"I should probably sleep," Ash muttered, voice hoarse from too many hours spent whispering along with the pages.
The digital clock by his mattress glared a relentless 3:00 a.m. In just four hours, he'd have to haul himself across the city for the first shift of his very first real job.
Seventeen, alone, no family, no backup—just him and the mold on the ceiling, scattered like a permanent constellation overhead.
He let the thin copy of Ten Thousand Kingdoms; One Sky slip from his fingers.
The paperback landed with a soft thud beside the thin pillow. Outside, the night had been quiet moments ago. Now it wasn't.
Rain hammered the single cracked window like fists.
Then the wind rose—savage, sudden, wrong—shoving parked cars sideways with metallic shrieks. Ash cracked one eye open just as the first red drop slid down the glass. More followed, thick and dark as fresh blood.
A low growl rolled through the building, deeper than thunder.
The single bulb overhead flickered, died, then flared white.
Lightning tore across the sky in shades no one had words for—crimson tangled with violet, gold woven through emerald, black streaks pulsing within pure azure. The strands curled together, fused, and formed an impossible spear.
It hit the roof with a sound that seemed to wipe the world away.
White.
Nothing but white.
When it cleared the strange phenomenon had ended, peace in the world had returned.
It was an event that would have every scientist and top organization scrambling to understand what happened. However, little did they know... that event was something that would change the very Earth as they knew it.
Not just that.... a single soul was lost in all of the madness. While sleeping soundly in his rundown apartment, Ash was struck with the mythical bolt of lightning.
------
Completely oblivious to what had happened, Ash found himself drifting in an endless void. He was bodiless, reduced to a faint, flickering wisp of energy.
"Uhh, well this is a weird dream," he muttered, glancing down at what little of himself remained. The only thing he could move was what felt like his head.
"Haha, I bet this is what those transmigrators see when they die," he joked, his words echoing strangely through the emptiness.
Almost instantly, a voice replied—an emotionless, flat, mechanical female voice.
{Due to cosmic mishaps, you died while sleeping.}
Ash froze. Before he could respond, the voice continued.
{You will be reborn into a new world. The world will align with your memories.}
"W-wait! What do you mean reborn?!"
The voice paid no attention to his panic.
{Memory analyzed.}
{Suitable world found.}
"Wait dammit! This is all going too fast!"
{The world of Elaris has been chosen.}
The name slammed into him like a second lightning strike.
He knew that world. He had just been reading about it hours ago.
"H-holy Shi—"
{Brace yourself. You will now be reborn.}