The void opened and Merit's soul drifted forward, weightless and formless, until his surroundings sharpened into focus. He found himself in an alien space.
Here, a massive laboratory suspended in a chaotic void. It pulsed faintly, as if the remnants of the place still had life.
Ahead of him floated two objects: the blank body, suspended in midair with eerie stillness, and a glowing blue brain. The body was pristine, almost human, yet there were no features to discern the gender.
Its skin was smooth and its proportions were flawless. The brain, however, seemed alive... or functional.
Merit felt a connection that transcended understanding almost immediately. The body called to his very essence.
Without thinking, he drifted closer, the empty vessel responding to his presence as if recognizing him. It moved toward him as well, and before he could question it, the light surrounding the body engulfed him.
The sensation was overwhelming. His soul merged with the vessel, and in that instant, he felt a surge of life— strength, clarity, and control.
As Merit's soul fused with the body, an otherworldly energy rippled through the laboratory. The blank body began to mold and transform, its shape no longer generic but growing into the perfect image of Merit himself.
His soul guided the transformation, every detail aligning with his identity—his 6'5 stature had been solidified, his broad shoulders expanded.
Muscles emerged, lean and powerful, refined to an ideal state that was born strong and agile. His legs molded and extended too, providing a stability that gave the impression that they were both power and grace.
The skin of the body shifted, taking on his rich, chocolate skin tone. Somehow, It was him, but elevated to a realm of perfection and beyond human limits.
Every flaw he had once known in himself was gone, replaced by a godlike symmetry.
Still, as the transformation finished, something in the laboratory stirred.
A faint shimmer caught Merit's attention, though he could not move or act yet as he was still in the process of assimilation.
In the corner of the ruined lab, a pile of strange black material began to shift, like it was waking up from a nap.
It flowed like liquid but shimmered like silk under starlight, its threads faintly pulsing with crimson and silver energy.
This was no ordinary fabric, it was Velxium Textile, an experimental material left behind by the goddess.
Velxium was said to exist at the crossroads between magic, matter, and thought.
This material is capable of reshaping itself to the will of its wearer while offering unmatched resilience and adaptability.
The Velxium Weave responded to the fusion of body and soul. It shimmered as if recognizing its purpose and then surged toward Merit's transformed body.
The threads wrapped around him, weaving themselves into a suit that seemed almost alive. They flowed like gooey, slimey liquid but solidified into a metallic cloth-like texture that hugged his form perfectly.
The material adjusted itself in real-time, adapting to his frame as the body continued to transform ands mold the smallest of details.
Around his chest, the Velxium Weave layered itself, creating a subtle yet powerful structure that accentuated his broad, muscular torso. It wasn't bulky, nor was it delicate; it was the perfect balance, offering protection and freedom of movement.
Around his arms and legs, the material formed sleek, seamless contours, enhancing his natural physique while exuding an aura of otherworldly strength.
What made the Velxium Weave remarkable was its appearance. It shimmered faintly with a matte black-blue surface, but as Merit moved, faint accents of crimson and silver pulsed along its edges.
The fabric clung to him like a second skin, yet it moved with the fluidity of air, weightless and unrestrictive.
The chestplate area pulsed faintly with an inner light, as if the material itself was connected to his life force. In the chest area, the velxium suit had a strange symbol on it, similar to two semi-overlapped letter M's.
As the final strands of the Velxium Weave settled into place, Merit felt the transformation complete. He looked down at his new body perfectly complemented by the divine material.
The suit was not armor, not in the traditional sense that is.
It was symbiotic, an augmentation that fused technology, magic, and divinity into a single form.
He flexed his hands, the fabric shifting effortlessly with the movement. There was no sound, no friction—only a sense of seamless capability.
This wasn't just a suit; it was the goddess's genius and her obsession with perfection.
The Velxium Weave was her creation, meant to endure the crushing depths of a black hole or the searing heat of a supernova. It was indestructible yet weightless.
Merit stood there. He was no longer the same man. The laboratory, the goddess, the memories… all of it had changed him. This body, this suit, it was his now.
He opened his eyes, his new ones, and stared down at his hands. They felt both foreign and familiar, like an old coat rediscovered after years of disuse.
This moment was interrupted when his gaze shifted to the glowing brain. Without hesitation, his body moved on its own reaching for the undulating organ.
The moment he touched it, the brain dissolved into streams of energy and rushed into his soul. Memories surged through his mind like a flood, each a fragment of a life lived over countless millennia.
He saw the world through her eyes; her victories, her creations, her glory, and her ultimate fall.
The world of gods unfolded before him. It was a realm of light and majesty unparalleled, where the skies shimmered with golden hues amidst its sapphire backdrop and towering spires reached beyond the stars.
Godlike beings of all shapes walked the lands in this world, their forms radiant and incomprehensible to mortal eyes. Among them stood the goddess, her presence graceful and unassuming.
She was brilliant and her mind was an engine of unparalleled ingenuity.
Merit saw her rise through the pantheon from a low-level goddess with master abilities. Soon, many began to sense her ingenuity, her ability to create wonders that defied even divine understanding. All she needed was a bit of strength lent, and her divinity would soar.
Many years later, planets were marked by her essence and civilizations flourished under her guidance. Unfortunately, her brilliance became her downfall.
The memory shifted abruptly to a grand chamber, a council of gods gathered in judgment.
Their forms shimmered with divine power, something Merit's human brain would not have been able to grasp. The goddess stood at the center of the hall with her head held high and defiance apparent and burning like a star.
"You stand accused of hubris," one god intoned, his voice reverberating throughout the hall. "You have created things that defy the natural order, things that threaten the balance of this universe."
The goddess's eyes lit up in fury. "What I have done is create progress," she retorted.
"You hold to your ancient ways, your stagnant traditions that satisfy no one but your selfish hold on what little power we have left. Meanwhile, I reach for something greater. You fear me because I refuse to stand still, because I refuse to accept the limits you impose on us Lesser."
"You dare to challenge us?" another god spat, his form flickering with barely contained energy. "You, who owe your divinity to this very council?"
"I owe you nothing!" she snapped, her voice cutting through the chaos. "I have surpassed you all. That is what terrifies you. You see in me what you could never achieve, and so you seek to destroy it."
The council erupted into shouts and accusations, their divine voices clashing like storms. But their decision had already been made. One by one, the gods raised their hands, their combined power weaving into a blinding light that filled the chamber.
"You have violated the sacred laws," the first god declared. "For your transgressions, your name will be erased from the annals of divinity. Your essence will be stripped, and you will be cast into the void, to wander as nothingness for all eternity."
Some gods, feeling guilty abruptly got up and left, unable to bear to see the stripping of Rhythia. One god in particular, felt the guiltiest of them all. She had been the goddess Rhythia helped the most.
"No," the goddess whispered, her voice trembling with rage. "Even if you strip me of my 'divinity', I will remain. I AM PROGRESS!"
The light grew brighter, engulfing her as she screamed. Her divinity was torn from her, each fragment of her essence ripped away with agonizing force.
She collapsed to her knees, her form dimming, her once-radiant body reduced to a hollow shell. The gods turned their backs on her, their judgment final.
As they departed, she raised her head, her voice a guttural growl of defiance. "You will regret this. I will return. I will rise again and I'll make you all pay for what you've done."
The memory faded, leaving Merit in a daze. The rage, the pain, the betrayal—it was all so vivid, so real.
"She was," he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. "A god, cast out by her own kind."
He sat in the silence of the laboratory while his thoughts raced. The memories had given him insight into the goddess's life, but they had also raised more questions than answers.
Some parts were missing, redacted by some mental block he couldn't break through. Why had she been so fixated on creating the body he now inhabited? And what had truly driven her peers to turn against her?
"Wait… hold on," he muttered, pacing as fragments of memory and logic clashed in his mind. "She said, 'my creation will show you.' What does that even mean? Is it her creation—the body—or me? Or both?"
He paused, rubbing his temples, trying to focus as flashes of Rhythia's memories and his own began to overlap. The connection wasn't just strange—it was personal. The goddess had orchestrated something, but to what end?
Why did she influence him to make the QRIA capable of inter-dimensional travel?
"Either… she reincarnated on Earth right after her death, but how? That would mean time here moves much slower—or faster—than on Earth. If that's true, her death here could have lined up perfectly with my time back home. Maybe her soul traveled through some kind of temporal rift." He shook his head. "No, that's too simple. What if it's quantum entanglement?"
The thought hit him like a jolt of electricity. "Yes, quantum entanglement! If her death was some kind of event that triggered a reaction, it might have been transmitted across dimensions— no, across realities—to Earth. This was just a ripple effect? What happened here could have been mirrored in my world in real time. Her will, her 'creation,' somehow connected to me without either of us realizing it."
He stopped pacing, standing in the dim, broken lab as realization began to sink in. "But… if that's true, then this isn't just coincidence. My death, her creation—it was all linked. Her essence might have reached across dimensions, tethered to the quantum fabric of my world. And when I died… I wasn't just pulled here. I was always meant to be here. I was always here."
Merit exhaled, feeling the enormity of the realization pressing down on him. "Was I the creation she mentioned? Or is this body her creation, and I'm just… part of the process?"
He stared at his hands, at the body that now felt both foreign and familiar. "Or is it something else entirely? Am I meant to finish what she started? Nor everything is as it seems."
The questions churned in his mind, each one more disorienting than the last. Merit sighed, trying to calm the storm of thoughts. "It's too much. I need answers, but… maybe I'm not ready to understand all of it yet. Not yet."
Whatever Rhythia had done, it wasn't random.
An even more conspiratorial thought crossed his mind in this instant. One that felt so improbable, but still likely to happen.
Merit held onto that thought, he may need to come up with countermeasures against it in the future.
And Merit couldn't get rid of the feeling that he was just beginning to read the script she'd set in motion.
Experiencing the life of a being hundreds of millions of years old through their lens had left him drained.
But as he sat there, a clarity began to settle over him. He had inherited her knowledge, her memories, and a fragment of divinity. Not her divinity, just the essence of what made a divinity divine.
For better or worse, he was now tied to her legacy.
After what felt like hours, Merit stood, his gaze sweeping over the ruined laboratory. The remnants of her work surrounded him, broken and scattered, yet still humming faintly with residual energy.
"Enough sitting around," he muttered to himself. "Time to move."
But just as he took his first step, a rift tore open to his right. It swirled with stable energy, its edges crackling like shattered glass.
Before he could react, the force of the rift pulled him in, hurling him through dimensions.
The sensation of being dragged through the rift was disorienting, yet Merit remained calm. His newfound body seemed to adapt to the chaos, shielding him from the worst of the transition.
Moments later, he found himself ejected into open space, the rift depositing him above a massive planet that loomed below.
The planet was enormous, its size dwarfing Earth by several magnitudes. Its surface shimmered with patches of light, signs of cities and civilizations. But something was wrong.
A colossal tear in space hovered above the atmosphere, spilling thousands of ships into the planet's skies.
From this distance, Merit could see flashes of light; explosions, energy beams, ships, both alien and familiar, fire down upon the surface.
Gravity took hold, and Merit began to fall. The atmosphere burned around him as he plummeted toward the planet, but he remained unbothered.
He knew this body could withstand the pressure of a thousand black holes, let alone a mere freefall.
As he descended, the chaos below became clearer. He could see the sprawling metropolis, its streets filled with fire and smoke.
Ships clashed in the skies above, their dogfights sending debris crashing into the buildings below. The city was a battlefield, its defenders fighting desperately against an overwhelming force.
At 125m, Merit flipped upright, his feet facing the ground. He landed with a thunderous impact, creating a 20-foot-deep crater in the street. Dust and gravel erupted into the air, shrouding the area in a thick haze.
Screams, of agony and fear, and shouts echoed around him, mixed with the sounds of clashing metal, distant explosions, and flashes of colored light.
Merit stood still, his eyes closed, feeling the changes within his body. He could sense the chaos around him, the desperation in the air, the heat of fires burning nearby.
He took a deep breath, then leapt from the crater, landing gracefully on its edge. With newfound confidence, he opened his eyes, ready to face this new ordeal.