Earth was a lost cause… to some planets such as the Vak'Toruun the integration to the Astryx dominion was considered their salvation, to others the apocalypse, unfortunately Earth was among the latter. Earth was already disunited before the apocalypse started but grew even more so after, the roughly 200 nations of earth fractured into factions that could be numbered in the thousands. The fractured earth was a huge serendipity to the guilds, sects, coalitions, factions and powerful individuals of the Astryx Dominion who quickly conquered, subjugated and enslaved the small blue world.
"Don't you understand what you've done, you've left Earth to die!" A tall man with purple eyes wearing black armour shouted at the warriors flying above him, behind him laid the empty barren town, the Endreach .
"Earth is done for! we shouldn't have clung onto it for so long it simply wasn't prepared for this sort of thing." one of the warriors shouted from above.
"Even so! Wasn't it worth fighting for! Wasn't it worth fighting for the freedom of our families for our own freedom! For the freedom of our children. Wasn't it worth fighting side by side with people who would gladly die for you? Wasn't it worth fighting for a selfless noble cause. Where you're going you won't have that you will be fighting for nobody but for yours and others selfish desires!" The purple-eyed man shouted.
"No it wasn't, Lars! because we couldn't protect ANY of it, it's all gone, our families, our homes, our entire world. It was gone the day the floating screen appeared in front of our faces! We were so obsessed with everyone else's freedom that we neglected our own!" One of the men in the sky shouted back at him.
"So be it!" Suddenly the purple eyed Lars leaped from the ground towards the flying warriors.
"If earth is gonna perish, you'll perish with it!" he shouted.
'I can't take them all down on my own, I have to self-destruct.'
[Final Detonation.]
An earth shattering explosion erupted from the purple-eyed man's body.
"Damn it!"
The airborne warriors did their best to activate defensive skills but the explosion was too much, mangled bodies and gore fell rapidly from the air to join the burning ground beneath.
Erik was among the warriors who decided to "betray earth." The explosion had hurled him kilometres away from the main group, he landed in a deciduous forest as his body rolled and bounced in the dry black soil.
his body crashed into the trunk of a large deciduous tree snapping it like a twig.
The tree fell and landed on the waist of Erik pinning him beneath its weight.
As he lied there he scanned his body with his mana sense only to discover that his face and scalp had burned off, parts of his skull could be seen from his scalp while the other areas were seared, leather like skin stuck to other parts of his warm and sticky skull, his legs were missing, his arms were charred and crispy, and rivers of steaming blood were gushing out of his orifices worst of all cracks were spreading across his mana core.
'Mana is leaking from my Mana core.'
"Guhh!"
His mana core shattered, crimson sprayed out of his orifices.
He grunted as he pushed with all his remaining might against the tree laying atop his belly with his charred skeletal arms but to no avail.
Just like that he lied there for a few seconds before reclining his neck backwards enough for him to see what was behind him, a colossal mushroom cloud in the distance as well as gory parts of what used to be his own legs across the soil. He tried to tilt his neck back up only to find he had run out of strength.
Gradually his vision brightened and his ears deafened.
"Activating SSS Rank Skill - unknown."
'Huh, the system usually communicates through a floating text panel, not audibly.'
All he saw was white in his blurry vision. Gradually it unblurred and the it was revealed to be a white surface, a roof maybe? He felt like he was floating on a big fluffy cloud so comfortable it was!.
*VROOOM*
'ughhh, shut up.'
A loud engine interrupted his blissful moment of relaxation.
"Meow, meow, meooooow."
'Would you shut the hell up.'
"Meow!"
'Yes, I'll feed you would you just calm down a second, fuck I dont want to get out of bed.'
He stretched his arms as he yawned, getting ready to get out of bed.
'What a weird dream.'
[DING!]
[Earth has entered Astryx space.]
[Opening gate to nearest awakening trial…]
'It wasn't a dream! I've regressed back to the day Earth entered the Astryx dominion! wait a second, what if I still retained my stuff from the past or should I say future? Might as well check as the gate opens.'
The bodies of the awakened had three seas, the skill sea, the knowledge sea, and the equipment sea. To open the knowledge sea the awakened had to focus their mana sense in the glabella located between the eyebrows, for the skill sea they had to focus on their chin and for the equipment they had to focus on either of their ring finger.
'I've not yet awakened so I shouldn't have any of the three seas and I can already feel that I don't have an internal mana core but could it be possible that I retained any of the seas? It's wishful thinking but still. Earth has integrated with the Astryx dominion;so it should have awakened its planetary mana core, meaning there are traces of mana in the air around me.'
'I've heard from crippled awakened that they could still open their seas without a functioning mana core, so If I still have them I should be able to as well.'
Without further ado Erik focused on his chin just as he would do if he were an awakened with mana sense.
'Nope, nothing there.'
Following after he proceeded to focus on his right finger and left finger correspondingly.
'Nothing!.'
Proceedingly he checked his glabella.
'It's there I feel it, I returned with my knowledge sea!.
'Okay, here are my plans. First I'll feed my cat, Magnus ver Magnusson, then I'll break up with my bitch of a girlfriend who's cheating on me right now and after that I'll open the knowledge sea before taking a shower. I should be able to get this done all before the gate opens.'
Erik proceeded to walk to his kitchen and feed Magnus ver Magnusson the gray coated tabby cat.
*Buzz buzz*
Erik's phone charging on the kitchen counter was receiving an incoming call.
He grabbed his phone and looked at it with nothing but pure unadulterated disgust in his face.
Incoming call from "Emma heart emoji heart emoji."
Erik answered it reluctantly.
"Oh my god Eri-!"
"I know you're cheating." Erik answered before Emma could answer.
"Wha-."
"We're over." He hung up and left his phone on the counter before making his way to the bathroom.
'To be young again! I have to look at myself in the mirror.'
Erik opened the door to the bathroom and the first thing he could see in the mirror was…
'Oh no… oh sweet heavens no!!!!!'
His heart felt as it had dropped beneath his chest, he panicked more than he had during his final moments in his previous life, facing the mirror he was met with a similar yet completely different man.
'I'm… b-b-bald!'