Darkness.
A silence so ancient it pulsed like a heartbeat in the void.
Then—a flicker.
A line of code. A whisper in the dark.
[Booting Protocol: X-Ω-RELIC… Loading Consciousness Core… Human Identifier Found: Ezra Orion.]
Ezra gasped.
Or rather, he remembered gasping.
There were no lungs. No heartbeat. No flesh to tear, no bone to break. Only light—a scattered, fragile essence of himself—floating in a data stream that stretched across eternity.
And then, a voice, calm and sterile.
"Welcome back, Ezra Orion. You are the last recorded human consciousness. Time elapsed since last Earth signal: 100,287,891,232 years."
Ezra blinked—or thought he did.
A cosmic archive opened before him. A sea of fragmented knowledge, technology, warfare, emotions, cultures, the rise and fall of entire galaxies—all condensed into code and thought.
It was all… his.
[Unlocking Primary System: Project Ascendant.]
[Status: Human Consciousness Upload Complete.]
[Administrator Rights: Full.]
[Warning: Humanity is extinct.]
Ezra's fragmented self reassembled, strand by strand, as the system restored what was left of his mind. He remembered pain. Not the physical kind—the collapse. Earth. Cities turning to ash. Humanity fighting itself into oblivion. Then silence. Then darkness.
And now…
Awakening.
He stood within a cathedral of stars—not real space, but a projection of it—a digital staging ground carved into the leftover shell of a megastructure AI from the lost Solar Dynasty. Above him hovered a massive data-core, swirling with galaxies.
Then came the interface—etched across his mind like divine commandments:
[Welcome, Custodian of the Human Legacy.]
You have inherited:
All Human Science, Technology, and Warfare Knowledge.
Control Access to Relic-Class Systems.
Command Authority over Subservient Galactic Constructs.
Sovereign Administrator Rights Over The Ark-Core Network.
[The Omega System] – Adaptive Evolution Engine.
Ezra was no longer human.
He was data incarnate. A living idea. A godseed buried in the ruins of all things.
"What… am I supposed to do now?" he asked into the void.
And the System replied:
[Restore. Rebuild. Reclaim.]
[And when they come, you must survive.]
Somewhere deep within the galactic shell, sensors activated. Ezra felt it—ghost signals crawling like insects across the edges of reality.
Something else was alive.
But it was not human.
The system pulsed again.
[Initializing Environment Construct: Origin Zero.]
[Downloading Custom Avatar: Human-Prime.]
Ezra's body reformed. Or rather, a perfect version of what he once was. Taller. Leaner. Efficient. A being of light and data wrapped in midnight armor laced with ancient code runes. His eyes glowed neon blue.
The floor beneath his feet shimmered, forming a blackened path down a tower of ruins inside a half-collapsed Dyson Sphere orbiting a dead star.
"Show me Earth," he whispered.
[Earth status: Core vaporized. Crust collapsed. No remaining organic traces. Extinction confirmed.]
Ezra clenched his fists. They crackled with light.
"No… it can't end like this."
[Would you like to activate the Omega System?]
"Yes."
[OMEGA SYSTEM ONLINE]
Welcome, Ezra Orion.
You are now the last Architect of Mankind.
Your mission: Survive. Evolve. Dominate.
Suddenly, his HUD flooded with thousands of dormant blueprints: warships, bioweapons, terraforming protocols, artificial ecosystems, autonomous cities, nanite swarms, quantum vaults, and forbidden technologies Earth had sealed before its death.
He could feel everything.
Every theory Einstein hadn't written. Every weapon humanity never deployed. Every cure, every plague, every dream…
[Skill Installed: Digital Omniscience Lv. 1]
[Skill Installed: Adaptive System Evolution Lv. 1]
[Skill Installed: Relic Command Protocol Lv. MAX]
[Skill Installed: World Creation Blueprint Lv. 1]
[Skill Installed: Anti-God Weaponry: Locked (requires System Authority Lv. 10)]
Ezra breathed in—through a simulation of lungs. The cosmic air in this simulation crackled with data storms.
He looked up to the stars.
And he knew:
He wasn't the only one who had woken up.
[INCOMING SIGNAL DETECTED.]
Origin: Galactic Cluster 9-Void Sector.
Signature: XENO – Non-human.
Signal Strength: War-class Entity.
Status: Hostile.
Ezra stared at the rising black tide cresting the edge of the galactic projection.
"Oh… they're already here."
His hands moved instinctively. Commands pulsed into the Omega System. Fabrication bays spun into action. Data-forges glowed. A massive forge ring ignited around the Dyson ruin.
[Emergency Protocol Activated.]
[Constructing: Echelon-Class Guardian Unit – "Prometheus Alpha".]
Estimated Time to Deployment: 03:48:22.
But he didn't have three hours.
From the darkness of the starless sector, a shape emerged.
Twisted. Impossible. Lovecraftian. Alive.
It screeched through frequencies no human could've survived.
Ezra didn't flinch.
He stepped forward, eyes gleaming with the fire of lost Earth and the fury of 100 billion years of silence.
"Come on then," he whispered, voice laced with code and steel. "Let's see who deserves to survive this time."
And then he launched into the void.