A/N: Note that I am using AI to modify the lines. I didn't edit much. But I will do so later. For now, I don't have enough time. The plot and the conversation are all written by me. A little adjustment from AI. Nothing much. Hope you enjoy it.
When I finally edit the chapter, I will remove the 'A/N'
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A rhythmic rustling. A faint breeze carrying the scent of something unfamiliar.
The young man opened his eyes.
Colors bled together—blue, red, gold. Leaves swayed unnaturally, some shimmering like gemstones, others translucent like frozen mist. The trees were twisted, gnarled, unnatural, yet thriving in their own logic. Some had thick, vibrant bark, pulsing as though alive. Others were thin and stretched into the sky, branches spiraling into shapes that defied symmetry.
The air was thick. Heavy. It didn't smell like earth or nature—it smelled like raw, untamed power.
The man stood up slowly, eyes dull and lifeless, moving as if guided by instincts alone. His body felt weightless, yet dense, as though he was both part of this world and separate from it.
He took a step. Then another.
Then the world attacked.
A blur of movement—something lunged from the trees, coated in a swirling mist of flames. Another from the shadows, its body crackling with blue arcs of electricity. A third, its form shifting between solid and liquid, a predator with no defined shape.
They struck.
But the moment they touched him—
The air rippled.
The flame-beast turned to ash in an instant, crumbling before it even realized what had happened. The electricity-born creature spasmed violently as its body aged thousands of years in a heartbeat, its once-unstoppable form reduced to brittle bones and dust. The shapeless predator, so used to adapting to its prey, found itself stretching and warping uncontrollably, its very being rejecting its own existence—until it simply ceased.
Silence.
He blinked. Then kept walking.
More creatures came. Some tried to strike. Some tried to run.
It didn't matter.
Their timelines unraveled. Their structures collapsed. Their essence distorted. All of them fell. None of them survived.
And he kept walking.
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In a white room,
A sharp gasp. A sudden jolt.
The pristine white walls hummed softly, lined with countless machines, screens flickering with blueprints and diagrams. Cool air rushed against his skin, carrying the sterile scent of metal and circuitry.
He groaned, rubbing his temples. A dull, throbbing pain hammered at the edge of his mind, as if something was forcing itself back into place.
"Man… what happened?" His voice was hoarse. He blinked at the bright ceiling, disoriented. "My head... It feels like it's on the verge of exploding."
His thoughts felt sluggish, fractured, memories slipping through his grasp like sand. He exhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a moment.
Slowly, things began to make sense. Not everything. Just enough.
He needed to move.
Standing, he glanced around the room. He wasn't wearing his usual lab coat. Instead, his fingers ran across the fabric of a sleek, fitted black genji—a long coat with a high collar, its edges reinforced with a strange, flexible material. Beneath it, a deep red dress shirt clung to his frame, tucked neatly into black combat-style pants that allowed ease of movement. A red tie hung loosely around his collar, slightly offset against the dark color scheme.
{A/N: I am bad at describing clothes. For visual presentation, it is the same as in the novel cover}
The entire ensemble was functional yet stylish—something both formal and prepared for battle. The fabric felt durable, but weightless, as if woven from something beyond normal cloth.
Where did this come from? Did he put it on himself? He didn't remember.
And that unsettled him.
Taking a deep breath, he walked forward and pushed open a heavy steel door, but before that, he looked in the mirror and froze.
"Was I always this young?" he muttered, frowning. But shaking his head, he pushed the thought aside.
"Never mind. I need to figure out what's happening first."
Steeling himself, he reached for the door, pushed it open—
And froze.
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Darkness stretched before him. Jagged stone walls loomed high, damp and uneven, disappearing into the abyss above. Stalactites dripped eerily, the sound echoing through the cavernous void. He wasn't in a lab. He wasn't in a city.
He was underground.
"...WHAT?!"
His voice bounced through the cave, reverberating endlessly.
And then—movement.
From the depths of the shadows, they came.
Hundreds of them.
Spindly legs clacked against the stone, multi-eyed faces gleaming in the dim light. Spider-like creatures, each the size of a wolf, surged forward with grotesque precision. Some had chitin infused with glowing veins of energy, others dripped with acidic saliva, their mandibles twitching in eerie synchrony.
The horde surged forward, their grotesque forms twisting through the cavern's dim glow. Their eyes gleamed with predatory hunger, mandibles clattering in an eerie, synchronized rhythm. The ground trembled beneath their sheer numbers, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and something acrid—something alive.
The man stood still. He didn't flinch. He didn't run.
He just—breathed.
A slow inhale. A deep exhale.
And then—
The world broke.
A pulse erupted from him, invisible yet all-consuming. The very air twisted, folding in on itself as a force beyond comprehension detonated outward.
BOOM!
The explosion swallowed everything within a hundred-meter radius. The cavern walls buckled and shattered, stone dissolving into nothingness. The horde of monstrous spiders didn't even have time to scream. Some were vaporized instantly, their bodies reduced to scattered particles of energy. Others were caught in a distortion of time—aging and decaying in mere moments, their once-deadly forms crumbling to dust.
The shockwave expanded, a violent ripple through existence itself, before finally settling.
Silence.
The man stood at the center of the devastation.
The dust cleared. The smoke parted.
And above—light.
Golden sunlight poured through a jagged opening in the cavern ceiling, illuminating the remnants of what had once been an underground nightmare. A fresh breeze drifted down, cool against his skin, carrying with it the scent of the world above.
He raised a hand to his face, feeling the warmth of the sun. It was real. He was real.
The memories still felt fragmented. His thoughts, scattered. But as he stood there, bathed in the glow of the open sky, one truth remained undeniable.
He had survived.
And whatever had happened to him—whatever he had become—was far beyond his understanding.
For now.