Chapter 1 - A Warm Welcome

Cold.

Cold like the breath of winter, one that bites without malice, reaching into lungs whether you want to live or not. A cold that does not judge, nor does it comfort. It simply exists… and in that existence, it demands surrender.

Heavy.

Its doesn't hurt my head, but weighs it down, so that I can hardly think, sluggishly, like tar. Such as I am drunk again, drifting along the edge of dreams and despair, hoping that the deadness would devour the rest of me as well. It brings me back to the nights when I lost hours looking at my ceiling and asking myself why I kept waking up at all.

Darkness.

Endless, absolute. It is not that darkness that follows the extinction of light, but that which goes before all things. Ancient. Forbidding. It doesn't just envelops me, it embrace me, like a cocoon of nothingness.

Terrifying.

And yet… peaceful.

Too peaceful.

Ah, this feeling…

This absence of light, this weightless heart, this quiet where no voices live…

This is what I wished for, wasn’t it?

Not glory. Not love.

Not revenge.

Just peace.

To be free from all things.

Unshackled.

Unneeded.

Unfelt.

This is the world I wanted. No burdens. No names. No pain.

No me.

And yet…

Why?

Why does something feel wrong?

This should be everything.

Perfect.

Still.

Then why do I feel… tugged?

A presence, small, weak.

A breeze against my soul.

So faint, it could be ignored.

But I can’t ignore it.

It calls from somewhere deep.

Something left undone.

Something I forgot—but can’t let go.

Why is it important?

Why does it hurt?

I reach. I strain for the sensation. Not with hands, but something deeper something that moves when thoughts stand still.

And suddenly, the darkness shatters. Followed by a blast of dazzling light that bursts through the emptiness like a water out of dam.

Then, letters, words, symbols, numbers.

Thousands of them. A cascade of languages from every origin. English, Japanese, Latin, binary, unknown glyphs that glow and squirm like insects made of text. They spin around me, forming a rotating cage several meters wide. Some are familiar, echoing from the games and books I once consumed. Others are alien forms that feel wrong to behold, like staring into a language not meant for human thought.

They whisper as they move.

[Install]

[Overwrite]

[Forking process complete]

[Welcome, Kaelum Stellaris Veadryn]

I flail. My arms move as if underwater. My doesn't listen like as it did before. I'm floating. Am I upside down? Or sideways? What direction is down?

"What is this?! What the hell is this?!"

My voice echoes—but not from my mouth. It ripples from within, like sound without air.

And then, a voice answers.

[Congratulations. You have been chosen as one of the few lucky individuals among infinity to receive our grace.]

The voice surrounds me, echoing from every direction, every symbol, every letter. It doesn’t speak it plays, like music made of meaning.

It’s not human. It doesn’t even try to be. And yet, it pulses with energy vibrant, theatrical. Like a host introducing the opening act of a cosmic show.

[You have been selected to participate in the Path to Avalon Initiativs. Your task is simple: Live a beautiful and fascinating life. Reach the most perfect ending among all participants. And when that day comes… you shall be reborn as a protagonist in a world made exactly as you desire. No matter how impossible. No matter how insane that world, as long you want it, we can make it real.]

“What?! What does that even mean?! Who are you?! Why me?!”

[Enjoy your next life. We eagerly await the results of your story.]

[We are watching, eager to see the image you will paint upon this canvas.]

“No, wait, WAIT!”

But I am no longer allowed to speak. The cage tightens. Symbols twist inward, forming a spiral that closes around me. The light implodes.

And I shatter.

There’s no pain. Just disassembly. Like someone took my soul apart piece by piece and scattered the fragments into a data stream.

Is this death?

Or something worse?

My consciousness unravels, drawn into a new current, a stream pulling me through dimensions I cannot name.

Then, another voice.

Different.

Alive.

[You disgusting outsiders… coming into this garden, acting like it's your playground. Turning everything upside down for your amusement.]

The voice slams into my core like a blade. It doesn't echo it pierces. Not digital. Not synthetic. It hates me.

Then it came, and with it green and golden light surrounded me. A burst wave of pain, a pain that thousands of needles are stuck in, a pain that someone is boiling me in a hot steamy pot, a pain that I am crushed under a mountain. I instinctively feel it. I am going to die. No, I am going to disappear completely. Fortunately it had not time to do so, when the light broke.

[Nah, that can't do.]

The mechanical voice came back with a different tone, now it sounded really annoyed.

[Please, don't be such a party bummer and ruin the fun.]

The different voice, the one who feels alive, roars with all its might, making this whole space shake as if it will be torn apart.

[I swear, I'll make you suffer. I'll tear away your illusions one by one. I’ll purge your rot from this world, even if I have to rip the sky apart to do it.]

Before I can hear a response.

Everything goes black.

No light, no words, and no sound.

Only silence.

Only falling.

Only the faint memory of a name that no longer belongs to me.

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Warm.

Too warm.

The sort of warmth which is unnatural, dry, stagnant, animate. It sticks on my body as another layer of sweat I cannot claim to have gained.

I draw a breath and now, there is air.

Rough. Dusty. Tasting like metal and ash.

My eyelids twitch open, not because I want them to, but because some instinct buried in this body’s nerves demands it.

Blurred vision. Faint shapes. Canvas above me. A low wooden ceiling?

"Where... am I?"

I try to move, my arm jerks upward with a strange, fluid speed. Too fast. Too sharp. The muscles remember something I don’t.

I look at my hand.

It’s not mine.

Slimmer. Pale. Veins like silver threads. Not sickly, elegant. Fingers longer, too precise.

My heart rate spikes.

I get up too fast, eyes whirling. I am sweating all over my neck. My back is covered with a chill greasy cold. My face is covered with my hair, which is longer than I can recall.

The bed I am lying on is itchy. The walls of my surrounding are thin planks, covered with dirt. The room has a smell of leather, oil, blood. It strikes me, it is a military tent.

I fall to my feet, and struggle to get my breath.

And that’s when I see it.

A metal plate hanging on the tent wall. Polished enough to reflect.

I look into it.

And the face staring back isn’t mine.

It’s not Andrian. Not the man I remember.

Who are you?

Gray hair, disarranged.

Violet eyes, which shine in the dim.

Skin pale, yet not blemishable.

The face of a noble. Cold and graceful

Kaelum Stellaris Veadryn.

The name doesn’t come from memory. It just… appears. Like a subtitle underneath my reflection.

And then, pain.

My eyes open wide. I gasp in my throat.

Something activates.

The tent warps around me, not physically, but perceptually.

The cot.

The dirt.

The worn boot prints.

The rusted dagger half-hidden under the supply rack.

Information floods in. Like a dam breaking behind my eyes.

[Serrated iron dagger, Issued standard to low-level rebel scouts. Used for both combat and ritual sacrifice. Last used 2.3 hours ago. Blood type: AB negative. Belonged to: Jel Farrow, deceased.]

I drop to my knees, holding my head.

[Tent fabric: Woven from Yrilian hide, treated in coal oil to prevent detection spells. Manufactured by: House Solaris Grent. Stitch pattern: Military standard, border forces.]

Words and images tear through my skull, fast and merciless. I can't stop it. I can't filter it. My mind feels like a computer being forced to download an entire library through its eyes.

The world is data.

Everything is information.

And it’s being scraped.

[Memory Scrape]

I gasp,choking on a scream that doesn’t escape.

It’s not just facts. It’s memories. Sensations.

I see the dagger being used. Hear the last words of the man who wielded it. Feel the panic in his grip. Smell the blood. Taste the fear. For a split second, I am him.

And then, silence.

The flow ceases. My body falls forward, my hands pressed to the dirt floor, my body sweating.

Too much.

I force myself to breathe.

One.

Two.

Three.

My head still spins, but the tide has pulled back.

I raise my hand again. It shakes but not out of weakness. It trembles with the aftermath of something unfathomably powerful.