Valerian.
The name echoed in Aeon's mind as fragments of memory began coalescing into a pattern he desperately didn't want to recognize. Not just the slave collars and imperial seals from his recent captivity, but something deeper—something from before his death in that previous life.
The Last Convergence.
The novel title materialized in his consciousness like a physical blow. Late nights reading on his tablet, absorbed in the epic fantasy series that had dominated online forums for months. The sprawling narrative of myriad worlds connected by ancient portals, the complex political machinations of inter-realm empires, the tragic hero destined to damn the cosmos.
No. It can't be.
But even as Aeon tried to deny the possibility, more details fell into place with horrifying clarity. The Valerian Empire, dominant power of Terran. The portal networks connecting seventeen worlds. The multiple species—Ethereal Elves of Luminthar, Stone Dwarves of Khaz Ankor, Scaled Dragonkin of Pyrothia.
Every detail matched perfectly with the world-building from the novel he had read obsessively in his previous life.
I transmigrated into "The Last Convergence," Aeon realized with growing dread. This isn't just any fantasy world. This is that world.
His hands trembled as he forced himself to continue reading, but his mind was already racing ahead to implications that made his blood run cold. If this was truly the world of "The Last Convergence," then he knew exactly how the story was supposed to end.
And it wasn't a happy ending for anyone.
Prince Lysander Valerian, Aeon thought, the protagonist's name surfacing from memory with crystal clarity. The "chosen hero" who believed he was blessed by the gods to unite the myriad worlds against the ultimate threat. The one destined to face the Originator in the final battle.
But even as the memory crystallized, Aeon recalled the novel's darkest revelation—the truth that had been unveiled only in the final chapters. Prince Lysander's divine blessing, the mysterious "System" that had awakened alongside his attribute on his tenth birthday, hadn't been a gift from benevolent gods at all.
The Outer Beings, Aeon remembered with growing horror. Cosmic entities from beyond the seventeen worlds who wanted the Originator eliminated for their own incomprehensible purposes.
The System had guided Prince Lysander throughout his entire journey, providing him with quests, abilities, and knowledge that seemed divine in origin. It had convinced him that he was humanity's chosen champion, destined to save the myriad worlds from corruption and destruction.
But the truth had been far more sinister. The Outer Beings had been manipulating events from the beginning, using Lysander as their unwitting tool to eliminate the Originator—not to save the seventeen worlds, but to clear the way for their own invasion of this dimension.
He was never the hero, Aeon realized with sickening clarity. He was just another pawn, manipulated from childhood by entities that saw the myriad worlds as obstacles to be removed.
The Originator—the ancient being who had created the portal networks connecting the seventeen worlds, who had slowly been corrupting that same network—had been trying to defend his creation from the Outer Beings' influence. His corruption of the portal system hadn't been malevolent expansion but desperate preparation for a war he knew was coming.
The final confrontation takes place in twenty years, Aeon remembered with growing horror. Lysander, guided by his System, defeats the Originator on the Nexus Platform. But the victory destroys the portal network and leaves the seventeen worlds defenseless against what comes next.
The memory of the novel's true ending hit him like a physical blow. Prince Lysander's "heroic" victory, achieved through sacrificing his own life force to destroy the Originator and sever the portal network. The desperate gambit that the System had convinced him would save the cosmos, but which actually eliminated the only defense the myriad worlds had against the Outer Beings.
The portal network's collapse wasn't collateral damage, Aeon realized with dawning terror. It was the intended outcome. The Outer Beings wanted the worlds isolated and helpless.
The novel's epilogue had hinted at what came after—strange phenomena appearing across the seventeen worlds, reality beginning to warp and change in ways that suggested something vast and alien was taking notice of the now-defenseless dimensions.
And I'm here. Now. Twenty years before Lysander unknowingly dooms everything.
Aeon's mind raced through the timeline he remembered from the novel. Prince Lysander would be around ten years old currently, probably just beginning to show signs of the exceptional abilities that would eventually make him the perfect tool for the Outer Beings' manipulation. His System wouldn't awaken for another two years, giving him the "divine blessing" that would set him on the path to cosmic destruction.
Twenty years, Aeon thought, the extended timeline offering both relief and new complications. More time to prepare, but also more time for things to go wrong.
The various political crises that would drive the plot were still years away. The Draconic Uprising on Pyrothia wouldn't begin for another decade. The Ethereal Civil War was more than fifteen years in the future. The discovery of the Originator's influence in the portal network wouldn't happen for eighteen years.
But even twenty years felt impossibly short when measured against the scope of what was coming. Each event was a stepping stone toward the final catastrophe, part of an accelerating cascade of crises that would culminate in the Outer Beings' victory and the unraveling of reality itself.
This world is on a timer, Aeon realized with crystalline clarity. Twenty years until Prince Lysander destroys the portal network and eliminates the only thing standing between the seventeen worlds and cosmic predators. Twenty years until something far worse than death begins.
For a moment, wild thoughts flickered through his mind. Could his presence change things? Could knowledge of the future allow him to alter the timeline, to warn people about what was coming, to find some better solution to the crisis?
But the rational part of his mind crushed that hope immediately. Who would believe him? He was a ten-year-old refugee with no proof, no credentials, no way to demonstrate that his claims about future events were anything more than fantasy. And even if someone did believe him, what could they do? The Outer Beings operated on a scale that dwarfed anything the seventeen worlds could muster.
There's nowhere to run, Aeon realized with growing desperation. No hidden valley deep enough, no isolated world remote enough. When the Outer Beings come, when reality starts unraveling, there won't be anywhere in the seventeen worlds that's safe.
The thought brought with it a cold, terrible clarity about what his options actually were.
Unless...
The solution was so obvious, so brutally simple, that it took his breath away. Prince Lysander was the key to everything—the unwitting tool that the Outer Beings would use to eliminate the Originator and destroy the portal network. Without Lysander, their plan couldn't proceed. Without their chosen pawn, the cosmic invasion would be impossible.
I need to kill him, Aeon thought with the stark logic of absolute desperation. I need to kill Prince Lysander before the Outer Beings can use him to destroy everything.
The moral weight of that realization settled over him like a crushing burden. He was contemplating the murder of an innocent child—someone who had no knowledge of the role he was destined to play, someone who would genuinely believe he was saving the world when he finally faced the Originator.
But the alternative was the death of everything. Not just billions of people, but the complete unraveling of reality across seventeen worlds. Suffering on a scale that made individual moral considerations seem insignificant by comparison.
Twenty years to plan. Twenty years to prepare. Twenty years to find a way to get close to the most protected person as well as the strongest in seventeen worlds and eliminate him before the Outer Beings can complete their manipulation.
It wasn't just assassination he was contemplating—it was regicide against the heir to the largest empire in the known cosmos. The political and security obstacles alone would be staggering, never mind the moral complexity of murdering someone to prevent crimes they hadn't yet committed.
But it's the only way, Aeon concluded with grim finality. The only action that might actually save the seventeen worlds from what's coming.
The countdown had already begun, and now he knew exactly what he had to do before it reached zero.
The weight of that knowledge settled over him like a suffocating blanket. He wasn't just a transmigrated soul trying to survive in a fantasy world—he was a man with foreknowledge of an approaching apocalypse that he was utterly powerless to prevent.