The Nova Reaper froze, as if recalculating the impossible. For the first time, its movements faltered—not by design, not as a calculated adjustment, but as hesitation. The System had sent it as an executioner, a force beyond resistance. Yet now, it had to adapt. And I would not give it the chance. I lunged forward. It was not movement in …

The moment I consumed the light, the universe responded. I had taken something I should not have. Not dust, not debris, not a shattered remnant of a long-dead world—something else. Something woven into the very laws that governed existence. The System had sent that light. And now, it had sent its executioner. A pulse of crimson energy seared through the …

Darkness. At first, there was only the absence of sensation—a void so absolute that even the concept of time seemed distant. No breath, no heartbeat, no body. Nothing. Then, a ripple. Something shifted in the nothingness. A slow awareness crept into my being, like a whisper against the void. At first, it was faint, a mere suggestion of existence pressing …