Chapter 1: Echoes of a Forgotten Name

A cradle creaked faintly in the silence of a dim, sterile chamber. The walls, smooth and metallic, emitted a faint bluish hue from embedded photoluminescent strips.

In the center of the room, nestled within a transparent safety pod, lay a baby no older than a few months.

His silver hair, tousled like early frost, glimmered under the overhead light.

His eyes—startlingly sharp and still—did not match the helplessness of his form. They were aware. Calculating. Watching.

A translucent screen hovered silently in the air above his crib, its flickering digital light casting pale lines across his face.

Name: Zenith

Age: 0 (3 months)

Race: Aetherian

Cultivation Level: None

Soulfire Core Grade: Unknown

Vital Status: Stable

System Sync Rate: 3%

Arthur Ragnar—once called "Zenith" by millions—blinked slowly at the screen.

So it's real, he thought. I really did die.

His tiny hands couldn't clench, but the cold clarity of his adult mind, preserved beneath the infant flesh, was as vivid as the day he fell.

He exhaled, a soft puff. To any observer, just a baby's breath.

"You're probably wondering how I ended up like this," his mind said with a faint trace of amusement. "Fair enough. Let's start from the beginning."

2254 | Planet: Blue Star

The warm orange glow of the setting sun spilled across a luxurious bedroom, cluttered with game consoles, trophy shelves, and tech clutter worth more than most families made in a month.

A boy sat in the center of the mess, sprawled on a recliner, his hands locked around a retro-style game controller.

"Come on… just one more combo—yes!" the boy shouted, eyes gleaming. "Another win!"

He was twelve. Name: Arthur Marlowe. Identity: son of CEO Frederick Marlowe, heir of one of the top AI-integrated tech firms.

"Arthur's first name is same in both his previous and new life except his surname."

His room was a kingdom of flashing lights, hyper-console rigs, and more digital trophies than most kids earned in a lifetime.

Yet beneath the spoiled layers, there was something sharper. Arthur wasn't just good at games. He understood them.

He rewrote AI opponent logic for fun. He broke open closed beta testing barriers before most companies had secured their servers.

He was a genius.

And for a while, life was perfect.

2256 | The Fall

It started with a scandal. Quiet rumors at first. Whispers about missing investments, offshore fund siphons, executive embezzlement. Arthur's father dismissed them with practiced smiles.

Then came the court orders. The freezing of company assets. Overnight, headlines exploded: "Marlowe Corp Collapses: Director Betrayal Uncovered."

Frederick Marlowe never saw it coming. His trust had been his undoing. The directors and financial heads he'd once called friends had hollowed the company from within.

In less than three months, the whole Marlowe family went from living in a high-rise smart palace to relocating into a cramped fifth-floor apartment in a building that still used manual door locks.

Arthur, now fifteen, sat on a threadbare mattress, staring at the absence of screens, of controllers, of light. He hadn't spoken all day.

His once endless shelf of toys had been sold for debt payments. His VR consoles auctioned. His private school expelled him for unpaid tuition.

And then, one morning, he found his father hanging by his own belt in the shower stall.

Arthur didn't cry. He didn't scream. He sat beside the door until his mother returned from the pharmacy.

Her knees buckled before she reached the threshold.

2257–2261 | Withdrawal and Rebirth

His mother, always soft-spoken and graceful, hardened like folded steel.

She took three part-time jobs—convenience store clerk, waiter in a small restaurant, and weekend cleaner for public toilets.

Her health declined, but she never spoke a word of it.

Arthur, now forced into a local public school, cut all ties to his past. No games. No socializing. He buried himself in study.

Mathematics. Systems engineering. AI theory. Neural coding.

The once-spoiled boy became a machine—sleeping four hours a night, memorizing entire manuals in a week.

By age seventeen, he had earned a full scholarship to the National Tech University.

The boy who had lost everything was now on track to rebuild it all.

2265 | Degree and Duty

He graduated with distinction—top of his class in artificial systems control and neural AI interface engineering. Companies still preferred AI-over-human employment, but he was too capable to ignore.

Then came the call.

Compulsory Military Enrollment.

Like all young citizens of Blue Star, Arthur was bound by law to serve three years. Most faked psychological disqualifications or bought exemptions. Arthur didn't.

He welcomed it.

2266–2268 | Special Operations

Arthur's intelligence and ruthlessness bloomed in the battlefield.

Within six months, he was recruited into a classified special operations unit. Anti-terror. Anti-cyber insurgency. Deep-state cleanups.

He completed seven black missions, leading small units into suicide-level scenarios—and returning victorious every time.

He wasn't the strongest. But he was always ten steps ahead.

His enemies called him a ghost. His unit called him "Overseer."

But amidst the chaos, letters from home dwindled.

His mother, long exhausted and sick, had hidden her decline.

One day, during an infiltration mission into an off-grid bioterror facility, Arthur received a secure message:

"Mother passed. Funeral arranged. Orders: complete current operation."

No tears. No emotion. Just the cold slap of loss that numbed every nerve he had left.

He didn't speak for days after.

When he returned, there was no grave to visit. The military had handled everything. Burned the body. Sealed the file.

2268 | The Leave

"Arthur Marlowe," the commanding officer said, standing with hands behind his back. "Your duty is complete. Discharge granted with honors. You're free to go."

Arthur saluted, slow and perfect.

As he walked down the steel corridor of the underground base, he didn't feel relief. Or pride. Or grief.

Just… nothing.

He stepped out into a cold rain, the first he'd felt in three years.

No home. No family. No purpose.

And so began the final chapter of his first life.

To be continued…