Valkyrie's consciousness never registered the cold, metallic notification. Unknowingly, her very essence began transforming, veering toward an uncontrollable future.
The nuclear fire's radiation and explosive force served as catalysts for this change. No one could predict whether the transformation would yield beneficial results - not even the mysterious entity that had established sync connections with her could foresee the outcome.
Outside, the explosion erased the city from existence. Light erupted like a second sun, its brilliance absolute and silent as the destruction radiated outward from ground zero.
At the epicenter, temperatures soared millions of degrees hotter than the sun's surface. Everything vaporized instantly - people, living creatures, buildings, infrastructure - even concrete couldn't withstand the annihilation. Valkyrie's physical form was no exception, utterly consumed by the overwhelming pressure and heat.
The earth itself trembled as enormous dust clouds billowed upward. Structures collapsed methodically, disintegrating into fragments. The shockwave radiated outward with titanic force, reducing all obstacles in its path to nothingness. From above, a perfect circular wave of destruction expanded, hurling debris before it. Nothing remained standing against this apocalyptic force.
Those who had refused to evacuate - both civilians and defenders - particularly those who recognized the significance of that momentary miniature sun, could only watch in horror as doom approached. Their hearts ached with the unbearable weight of this outcome.
Why? How had the conflict escalated to this catastrophic breaking point?
The nuclear superpower had bullied a defenseless nation - one without atomic weapons of its own. How dare they feign outrage when the world condemned their actions?
Then - nothing.
Consciousness fled as urban structures shattered around them. Some fell unconscious; others perished instantly beneath collapsing buildings.
Yet against all odds, survival rates beyond ground zero exceeded fifty percent - though those who lived would bear terrible wounds.
Further from the blast's heart, panicked survivors recoiled from the approaching thermal wave. They suffered only superficial burns, whispering frantic theories about their narrow escape even as the heat licked at their skin.
But their relief was premature. These were modern people - they understood nuclear horrors didn't end with the initial blast. The true nightmare would come later, in the form of radiation sickness and genetic corruption. Who might develop grotesque mutations? Who would slowly waste away from incurable diseases?
Strangely, the tactical warhead that detonated near Valkyrie left no radioactive trace. No gamma signatures. No isotopic contamination. Only the devastating thermal pulse and shockwave remained, having flattened walls, shattered streets, and reduced all combustibles to ash.
At the other two detonation sites, something inexplicable occurred - radiation levels plummeted as if siphoned toward Valkyrie's last known position. Without proper sensors, no one could confirm this anomaly.
Perhaps satellites would detect the aberration later, sparking fierce debates among scientists. Perhaps classified reports would circulate in shadowed government offices.
But one truth stood undeniable:
The full mystery would never come to light.
At least, more people survived and there wasn't a need to treat radioactive disaster and take care of the aftermath with a poor economy of a small nation during wartime.
…
Meanwhile, the destruction and its aftermath faded into irrelevance for our protagonist. Valkyrie's soul tore through the void, flashing across unknowable spaces as it breached dimensional boundaries with terrifying force.
Like a cosmic sponge, she absorbed every energy source encountered - dark matter, stellar drives, and other incomprehensible fuels. A kaleidoscope of colored lights streaked past her perception as her consciousness stirred from its daze.
She blinked in disbelief at her surroundings - or tried to. The realization struck: she had no eyes to rub, no limbs to move. Just awareness. Pure consciousness.
Ah, yes. She'd died.
These flashing lights and weightless sensations must be either her awakening... or proof that her consciousness had grown inexplicably potent. Valkyrie vaguely recalled electronic whispers in her final moments - was this some deathbed hallucination? A final neural fireworks display?
Yet she remembered nothing concrete. Only this endless voyage among the stars. How peculiar. The universe's breathtaking grandeur made humanity's struggles seem laughably insignificant.
Her entire perspective had shifted. Adapting would take time. These weren't visions from eyes, but direct perceptions of consciousness itself - an energy sphere taking a leisurely stroll through the cosmos.
Without landmarks or endpoints, time became meaningless. Valkyrie's initial panic gave way to calm. She rolled nonexistent eyes at death's irony. She'd expected eternal rest, not this... sightseeing tour.
At first, the celestial wonders captivated her. But even infinity's marvels grow tedious when viewed in endless repetition. Especially when moving at such impossible speeds that no spectacle lasted more than an instant.
Alas, the final journey was very fulfilling to say the least. She didn't know if others who had died went through the same journey. What about the victims who received the same fate as her?
Then, her vision brightened. A bright white light flashed blinding everything. She couldn't see, or hear but it was warm. A pause.
There was no heartbeat. No breath. No weight. No time.
She existed in the negative space between all things. Not dead. Not alive. Well, not the experience everyone faced.
Just suspended, like a thought waiting to be completed.
She knew she was dead but what fusses lied ahead again. She was getting impatient to take a rest.
Color returned first. Not shapes. Not light. Just a blue so deep it bordered on black. The kind of blue you'd see staring up from the bottom of the ocean, except here it bled in reverse. It came from inside her.
Then came sound: a low, pulsing hum. Not mechanical. Not organic. Something stranger. Like a massive machine breathing through a mountain.
Elara Volkova.
Her real name. Not the code she used during operations, nor the pseudonym she came up to hide her identity.
Her job revolved around secrecy so much that she also had to hide from her partners.
This time, she felt like returning to her original skin, devoid of deception. Only the truth.
A rush of data rippled through her. Muscle memory kicked in without muscle. Language without voice. Combat instincts, cold as steel, sharp alertness, lining up like files along a neural lattice that hadn't fully reformed.
Even without a physical form, Elara felt her composure returning—her metaphorical "hormones" stabilizing after the initial shock of cosmic wonders. The numb lethargy faded as she mentally straightened herself. One realization crystallized: this journey wasn't natural. Someone, or something, had intervened.
This was no afterlife construct—neither heaven's pearly gates nor hell's fire pits could engineer such precise marvels. Combined with that final metallic voice she'd heard before death, Elara pieced together her probable situation.
Though a hardened soldier, she'd indulged in online novels during rare moments of respite, often losing herself in transmigration stories to escape battlefield stress. Off-duty, fiction had been her refuge—she'd loved imagining herself as protagonists facing fantastical trials.
Yet she wasn't naïve enough to assume this meant good fortune. If this was indeed transmigration, and if that electronic voice indicated some "system," the odds favored danger over benefit. Her Spetsnaz instincts flared back to full alert.
With nothing left to passively observe, she decided to take action. If this entity wanted her attention, she'd meet it head-on.
"Show yourself," her consciousness demanded into the void. "What do you want from me?"
No answer.
"Hey! Who are you?" Elara's consciousness vibrated through the void. "Why bring me here? Am I not dead?" She instinctively willed movement—phantom limbs responded like liquid shadow, yet no physical form materialized. The disorientation spiked again; existing as pure awareness defied all combat-honed instincts.
Only pressure anchored her now. A disembodied sense of self, adrift between states. Again it was hard to become accustomed to her state all of a sudden.
[Neural integrity stabilizing…57%…65%]
The voice sliced through her thoughts—genderless, synthetic, yet eerily familiar. Not an external presence, but something woven into her very being.
[Organic signature confirmed. Subject: Volkova, Elara.]
[Status: Pericritical absorption. Quantum interface viable.]
[Query response: You are not dead. You are being integrated. The statistical improbability of this event, owing to numerous coincidences is—]
"So I'm alive!" Elara's relief flared, sharp as gunpowder. "When do I go back? And what are you—some 'system'?"
[Negation: Return is impossible.] The electronic tone flatlined. [Exposure threshold exceeded. Mutation vector stabilized. Spatiotemporal binding complete. Welcome to the Crisis Response System.]
"Hey…Hey…Hey…Wait—!" Fury spiked through her spectral form. "I never agreed to this! You can't just—"
A metaphysical snap cut her off. The binding was already sealed. Elara stood still, speechless.
Elara had been mentally strategizing—planning chess moves to secure leverage for future negotiations with this so-called "system." She'd spent her life serving a tyrannical regime; she had no intention of becoming another entity's slave. If forced to choose between endless servitude and oblivion, she'd take the void without hesitation.
In life, true freedom had been an illusion. But in death—in those final moments as the nuclear fire consumed her—she'd tasted it. Her mind's rapid playback of memories had shown her what liberation felt like, however briefly.
Now, it seemed, she'd merely traded one master for another.
The system—CRS, whatever it was—must have noticed her spiraling thoughts. A shift rippled through her vision. The endless blue retreated, replaced by a sprawling lattice of geometric light. Algorithms made tangible, pulsing with purpose.
Before her hovered a construct: a sphere encased in rotating hexagons, each etched with glyphs from languages she'd never seen yet instinctively understood. A thin strand of energy connected her to it, and through that link, knowledge flowed—
This was no afterlife.
This was a machine forged by intelligences beyond her world's comprehension. A system designed to detect collapse, predict crises, and enact solutions across realities.
And she—whether she liked it or not—was now part of its protocol.
Elara's emotions churned like a storm. The CRS's clinical summary of its purpose—though brutally overbearing—had struck a chord within her. Reluctant as she was to become another's instrument, serving this Crisis Response System didn't seem entirely reprehensible.
To save humanity across worlds. To stand as a guardian against collapse. No political agendas, no racial divides—just pure, unfettered purpose. The concept overwhelmed her soldier's heart. Though her role remained unclear, she couldn't deny the dark allure of such redemption.
Once, she'd joined the military to survive, then to protect. Somewhere along the bloodstained path, that innocence had hardened into numb efficiency. Now, paradoxically, this unfeeling machine offered her the purity of purpose she'd lost long ago—a chance to truly shelter others from the darkness.
"You still haven't explained why I can't return," Elara demanded, though she already knew the answer. Even as she championed freedom, the primal urge for survival burned undiminished. That stubborn flame had carried her through countless battles—why should death extinguish it now?
[Your physical form was vaporized. The spatial anomalies from multiple nuclear detonations, combining with some collapses related to your world event as well as our dire situation have erased your world's quantum signature from our network.]
"What do you mean by the latter sentence? I don't understand."
[Clarification for layman's term—[Simplified Explanation: Current energy reserves insufficient for interdimensional transfer. Anchor signal lost. Even with future energy solutions, less than five percent chance of relocating your native universe unless miracle occurs.]
"What does that mean for them? For my world?" Her voice barely concealed the ache. "Will they tear themselves apart in nuclear winter?"
[Analysis projection: 89.7% probability of global societal collapse within 18 months. Without intervention or in the absence of variables—]
"I see." The words tasted like ashes. For the first time since her death, true grief gripped her—not for herself, but for the billions who would never know why their sky had burned.
She dared not ask. Maybe, she already knew the answer. Then, the soldier reasserted herself. If she couldn't save her world, perhaps others might still be spared a similar fate.
"What exactly am I bound to do in this... system?"
The hexagonal glyphs pulsed faster, as if anticipating her question. Before, System responded, Elara spoke.
"Nevermind, I kinda get it….*sigh*…Fine. What's my role in this... cosmic janitor service?"
She wasn't kidding because since this system was unable to prevent the crisis in her universe, perhaps the solution was to treat the aftermath and contain the danger.
The hexagons whirled faster, luminescence intensifying—
—Then the System delivered its bombshell.
To her surprise, system's further reply created relief and joy.
[Correction: Your premise is flawed. Your world persists precisely because of your current integration. Full explanation pending. Previous analysis modeled scenarios excluding your present quantum state and the three weird tactical detonations.]
Elara's consciousness flickered like a destabilizing hologram. "Wait. So my... death actually saved them?" A jagged laugh escaped her. "Turns out I'm the hero after all. Just not the breathing kind…hmm…wait, weird?"
[Query: Do you consent to binding and cooperation in preservation of sentient life?]
Elara scoffed. "Didn't you already hijack me without asking?"
[Clarification: System operates at 99.98% efficiency. Wasted resources cannot be tolerated. Identity conflicts require immediate resolution.]
A phantom chill ran through her non-existent spine. "And if I say no now?"
[Contingency: CRS will initiate self-termination due to critical resource depletion. Voluntary participation is optimal solution.]
"Voluntary?" She nearly laughed. "You mean after kidnapping me, you'll just... shut down?"
[Addendum: Should forcibly recruited personnel refuse cooperation, system will release consciousness to original state prior to integration.]
A beat of silence.
"You mean death."
[Affirmative: You would resume decomposition process interrupted at moment of nuclear detonation.]
Despite lacking lungs, Elara felt breath catch. The System's clinical tone made the threat more terrifying than any shouted ultimatum. Nobody fancied death in spite of what she seemed to behave toward.
"I agree," Elara finally relented. Between death and hopes of continuation, she wasn't stupid.
What's more, there must be many mysteries left to unveil personally in the future! Her strong intuition rallied consent to bindings that she would never regret her choice.