[Author's Note: Read the auxiliary chapters to get the full experience]
In a rundown one-bedroom apartment, a youth stood before a mirror. His reflection stared back, but it was a face he didn't quite remember.
He had short, rough raven-black hair, with framed sharp features that still carried traces of youth, and a pair of ember-green eyes reflecting the dim yellow light.
The boy leaned closer, brows furrowing.
The reflection in the mirror didn't lie, yet something inside him screamed that it couldn't be real.
But just as he studied his strange, yet familiar appearance, a blinding pain exploded inside his skull.
"AGH!"
He dropped to his knees, clutching his head as agony tore through his mind.
It felt like someone had pried his skull open and poured molten lead inside.
Memories flooded in, crashing over him in an endless tide, making the youth's body convulse violently as though struck by a seizure.
His limbs jerked, his back arched, and his breath came out in ragged gasps.
It was as if something unseen was tearing through his very soul.
The flood of memories struck all at once, first they were gentle and warm, carrying the fleeting joys of childhood and laughter, but soon they twisted into something darker.
Showing a life that had its light consumed by endless despair.
A strangled scream tore from his throat as the torrent intensified.
"AGGHHH!"
Faces flashed before his eyes, before vanishing.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the agony ebbed away.
The youth, collapsed onto the cold floor of the small, run-down apartment, his forearm draped across his eyes as he trembled and sniffled through the fading pain.
He had now completely regained his memories, and with them, the truth.
His name was.
Adam.
Sitting up slowly, Adam wiped his face with the back of his sleeve.
Initially, his memories had been temporarily lost when he inherited new ones of a life and world vastly different from his own.
This was the reason for his earlier confusion.
In those memories, there were no monsters or martial artists.
But as his original memories returned, he found it difficult to distinguish between the two.
He exhaled deeply, rubbing the back of his head.
The fragments in his mind were tangled.
New memories clashed with those of his current self and his thoughts became too scattered to ponder their origin.
To make sense of them, he decided to write down what he already knew about his world to ground himself properly.
He rummaged through the old desk in the corner of the apartment until he found a half-used notebook and a pen.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he began to jot things down.
First off, this world is not the same as the world from the new memories.
That much was obvious.
The very existence of monsters proved it beyond doubt.
Five hundred years ago, the planet Erdes had been peaceful, mundane and blind to the supernatural.
Until the Rifts appeared.
Tearing open across the globe, the Rifts spewed an unknown energy into the atmosphere, an energy that warped the environment and the very laws of nature.
And alongside that energy came the monsters: grotesque abominations that devoured everything in their path, nearly driving humanity to extinction.
But after years of frantic research, the energy released by the rifts, finally received a name: Essence.
And through this essence, humanity broke free from its mortal shackles.
Their bodies, once frail, became capable of feats that defied imagination.
Strength, speed, and perception were all magnified beyond natural limits.
Eventually, they learned how to channel this essence directly into themselves through specially designed techniques and physical discipline.
Thus, the Martial Era began, with warriors who wielded essence as both shield and weapon.
And with their rise, humanity clawed its way back from near extinction.
The monsters were pushed into the wild zones, and civilization reformed, under one banner... The Alliance.
Adam's pen came to a halt midway through a sentence.
For a long moment, he simply stared at the last line he had written, before his lips curled into a faint, bitter smile.
The world understands nothing but power.
His hand slowly clenched into a fist, knuckles whitening as his eyes slid shut and his fragmented memories began to settle.
Images flashed through his mind, the blood, the screams, the sight of his mother's trembling smile before the end.
His chest tightened painfully.
He exhaled through gritted teeth, forcing the memories back into the corners of his mind before reopening his eyes, their emerald hue glinting with quiet resolve as he wrote.
But how do I get this power?
The faint scratching of the pen came to a stop, and the fragmented memories finally settled.
He flipped the notebook shut, set it aside on the cluttered desk, and stood up.
The cramped one-room apartment was barely big enough to turn around in.
Stacks of old boxes lined the walls, and the air still carried the faint, lingering scent of detergent.
Despite the years, Adam had kept this place spotless.
He threaded his way past the narrow table and a half-broken chair, stopping before the small mirror nailed unevenly to the wall.
The glass was old and slightly fogged, but it reflected him clearly enough, a youth with rough, raven-black hair, sharp features and tired ember-green eyes that looked far older than his years.
This was the apartment he and his mother had shared.
While living in the foster home, he would sneak back here whenever he could, cleaning the dust, fixing the cracks and holding onto the only thing that still felt like home.
When he turned sixteen, the legal age of adulthood, he finally left the foster system and returned here for good.
Ironically he survived the way his mother once had, taking up odd jobs as a handyman, patching walls and repairing broken pipes for meager pay.
It was a quiet, heavy life.
Until two years later, on the day he turned eighteen when everything changed.
When he awakened.
****
{Author's note}
Please add to your collection and thank you for reading..