0.1) Prologue ~ The Nameless Man

And there was light.

The man rolled away the boulder that blocked his entry into the temple ruins, banishing the darkness from within.

He picked up his lantern off the ground and proceeded forward. The moment he stepped in, he could feel some kind of supernatural presence filling the grand room, as if he had garnered the attention of the gods by intruding into their chamber. But he had no time to be mesmerized. Time was running out quickly for the world. Even as he took steps forward, he wobbled, still not used to the change in gravity caused by the increased proximity of the celestial bodies.

The world was ending. The universe itself was collapsing and there was no way to stop it. Some wept, some celebrated, others prayed. As mortals–as finite beings–they could never hope to challenge the infinite power of the universe and win.

But he wasn’t someone who was willing to give up so easily, not when there was still a shot at victory. He was a person who was rebellious enough to defy what others accepted as fate.

As he stepped closer to the center of the room, pointing his lantern forward, he could see that there was some kind of funeral casket with a box laid on top of it. There was little time to think. He had to find it, quickly.

As he tried to run, he tripped, almost dropping his lantern to the floor, but he floated forward without hitting his head thanks to the weakened gravity.

When he reached the box, he placed the lantern on the funeral casket and opened the box with both of his hands. And there, he found what he was looking for.

He took the Tome of Infinity out of the box, examining it. Immediately, he could feel a strange aura emitting from the Tome, and instinctively, he knew that he had a few ways he could use the Tome. One in particular stood out: with the power of this Tome, he could escape this world and become immortal through abandoning a physical body, joining the very gods that had gifted the world this power.

But he did not. That wouldn’t allow him to prevent the destruction of the Earth.

As his mind raced through the other options, he realized that there was really one thing he could do in this time of emergency: to absorb its infinite power and use it to combat the infinite collapse of the sky.

So he did. And as his body absorbed the Tome’s power and radiated with infinite energy, he prevented the power from overwriting his mortality, becoming invincible yet remaining susceptible to death.

The end was nigh, giving him no time to admire his own power or say a proper farewell to anyone–not even time to leave a record that he had been here.

But that was fine. He did this for neither fame nor glory; he did it because he had a reason to fight.

Give me a way… to save the world, he thought.

The man instinctively waved his hand without hesitation, opening a portal and stepping into a hidden, fourth dimension of existence.

When he reopened his eyes, he was in a strange, empty yet filled dimension. It was beyond regular comprehension, there were not enough words to describe it. He watched as vague concepts and universal rules were translated, condensed, and materialized. He wondered what would happen if he simply interacted with them. But there was no time to explore.

The man walked forward looking for a particular concept, still feeling the gods’ curious gaze in this strange dimension. He didn’t pay attention to the gods. He just had to find one thing.

And there it was: the concept of the sky, or rather, a tangible manifestation of the “edge of the universe”.

This was where he needed to be. This was his battlefield.

He knelt down and scooped his hands under the edge of the universe. Then for countless years–so as to not accidentally destroy humanity with a sudden acceleration–he slowly pulled, pushed, then eventually held the sky in his hands, his arms stretched far above his head. And in that position, he would remain stationary for what seemed to be an incomprehensible number of years.

And so, he prevented the end of the universe for good. Or at least, he believed this to be the case.

As time passed by, the man grew certain that at least a thousand years must have passed. It felt impossible for it to be anything less.

With nothing to remind him of who he was, he slowly forgot his appearance, his name, and who his friends were or if he had any in the first place. He had no way of confirming if his memories were true or had been rewritten through time. As the power of infinity flowed through his veins and arteries, his body became diluted and rewritten, changing his physical appearance. Perhaps due to the fact that his situation reminded him of Atlas, the Titan from Greek Mythology, his body eventually was reforged to resemble a Greek statue.

Following the loss of his identity, one of the only things he could recall from his past life was that he had deemed his cruel fate to be necessary. He would repeatedly convince himself that he had made the right decision as often as he could when his mind was not being flooded with other lines of thought.

But the man did not have the brain of a god. His choice to remain mortal and possess a physical body and brain–to have limits despite wielding infinite power–meant that he would inevitably forget everything that mattered to him, as long as enough time passed. It meant that his powers depended on his will.

And in a particular moment, while reciting his reasons to fight, he realized that he no longer felt such a strong urge to fight.

What was it that he was suffering for all this time? He was all alone with his idiosyncratic thoughts. He didn’t even know what he was really protecting anymore.

The man's will began to waver severely, and the universe moved. It was a small change, yet it was the first time the standstill had broken since the man had challenged the heavens. And at that moment, even more doubt crept up to him, and he desperately tried to convince himself once more.

But over hours, days, or perhaps months, the universe itself began to slowly push itself downward. And in the end, as he recited the answers he had prepared in response to his recurring doubts, he felt no catharsis.

Instead, he told himself that perhaps he had done enough. It must have been thousands of years since he had begun this arduous task. There must have been hundreds of generations born thanks to his actions. No one would blame him for giving up now.

As the man slowly lowered his hands, he could hear his skin and bone creak, as if his body consisted of stationary gears that had never been lubricated. And once he looked up, he could see the edge of the universe contract further with the absence of his hands. But no more, he thought. No more.

And the sky resumed its fall, remaining ignorant to the pleas of the masses.