A sigh reverberated through the expansive throne room decorated with countless murals depicting historical events, statues sculpted in the image of endless species, and a velvet carpet that stretched to cover the entire floor.

Countless marble columns supported the towering room, preventing its collapse. Its height reached so high that the ceiling became a blur, a shame, as it was covered in even more murals and symbolisms.

Space stretched outside the windows of the hall. Stars, planets, and other celestial bodies circled the massive auditorium.

A man stood in the middle of the spacious room, on his disheveled head stood a broken crown, broken yet still in its rightful place. Despite his injuries, his back stood like a pillar, as if even death couldn’t bend his will.

The man’s head was tilted high, looking above him, no one but him could see what he saw. An army of higher beings had surrounded the room, and countless other floated outside the building, in its walls, in its floor and on every axis and dimension possible.

“So you have waited till my success.” With each spoken word, the man leaked blood from all of his orifices. His white royal outfit was now dyed crimson red, there was a veil of blood in front of his eyes, a curiosity as to how he even saw.

His mouth stretched into a smile, his teeth painted entirely in red shined through it. He looked akin to a sculpture made of blood.

A phantom man, the tallest of the Higher Beings, took a step forward. His movement was impossible for the Emperor’s mortal eyes to comprehend. All he saw was the man appear in front of him.

The tall man’s body was akin to a blue illusion. It lost its shape and regained it with each passing second, he was like a smoke in the wind, with each breeze losing his shape.

“Emperor Alcan, you have conquered the entire mortal world, yet here you are having committed blasphemy against the higher race. Your ambitions have brought your end,” The higher being spoke, his words were met with a laugh filled with ridicule, but it was cut short by the gurgling blood in Alcan’s throat.

Alcan coughed, blood splattering onto the floor, yet his smile widened, revealing crimson-stained teeth. “Blasphemy?”, Alcan spread his arms. He took in his surroundings, focusing his senses on the army covering the room."

He shook his head. “You encircled my empire the moment I succeeded in my experiments regarding higher dimensions. I didn’t even get a prior notice and you say I committed blasphemy. How was I supposed to know?”

He scanned the room to see his sarcastic remarks hit deaf ears. “Higher Beings.” He said with disgust, “Worthless trash without a sense of humor.”

The higher being didn’t lose his temper, as he wasn’t capable of it even if he wished, "We are beyond such concepts, Emperor Alcan. We don’t expect ordinary mortals to understand, but we thought you might have been an exception."

Alcan chuckled, he genuinely couldn’t believe the words coming off the man’s mouth, “You are nothing but a slave to the universe, you have no will, no emotion, nor any ambitions, yet you dare question my greatness.” he sighed, “Such amazing design wasted on soulless husks called Higher Beings.”

His senses picked up that the army had lost their patience and was closing in on him. “Mortals might be inferior in many fields, but one field we excel at is creating explosions above our weight class.” With a snap of his fingers, the entire cluster of surrounding planets lit up into a blinding blue light so bright that it seemed pure white, followed by a massive explosion.

The space itself quaked. Alcan had already died in the explosion. No remains of him were left behind, not even his ashes.

The Higher Beings looked at their forms with widened eyes as they slowly watched their bodies, which they had long deemed invincible, perish to a mere explosion.

“How.”

Only the strongest Higher Being stood as the remains of the rest gathered to a single point. This time, it was his turn to look up at the forming figure above him. The first sound from Alcan’s rebirth was a loud laughter that quaked dimensions.

“We knew of your every single move. You could have hidden nothing from us.” Those were the last words the Higher Being spoke before he completely got absorbed into Alcan’s new existence.

“The purpose of a secret is for it to remain hidden.” He had a feeling he was being watched for a long time and took the needed precautions long ago.

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He had hidden this secret even from himself. The entire empire's computing power had been used to encode and transfer the secret into Alcan's brain without his knowledge, ensuring even he couldn't consciously access it.

Before he could bath in his achievement, his eyes widened as he felt a crushing force on his body, preventing him from moving an inch.

Space itself split apart to reveal its layered dimensions as an old man walked out. “I have tolerated your actions for the longest time, Alcan.” He looked similar to the Higher Beings from before, but his form unlike them was stable.

“But your last action, it's unforgivable. As an Elder of the Higher Council, I sentence you to eternal punishment.” His hand made a grabbing motion towards Alcan.

Alcan's eyes widened as he sensed his impending demise. He mustered all of his strength to utter a single word: “Detonate.” His new existence got destroyed, as even the power holding him couldn’t stop the detonation. A soundless, visionless explosion happened. It had surpassed the physical realm.

Elder blocked the explosion using space itself as a shield and wrapped it around the explosion to condense it before it could hurt space and time any further. However, he was too late as a hole had already opened in the area where he had condensed the explosion.

Elder’s eyes widened as he showed emotion for the first time in eons, he shouted. “Madman! He expelled himself out of this universe.” His mind couldn’t comprehend why someone would perfom such an act.

Being outside of the Universe was a fate worse than eternal punishment. With another wave of his hand, Elder completely surpassed the explosion and restored the space. As he gazed at the area which Alcan had gone into, he nodded in response as space carried whispers to his ears.

“He was indeed born too early for this universe.” With that, he melted back into the layers of the space. They hugged his body, and he disappeared into the maws of space.

...

Nothingness stretched till infinity, an incomprehensible emptiness filled with occasional specs of creation. Alcan, his soul, was one such creation floating in endless void.

His eyes saw images his soul couldn’t comprehend. All he could do was look, he couldn’t even suffer as his soul had none to muster. His mind comprehended nothing yet his eyes gazed at all there was, Chaos.

No vision his eyes perceived remained in his memory, they were fleeting. The ever-changing chaos forced him to rebirth each second, unable to maintain a stable form.

For the first time in forever, Alcan saw something, a light, and it didn’t escape his mind. Instead, it rooted itself deep into his consciousness like a hook. He slowly felt his soul being reeled toward the spiraling light.

There were colors that he couldn’t comprehend, but only feel. For the first time since his detonation, he felt something. A waterfall of emotions rushed into his being. These were complex emotions, not just feelings, but concepts.

Suddenly, the pull between him and the light reached a breaking point, and like a magnet, he zoomed into the light.

The first thing he comprehended was pain, soul-wrenching pain, “GAARH, COUGH” His hands motioned to his face, and he felt a warm watery sensation.

He knew this feeling ever so well, he was dying. His thoughts felt sticky, as if his brain wasn’t functioning properly. He coughed, and a blood splashed into his hands, “My luck.. I’m dying right after reincarnating.”

He opened his eyes, his eyelashes ripped, but he pushed through. Dried blood had glued his eyelids.

All he saw was a world of crimson, luckily as a man who clawed his way atop, he was used to seeing behind blood. He laid on the ground with his arms spread, watching the sky.

“At least I get to enjoy the sky before my death.” Each breath hurt his lungs. A lot was going on in his mind, knowing that his journey had come to an end was an interesting feeling.

What was more interesting was being incapable of doing anything. His body felt weak. He couldn’t even lift himself off the floor, and death was certain. He, Alcan Casanova, for the first time in his life, was helpless.

Helpless as death pulled him into her embrace, the man whose life was spent struggle would die in such a manner, “How ironic.” He could feel death edge closer to him. This feeling wasn't unfamiliar to him. He had been in worse shapes before, but his body had never given up on him like this.

He closed his eyes, having long accepted his death, “I would struggle again if I could. I regret nothing.” He smiled even in his last moments. The darkness brought in by his closed eyes was overwhelmed by the green light that came from an outside source.

His eyes opened wide, like a predator that saw its prey. The green light blinded him, but he felt no discomfort in his eyes, only soothing warmth as he felt his energy come back to him.

“This.. what kind of technology is this?” He slowly picked himself back up. He looked around to see a battered battlefield. There were large gauges on the ground and dozens of trees had been uplifted from their roots.

He looked next to his hand to notice a small piece of paper, one of many sprinkled around the battlefield. He had seen many battlefields but none this bizarre. His hand picked the paper and he examined it.

“Doesn’t seem special apart from the high-quality paper.” He dropped it back down and, with great difficulty, got up from his half-lying position.

The moment both his feet touched the ground, a sense of familiarity spread through his being, “It’s great to have feet once more after floating in the emptiness for so long.”

Just as he was doing small hops to test his new body, he noticed the dangling necklace on his chest. He grabbed it to see that green smoke leaking off a crack in its face.

“So this is what saved my life.” He didn’t know how such a small container could save his life. Even with the advanced technology of his empire, it would be challenging to replicate such a feat.

He cracked his neck, then took a better look around the battlefield. “It seems like someone murdered me.” His gaze then fell on the papers once more. “And these clearly aren’t simple paper pieces.”

He started collecting the ripped paper pieces. He currently needed all he could get to have a chance at this new world.

“Honey?” a shocked voice called from behind him. It was a woman. Alcan’s eyes widened as he couldn’t believe someone got this close to him despite his battle-hardened senses.