A groan, thin and unfamiliar, escaped his lips.
It was the sound of a teenager.
Rhys's eyes fluttered open, locking in surprise on the figure staring back at him from a polished steel mirror on the opposite wall.
A wave of vertigo washed over him, a physical weakness his immortal body had never known.
When he raised his hands to his face, they were smooth, unblemished, and slender.
The reflection mirrored his action.
It was him, but not him.
The same high cheekbones, the same straight nose, the same jawline that had remained unchanged for millennia.
But the face was stripped of time's invisible weight.
The eyes, those molten gold pupils that had witnessed the birth and death of civilisations were now set in a face that could not be a day over eighteen.
The weariness that had settled deep into his soul was gone from this reflection, replaced by the unwritten potential of youth.
He was in a small, compact room. A desk was built into one wall, a simple fishbowl resting on its surface.
A single viewport showed not a blue sky as he remembered, but the silent, star-dusted blackness of space.
Occasionally massive pockmarked rock drifted past, its surface aglow with the neon lights of a city clinging to its hide.
Then came the memories. It was not a foraging invasion of data, but rather an overlay of information that settled into his consciousness with a startling lack of unfamiliarity.
They belonged to the boy whose body this was. Now, they were his.
Rhys… The name was the same. A strange, cosmic coincidence.
This Rhys was eighteen years old, a resident of Fall Back Colony Meteorite 3, or FCM-3.
His parents, Elara and Joric were diligent, unassuming clerks at the local branch of the Galactic Bank.
Good people, whose days consisted of a monotonous continuation of work, home, and worry for their children.
The emotions Rhys now felt were strange.
He felt no guilt for replacing the boy; it was as if he had simply taken back what was supposed to be his.
He frowned.
Without him even noticing, he seemed to have accepted the role of this new Rhys without any internal resistance.
And then there was the sister. Lyra.
The memory of her was a blaze of pride and awe in the boy's mind. Lyra was not like them. She was an Innate Evolver, one of the rare few born with a powerful, pre-destined Evolution Path.
"Evolvers…" Rhys muttered, the concept settling in his mind.
This new reality was vastly different, a world where fantasy was no longer fantasy.
Here, humanity was not confined to a single planet but had spread across the stars. Earth was just one of countless inhabited worlds.
They were no longer fragile. They could become Evolvers: beings who transcended human limitations to reach a level where they could shatter stars and redesign galaxies.
Their lifespans had soared; even a First Class Evolver could now live for five hundred years, a feat impossible in his old world.
A soft chime emanated from within his mind, an instinctual notification he knew how to access. He focused, and a semi-transparent screen bloomed in his vision.
The OmniGraph.
[Universal Daily Mandate: All citizens reaching their eighteenth cycle are required to report to the Directorate of Evolution Path Registry and undergo an innate evolution test. All tests will be free. Failure to report at the designated time will result in forfeiture of the free test slot.]
There were two types of Evolvers: Innate and Acquired.
Innate Evolvers were a one-in-a-billion rarity, so when Lyra's talent went public, the prestigious Evolvers Academy had sponsored her immediately.
Such individuals had the rare chance to become Founders, sharing their evolution path with OmniNet.
In doing so, they would gain immense resources as others bought and followed their path.
Those who purchased an established Evolution Path were called Acquired Evolvers. Their potential was limited by the Founder, as an Acquired Evolver could not surpass the classes their Founder hadn't unlocked.
They were in essence bound to another's growth.
Rhys navigated to his personal chat and saw a message from his sister. It contained the framework of her own evolution path, a generous offer he could accept if his innate test yielded nothing.
He dismissed the OmniGraph with a thought.
He closed his eyes, turning his consciousness inward, away from the boy's memories and the cold reality of the room. He sought the foreign entity anchored to his soul.
And he found it.
A door.
The door was ornate, carved from a material that seemed to be solidified spacetime. It was vast and imposing, set with twelve empty sockets arranged in a circle like the hours on a clock.
As he watched, a magnificent gem materialised in the first socket. He could see the world inside this gem with perfect clarity, but the moment his gaze shifted, the memory of it vanished.
He tried to hold onto the image, but it slipped away every time, an enigma he could perceive but not possess.
He knew, however, the function of this door and the purpose of its shining gem.
[Portal 1: Active]
[Ready for entry.]
[Mission: Stabilise the corrupted world within. Success unlocks the path forward.]
This was it.
The true path laid out for him. Not the petty choice of following his sister's established journey, but a path that led out. Out of this universe and into the countless others that swam within the Abyss.
He summoned his system screen.
[Lifespan Burning System]
[Comprehend anything under the heavens by burning your lifespan.]
[Rhys's Throne]
Title: World Traveler
Innate Talent: Eternal Life
Class: None
He delved deeper, seeking the system's core function. He found its engine, a pulsating core of pure potential.
The instructions were not written in words but imprinted directly onto his understanding.
[Function: Comprehension through Sacrifice]
[Mechanic: Any concept, skill, law, or truth can be comprehended by burning a commensurate amount of lifespan. The Host's innate talent provides an infinite fuel source. There are no drawbacks to fully utilising this system.]
The implication slammed into him with the force of a tidal wave. For millennia, he had learned through painstaking observation, through the slow, agonising crawl of time.
He had watched empires build their technologies over centuries, seen philosophies evolve over generations. Now, he could simply… know.
He could understand the mechanics of a starship's warp drive by willing it. He could master the intricacies of the Zylith Collective's bio-weaponry.
He could comprehend the very fabric of spacetime, the laws of this universe, the nature of the Abyss itself.
All it would cost him was time—the one thing he could not get rid of. The poison had become the panacea.
"Haha."
The laughter that escaped him this time was real, a raw, soundless tremor in his soul.
It was the laugh of a prisoner who, after eons in a lightless cell, was suddenly handed the master key to the entire penitentiary.
The loneliness, the despair, the terrifying void that had threatened to consume him—it was all still there, a cold, dark ocean within him.
But now, on the shore of that ocean, a lighthouse had been ignited.
He could stay.
He could play the part of the boy whose body he wore, choose a mundane path, and live a quiet life under the protection of his brilliant sister.
He could try to forget the century of love he had known, the daughter he had raised.
Or he could step through that door.
He could embrace the curse that had become his greatest asset and take the infinite, agonising stretch of time ahead of him and burn it as fuel for a purpose he was only just beginning to comprehend.
Reclaim order.
The words resonated with a profound gravity. For a being who had only ever been a bystander, the call to become an agent of change was an irresistible siren song.
The choice was no choice at all.
Rhys stood before the shimmering portal in his mind, the first glowing gem a beacon in the darkness. He reached out, not with his physical hand, but with the full intent of his soul.
"I will go," he whispered, the words echoing in the silent chamber of his mind.
The glowing gem flared, and the door swung open.
It did not reveal a place, but a torrent of raw, untamed reality—a vortex of screaming colours, impossible geometries, and the deafening roar of a world in pain.
Without hesitation, Rhys stepped forward, and the universe he knew dissolved behind him.