The darkness was endless. Like a black hole, this mighty entity was constantly hungry for anything that tried to oppose its might. Behaving like a bloodthirsty beast, it devoured matter and time. Even the thoughts and emotions weren’t spared. Nothing was left behind by its consuming nature. Just pure emptiness. Sometimes, there was occasional resistance that tried to overthrow this infamous ruler, but it always ended in the same manner. Completely drained, those rebels were turned into ashes only to disappear without a trace, forever forgotten as if they never existed in the first place.
However, one spark managed to withstand such a deadly environment. Fighting against what seemed to be an unstoppable overlord of entropy, it was slowly gaining strength. It never tried to spread its influence across the darkness, focusing on illuminating more light toward the inner center. Somehow, it only accelerated its rise. The spark turned into a tiny ball of light. Shining brightly, it wasn’t emanating anything as if finding a real truce with the darkness. It lasted for an unknown amount of time until the sphere became powerful enough to break the status quo. Instead, it simply vanished, piercing the fabric of this eternal darkness and leaving it behind to control its territory in solitude. But it was just the beginning of sphere’s journey.
Joining other balls of light, it followed the ethereal stream that soon turned into a real river. The path was long and hard. At first, struggling to keep up with others, it was still stubbornly clinging to its existence. The energy waves tried to throw it out from the “water” back to a pitch-black abyss, while some competitors were shoving it away by brute force. Not discouraged, a previous spark continued to fight, steadily growing stronger. Then, it understood its purpose – to find a free whirlpool that would bring it somewhere else. And it waged a war, pushing, hitting, and charging at others just to step further down this unknown road. When it finally achieved it, the sphere was several times bigger, easily reaching the top specter of other light balls. The transportation process felt like a powerful pull through the long tube that had no end. It felt like the sphere traveled further than a regular universe. Still, the process was fruitful as with the passage of time, it was only growing larger.
The end was abrupt. Spat out from the tube, the sphere was thrown into a new pitch-black environment. This time, things were different. The darkness was different. There was no threat of being consumed. On the contrary, for the first time, the previous spark felt like it was bathing in comforting warmth. The whole place was nourishing it, accelerating its growth even further. Then, the senses started to appear, increasing the awareness about the surroundings. There were sounds, rare light, and even touches. This was the moment when something started to unfold from the inside of the sphere. The previously hidden information that was an integral part of its core that was the source of its life at the beginning.
Everything was so overwhelming that the sphere fell into a state of comatose. However, a new dramatic change had woken it up, causing a real sensory shock. There were so many feelings and emotions that it just couldn't handle the pressure, screaming aloud like a mortally wounded beast. The cold was especially awful, exposing its vulnerable entity to the whole world. Even its voice only worsened the situation, causing another overwhelming wave, clouding the consciousness that was already struggling to process everything. It didn’t know how much time had passed before the surroundings started to get into place. The blurry vision, the deafening sounds, the energy exhausting, and, more importantly, the information inside – everything lowered its intensity after it managed to get acquainted with its senses. Then, the whole situation suddenly became crystal clear.
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Am I alive?
Straining his eyes, he finally realized that he was looking at the ceiling from his tiny bed while lying on the back. An obvious failure to move his body properly led to a confirmation of the initial assumption – he was reborn and currently was just a newborn baby.
What has happened? Oh… yeah, now I remember… But rebirth into a baby?... That’s the best thing ever! I can finally sense something! I can taste food, drink coffee, breathe… I can feel temperature, or women’s touch… I won’t live like a stupid moving statue anymore! I am truly alive!
Not having any control over his limbs, he turned his attention toward the inner self, feeling something odd. To his utter surprise, he could sense ethereal energy flowing through his body. Following a complex pattern, it had no specific source, as if coming out directly from his soul. Still, it continued to nourish his body passively as if he was back in his steel shell… with a dramatic change of being an absolutely natural thing. Studying it again and again, he was seeing the very same system he created, just adjusted to a living being. It was like he indeed advanced from the Immortal Rebirth realm, getting a perfect celestial constitution from birth that gave him ability to generate a constantly growing stream of energy to empower him indefinitely.
I am reborn in a new world… and I finally have a cheat!
Considering his vast experience and set of deadly skills that he had learned by himself or through serums… Well, he had much more than that. There were so many things he desired when he was locked inside his steel body that for some time, he simply was lost in thoughts about potential plans and ideas. However, this was the moment when he suddenly felt frightened.
Aether, are you here? Aether?... Yes! Fucking yes! They are indeed all gone… I am finally free from the leash! Now I don’t need to survive in deep holes… My life can be different. To be adventurous with something pleasant happening, and not the shit I had all the time… You, Ro… Nope, Robert Flop is dead. Died in that star… You are turning a new leaf, so let’s leave everything in the previous life. This time it will be different! I will make it different!
This was the moment as if someone dropped something heavy, causing an unexpectedly loud sound and breaking his train of thought. Then he felt how someone’s warm and soft hands hurriedly raised him, hugging strongly against the chest. His position still allowed him to look around, but the dark room and his blurry vision didn’t provide much. Still, there was one shining box that was illuminating the place. Changing the pictures, a vague figure of a man was speaking with a dreadful voice. Taking into account that his mother only tightened the grip over his tiny body, it wasn’t something nice to hear. Therefore, twisting his body, he focused on a large TV screen in an attempt to understand what was happening.
Then he saw it – the red flashes on the edges of the screen, working like a calamitous warning. However, the biggest shock was to see the images of portals that were forming right in the middle of the streets under the operator’s camera. He couldn’t understand even a single spoken word coming from the news host, once again confirming that Aether was gone, but the flow of monsters that came out from them was quite recognizable even with his limited capabilities of a baby.
Is it a farewell gift from those bastards?... But you know what, morons? Bring it on! I can still handle everything you throw at me… will need just a dozen years to grow… Well, fuck!
The end of Rob’s misadventures, but only the beginning of his new venturous life.