
A spectral sparrow, translucent with faint blue highlights along its feathers. Its tiny eyes glowed a gentle blue, and as it settled onto my hand, I caught my breath.
Through its eyes — I saw me.
A young man with chocolate-toned skin, sharp silver-white eyes, long dark dreads spiraling with thin silver strands, and a calm expression that didn't belong to someone who'd died recently. He looked older than he should have.
He looked... haunted.
I stared for a moment longer than I meant to.
Then I made two more. Three sparrows in total — my first Proxies.
"Alright, fellas," I whispered. "Go find me a way out of this nightmare."
Each one lifted off, taking a different direction above the canopy. I returned to my tree — demon-scarred and slightly dramatic — and sat cross-legged beneath it, closing my eyes to sync with their view.
It didn't take long.
One of them spotted it — lights. Buildings in the distance. Civilization.
I nearly cried.
'Thank every cosmic entity. No camping tonight.'
But then something changed.
Still looking through the Proxy's view, I saw the world shift. The familiar white lines — the ones I'd been politely ignoring to avoid an emotional breakdown — suddenly glowed pinkish-red.
And then one of them tore.
Right through the air. Like paper.
Something crawled out.
It moved on all fours — vaguely humanoid, with long limbs and sickly grey skin. It had no face. No eyes. Just a blank surface and a body that twitched like a corrupted puppet. It stepped through the tear, and then the rift closed behind it. The lines returned to their white, peaceful glow — as if nothing had happened.
I watched from the proxy's branch.
And I smiled.
Not out of joy.
Not even fear.
But something deeper. Darker.
The kind of smile that still held smoke from the last fire.
"Fold," I whispered.
Space around me rippled like disturbed water.
And I vanished.