The System's answer echoed in the endless white void and sent a shiver through Marcus and Adrian's being.
[NEGATIVE.]
Marcus felt something akin to panic start to surge within him. 'What do you mean, ""negative""?' Marcus's thoughts lashed out, raw and desperate. 'You just said our deaths weren't supposed to happen. Doesn't that mean we should be able to go back?'
The System responded without hesitation.
[THE INTEGRITY OF A UNIVERSE MUST BE MAINTAINED.]
Adrian's presence flickered beside Marcus, his thoughts careful but just as urgent. 'You mean… you can't bring us back? Because it will risk destroying our universe?'
[CORRECT. ALL CAUSAL EVENTS MUST REMAIN FIXED TO ENSURE EVERY FABRIC OF REALITY'S STABILITY. ONCE A LIFE IS LOST, IT CANNOT BE REVERSED.]
Marcus felt like screaming. 'Then, what? We're just—stuck here? Forever?! Wandering this empty void until we both lose our minds?!'
A pause. Then—
[ALL SOULS TRANSITION TO ANOTHER REALM TO CONTINUE THEIR JOURNEY ANEW.]
A cold silence followed as the weight of those words sank in.
Adrian was the first to react. Another realm? His thoughts sharpened. 'You mean… reincarnation?'
[CORRECT.]
Marcus and Adrian went still. Reincarnation. The idea wasn't unfamiliar—it was something people theorized about all the time. But hearing it from an omnipotent, all-encompassing force of reality itself was another thing entirely.
Adrian hesitated before asking the next question, the one that burned within both of them. 'If we're reincarnated… will we remember?'
The System's response was immediate.
[MEMORY RESET IS STANDARD PROTOCOL. ALL SOULS ARE REBORN WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR PAST LIVES.]
Marcus's voice softened. So, we just… forget? Everything? Each of our lives?
The thought of losing everything—his childhood memories, his love for climbing, even the friendly bond he had with Adrian—was too much to bear.
But then, something changed.
Unusually, the System seems to hesitate.
A long silence followed before new words appeared.
[EXCEPTION DETECTED.]
Marcus and Adrian stiffened.
[DUE TO YOUR UNTIMELY TERMINATION OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM'S CALCULATED DESIGN, A SPECIAL CONDITION IS BEING CONSIDERED.]
Adrian's presence brightened, though his thoughts were cautious. 'What… kind of condition?'
Another pause. Then—
[MANUAL INTERVENTION INITIATED.]
The space around them trembled. The void flickered. This mysterious plane of reality itself seemed to glitch and tremble before settling in again.
[REINCARNATION APPROVED.]
Marcus's pulse—if he even had one—quickened. 'Wait—But what about our memories?'
The System's next words sent a shock through them both.
[MEMORY RETENTION APPROVED.]
Adrian gasped. 'You mean we'll remember? Everything?'
[CORRECT.]
Marcus was speechless. The System—the force that controlled everything—was bending its own rules.
[YOU WILL BE REBORN IN A NEW UNIVERSE. MEMORIES INTACT.]
Adrian and Marcus exchanged a silent glance, their emotions a storm of uncertainty and hope.
A new life. A new world.
But with all their past memories.
Marcus and Adrian had no bodies, no senses, yet they could feel the change in the space around them. A presence unseen, yet all-encompassing, moved within the abyss, its attention focused solely on them.
[BEGIN CALCULATING KARMIC POINTS…]
A new sensation overtook Marcus and Adrian. It wasn't pain, nor warmth, nor any feeling they had words for. It was as if something vast and incomprehensible was peeling through the layers of their existence, unraveling their very essence and examining every fiber of their souls.
Then, a number formed in the space before them.
[1000 POINTS ASSIGNED.]
The number pulsed, glowing faintly in the endless void.
Adrian was the first to break the silence. What… does this mean?
The System, ever mechanical, responded instantly.
[KARMIC POINTS REPRESENT A SOUL'S TOTAL ACCUMULATION OF MERIT FROM PREVIOUS LIVES.]
Marcus processed that. 'We earned this in another life?'
[CORRECT.]
A deep hum of understanding passed between them. It made sense in a strange way—if reincarnation was real, then some kind of judgment or carryover from past lives would naturally exist. But then a more pressing question arose.
Marcus frowned. 'How does someone earn Karmic Points?'
The System's response was vague.
[BY DOING GOOD.]
Adrian felt an almost instinctual skepticism. He pressed further. 'And what exactly does the System consider ""good""?'
The System hesitated.
[…PROGRESS.]
Marcus and Adrian both stiffened. The answer was simple, too simple. 'Progress? Hmm… Not kindness? self-sacrifice?'
Adrian voiced the question first. 'So, you don't reward kindness? Compassion? Love?'
There was a pause, then a calculated response.
[KINDNESS CAN BE A FORM OF PROGRESS. COMPASSION CAN DRIVE PROGRESSION. LOVE CAN BE A FORCE OF ADVANCEMENT.]
Marcus frowned. 'That's… not really an answer.'
Adrian nodded in agreement. The System wasn't outright denying that good deeds weren't rewarded, but its focus was clearly elsewhere. It favored progress the most.
Why?
Before they could ask more, the void around them began shifting again, and the System spoke with finality.
[FURTHER INQUIRIES ABOUT THIS TOPIC IS RESTRICTED.]
Marcus and Adrian are not impressed, that was it? The System wasn't going to explain further?
The void pulsed in silence, the weight of the System's last words pressing down on them.
Marcus, ever the impatient one, bristled. 'Additional inquiries restricted?' That was a convenient way of saying shut up and accept it. He wanted answers, real ones—not vague half-truths wrapped in riddles.
But Adrian, ever observant, exuded patience. His presence beside Marcus flickered with thoughtfulness.
And then, Adrian asked the question that neither of them had fully considered before.
"Are you a god?"
The System responded immediately.
[YES AND NO.]
Marcus snapped.
"Oh, for fu— Stop doing that!" His frustration bled into the very fabric of the space around them, distorting the void for a brief moment before it settled again. "Are you a god or not? Pick one!"
Adrian grimaced, feeling the growing agitation rolling off Marcus and affecting him as well. But this is still possibly a Higher power they're talking to 'Marcus, calm down.'
Marcus wanted to grit his teeth and exhale sharply, forcing himself to focus. 'Fine...'
"Were you created?" Adrian continued, his tone steady.
The System answered easily.
[YES.]
A pause. Then, Adrian's presence brightened ever so slightly. 'Now, we're getting somewhere.'
"Who created you?"
The answer came again.
[THE WORLD.]
Silence.
Marcus let out an incredulous scoff. 'That doesn't even make any sense.'
Adrian sighed. He had expected an answer like that—vague, cyclical. 'The world?' he repeated thoughtfully. 'As in, the physical world? Or something else?'
Marcus groaned. 'This is just another chicken-and-egg situation, isn't it?'
Adrian offered a tired smile. 'Worse.'
He was piecing it together now, the strange loop in the System's logic. 'If I understand it correctly,' he continued, 'the System exists because the world exists. And the world exists because the System does.'
The System did not hesitate.
[CORRECT.]
The System's confirmation wasn't surprising—no, It was kind of logical in a way.
A paradox. A loop without origin.
'Again, that doesn't make sense,' Marcus muttered. 'Something had to come first. Either the world created the System, or the System created the world. It can't be both.'
But Adrian wasn't so sure.
What if it was?
He turned his focus back to the System. "Does time have a beginning?"
A long pause. Then—
[TIME IS RELATIVE. BEGINNING AND END ARE CONSTRUCTS.]
Adrian's mind swirled with possibilities. 'Then… it's not that one created the other first. They just… always were?'
[CORRECT.]
'Great. Just great.' Marcus slumped—metaphorically—into the endless void, glaring into the nothingness.
Adrian, on the other hand, was fascinated. 'That means at the Higher plane and abstract causality as we know it doesn't apply?'
'Or,' Marcus countered, finally accepting things the way they are and following the model to its natural conclusion. 'it does, just not in a way we understand.'
They both fell silent, absorbing the magnitude of what they had just learned.
The System, the world, time, existence itself—it was all a self-contained cycle, an ouroboros with no starting point, no end.
It just was.