Excitement buzzed under my skin.

Tomorrow, I’d be working with the egg. An egg from the Abyssal Tower.

Even if I didn’t meet the client directly, just knowing that I’d be dealing with something so rare, so impossible, made my mind race. If Anya was serious about this being the start of something bigger, then…

This wasn’t just a job.

It was an opportunity.

To make money. To build connections. To carve a place for myself in a world where power and influence ruled.

Anya had already secured her foothold. Now, she was betting on me to do the same.

I exhaled slowly.

That was for tomorrow.

Tonight?

I had work to do.

I settled into my usual position, legs crossed on the cool floor, my artifact floating in the air before me.

The grimoire pulsed faintly, absorbing mana on its own, just as it always did.

Mana had never been the problem.

I was the problem.

I closed my eyes.

This time, I wouldn’t force it. I wouldn’t just push mana into the artifact and hope for results.

I’d try something different.

My father had told me to understand myself.

So, I started simple.

My name.

Akul.

The syllables echoed in my mind, solid, familiar. A foundation.

My age.

Twelve.

My appearance.

I pictured myself, detail by detail. My hair. My eyes. My height. The shape of my hands. The slight scar on my knee from when I fell chasing Bobo through the enclosure.

Bit by bit, I constructed myself inside my own mind.

A reflection of me, built with mana, crafted with thought.

Slowly, the image of myself became clearer.

And then—

Memories began to surface.

They came gently at first, like waves lapping at the shore.

Moments of laughter at the dinner table.

Bobo curled up on my shoulder, snoring softly.

My father’s warm, steady voice guiding me through my first lesson in cultivation.

Precious things.

Important things.

The core of who I was.

I wanted to pull away, to focus, to control it—

But I stopped myself.

I remembered my father’s words.

Don’t force it.

Just like Chia had done…

I would let it flow.

So, I let the memories pour into me.

And they did.

Rushing forward, like a flood breaking through a dam.

But then—

They started to change.

Memories I didn’t recognize.

Memories that weren’t mine.

They drifted in, unfamiliar yet… familiar.

Flashes of a world I didn’t know.

A place filled with towers of light and glass.

Hands that weren’t mine, holding something strange—flat, glowing, covered in letters.

A voice, speaking words I had never heard before, and yet… I understood them.

Who was this?

Who was I?

The images kept coming, too fast to hold, too many to grasp.

A different life.

A different me.

But instead of resisting—

I accepted them.

I didn’t question whether they belonged to me.

I knew they did.

Maybe not the me of now.

But a me from before.

Or a me from elsewhere.

The moment I surrendered to that truth—

My grimoire reacted.

Not subtly.

Not slowly.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Vigorously.

It pulsed. It surged.

But the reaction wasn’t happening outside.

It was inside me.

I wasn’t just refining my artifact.

I was refining myself.

Becoming one with the grimoire.

And the grimoire—

For the first time—

Began to truly recognize me back.

The moment my grimoire recognized me—

It moved.

Not with my command.

Not by my will.

It floated before me, pulsing with energy, flickering between real and ethereal—

And then, it vanished.

It had entered me.

It went deeper, deeper than it had ever gone before.

A sharp inhale raked through my chest.

Then—

The floodgates burst open.

Not just memories.

Knowledge.

Words, concepts, images—I didn’t just remember them.

I understood them.

Gravity. Force exerted by mass, pulling objects toward its center.

Neurons. The messengers of the brain, firing electrical signals to command the body.

Algorithm. A structured set of rules designed for problem-solving and calculation.

Upload. To transfer data from a local system to a broader network.

Virtual Reality. A simulated world, crafted by code, designed to be experienced as if real.

The words kept coming—

Flooding in, shifting, forming connections.

Presidents. Elections. Governments. Empires.

Hurricanes. Tsunamis. Epidemics. Wars.

Economy. Trade routes. Stock markets.

Airplanes. Satellites. Artificial intelligence.

My breathing hitched.

I wasn’t just remembering a life.

I was remembering a world.

A world I had never seen.

A world that had never existed here.

A name flickered.

A title.

The Codex Eternal.

The name of the game.

The name of a world.

My world?

The memories became clearer.

Not just concepts, but moments.

The rush of a battlefield, issuing commands to troops of digital monsters.

The strategy behind every move, analyzing strengths, weaknesses, affinities.

The excitement of unlocking hidden evolutions, pushing creatures beyond their limits.

The Codex Eternal.

A game.

A life.

A reality I had once known.

And as I grasped it—

Something inside me clicked.

The grimoire inside me reacted.

It wasn’t just an artifact anymore.

It wasn’t just a tool.

It was something more.

Something that had always been waiting.

Waiting for me—

To remember.

I was…

No.

I am…

I hesitated.

The thought, the answer—it was there, just beyond my reach.

Like a name at the tip of my tongue.

Like a face in a faded dream.

It felt obvious, yet impossible at the same time.

But then—

It clicked.

Like a lock turning, like a door opening, like a floodgate breaking wide—

I was Luka.

Luka.

I was Luka.

But I was also Akul.

Two sides of the same life.

One past, one present. One forgotten, one remembered.

And now?

Now I was watching.

Not controlling.

Not reliving.

Watching.

Like a bystander in my own memories, trapped between what was real and what was just a dream?

Or maybe, just maybe—

There was no difference.

Luka Vasiliev.

That was my name.

I had been born in Moscow, Russia, but my life had never been about one place.

By the time I turned ten, my family had moved across Europe for my father’s work, jumping from Germany to France, then finally settling in Spain.

I never truly belonged anywhere.

Until I found games.

Competitive. Ruthless. Requiring precision, strategy, instinct.

By fifteen, I was already climbing international leaderboards.

By seventeen, I had been scouted.

By eighteen, I was living in Seoul, South Korea, playing professionally in the world’s most elite gaming scene.

And then—

The Codex Eternal launched.

The first fully immersive virtual reality MMO, designed with an unparalleled level of detail, boasting an adaptive AI-driven ecosystem, where every choice, every action, shaped the world.

It wasn’t just a game.

It was a second reality.

And I?

I was its king.

I saw myself now.

Luka.

Sitting in a sleek gaming chair, a visor covering my face.

The glow of multiple monitors filled the dimly lit room, messages flooding my chat:

“Codex’s top player is back!”

“Luka, teach me your beast fusion strat!!”

“GUILD RAID TONIGHT LET’S GO!”

A smirk curled on his lips, my lips.

Even in the real world, I had been a legend.

But inside The Codex Eternal?

I had been God.

I watched as Luka moved through the game world—

A world too familiar.

It was a vast land of monsters, cultivation, ancient ruins, and wilderness zones between cities.

Cities graded by rank.

Cities built around unique resources, thriving off what their land provided.

Where beasts weren’t just companions, but foundations of power.

Where artifact wielders shaped the world’s future.

A world of contracts.

A world of summons.

A world where beasts could be enhanced, evolved, reshaped—

The concept felt familiar.

Why did the game feel so much like my world?

Was I dreaming?

Was this real?

Had Luka been real?

Had The Codex Eternal ever just been a game?

Or was it something else entirely?

One question completely took over my mind... Who am I?

The scene shifted.

I was Luka.

I was moving through a world I knew better than my own.

A world that stretched beyond horizons, filled with towering kingdoms, vast battlefields, and dungeons so deep they swallowed entire legacies whole.

It was a game.

But for me?

It was more than that.

I wasn’t just a player. I was a ruler. A conqueror.

And I led a guild that reshaped the very foundation of this world.

Raiven.

The name burned bright across every ranking board, every leaderboard, every whispered conversation in the depths of shadowed taverns and bustling trade hubs.

I had built it from nothing.

I still remembered the early days—recruiting misfits, no name characters, but each had something unique that drew my attention.

I trained them from nobodies into elites, turning a small band of underdogs into a superpower.

We weren’t just another guild.

We were the guild.

The strongest, the most feared, the most respected.

When a World Event triggered, when a Mythic Boss spawned, when a Legendary Artifact was uncovered—

The world held its breath, waiting to see if Raiven would show up.

Because if we did?

It was ours.

It was an open-world MMORPG, but nothing like the ones people casually played on their screens.

This was Codex Eternal.

A game so vast, so immersive, that it blurred the line between reality and fiction.

A world where fortresses rose and fell overnight, where kings could be dethroned by a single strategic strike, where players weren’t just warriors, but legendary figures shaping the course of history.

Some ruled economies, controlling entire trade networks across continents.

Some dominated politics, turning alliances into betrayals with a single message.

Some became monsters, lone hunters who built their power in the darkest corners of the map, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

But me?

I was a warlord.

I had an army. A fortress. An empire.

I wasn’t just a name on a leaderboard. I was a force of nature.

Artifacts were the heartbeat of the world.

Weapons, armor, grimoires, familiars, every powerful player had something that set them apart.

And at the top?

A ranking system that dictated who truly ruled.

The Codex Eternal Leaderboards:

• Strongest Artifacts – Divine-tier weapons with game-breaking abilities.

• Top Players – The deadliest, most skilled combatants in the entire game.

• Most Powerful Guilds – The empires that shaped the world.

• Richest Players – The economy kings who controlled entire markets.

• Most Feared – Names that sent entire warbands fleeing.

Raiven dominated every list.

And my name sat at the very top.

Not just as the strongest guild leader.

But as the highest-ranked player in the world.

I had an ability no one else had, a power that brought destruction to my enemies, a power that let me see through weaknesses, patterns, the very fabric of reality itself.

My eyes.

They felt familiar but also very different.

The Eyes of the Abyss—

A skill that let me win.

Always.

I remembered standing on the walls of Fortress Raiven, my personal stronghold, overlooking an army that stretched beyond the horizon.

Another guild had dared to challenge us.

Foolish.

They had siege weapons, war beasts, thousands of players marching under their banner.

But numbers didn’t matter.

Strategy did.

I saw every flaw in their formation. Every weak point in their approach.

And when I gave the signal—

We obliterated them.

Not a battle. Not a war.

A massacre.

And when the dust settled?

They swore loyalty instead of seeking revenge.

Because that was what Raiven was.

You didn’t beat us.

You joined us.

The memories shifted.

The world blurred.

And suddenly, I wasn’t in my fortress anymore.

I was standing at the entrance of the Final Dungeon.

The end of Codex Eternal.

A place no one had reached before. The final challenge. The celestial realm, the divine land of the gods, a place reachable only by ascending to the very top of the seven towers of power.

A place rumored to hold the greatest secret in the game. A secret so dangerous, so world-breaking, that it was said the game’s developers had hard-coded it to be impossible to clear.

But I had made it.

I had done the impossible.

Not because I had to.

Because I chose to.

Because something inside me needed to see what was beyond.

And as I stepped forward—

The memories shattered.

The world cracked like glass.

And then—

Darkness.

Until I awoke.

I gasped.

The room spun.

My heart thundered in my chest.

My Eyes wide open.

Where—?

I was lying in my bed.

What…

The...

…only one thought passed through my head!

What… the hell… was that?