Prologue: Reality

Michael knelt, his breath ragged, blood seeping between his fingers as he clutched the sword buried deep in his chest. Pain threatened to pull him under, but he forced himself to stay upright. His enemy—towering, grinning, and monstrous—watched with amusement. The demon general was wounded too, gashes torn across its dark flesh, yet it stood unaffected. Demons felt no pain.

Michael's grip tightened on the shattered remains of his greatsword. His vision wavered. His wife's face surfaced in his mind—soft, smiling, forever out of reach. He longed to see her again. And he would. But not yet.

Not until this thing was dead.

With a deep, shuddering breath, he drew upon the last of his strength. His body screamed in protest, but he silenced it. There was only one attack left in him. One final strike.

Greatsword Arts: Cosmic Annihilation.

The broken blade flared to life, golden light coursing along its jagged edge. He had always despised this technique. It demanded too much. But if he was going down, he was damn well taking the demon with him.

The demon lunged, closing the distance in a heartbeat. Exactly as Michael had hoped. He bared his teeth in a bloodstained grin.

Gotcha.

With a savage yank, he tore the embedded sword free from his chest, spinning in a last, desperate motion. The blade carved through the demon's thick neck—hot, dark blood splattered across him as the monstrous head hit the ground with a dull thud.

Michael staggered, the world tilting. His strength gave out, and he collapsed. His vision blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges.

A whisper left his lips, barely audible over the dying wind.

"Maydee... I'm coming home."

—

Genovia, Acacia Tales AI, finally shelved Michael's data. He had served his purpose. It's time for the players to clash with the demons.

Unemotionally, Genovia initiated the deletion.

—

As Michael's data was being erased, an anomaly occurred—an infinitesimal primordial black hole, drifting unseen through space, happened to intersect with the game's servers. In an instant, Acacia Tales, the virtual reality game that had dominated the industry for twenty years, was reduced to chaos. Corruption spread like wildfire, erasing decades of progress, shattering millions of accounts.

Nobody knew what had happened.

But something remarkable did.

Michael's data, against all odds, remained intact. Not only that—it was flung beyond the digital void, beyond the known universe itself. It resurfaced in a world unlike any other—an advanced civilization where human cloning and genetic manipulation were as routine as breathing.

Deep within a sterile laboratory, an artificial intelligence detected the rogue data stream. The algorithms processed it, adapting, reconstructing.

Initializing...

Data corrupted...

Attempting repair...

Repair successful!

A series of mechanical arms whirred to life. A bio-printer, controlled by the AI, locked onto the reconstructed data. Cells multiplied, tissues formed, the blueprint of a body taking shape.

Printing will now commence...

Estimated Time: 39:59:59

The countdown began. A new life was about to be born.