The moon hung low in the sky, bright but most of it were hidden by the clouds, the was air thick with the stench of blood. A man stood like a blade before another man, one kneeling on the cracked obsidian floor of a throne room. The man standing was tall, six-one, in black leather, his black hair slicked with sweat and blood, his brown eyes hard as stone. The kneeling man trembled, older, at most mid thirties, his face were lined and pale.
"You think this was the end?" the man croaked, voice ragged.
"The blood feud of my family ends today," The man in black leather said, the words sharp, deliberate. "You end today."
The kneeling man's trembling hand slid beneath the layers of blackened steel, as though searching for something, until it pressed a half-hidden glyph carved in ancient design. Then, something pulsed beneath it.
"You killed a man," the kneeling man whispered, eyes wide.
Hummm—
A faint hum rose from deep below.
"But you touched a god," he continued. "Let's see how much of Earth survives with you."
The glyph ignited. Ultraviolet light clawed outward like cracks across the skin of the room. The man in black leather lunged. "What did you do!?"
Too late. The floor trembled beneath them. Somewhere deep, a node fused with uranium, plutonium, and Antium in a way never seen before, alive with impossible energy readings. The throne crumbled.
His vision shattered like glass, reality rippling. He dropped to his knees, clutching his skull as the fabric of space screamed. Light flared, his world folding inward like burning pages collapsing on themselves.
Then. A single flash. White. Silence. A Detonation without fire. With no screams and no ash. Only pin drop silence.
Then ripples spread across the globe. The seas surged backward, with fishes leaping from the depths. Birds screamed as storms twisted into impossible fractal shapes.
In Kenya elephants about to crush a man stopped and bowed.
In Paris streetlights flickered like strings manipulated by invisible hands.
In London, a child moved his finger, the air bending to his will.
In Seoul, a girl walking by a shop slipped through the glass like smoke.
In Lagos, a child gasped as fire danced around him.
In New York, graffiti painted by an unknown artist glowed.
Johannesburg, a deaf boy hummed a tune rearranging metals not far from him into constellations.
As the world changed. Some rose into the air without wings, without gravity.
Some others rose into the air with wings like angels leaving the mortal world.
While others collapsed under the pressure of becoming more than human.
Tectonic plates shifted. The magnetic fields danced around. The Earth itself shivered. Not from cold but the sheer energy from evolution.
The Era of Superpowers have begun.
And in the ruins of the tower, the man in black leather had vanished. Where he had stood, nothing remained there. Not bone, not blood, not even ash. Only a ripple in the fabric of reality.
And through that fabric of reality his consciousness was aware, not as body and not as breath, but as a being, suspended among stars.
"Is this death?" he whispered. It's beautiful
Gravity claimed him as soon as he said the last word pulling him downward at impossible speeds. He braced for impact, but there was none. Just a single heartbeat. One that wasn't his.
Badum
Badum
Badum
Dominic woke with blood on his lips.
But not his blood and not his lips.
Air rasped through the lungs that didn't feel like his, each breath were sharp and wheezy. His eyelids cracked open to a blue sky. At first the stench of copper, piss, and smoke hit him. The typical slum perfume. Then a burning feeling came from his stomach. Yes the feeling of hunger.
He slumped against a wet wall to support himself. He could hear the sound of sirens wailing from somewhere in the distance.
Dominic flexed his fingers. Long, pale, filthy and fragile, too soft for his taste. He stared at them like they belonged to a stranger.
I'm still alive? But whose body is this?
Then the flood hit. Memories that weren't his. Neon streets smeared with gang tags. Hunger hollowing bones. Faces of liars and betrayers. A jealous gang leader, knife in hand.
Then silence. Then death.
And now… this.
"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered. His voice was deep, familiar, but this throat didn't get it right. "A face like this gets you killed out here?."
He wasn't wrong.
The new body's face was "pretty ordinary". Too "ordinary". Sharp jaw, thick lashes, soft lips. Not the kind of beauty people celebrated but the kind that drew hate. The kind that made people jealous enough to stab you and dump you like trash.
No wonder the kid got murdered.
"At least he was stabbed from the front. I'd hate to think he wasn't straight," Dominic muttered with a crooked grin, giving his backside a quick pat. "Still safe. Still safe"
From the memories, he learned the world's name: Terra. A planet ruled by technology, power, and horrors. How thrilling. He muttered in quick breaths. He learnt his name and everything attributed to his name Dominic Solari. An orphan.
Is this a kind of transmigration like those books I once read? If this is transmigration where is my friggin golden finger? After his revenge Dominic felt a kind of relaxation aside from the burning feeling coming from his stomach.
He coughed hard, pushed himself up, and steadied on the wall. A skinny street kid peeked down from a broken balcony. Their eyes met then the boy bolted with fear in his eyes.
Good. Let them fear him. Let them run. This dead king had clawed his way back from hell.
Dominic staggered into the street. Military drones buzzed overhead. The slums were sliced into different colored sectors by glowing shield walls to protect against only gods know.
Gray Zone 7. Obsolete Region. Sunset City
The boy's leftover memories whispered what that meant. Close to something.
Close to the monolith.
An open square stretched ahead, packed with soldiers patrolling around. Soldiers were in kinetic armor lined the field, their weapons relaxed but their hands were twitching near the triggers.
At the center of the square, there was a monolith. A huge black stone, smooth as glass, and twenty meters high. Crimson veins of light pulsed slowly around it as though it was breathing.
Dominic stared. The monolith stare back. Or at least it felt that way.
He knew it. The Eidolon Descent. A Trial. A promise of power, but only in exchange for sacrifice. Will, memories, even your damn emotions, everything that made you human. Multiple cases of people losing themselves after the sacrifice and turning to horrors afterwards. Everyone on the brink of madness and death. Salvation and strength came with a butcher's price tag it seems.
For a moment, he thought about turning and walking away. Enough of power. Enough of death. Enough of burning alive.
But rage cut through rage at a world that killed this kid for being weak, at a world that would do it again to anyone toothless. He doesn't want to die again.
Dominic pulled his collar higher, hiding his face. A reflex he didn't remember learning, but the boy's body had it carved into muscle memory.
"Vengeance is over," he muttered. "Time to see what's next."
He stepped toward the monolith.
A guard moved to block him. "ID. Intent. Certification."
Dominic raised an eyebrow. "None."
The guard studied him. Pity flickered in his eyes while looking his shabby and bloody appearance. "Then answer. Do you enter the Eidolon Descent willingly?"
Dominic's slammed his chest with his fist and a single, heavy thud sounded. "Yes. Willingly." His reactions were controlled but he was still left rattled by the impact.
The guard scanned Dominic as he was inwardly cussing himself for doing something unnecessary. Nothing popped. Not unusual in the Gray Zone. The man sighed and stepped aside.
"You may pass through. You give a sacrifice. The system decides. If not…" The guard gestured at the medical tent. Half the bags inside already held bodies.
Dominic gave it a glance, shrugged then snorted.
"Only twenty? Please. I'm not that unlucky. And hey. Best motivational speech of the year. You're really keeping it warm."
The guard didn't react much. Just shrugged in response. If anyone had been watching, they'd think the two of them were in the middle of an epilepsy contest.
Maybe that was confidence. Maybe it was just a lie Dominic needed to believe. Either way, retreat was gone. It's survive or die again.
Wiss~
He crossed the boundary.
The monolith blazed. His vision shattered; his bones were locked in place. Something older than the world stirred inside the stone.
A voice slammed into his ears: SACRIFICE REQUIRED.
Dominic chose.
He surrendered his memories.
Then darkness swallowed him.
Flash—
He woke to the sound of breathing. Not his. It was dry and ragged. It seeped from the walls around him, probably from the neighboring hut.
The hut he was in stank of rot, sweat, and damp wood left to fester for centuries. He sat on a straw mattress that crackled like dead leaves. The walls were rough but cold with thin cracks in the window boards that leaked reddish light from the sun.
His hands moved on instinct. It wasn't his instincts, someone else's. Muscle memory carved into skin that wasn't his own.
A name floated in his mind: Dominic Solari. A title followed: Prison Guard of Bastille village. Another shadow lingered: Son of the Hunter. Terrain Familiarity: 84%.
[Trial Embedded: The Harvest Spiral]
[Objective: Survive fourteen days or eliminate the source of the spiral curse.]
[Failure: Immediate transformation into Class-D Horror.]
Dominic clenched his jaw as the voice faded. Another life inside a borrowed skin.
"Stitched someone else's face over mine," he chuckled. "How beautiful. It seems like this is the new norm."
Dominic pushed the door open.
The sky was faintly red, like a bleeding sky. The village sat in a hollowed clearing, some but and cabins carved from dark wood. Smoke curled lazily from chimneys. Logs burned black, hissing as if alive. Normal at first glance except for the bloody tint in the sky.
A bell tolled somewhere in the distance. Each strike rolled through the forest like distant thunder. Villagers flinched, heads bowed. They called it the Spiral's Warning.
An elder shuffled out of the square. Her eyes were clouded, milk-white. Spirals stitched in red thread covered her robe, hanging off her like decaying cloth.
"You're awake," she rasped. "The Spiral has chosen another harvest."
Dominic's eyes narrowed. "Harvest of what?"
"Flesh. Sin. Secrets. The Spiral doesn't care which," she said, gaze sharp despite cataracts. "You don't know?"
Dominic gave her a flat look. "Guess my memory package was missing the manual."
She gazed at him with a confused expression wondering how the two topics relates then gestured toward the square.
Twenty prisoners stood on a platform. Shackled and ragged, iron collars digging into their throats. Some were old; some barely children.
"You're their keeper now," the elder said. "Until the Spiral takes them."
Dominic said nothing.
"You'll help with the harvest," she warned. "Or it would take you too."
Then she shuffled away, dragging her robes like dead leaves.
Dominic blinked after her, half stunned. That's it? Drop some cryptic nonsense and shuffle away like a big shot? Peh.
That night, he couldn't sleep.
Dominic leaned against the prison hut under a crooked moon. His breath showed a visible white in the cold air. Then a scream tore through the woods, it was warped, stretched, and bone-chilling. He told himself it was just an animal but he knows it didn't feel like it.
By dawn, a man had vanished, not one of the prisoners, but a villager.
No blood. No broken doors. His clothes were folded neatly. His bed was still warm. It looked like the man had just stepped out for a morning stroll but never came back.
The villagers didn't panic. They just gathered in silence, muttered prayers, lit candles, and rang the Spiral Bell again.
It was too calm and too practiced.
Dominic watched from the shadows, frowning. I know it wasn't the prisoners. I've been awake all night. So why were the villagers acting like this was routine? Like they'd all been through it before…
A chill ran down his spine.
Has spiral already begun?