When Dimitri opened his eyes again, he wasn't in the room. He wasn't even sure if he was in a body.
He floated, untethered, like a fragment of soul through memories that were not his, but felt as if they belonged to him all along.
It began with silence.
An endless, absolute silence.
There was no up, no down. No wind, no gravity. No time.
Only an infinite, suffocating blackness stretching in all directions, painted with flickers of violet and crimson lightning, like cracks in the fabric of existence.
And standing in the centre of that void…
Was he.
Or rather—Diamantakos.
A lone figure, draped in simple black, silver hair reaching down to his shoulder blades, golden eyes glowing faintly in the dark.
His face was unreadable—not cold, not emotionless. Just… still. Like a man who had forgotten how to feel anything at all.
There were no stars here. No sky. No land. Only one constant.
The Mirage.
From the darkness, they came—one by one, then hundreds, then more.
Twisting shadows with no true form, stitched together from memories and regrets. Some had wings. Some had swords. Some looked like children crying for help, only to morph into nightmares as they got closer.
Diamantakos stood without flinching. No stance. No hesitation.
His sword formed in his hand like a thought...no blade, just radiant will made real. And then he moved.
Dimitri felt his breath catch.
Because this wasn't a fight.
This was a purge.
Diamantakos weaved through the Mirages like he was dancing with inevitability. His blade didn't cut, it unmade. Each swing cleaved through matter, memory, sound....erasing the very existence of what it touched.
And yet, they kept coming.
Endlessly.
Forever.
Even as one died, another formed in its place, born from the despair of forgotten worlds. He didn't speak. He didn't scream.
He only moved, like a machine fulfilling a single command burned into his soul.
Protect the world.
Dimitri felt the thought echo—not just in the memory, but within his own chest. Diamantakos had no past to remember. No family. No dreams. No identity.
Only a singular directive that repeated in his mind like a broken record, louder than hunger, louder than pain.
Protect the world.
What world? There was nothing here.
No people. No cities. No stars. No light. No sound.
No world.
And yet, he kept fighting.
For centuries. Maybe millennia. Time here wasn't real. And yet… somehow, he was.
The scene shifted.
For the first time, Diamantakos hesitated.
It happened after slaying a Mirage that took the form of a girl. A small one. She had no face, only a mouth sewn shut with threads made of her own hair. She hadn't attacked.
She had walked toward him, trembling.
She hadn't cried out. But something in that malformed presence had begged for mercy. Diamantakos killed her anyway.
As always.
But this time…
His hand trembled afterward. It was then that the void cracked open—not from his blade, but from somewhere else.
The lightning in the distance swirled faster. The air vibrated. Something immense… something vast and living pierced through the silence.
And for the first time, Diamantakos heard a voice. A real one.
[Candidate Identified: Rootless Entity]
[Compatible with Simulation ID: CARD ONLINE]
[Injecting identity protocol…]
Light consumed him.
And then—
A screen.
A tutorial room.
A voice telling him to "form your alignment." Diamantakos did not understand.
He did not question. He simply obeyed. Because the directive hadn't changed.
Protect the world.
The game didn't know what it had pulled in. To the developers, Diamantakos was a 'rare blank slate.' No memories. No tutorial skip. No talent.
But within a week, he had mastered the system players took years to comprehend.
He never socialised. Never joined guilds. Never role-played.
He simply hunted… Mirages, monsters.... like mere bugs.
And he protected anyone too weak to protect themselves.
Even when they spat at him.
Even when they feared him.
Even when they turned against him.
The world didn't know how to love something that didn't ask for love in return.
And eventually, Diamantakos faded from sight.
Not because he died…
But because he chose to stop being seen. Dimitri gasped as the memory collapsed.
He stumbled backward, landing hard on the cold marble of the room he'd left behind.
His breathing was ragged. His chest ached. But something inside him had changed.
He could still feel it.
The stillness.
The clarity.
The loneliness.
The resolve.
He was becoming the man his past self would call a fool....slowly....gradually...
"Protect the world…" he muttered.
No—not just that.
Diamantakos had lived his entire life like a tool for others....no, a tool without a stop. Without love. Without freedom. Without self.
But Dimitri was different.
He remembered the pain of being ignored. The ridicule for being weak.
And he remembered the satisfaction of killing the man who was he now. Of watching that godlike figure vanish beneath his own blade.
He now knew the man he'd killed was not a monster.
He was a guardian with no voice. And now that voice echoed inside him.
This time, Dimitrios Diamantakos wouldn't just protect the world.
He would own it.
He stood before the mirror. His golden eyes glowed like twin crescents of fury.
"I am not just the inheritor of your will," he whispered.
"I am the weapon that remembers."
The mirror shimmered.
But…
Something was wrong.
Those memories…
The same vision that forced him to kill Diamantakos… was it wrong?
He hoped so. Because if not…
Dimitri looked at the mirror. A handsome man stared back at him. But it shattered the moment those memories ran in his mind again.
Shifted into something he wished to forget.
A convulsing mass of darkness.
The next moment, he saw himself through a sight… the sight of the same mass of darkness.Which convulsed and craved...
Craved to devour...everything...
"Ugh…" Dimitri bit his tongue, tasting the metallic tinge of blood. Everything returned to normal. He should've felt relieved, calmed, or perhaps smiled.
But he didn't smile.
Not yet.
The war hadn't started yet. But it would.
And when it did…
The world would not be protected.
It would be conquered.
By the one who died to become stronger.
By the one who inherited a forgotten god.