The New Reflection
The battle was over.
The thing in the void—the being that should not have existed—was gone.
Not dead. Not banished.
Unmade.
And yet, I didn't feel like I had won.
The golden energy still pulsed beneath my skin, burning faintly, thrumming with a presence that hadn't been there before. The weight of the System, the new System, pressed against my thoughts, threading itself through my mind like it had always been there, waiting.
I wasn't the same.
The woman watched me carefully, her stance tense, as if she was looking at something unfamiliar. Maybe she was.
Maybe I was.
I exhaled slowly, turning away. The battlefield—the shattered fragments of existence that had formed during our fight—was gone. In its place, the world had reassembled itself, falling back into some kind of stability.
But I knew the truth.
It wasn't the same world anymore.
I had rewritten everything.
The sky stretched out above me, no longer fractured, no longer bleeding strange colors through the seams of reality. The golden veins that had once run through the chamber had faded, leaving only a silence that felt heavier than before.
The woman took a step closer. "Josh."
I turned to her.
She didn't speak immediately. She just studied me, like she was searching for something.
And then, finally, she asked, "What did you do to yourself?"
I didn't have an answer.
Because I didn't know.
I looked down at my hands, flexing my fingers. The golden light still flickered beneath my skin, but there was no pain. No discomfort.
Just power.
Not the raw, unrestrained chaos I had wielded in the battle. Something deeper. Something that felt woven into me.
The thought unsettled me.
I needed a moment. A second to breathe.
Without a word, I turned away, my steps slow but steady. The woman didn't stop me.
I walked through the remnants of the battlefield, past the rocks and ruins, past the sands that had long since swallowed the old world beneath them.
And then, I saw it.
A pool of water.
It sat nestled between the dunes, still and silent, untouched by the chaos that had just unfolded.
I stepped toward it, each movement feeling heavier than it should.
Something in me knew—I wasn't ready for what I was about to see.
But I had to look.
I knelt by the edge, the sand shifting beneath my weight. The water was dark, but smooth, untouched.
I hesitated.
Then, slowly, I leaned forward—
And saw myself.
For a second, I couldn't process it.
The face looking back at me—it was mine.
But it wasn't.
My hair, once dark, was now blonde. Not a natural color, not something that belonged in this world.
Pure, shimmering gold.
And my eyes—
I inhaled sharply.
They weren't human.
They glowed, burning with a light that wasn't just reflected from the sky. It came from within.
Golden irises, shifting like liquid metal, staring back at me with an intensity that didn't feel like my own.
And my skin—
Veins of golden light ran beneath the surface, faint but unmistakable, threaded through my arms, my neck, even my face.
It wasn't a wound.
It wasn't a mark.
It was part of me.
Like the System itself had left its signature inside my body.
I pulled back from the water, my breath sharp.
The reflection stayed.
I clenched my fists, my mind racing.
I wasn't human anymore.
Not fully.
Not after what I had done.
The System hadn't just changed me.
It had rewritten me.
A wave of exhaustion washed over me.
It hit without warning—one second, I was steady, my thoughts racing, my body thrumming with energy.
The next—
Everything blurred.
The edges of my vision darkened, the golden veins pulsing brighter for a brief, sharp moment—
Then, my body gave out.
I barely felt myself hit the sand.
The sky above me blurred, the world tilting, my thoughts drifting.
I was falling.
Not just into unconsciousness.
Into something else.
A dream.
No—a memory.
Not mine.
Not anyone's.
Something older.
Something buried in the very foundation of the System itself.
I tried to move.
Tried to wake up.
But the golden light pulled me deeper.
And then—
I was somewhere else.