Chapter 1: The Fallen
Plains of Vabos
Dax awoke to the thick, metallic tang of blood coating his nose—familiar, bitter, and far from new.
The world around him was a slaughterhouse. Torn flesh lay scattered across the churned earth, and spilled viscera smeared grotesque patterns into the mud. A warm, fetid breeze brushed against his skin, carrying the heavy rot of fresh death. Still kneeling in the dirt, he lifted his trembling hands and wiped them across his face.
Warm crimson coated his fingers, streaking his pale skin red.
Where am I?
The question surfaced in his mind with absurd calm.
"Inerous…!"
He called out for his AI assistant, but only the dead wind answered. His dark eyes flickered slightly.
What is going on?
Rising slowly to his feet, Dax closed his eyes and reached back for his final memories. Almost instinctively, his hand pressed flat against his stomach.
"It worked…" he murmured. "I don't feel hungry."
A faint flicker of elation stirred in his chest, though his expression remained completely blank. He tried to summon his internal strength, expecting the familiar tide of power to answer his call—yet his vessel remained hollow and silent.
How strange.
Testing his condition, he calmly extended an arm toward a severed limb lying in the mud nearby and called upon the technique etched deepest into his instincts.
"Telekinesis."
His voice held no trace of panic. Instantly, the severed limb tore free from the mud and shot forward with blistering speed, slapping squarely into his open palm.
Good. My realm remains… yet this makes no sense. A refined body doesn't lose its physical strength so easily. Unless…
Before he could finish the thought, a violent torrent of foreign memories ruptured inside his skull. Piercing pain spiraled behind his eyes, forcing him to clutch his head as he digested the lifetime of another soul.
This isn't my body.
That explained the vanished physical strength—and Inerous's silence.
As the memories settled, the air around Dax turned noticeably colder. There was no joy in this rebirth. The only faint trace of satisfaction came from a single truth buried in the boy's memories: in this life, he had returned to the fragmented family he once possessed.
You were treated unfairly in this world, Dax thought, looking inward at the remnants of the boy who had owned this flesh. Your talent was stolen, leaving you behind as a broken soul.
All his life, the boy had been forced to watch from the dirt as a helpless observer—never once able to shape his own fate, his life ruined by another's greed. A cold, suffocating rage began to boil in Dax's chest.
Even in another reality… I was born to suffer.
The moment those words formed in his mind, the air before him shimmered. A translucent figure materialized just paces away—an exact mirror of his current form.
Dax froze, his eyes narrowing. What… what are you?
He had crossed countless planets and dissected the mysteries of the cosmos, yet he had never witnessed an anomaly like this.
"I tried my best," the translucent figure said, its voice calm but edged with fleeting regret. "I've seen everything, Dax… all of your memories. How I wish I had been strong like you."
A faint, tired smile touched the phantom's lips. "At least in one lifetime, I stood at the peak. I also saw your pain… and what you did to Mother."
Dax's eyes, previously cold and emotionless, trembled for a fraction of a second. He said nothing, listening in silence.
"Why don't you redeem yourself here?" the figure whispered. "You can save her this time… and finally quiet the guilt in our souls."
Light began to peel away from the figure's edges, crumbling into motes of dust as if speaking those words had fulfilled its final purpose.
"Paint our name across this world… just as you did as the Black Doctor from the stars."
The voice lingered on the wind as the phantom dissolved completely, drifting forward into Dax's chest.
"Farewell."
As the last particles sank into his flesh, a quiet, heavy sadness settled over Dax's heart. I never imagined bidding farewell to myself in any lifetime.
He lifted his gaze toward the bruised, darkening sky—and a cascade of glowing notifications flooded his vision.
[Welcome to Epoch.]
A familiar, robotic feminine voice echoed cleanly through his mind.
"Inerous?"
For the first time since opening his eyes, a slow, demonic smile curved Dax's bloodstained lips.
Don't worry, he promised his vanished counterpart silently. This body will feel strength it never dared to imagine.
[Epoch System Booting…]
[1%… 10%… 30%… 70%… 99%… 100%]
Name: Dax Godfall
Race: Human
Bloodline: None
Realm: Trait Emperor
Rank: 0
Title: The Mad Scientist
Traits: Synthesis, Insatiable Hunger
Attributes: None
Skills: Telekinesis
Strength: 30
Agility: 6
Physique: 3
Mana: 0
Aura: 0
Luck: -1
[System Restoring…]
[10%… 30%… 70%… 100%]
Gene Palace: Restored
Mutant Soul: Acquired
Personal World: Gene Palace (Sealed)
Epoch Storage: Restored
+1 Cil
+1 Annihilation Horn
Star Farm: Restored (Sealed)
Dax stared at the floating panel in silence for a beat. They even stole my luck… how? Some kind of plunder ability akin to Synthesis?
Old tales from his past life surfaced in his mind—legends of witches who plucked a person's star from the heavens to steal their innate talent. It seemed those stories were far from myth.
With my items restored, reclaiming my power is only a matter of time. I haven't lost much… though why is my lab sealed?
Before he could probe the lock on the Gene Palace, a razor-sharp prickle of killing intent lanced toward him from the left.
In one fluid motion, Dax unfolded his arms.
A shadowy figure lunged out of the gloom in a blink, a pair of dual blades spinning with lethal momentum straight toward Dax's neck.
Before the steel could graze his skin, an invisible wall of telekinetic force slammed into the assassin's chest, blasting him backward like a ragdoll until he crashed spine-first into the trunk of a massive tree in the distance.
From the shadows beside that very tree, a bulky man in crimson robes lumbered forward, clutching a heavy tome like a devout priest. Without breaking stride, the priest drew a serrated cleaver from his wide sleeve and plunged it straight into the fallen assassin's chest, bathing the bark and soil in fresh blood.
With every wet twist of the blade, the bulky priest hummed in twisted worship. Then, his thick neck snapped around at an unnatural angle, revealing a horrific, gaping wound that split his lips from forehead to chin.
"Vos des, Vos vos, no no," a hollow, broken voice rasped from the split face.
Beneath the cleaver, the assassin who had been blasted into the tree suddenly convulsed and pulled himself out of the splintered wood as if dragged back from death by puppet strings.
What is this? Dax watched the grotesque vitality writhing inside their bodies without a flicker of panic.
"Hey, Kakarai, be careful!" the dual-blade assassin spat, wiping blood from his chin as he backed away. "They said this kid was just a regular human, but the bastard just bested me!"
"No no, no no, Vos?"
Kakarai's voice pitched into a frantic shriek as he blurred forward. His right arm swelled to monstrous proportions, the distended flesh twisting as he drove a punch straight at Dax's head with terrifying speed.
"Trifling."
Dax's voice was ice-cold. He raised a single finger.
An invisible vice locked around Kakarai's swollen fist mid-strike, freezing the hulking priest in his tracks an inch from Dax's face. Unbothered, Dax stepped casually around the immobilized giant, tilting his head as he inspected the bulging limb.
"Is that disgusting thing on your arm someone's face?" Dax murmured. Very interesting—truly interesting. A broken madman with a living face grafted to his arm, and another revived by a carved bone cleaver. Should I be expecting a snake wearing human skin next?
Ignoring the straining priest—who could only follow Dax's small frame with frantic, rolling eyes—Dax walked past him and peered into the dark, empty gaps between the trees.
"Aren't you their leader?" Dax asked calmly.
From the deep shadows behind the ancient trunks stepped a young man with long dark hair, draped in the same crimson robes. His silky locks blended seamlessly with the blood-colored fabric as he studied Dax with narrowed, curious eyes.
"I sense no mana or aura from you at all," the young man said smoothly. "Indeed, you really are useless—the very bottom of the barrel. Ah… you must be that one. The child whose talent was harvested by our Lord Apostle."
"Tell me what you know," Dax replied evenly, "and I might let you leave this forest in one piece… or two."
A genuine, amused smile spread across the young man's face.
"Who are you?" Dax asked.
"You don't know? Here I thought my words had already given me away. Don't tell me you've forgotten who stole your talent and dragged away your lovely mother?" The young man pressed two fingers to his lips, inclining his head in a mocking bow. "We are cultists of the Blood River. I am Vabon. Now, little lamb… are you prepared to die?"
He lifted his head, his smile widening—only to falter when he met Dax's gaze.
Blood River?
Dax's eyes had gone completely hollow.
"I see you have come to offer yourselves as sacrificial lambs," Dax said softly, returning the smile. With the drying blood smeared across his pale cheeks, the expression looked purely demonic. "How wonderful. This world is already hastening to favor me."
Vabon chuckled lightly, though a sudden, unmistakable tremor of unease flickered across his pupils. "The boy has lost his mind… how adorable."
"Why don't we begin," Dax said, his voice dropping to a dead whisper.
"Kneel."
Raw, invisible telekinetic pressure erupted outward, slamming down like a falling mountain.
CRACK!
Both the dual-blade assassin and the hulking priest were driven violently to all fours. Their kneecaps shattered on impact against the hard earth, spraying blood and bone fragments from their ruptured joints.
The dual-blade cultist let out a choked, animalistic scream, his face contorted in agony and disbelief as he was pinned to the dirt. Beside him, Kakarai writhed against the crushing weight, screeching "Vos! Vos! Vos!" in a twisted mix of torment and ecstatic delirium.
Across the clearing, the mocking smile vanished from Vabon's face, his composure cracking into sheer terror.
He didn't hesitate for a single breath. Abandoning his pride entirely, Vabon's body began to liquefy, melting straight into the dark soil like mud.
"You're on your own, Kakarai, Mike!" Vabon's voice echoed thinly from the ground as he fled without a shred of honor.
Dax watched the cultist sink into the earth with a faint, cold smile. He didn't bother giving chase. Instead, he turned his dark eyes back toward the two crippled men left behind in the dirt.
"Abandoned to die," Dax murmured, stepping closer. "Now, what am I going to do with the two of you?"
He raised one hand toward Mike. Instantly, the dual-blade cultist was yanked off the ground and hurled skyward like a broken kite, his panicked screams trailing behind him as he shot dozens of meters into the air.
At the very apex of the arc, Dax clenched his fist—accelerating the man's descent tenfold.
BOOM!
Mike slammed back into the earth with the force of a meteor, cratering the dirt and sending a cloud of soil and pulverized stone flying outward. Yet even at the bottom of the pit, ragged, bubbling breaths still rasped from his ruined chest.
With slow, unhurried steps, Dax walked to the lip of the crater and reached down, hauling Mike up by a single ankle.
The instant Dax's focus shifted entirely onto the half-dead assassin in his hand, the air behind him tore open.
Kakarai—freed from the telekinetic lock for a split second—was no longer kneeling by the trees. Moving with the berserk speed of a monster that felt no pain, the mad priest materialized directly at Dax's flank and drove his massive, face-covered fist straight into Dax's ribs.
Dax's fragile, unrefined vessel couldn't withstand a fraction of the blow. His mind went momentarily blank as bone-shattering pain lanced through his side, hurling him across the clearing into a crater of his own as he coughed up a mouthful of bright red blood, his vision blurring into crimson haze.