The realization clawed at the edges of his thoughts, a half-forgotten memory buried under layers of something unnatural. Not amnesia—no, something worse. Something had deliberately erased his past.
The city of Eonspire loomed before him, an impossible construct suspended in the void. Bridges of liquid light stretched between floating skyscrapers, their surfaces etched with shifting constellations. Beneath them, the abyss yawned, a churning mass of cosmic storms devouring reality itself.
The woman leading him—her name still unknown—halted at the threshold of a massive, shimmering archway.
"This is the Nexus Gate," she said. "Once we pass through, there's no turning back."
Eric clenched his fists. "And if I refuse?"
She tilted her head, eyes gleaming with something between curiosity and amusement. "Then you'll fade. The Transcendent Zone does not tolerate stagnation. You either evolve, or you cease to exist."
The Nexus Gate pulsed, its surface rippling as though it were alive. And then, without waiting for his response, she stepped through.
Eric inhaled sharply. The System whispered in his mind.
[Warning: Irreversible Path Ahead]
But deep inside, he already knew—he had no choice.
Steeling himself, he stepped forward.
The universe folded around him, and everything turned to light.
---
The first sensation was weightlessness. No air. No gravity. Only the slow unraveling of his mind as the System expanded his awareness beyond human limits.
[Entering the Forgotten Nexus…]
[Memory Fragments Reconstructing… Error: Data Corruption Detected.]
Eric's breath caught. Fragments of images flickered in his vision—faces he didn't recognize, a battlefield stretching into infinity, a colossal machine pulsing with the heartbeat of a dying star. And then—
A voice, ancient and vast, echoed through his consciousness.
**"You should not be here."**
Eric's body tensed. It was not the System. This voice was something… older. Something aware.
"I—" he started, but reality wrenched sideways, and he found himself standing in the middle of an enormous atrium.
The air shimmered with golden filaments, each one inscribed with pulsating glyphs that danced like sentient fireflies. Statues of forgotten beings loomed over him, their eyes following his every move. And at the center of it all, a colossal sphere floated, crackling with fractured time itself.
The woman stood beside him, arms crossed. "It recognized you."
Eric tore his gaze from the sphere. "What is this place?"
"The heart of the Nexus," she said. "A machine older than this universe. It records everything—every war, every creation, every fall." Her gaze darkened. "And yet, its records of you are… incomplete."
Eric swallowed. "What does that mean?"
Before she could answer, the sphere flared violently. A deep tremor rolled through the chamber, and a shriek—inhuman, fractured—pierced the air.
A rift tore open in the space before them.
And something crawled through.
It was a being of shadows and unmaking, its form constantly shifting as if it were rejecting existence itself. Tendrils of void lashed out, consuming the golden filaments in an instant.
[System Alert: Unidentified Entity Detected]
The woman drew her weapon—a sleek, blade-like construct humming with raw energy. "Not now," she hissed.
Eric felt something pull at him. Not physically, but at the core of his very being. The entity wasn't just attacking the world—it was attacking the fabric of his identity.
[Warning: Temporal Instability Detected]
His mind exploded with visions.
A burning star collapsing into a singularity.
A war waged across timelines.
A name—his name—spoken in reverence, in fear.
**Eric, the Last Sentinel.**
Something inside him shattered.
A new alert flashed before his eyes.
[Class Awakening: Voidwalker]
[Skill Unlocked: Chrono Collapse]
Time fractured. Eric moved without thought, his body blurring between past and future. One moment, he was dodging the entity's strike—then, he was behind it, his hands crackling with paradoxical energy.
He struck.
Reality itself rippled. The entity screeched as a void implosion detonated within it, swallowing its form into nothingness.
The Nexus groaned as the rift sealed itself. The golden filaments reignited, restoring the balance.
Eric staggered back, his body drenched in cold sweat. His heart pounded as the System's voice whispered one final message:
[You were never meant to be forgotten.]
The woman stared at him, her expression unreadable. Then she smirked. "Well. That changes things."
Eric exhaled, steadying himself. He didn't understand everything yet, but one truth was clear—
He wasn't just a survivor.
He was something far more dangerous.
And the universe had just remembered him.
---
When Eric emerged, he was somewhere else. The Nexus Gate had taken him beyond reality's known borders. The city of Eonspire stretched in every direction, but it was no ordinary metropolis. The air shimmered with shifting hues, gravity felt inconsistent, and structures twisted at impossible angles, built from materials that pulsed with raw energy.
He turned to find his guide waiting, arms crossed. "You handled the transition better than most."
Eric frowned. "What does that mean?"
She gestured toward the edge of the platform they stood on. Below, figures moved—others who had stepped through the Nexus Gate. Some screamed as they dissolved into fractals of light, unable to withstand the shift. Others stood motionless, their minds shattered beyond repair.
Eric swallowed hard. "What is this place?"
"The Forgotten Nexus," she said. "A convergence point for lost worlds, failed timelines, and those who defy the natural order."
He felt something press against his mind. A presence. A hunger.
The sky above them rippled. Something vast stirred beyond the veil, a shadow so large it defied comprehension. It was watching.
Eric's breath hitched. "We're not alone."
His guide nodded. "We never are."
Suddenly, the System's voice echoed in his mind, louder than ever.
[New Directive: Survive the Forgotten Nexus.]