Voices.
Fragmented, cacophonous, distorted like the cries of drowning men echoing underwater. Desperate sounds—some exalted, others full of panic. But all of them seemed too far away to make any sense.
I tried to open my eyes... but there were only blurs.
Everything around me was numbing and hazy, as if my soul were floating a centimeter above my body, unable to return to its center.
Sometimes, a burst of light.
The outline of a face, covered in sweat and blood.
An expression of triumph. Of victory.
Then another face appeared—pale, trembling, eyes full of horror.
As if they were tampering with something they didn't understand.
As if they were trying to stitch together a body already condemned.
'Are they treating me?'
'Or trying to save what's left of me...?'
My body didn't respond. But my mind was still pulsing.
And then, something changed.
An image pierced through the confusion, sharp and clear, impossible to ignore.
Aeloria. No, not him—but a man with blue eyes and hair just like his.
Aeloria lay sprawled on a bed, surrounded by many people shouting words I couldn't understand.
His eyes were closed. His legs... were missing.
His body, wounded and cauterized, was bound in runes and zigzagging golden threads. But he was alive.
'You... survived too...?'
But the image soon dissipated... Like a dream unraveling the moment you try to remember it.
The world began to spin again. Or maybe I was falling. My consciousness, pulled like an old sheet by hands desperately trying to sew it back together.
And before unconsciousness took me fully once more, I whispered—or thought I whispered:
"It's good... to be alive."
And then, all went black.
**
I fell.
Or at least that's what my mind screamed.
I fell as if the ground had vanished. As if the entire universe had turned inside out. But strangely, it wasn't like falling downward.
It was like being pulled upward.
That feeling... familiar. Horribly familiar.
The same vertigo that tore my soul apart the instant I left my original world behind. The same vertigo that swallowed me when I woke up in this hell called Atlas.
A memory long buried under layers of pain and survival reached me with foggy claws. Disconnected images. Blurred faces. My parents... their eyes? I couldn't remember.
Three years.
Three years in Atlas and I could barely recall the sound of their voices.
The warmth of home.
The name of my city.
I only remembered the pain. The illness that devoured my body on Earth. The weak breath in the hospital. The monitor beeping flat.
And then, a greater pain. Not from death. But from rebirth.
Reborn not as a hero... but as a test subject. A freak. Three years of mining and torture. Of screams and silence. Three years of being treated as something disposable. An experiment.
Why?
Why was I chosen?
The question echoed in the void as my body floated. A tiny point before the infinite.
Above—or perhaps around—galaxies bloomed like fireworks. Supernovae burst with the brilliance of a thousand suns. Nebulae stretched like silk veils across the cosmos. It was beautiful.
Devastatingly beautiful.
And I... a satellite without orbit. A leaf in the wind in a place with no wind.
I floated until I was pulled. An invisible magnetism, a force that called me with persistence. I was sucked toward the horizon. A horizon not of light—but of absence. A point of absolute darkness devouring the universe.
And then my body cracked.
Not on the outside.
On the inside.
I felt myself twist, my insides vaporizing, my blood turning to ice. If there had been air in my lungs, I would have screamed. If there had been anything in my stomach, I would have vomited.
But nothing came out. Nothing existed beyond the darkness and the sound of the end.
I was coming undone.
And in the final second, when I thought I would truly find the end, they appeared.
Two golden eyes.
Like falling stars. Like ancient suns that had witnessed the birth of worlds. Eyes that didn't just watch, but understood.
Behind me.
Glowing steadily, calmly.
And then... the chaos stopped.
All that pain, that freezing sensation, that terror of being lost in the cosmos... dissolved.
Peace wrapped around me like a warm blanket on a winter night.
The presence behind me was indescribable. It wasn't just power—it was order. It was purpose. It was raw strength shaped by millennia of circumstances I couldn't even name.
And without turning my head, I knew.
It was there.
The same entity. That silent, omniscient presence that had torn me from the end and hurled me into chaos.
It had never spoken to me. Never explained its will. Never revealed whether it saw me as a pawn, an heir... or mere entertainment.
But I knew. It had put me on this path, this fate.
And this time, something was different.
Before, every time I felt it near, all my senses could register were those eyes. Golden. Absolute.
But now...
Now, there was something more.
An aura.
Red. Crimson. Alive.
As if the globules of that golden light were now bathed in flames. Or maybe... Maybe my evolved perception could finally see what was once beyond me.
And before I could speak...
Before I could question it with all the indignation burning inside me... It happened.
Without pain. Without warning. Without permission.
Something entered me.
Something I recognized instantly.
A fragment of star dust, so tiny only an awakened perception could detect it.
Spatial energy. Clear. Pure. Perfect.
The same energy I had fought so hard to tame inside the ring. The same energy that saved me. The same energy that nearly destroyed me.
It entered.
Through my chest.
As if my body didn't even exist to it.
It flowed through my energy channels like a spark toward a barrel of powder.
And then, it settled in my prana core. Saturated, tired, but still beating.
Like an honored guest taking their seat amidst the chaos.
And it didn't stop there.
A second, smaller fragment—shimmering like stardust—entered me.
It traveled to my secondary core, moved through my channels, and settled in as if it had always belonged.
Two gifts.
Two dangers.
And nothing... changed.
There was no explosion. No light. No tremor.
Not even the healers working on my body noticed any fluctuation in my vitals.
It was as if nothing had happened.
But I knew. I felt it.
That... was something special. But what?
The golden eyes blinked, and in that moment, like a candle snuffed in an ancient temple...
Everything went dark.
My mind gave in. My body shut down. My consciousness faded into a dreamless black.
And for the first time since the battle, I rested.
**
The scent of boiled herbs and focusing incense hung in the air. Healing magic pulsed softly through the walls, vibrating in a steady rhythm like the beat of a weakened heart.
Inside the main recovery tent, three healers surrounded Glenn's unconscious body, floating slightly above an arcane stretcher.
"The situation is... worse than I thought," murmured the lead healer, an old mage with a blue-gray robe, magnificent white horns, and eyes etched deep with exhaustion and the weight of what he saw.
"Glenn's body shouldn't be alive," the master healer continued bitterly. "It's been crushed and healed so many times that several bones have fused in the wrong positions. Some even bonded together."
"The veins too," added a young woman, staring at the floating mana mirror beside them. "Several are simply gone. Blocked by abrupt scar tissue, as if they closed from the inside."
"And the muscles," the third said in a grim tone. "Necrotic. Severe internal burns. Electrical magic, most likely. Far beyond what a Beginner Awakened could endure."
The master approached, placing his hand over the boy's chest as though touching the lid of a sacred, cursed relic.
"This boy needs to be... rebuilt. Literally. We'll have to break the bones and reset them, one by one. Reroute blood circulation. Remove dead tissue. And it all has to be done slowly."
"Slowly?" echoed the apprentice, confused.
"Yes. Forcing rapid healing in this condition would only kill him. His body is saturated. No matter how far we push... he's still a Beginner Awakened. There's a limit to how much he can regenerate at a time."
A reverent silence followed.
"Even so..." the elder sighed, "Dália's healing was divine. Literally. The help she probably gave throughout the dungeon conquest went far beyond her own limits. A miracle... a true miracle."
He stepped back, hands clasped behind his back with a grave expression.
"Now the miracle is over. What remains is work. And pain."
All of them nodded silently, staring at Glenn's unmoving body.
A storm had passed through him. And now, all that remained was to gather each broken piece... with care.