dark_shi

After the world fell, only ruins remained.

Liam Drex was born in the ashes—just another scavenger trying to survive in a wasteland haunted by shadows, silence, and stories of a forgotten god-machine.

Then he found it.

Buried beneath rust and time, the Eternity Engine—the last remnant of an ancient system—chose him. A train that travels not across land, but across realms, pulling its Passenger through trials designed to kill, evolve, or consume.

Each station is a different reality. Each trial peels away his humanity. But the deeper Liam rides, the more the train remembers him.

He’s not just a survivor.

He might be the reason it all ended.

Now bound to the system, hunted by monstrous shades, and haunted by a past even he can’t remember, Liam must climb—realm by realm—into the truth behind the apocalypse… and decide whether to reclaim the world or destroy what remains.

Eclipse Reclaimer: The Infinite Ascent

Liam's scream was silent, his body suspended midair, threads of code pulling him apart and stitching him back together in a single breath. He wasn't standing on the floor anymore—he was the floor, the walls, the lights. He was inside the train's source code.

In one blink, he was a child watching the Tower rise from the ground. In the next, he was older—working with Viera, arguing over protocols, laughing in the server halls, building the Eclipse.

And then—fire. Ash. The world falling. Viera crying. The decision to lock themselves inside the one machine that might survive.

Liam's vision cleared. The Phantom Carriage was gone.

He now stood in a train car made entirely of light and memory. Glowing blue walls formed as he moved. Viera stood across from him—flickering, her face clean on one side and torn code on the other.

"You finally remembered," she whispered.

"Not all of it," Liam replied, barely breathing. "Why did you let me forget?"

"Because guilt burns deeper than logic," she said softly. "You couldn't bear what we did. So you rewrote yourself."

Neith's voice came faintly from behind, muffled by layers of data. "Liam… where are you?"

Viera turned. "The system's still purging the anomaly threads. If you want to save them—the passengers, the real ones—you have to stop the train from completing the loop."

She pointed beyond the carriage. Through a warped window, Liam saw it: a glowing rail stretching into darkness. And at the end, a black sphere—the Zero Core.

"The route you opened leads there. But so does the reset."

Viera stepped closer, placing a hand on his chest. "If you go, you won't come back as just Liam."

He met her eyes. "Then I'll come back as the Reclaimer."

Chapter 23: Route Zero Reborn