My eyes opened to a strange landscape. The air felt different heavier, unnatural.
I scanned the terrain, disoriented.
Slowly, senses knitting back together, I looked up at the sky.
"Strange… there's no sun."
I didn't panic. My mind was calm colder than ever. I ran a quick diagnostic, analyzing my body and situation.
"My last memory… was eating the World-Devouring Whale."
I pressed a hand to my stomach. The hunger was gone.
Or was it?
Suddenly a tidal wave of memories slammed into me.
"What is this?!"
I staggered, slamming my hand against the wall and clutching my skull as pain lanced through me.
I drew deep, steady breaths.
"Now I see why I don't remember this place…"
Then I laughed—mad, unhinged.
"I've been reborn! What's next? Fairy tears and eternal youth?"
"What a cliché," I muttered, sardonic.
The memories were real.
I sifted through the fragments.
This body belonged to a twenty-two-year-old named Dax Godfall.
A cruel irony: same name, same face—yet no strength, no talent, not even a flicker of mana or aura.
He was weak. A regular human born into one of the Empire's most powerful clans—the heir by name, not by merit.
Disrespected. Bullied. Ignored.
Even his uncles voiced discontent over his "uselessness." Cousins sneered—some with disdain, others with envy.
His father, the clan head and a powerhouse in the Bertha Empire, had never once looked him in the eyes.
And yet in the memories I sensed something else—guilt. Not disappointment. Something heavier, as if his father blamed himself for the boy's frailty.
The only constant was a tiny green lizard that clung to Dax's shoulder. Loyal. Quiet.
That sense of irrelevance consumed him. Ashamed, he left the Godfall Clan, seeking a silent, forgettable life.
But the world wasn't finished punishing him.
On the road to a neighboring town, his carriage was dragged into a grotesque realm. A dungeon? A prison? No one knew. The sky bled monsters.
One by one, his companions died. The only survivor was a beautiful woman—who vanished upon arrival.
Alone. Powerless. He clung to Tina—the lizard—for sanity.
Every night he curled up and begged the stars for strength.
Days later, a basilisk found him—chased him, cornered him.
On a cliff's edge, trembling, he whispered—
"If I'm going to die, let it be on my terms."
And he jumped.
No memories after that. No flashes of his past life—just regret.
—
When the memory ended, all I felt was **disgust**.
"Weakling."
"You weren't weak because you lacked power. You were weak because you lacked **will**."
You welcomed death. You accepted failure.
**Pathetic.**
A foreign despair clung to me—thick, almost living.
But I wasn't him.
"You were broken. But I… I once touched the stars. I was the No.1 Gene Researcher of the Helen sector. A Dual-Trait Wielder…. The world will know and testify."
A figure shimmered before me, a translucent version of myself refined, otherworldly. Skin pale like stardust, eyes sharp and knowing.
He smiled like an old friend, then dissolved into drifting blue particles.
"Just watch us rise from afar," I murmured.
---
**Ding! Ding!**
Huh?
Impossible.
> \[SYSTEM BOOT COMPLETE]
> \[WELCOME TO EPOCH.]
"Inerous?!"
> *Welcome, Master.*
"…How are you here?"
Inerous was my creation—a digital construct bound to my neural net.
But transmigration was soul-bound. She shouldn't be here.
> \[This is thanks to your Traits.]
Suddenly my mind flooded with data—raw, alien fragments flashing across my vision.
I fell into memory again.
I saw myself floating in space, drenched in the blood of the World-Devouring Whale. Red mist shimmered with starlight, cloaking me like a veil.
I was unrecognizable: a celestial abomination—part man, part void.
Then the black flames came—my first Trait: **Insatiable Hunger.**
It granted infinite physical evolution...
At a cost.
**Flesh.**
To survive I had to consume.
I became the **Galactic Demon**, feared across the Endless Stars. But with every evolution my hunger deepened.
Eventually it turned inward. I began to devour myself.
I sought a cure.
I hunted the World-Devouring Whale, planning to absorb it and use my second Trait **Synthesis** to fuse its Absorption System into mine.
It worked.
Until it didn't.
As I digested the beast, a black spiral formed within me.
A **black hole**.
Gravity collapsed.
I drifted, powerless and motionless, watching entire planets, stars, and moons vanish into my core. Only my face remained exposed.
Then—
Silver flames burst forth, purging the collapse.
The spiral stopped.
**Poof.**
I exploded into stardust.
"That was Synthesis... but I never activated it."
**Because of synthesis I'm now fused to your soul.**
"I see..."
> **Status.**
> \[STATUS]
> Name: Dax Godfall
> Race: Human
> Bloodline: None
> Traits: *Insatiable Hunger (Locked)*, *Synthesis*
> **Attributes:**
> Strength: 5
> Intelligence: 2
> Mana: 0
> Aura: 0
> Agility: 3
> Physique: 1
> Dexterity: 1
> Luck: -1
I stared at the screen.
"Negative luck?"
No wonder his life had been cursed.
"I have to move."
"Storage," I muttered.
The world dissolved.
I reappeared in a boundless space—ten thousand cubic meters of perfect stillness.
The floor was a flawless black mirror. Each step sent ripple echoes through the void.
At the far end, something waited.
A blade.
Resting gently atop the glass.
Reality bent around it.
My heart skipped.
"You... followed me?"
The crimson katana shimmered faintly, alive.
**Cil.**
My first creation. My greatest companion. A living weapon forged from my DNA and cosmic alloys.
I knelt and brushed my fingers across its edge.
"You're drained…"
The steel quivered.
"We'll reach the pinnacle again."
Cil pulsed once—like a heartbeat.
—
Returning to reality, my mind was only fixed on one goal, and that was strength.
It was essential.
I found a quiet corner and sat cross-legged.
"I still have my Traits... I'm not completely useless."
I began to circulate power.
It was hard. This body had no cultivation technique, no foundation.
Still, I pushed.
Black and silver flames burst from my skin—spiraling in perfect arcs. A halo formed above me, split in two: one side black, the other silver.
The sensation was familiar.
I smiled.
"Good. My mastery remains."
That could only mean one thing—
My Traits were still at the level of a Trait Emperor.