* * *
The memory jumped.
…Gurgle… …Gurgle…
Haki felt that moment, actually, he felt every single moment up till now, even as a distant watcher in his own memory.
He didn't know how much time had passed, there was no sound, no roar, just… an absolute silence so deep it made all other silences meaningless.
Then the light thinned again…
But before he went back into memory lane, something crept up silently…
[Spirit: 7.2 → 10.9 → 35.5 → 50…]
* * *
In the memory, Haki watched what appeared to be his past self, or so it seemed, Sevven, stand on Gulgoroth and perform the Ritual of Unbeing.
The process was unique. He casted aside his name and body so Tribulation Lightning could strip him down to a single, refined core of Souldust that even heaven hesitated to erase.
The heavens had answered with a first, second and then third, personal judgment that didn't just strike him, but erased the entire mountain, turning his death into a warning to the world;
And even under that impossible pressure, Sevven was still defiant, as he spent a forbidden Eternity Shard — literal Time stolen from a dead Time Deity.
He had done this to bring Varka's tribulation upon himself. You see, it was partly because of Varka, who had been revealed to be his brother, that the heavens were angered in the first place. He had been the one to create the vial necessary for Sevven's tribulation after all.
During Sevven's own tribulation, the heavenly judgement suddenly shifted to a faraway location — Varka's Alchemy Lab.
Seeing this, Sevven had no other option left but to shatter the alchemical lattice meant to grant him perfect reincarnation...
All across the realms, those tied to him felt the break. It began with Varka in his lab, then kings, and even enemies and disciples—as his legacy was cut down and his path severed.
When the storm cleared, there was no body, no ash, only a hole in reality which had already begun to heal, and at its center lay a single invisible remnant; a Shard of pure, compressed will, too stubborn to disperse into death.
Had heaven won?
* * *
*PLOP*
The toilet seat was warm, but not by design. David, or Haki, as he had come to call himself, had just been parked there for forty minutes and his legs were already numb by now.
His expression remained blank as he navigated to the last page of the novel he'd been devouring with the detached curiosity of someone studying a bug in a jar. The title of the novel blinked in faint retro-style neon at the bottom: [Paragon Ascends: A Tale of Tribulations.] [Estimated date of publication: 2027 A.D. Author: I Eat Tonatoes.]
Haki stared at it for a long second. "Haaaa…" Then exhaled, slow and disappointed.
"…The characters in this book are all amateurs," he muttered.
'Well, what more could I have expected from dull, 'monkey' brains in an ancient 2027…'
'Like, couldn't you just map the tribulation energy's quantum waveform, collapse it with a localized field of probabilistic negation, redirect the surge through a phased tachyon buffer, and then recycle the residual entropy into a personal space-time dilation loop?'
Probably only a dummy would've heard what he had just said and still have no idea what he was talking about…
He blinked and thought in his heart, 'Hmph! Even a Class-2 AI from the Vortex Belt could brute-force that, meanwhile, you guys were dying over common so-called tribulation lightening.'
He shook his head. 'Man… you guys really thought shouting 'I refuse to kneel!' at lightning bolts was the peak of strategy.' He shook his head again.
The auto-wipe activated beneath him with a silent hum. He looked at it for a brief moment with silent anger and used water instead.
'I'll never understand how people feel comfortable cleaning with tissue or wipes…'
He stood up, shook his legs a little then stretched, he then left the porcelain throne behind like a true monarch, with his robe swishing behind him.
The Earth was no longer the pale blue dot it had once been.
Nine billion years of evolution, innovation, and straight-up hubris had turned it into a sprawling, interconnected mess of glass and metal.
For instance, the oceans now shimmered with artificial bio-luminescence. Oceans that had teemed with whales, fishes, corals, natural biology… now glowed like neon light dancing across waves that hadn't seen even a single fish in eons.
Beneath those glowing surfaces though, vast underwater thingeys called bioreactors churned, recycling toxins into breathable air and synthetic nutrients.
Honestly, this was a fragile lifeline for a planet choking on its own ego. Though it was efficient and functional, it was definitely not beautiful. True beauty lies in Nature… right?
'Nature, I wonder how that feels…' a passing thought.
*STEP*
He stepped into his apartment's main chamber which could be described as basically a minimalist's cave of sleek panels and soft, ambient lighting.
Looking at the walls, they were laced with a complex circuitry called, Yoctotech.
At that moment, they pulsed faintly with light. This action synced with something inside Haki's head. An AI chip.
Under ceremony, it would be called an AI chip, and that made it sound somewhat artificial, but it was more akin to a natural parasite, willingly accepted by the host.
The parasite then grows according to the host's data—his life, along with the host, creating some type of… Positive Feedback Loop.
This… Biological AI had been grafted into his neural lattice at just age eighteen and he just considered it as part of his brain, as part of him.
His brain hummed, feeding him data:
[Atmospheric toxicity at 87%, population density unsustainable]
'Ok.'
His indifference was his sharpest blade. In another life, he might've probably cried for the dying Earth, but now, staring out a floor-to-ceiling window at the neon scars below, he felt… nothing.
His face was like that of someone who had weathered through many storms, yet it remained sharp and betrayed no emotion. They were lines carved by discipline rather than age.
His Yocto-optic eyes glowed faintly, scanning Neo-Atlantis through a large screen which appeared out of nowhere.
He was currently looking at the city sprawled across a continent. It was a filled with translucent spires and atmospheric processors, its Yoctotech panels took in the starlight above while microscopic bots scurried about repairing micro-fractures and optimizing energy flow.
Drones zipped around in order like obedient wasps, delivering synth-food to billions of people packed into self-sustaining hives.
It was basically just a giant beehive of tech.
'Sevven would've blown this planet up by accident, and Varka would've probably been curious about all this tech, then proceed to turn it into alchemical soup' Haki mused…
BUZZ
His brain pinged at that moment;
[It seems that book really caught your interest.]
[By the way…]
[Incoming: Global Council message. Priority: Desperate.]
"Ignore it," Haki said, with a strange, calm voice.
The Council, to him, were just technocrats and warlords playing 'emperor'. They usually never had an answer to any of his questions, just whiny demands.
They wanted his brain, his plans and probably his vibes… whatever, 'As usual, am not sharing. Let them drown in their panic.'
[Suggestion: Delegate to amateurs, like Sevven from that novel.]
His brain quipped with a dry tone.
"Hmm." Haki half snorted.
[…]
[Anomaly: Temporal signal detected in Kuiper Belt. Resembles 'Eternity Shard' from 'Paragon Ascends.' Analysis pending…]
He would have 'side-eyed' his brain, if that were possible, he could have sworn it sneered at him.
'Quit joking around, we have work to do…' Haki reprimanded, as he walked towards a console.
Its hologram display flickered with reports;
Collapsing governments, riots in the lower hives, a cult praying to Andromeda like it'd RSVP to their Apocalypse Party.
He didn't care about this as his gaze drifted to a corner screen showing Earth millennia ago. Here, it was still green, vibrant and alive.
He fancied nature quite a bit even though he had never had the chance to experience it firsthand. Real nature, by the way, not those simulated scraps, but unfortunately for him, that world was long gone, replaced by a machine masquerading as a planet.
[Population: 17 billion. Fusion fuel: 4% reserves. Mood: Existential dread.]
"Sounds like Tuesday," Haki said, managing a little smirk.
He sank gracefully onto a platform extending from the wall, like he had done this countless times, and the intelligent platform's surface molded itself to his form.
'This thing knows my pressure points better than my chiropractor.' He thought with a straight face.
His mind wandered again, but this time it traveled inward, not to his brain, but somewhere deeper. The novel still lingered like a bad aftertaste; Sevven's dramatic "Ritual of Unbeing," Varka's butterfly-exploding jars, that Eternity Shard nonsense, it was absurd.
Yet, for some reasons, it stuck with him.
He wasn't some 'mystic-cultivation' poser, he wasn't even a fan of it, so why?
He shook his head slightly, as if to cut off distracting thoughts.
"I am HAKI." He said out loud, anchoring himself again, in… himself.
His mind wandered further inward, as if he were looking for the core of his being.
[Yes, you are HAKI indeed. The polymath, the survivor and definitely the guy who'd outsmart this collapsing galaxy. Right?]
Then, the voice came…
'Or at least we'll die trying.' Kevide's voice piped up in his head. It was a voice filled with calm charisma and ego. And with a deep, magnetic voice; 'Don't choke like Sevven, big guy.' He said.
'Shut it.' Haki thought…
***