My name is Jin Ryushin.
What am I? Honestly, I'm not sure.
But I can safely say I'm no mortal, no god. I'm just… me. And that's enough.
From the very first memory I have, I existed inside a dimension of my own. Not "tiny" as in cramped—but limited. My home was a castle with a garden, and shelves upon shelves of books. Books on science, magic, time, void, swords, quantum soup—you name it, I read it.
That was my world.
And for a long while, it was enough. I devoured knowledge, sharpened my strength, and tested the boundaries of what I could do. Strong enough to punch a black hole into a white dwarf and call it "exercise."
But I wasn't entirely alone in there.
I had Omni.
When I first found it, it looked like some kind of black-and-white liquid, hovering in the air, rippling as if it were alive. The moment I got close, it leapt at me. Sunk into me.
I panicked. For a moment, I thought it was eating me alive. But then something clicked. A connection. Suddenly, I just… knew what it was.
Omni was a weapon. A strange one. It could shift into any form I desired. Armor. Tools. Weapons. A staff was my usual pick—it felt elegant, dramatic, and good for smacking things.
But Omni had more to it. It could split itself, separating abilities into different forms. It wasn't alive—not really—but it had a presence, a will, something. The more I tested it, the more I realized just how versatile it was. And I loved it.
Still, even with books and Omni, my world grew dull. Every story I read made me want more. Real adventure. Real people. Real chaos.
Today, I wanted to see those worlds.
There was a part of the castle I'd never entered. It radiated a strange feeling I couldn't describe, a pull and a warning all at once. But if I wanted to reach another world, that was where I had to go.
So I ventured in.
The deeper I went, the stronger the feeling became. And there it was: the gate. The portal. The source of that strange presence.
Nevertheless, I had to activate it if I wanted to step into other worlds.
The moment I did, everything began to break down.
Cracks spread through the walls. Light bled from the ceiling. My home, the only place I'd ever known, started to unravel like a dream dissolving at dawn.
And then it happened.
The whole dimension became light. Pure, unfiltered light — not heat, not color, just presence. It wrapped itself around me. Around my forehead.
A halo.
Thin. Radiant. White-silver. Floating, unattached.
And then it changed.
The circle bent and sharpened, solidifying into something like a crown. Pure white, gleaming with shifting radiance, its edges tapering into sleek angular points. At its center hovered a diamond-shaped emblem, suspended inside an angular diamond-shaped frame. The outer frame flared outward into jagged, spear-like tips, while the inner diamond pulsed like a black star, outlined in silver fire.
It shouldn't have been possible. The pieces weren't connected—yet they held together, orbiting in perfect symmetry, as if bound by an invisible force.
The oval band encircled me, floating above my forehead, not touching but perfectly aligned—as though it had claimed its rightful place. Not worn. Not resting. Orbiting me like a silent guardian, humming faintly with power I couldn't understand.
The next moment, everything went black.
[The Pic - Will upload at a later date. I still need to improve the art before I can publish it]
When I came to, I was somewhere else.
What I saw was indescribable, but I recognized it from the books I'd read: the space between dimensions. A void without time, without direction.
I felt… heavy. My senses dulled. My strength muted. And above my forehead, the halo still floated. I could feel it now — not just glowing, but limiting me. Why? I didn't know. Maybe there was a reason my home had turned into this halo. Maybe it wasn't harming me at all, but holding something back.
I decided to think about it later.
Right now, there was only one thought in my mind:
I was finally free.
The vast world outside — countless worlds, countless stories. I wondered which one I would arrive in first.