There was no light. No sound. No sensation of up or down, of heat or cold, of having a body at all. Adam Henry existed as a single, lucid point of consciousness, adrift in an absolute, swallowing nothingness. This was not sleep, nor was it the peaceful oblivion he might have naively expected after the truck's grille had filled his vision. This was the Void—a profound, silent antechamber to all that comes after.
Interesting, the thought formed, calm and analytical in the infinite quiet. So the materialists were wrong. The cessation of brain function is not the end of the processing queue. I'm in the buffer.
He waited. There was no panic, no frantic grasping for memories of a life just ended. Adam had always been a man who assessed his environment before acting, and this, while unprecedented, was no different. His last life—a mundane existence of quiet observation and deliberate isolation—had ended abruptly and without fanfare. He felt no particular attachment to it. It had served its purpose as a container, and now the container was broken.
Time, a concept already fraying at the edges, meant nothing. It could have been a microsecond or a millennia before the Presence manifested.
It did not arrive. It simply was, as if it had always been part of the Void, and Adam was only now perceiving it. There was no form, no face, yet its awareness pressed against his consciousness with the weight of galaxies. It spoke not in words, but in concepts that blossomed directly in his mind, a silent broadcast on the frequency of his soul.
"Adam Henry. Processing of soul-strain data-stream is complete. The audit reveals a significant anomaly."
An audit? Adam's consciousness projected the thought back, his mental 'voice' steady. I wasn't aware the afterlife ran on corporate compliance models. What's the anomaly? A clerical error? I paid my taxes.
A pulse of something akin to dry amusement resonated from the Presence. "Not a clerical error. A karmic one. A profound and unique one. Your immediate past incarnation was… unremarkable. A neutral balance. However, the soul-strain audit is not limited to the most recent iteration. It traces the resonant echoes backward, through the morphic fields of all your previous vessels."
The Void seemed to shift. Instead of pure nothing, faint, ghostly images began to swirl at the edges of Adam's perception—not clear memories, but emotional imprints, silhouettes of power, the echoes of chanting crowds. A profound, unsettling sense of familiarity washed over him, a feeling he had spent his last life deliberately avoiding.
"We have reached a prior incarnation," the Presence intoned, its conceptual voice taking on a gravitas that vibrated through the Void. "Approximately four centuries prior to your most recent death. The location is irrelevant; the impact is not. In that life, you were not Adam Henry. You were a focal point. A nexus of belief and control."
A single, clear image crystalized: Adam, but not Adam. Older, with eyes that held a terrifying warmth and a smile that promised absolute truth. He stood on a raised dais, arms outstretched, not to a congregation in a church, but to a vast, enraptured gathering in a sun-drenched field. Their faces were a blur of fervent devotion. The image was silent, but Adam could feel the roar of their belief, a tangible, heady power that soaked into the figure on the stage. He saw himself—that other self—manipulating not with threats, but with perfected, compassionate logic, twisting anxieties into dogma and offering himself as the sole, complex answer.
Ah, Adam thought, the analytical part of his mind dissecting the revelation even as a strange, cold ripple passed through his formless being. That explains the chronic aversion to group activities. A past life as a charismatic leader. How… tedious.
"You built a belief system," the Presence continued. "Not through crude fear of hellfire, but through a sophisticated architecture of us-versus-them narratives, moral absolutism tied to your person, and the slow, systematic erosion of your followers' connections to external reality. You convinced them that doubt was a sin, that questioners were agents of corruption, and that their salvation—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual—was yours alone to grant. You did not lead a cult of personality; you engineered a cult of certainty, and you were its source."
The Presence paused, letting the accusation hang in the non-space. Adam considered it. The methodology sounded… efficient. Horrifying, to be sure, from an ethical standpoint he currently held, but undeniably efficient for mass influence. He felt no guilt—the emotional connection to that life was severed—only a detached intellectual recognition of the scale of manipulation.
"The karmic weight of such an existence is not measured in discrete acts of violence or theft," the Being said. "It is measured in the sum total of stunted growth, of freedoms surrendered, of lives bent away from their own potential and toward the monument of your ego. You severed hundreds, perhaps thousands, from their own karmic paths. That debt—that negative karma—clings to your soul-core like a metaphysical singularity. It is so dense, so massively corrupting to the natural cycle of rebirth, that it cannot be cleansed through standard penitential processes or balanced by minor virtuous acts in subsequent lives."
I see, Adam projected. So my soul is… spiritually radioactive. A contamination risk to the karmic ecosystem. What's the protocol for that? Eternal storage in this void? Dissolution?
"The protocol," the Being's concept-voice brooked no argument, is forced, directed reincarnation. The negative karma must be expended, neutralized through experience and action. You will be reborn into a world of conflict and struggle, where the metaphysical rules allow for the burning of such spiritual potential—both positive and negative—as fuel for growth, power, and change. You must choose the world."
A catalog, vast and bewildering, unfolded within Adam's awareness. Worlds of high magic, of ki and screaming energy blasts, of superheroes and cosmic horrors. He filtered them with ruthless efficiency. He needed a system with clear rules, a potential for high personal power, and enough inherent danger to provide the "struggle" the Being demanded. His attention snagged on one particular reality-stream: a world of mana, ascension, and asymmetric power dynamics, where individuals could grow from fragility to world-shaking strength. A world known in the cosmic catalog as TBATE (The Beginning After the End).
This one, Adam stated. The rules are defined. Growth is systematized, either through mana cores or aetheric manipulation. The conflict is existential, not petty. It is an efficient crucible.
"Acknowledged. Destination locked: TBATE primary continuity. However, the density of your negative karma has created… a unique circumstance. It has warped the standard reincarnation protocols. It functions not just as debt, but as potential energy. In simpler terms, your past life's sin has generated a form of metaphysical credit."
Adam's consciousness focused sharply. Credit?
"You may petition for boons. A sop to balance the immense difficulty of the path ahead. A chance to survive long enough to begin working off your debt. The requests must be made before integration; the karma will be spent to warp your nascent existence within the target world's probability field."
A negotiator to the last, Adam mused. He didn't ask for fairness or compassion. He asked for tools. And he planned his requests with the cold precision of a general preparing for a war he didn't start.
"State your petitions."
"First," Adam began, "a foundational talent for combat. Not a specific power, but the innate, biological potential for extreme physical development. I request the latent talent of Yoriichi Tsugikuni from the Demon Slayer continuum. The Transparent World, the Sun Breathing framework imprinted on the body's memory, the flawless kinetic sense. The potential to reach that apex of swordsmanship and physicality, should I train for it."
The Presence was silent for a moment. "A request for a template of ultimate mortal prowess, rather than immediate power. Granted. The karma will warp your new form's somatic and neurological blueprint to possess this latent pedigree."
"Second," Adam pressed on, "a versatile and potent offensive system. I request the Innate Cursed Technique of Ryomen Sukuna from the Jujutsu Kaisen continuum—specifically, the 'Cleave' and 'Dismantle' techniques, and the foundational knowledge of Jujutsu sorcery required to fuel and expand them. This includes the potential to develop a Domain Expansion, as that technique is an extension of the innate self. I understand Cursed Energy is not native to TBATE; the boon must adapt the framework to function using that world's internal energy systems, likely mana or aether."
A longer pause. The Void seemed to hum with calculation. "Complex. Integrating an external metaphysical combat system. Risky for world stability. However, the karmic expenditure is sufficient. Granted. The technique formulae will be engraved upon your soul. The energy conversion protocol will be established, though efficiency will depend on your own comprehension and the new world's laws."
"Third, a supplementary and defensive system. I request both of the Cursed Techniques possessed by the entity Dabura Karabas from the Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo continuum. All available data on their function and application. Two techniques for one petition."
The Presence almost seemed to sigh, a wave of weary cosmic acknowledgement. "Efficient. Exploiting a bundled entry in the catalog. The techniques 'light' and the unnamed secondary ability are granted, with implanted basic understanding. Their adaptation to the new environment will be parallel to the first technique."
"Finally," Adam said, his mental tone leaving no room for debate, "I require a system to quantify, track, and optimize all of this. I request the integration of a personalized 'Leveling System' interface. Not a foreign intelligence, but a reflection of my own soul's perception, parsing my growth, skill acquisition, and power development into quantifiable metrics. A heads-up display for my own existence, with objectives aligned with the expenditure of my karmic debt."
This time, the silence was profound. "You ask for a great deal, Adam Henry. A talent of a transcendent warrior, the technique of a King of Curses, the dual tools of an alien sorcerer, and a self-referential paradigm of gamified existence. The karmic cost is staggering. It will leave your soul burdened with a different kind of weight—the weight of extreme expectation and capability."
I am aware, Adam replied, nonchalant. A heavy tool is better than no tool at all. And expectation is a motivational construct. Do we have a deal?
The Presence did not answer directly. Instead, the Void began to churn. The ghostly image of the cult leader smiled one last time, a smile of terrifying benevolence, before dissolving into streams of dark, glittering energy—his negative karma, now being weaponized. Adam felt structures being carved into the fabric of his consciousness: the elegant, devastating formulae of Cleave and Dismantle, the strange, rhythmic patterns of light, the dense, alien logic of Dabura's second technique. His soul's blueprint was rewritten, muscles and nerves and brain architecture imbued with the ghost-memory of Sun Breathing and the Transparent World.
A final, brilliant schema etched itself behind his eyes: a clean, minimalist system interface, currently displaying only a single, flashing objective:
**PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: NEUTRALIZE KARMIC DEBT. PATH: INTEGRATION & ASCENSION.**
"The transaction is complete," the Being's voice echoed, growing distant. "Your tools are forged from your own past sins. Wield them. Struggle. Grow. Perhaps, in the crucible of that other world, you can burn away the shadow of the man who convinced hundreds to surrender their light. Your integration point is set. The journey of expenditure begins… now."
The Void collapsed. There was a sensation of violent, wrenching motion, of being poured through a funnel into an impossibly small point. Sensation returned—a crushing pressure, a fluid warmth, a rhythmic, thunderous sound.
A heartbeat. Not mine.
The last coherent thought Adam Henry had before consciousness fragmented into the primal instincts of a newborn was a simple, analytical observation.
Optimal insertion point. Prenatal. Maximum time for acclimation and latent development. The system is… efficient.
And in a warm, dark place in a world of magic and beasts, a child yet unborn drew its first, shuddering breath of mana-tinged amniotic fluid, its soul now a complex lattice of stolen talents, cursed techniques, and a single, relentless purpose.
He had arrived.