Present:

Cold breeze sneaking through the stone window ruffled his silver hair, Waking 2709 up from deep slumber.

‘It’s night already?’ he looked around in haze after hearing the sounds of chirping insects.

He recognized this place with ease, for he had been living here for almost a decade. He instinctively traced his fingers across his face, and a foreign sensation welled up within him when his fingers reached his right eye.

‘So it wasn’t a dream’

A rough cloth sealed his right eye, and the heaviness tugging his eye socket proved the harsh reality. The world seemed different from his remaining eye, listless and incomplete.

‘Well the former has nothing to do with eyesight.’

He discerned that in his right eye there was an object. It clung to him like a shadow, a part of him despite the sense of detachment.

2709 felt the not so subtle changes that had occurred in his entire body. He wanted to scream 'What the hell is going on!,' but he knew that it was futile.

He wrecked his brain to remember what happened to him. The back of his skull throbbed in ache, a backlash for the change in vision and the foreign sensation in his body.

2709 leaned back on his pillow, taking deep breaths to calm his mind.

He kept thinking back about what happened today, but still, he failed to recall anything after he parted ways with his friends.

All of a sudden, he saw a line of runes in his vision. They looked like the constellations in the sky, beautiful and mysterious.

‘Am I hallucinating?’ thought 2709 while shaking his head. He thought that it could be a trick of light, but the runes kept chasing after his line of sight.

His head throbbed in ache as he failed to make the heads and tails of the situation.

2709 closed his eyes and calmed down his raging nerves. That, however, yielded an unexpected result.

He gained the knowledge regarding the runes, almost as if he had known them his whole life.

Although it still looked like complex gibberish in his eyes, he understood what it meant. It seemed as natural as breathing and walking.

[Language Transfer finished]

[Initiating Synchronization]

[Progression rate 1%]

[2…5…10%]

[Insufficient energy for further progress]

[Resetting….]

[Assimilating Phase 1 of OMINIRA partially]

He had a thousand questions about his current condition but before he could gather his thoughts, a sharp pain hit him in the head.

Grogginess enveloped his consciousness, and once again, he was lost in the clutches of sleep.

…

Sleepiness lifted its veil from his mind and 2709 opened his eye once again. After a few seconds, his left eye slowly adjusted to the dimly lit room.

He saw the old and splintered wooden beams above his head that bore witness to countless years of history. Leaning up, he ran his fingers along the ragged fabric of the thick blanket, a good comfort against the harsh cold. A slight ache pulsed through his right eye, accompanied by the floating text that popped up in front of him.

[Mission: Gather more energy to finish Synchronization]

A surge of information flowed through his brain as he gazed at that strange sentence. He analysed the new memories and information that were shoved inside his brain, but he couldn't make much sense of them.

He had no time to indulge in his curiosity though.

It was the gnawing emptiness clawing at his stomach that required immediate attention.

‘Tch..It used up all my energy, where am I going to get food at this time?

He shifted in the bed with a grunt, his annoyance winning against the protest of the worn-out blanket. Hunger was an everlasting torment in this place; he had long been accustomed to it. With each growl, his senses felt clearer.

Determined to ignore the hunger that annoyed him, he swung his feet to the side and stood up. His bare feet scrapping against the cold floor as he slumped ahead.

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He wasn't used to the changes in his body, but that didn't hinder him from escaping the confines of his room.

The walls etched with cracks and moss supported his hand as he moved towards the hallway.

A faint aroma of stone and damp earth lingered in the air, a constant reminder of the underground mine that held him in.

The rough surface of the floor was marked with countless patterns, a witness of those who had walked the same corridors through generations.

It carried the weight of freedom and that of forgotten tales.

The silence in the hallway was disturbed by the sound of his lonely steps. After walking for a while, 2709 reached a crossroad.

Flickering flames from half-burned candles made the different hallways barely visible.

He headed towards the central path, leaving behind the echoes of his footsteps.

The living quarters in front him him were quite different compared to his own, a testament to the neglect the orphans recived.

White crystals embedded in the walls gave off a dim light, Their seemingly random arrangement glimmering with a hypnotic beauty.

He heard the echoes of conversations and children’s laughter, reminding him the warmth of kinship he never knew.

Accompanied by his shadow as his sole companion, he walked deeper into the labyrinth hallways with solitude.

The night wind hit his face as, it whispered secrets that lay in this underground mine; reminding him of the memories he longed to forget.

As he left the residential area, darkness once again enveloped the hallway. Surprisingly, the lack of brightness didn't affect 2709's vision at all.

His left eye darted from one dark corner to another, and his senses were alert to every sound, his skin alert to every movement.

He had never felt the world around him as clearly as this before. When his hand touched the wall, he felt the chill of stone seeping through his fingers.

As he walked with steady steps, his heart pounded in a rhythm that sang in harmony with his steps.

With every circulation of air in his lungs, he felt better.

He didn't know how or why, but something had changed deep within him.

After a while the central cliff stood before him, but it’s presence no longer looked as awe-inspiring as before. Even though its sharp edges rose high above, this imposing structure of the underground mine seemed tiny to him

As 2709 looked downwards, the air around the lower layers seemed to thicken, bearing the weight of untold history.

The towering cliffs casted distorted shadows upon the underground mine, shadows that danced like wraiths in this ethereal night.

'Same as always...' 2709 frowned as he sensed the change in surroundings.

The temperature went down, replaced by a chill that wrapped around him like a cloak. But unlike before, it was no longer able to send shivers down his spine.

His hunger for food was replaced by an irrepressible curiosity and it gnawed at his insides, his blood calling him to explore these hidden depths, urging him to defy the rules that bound him, just like it did years ago.

'Huu...'

2709 exhaled a deep breadth and looked at the starry sky above.

Compared to the eerie underground that he was ignoring, the sky was beautiful, filled with the three bright moons and thousands of sparkling stars.

He calmed his mind and probed the new information that lay dormant in his mind.

At first, he felt like hitting a wall, but he wasn't one to give up just like that. And thanks to that very stubborn nature, he found more information after a couple of failed attempts.

It wasn't clear, but he knew what had to be done for the time being.

Most importantly, he found the source of this knowledge, Ominira.

As a reimbursement for all he had suffered, he gained something he had lost a long time ago thanks to ominira. It gave him back his hopes and desires, his dream of the life beyond these walls, his longing for freedom that lay beyond the confines of these underground caves.

He headed back with a sense of contentment filling him, His steps filled with hope due to the knowledge he had acquired.

His excitement for the future was short lived though, as he felt a sensation that dragged him back to the grim reality of present.

A flame of defiance burned within his blood, refusing to be chained. It wanted to claim the liberation without considering the prize, even if it lasted only for a moment.

He now understood how Lucas felt, but he was different from him and all those who died before. He had Ominira, and with but a thought, his powers were chained once again.

From now onwards, he will be the one using his bloodline and not the other way around as it had been the case for countless generations.

‘Just wait till I complete the synchronization...’ Thought 2709 as he recalled the incident from his past.

The quiet environment of his room welcomed him once more, a sanctuary of peace and quiet.

Everything looked the same as before, but he had changed.

As 2709 looked at the clock to check the time, it was already 1 a.m. The dusty glass reflected the chilling glare in his remaining blue eye.

…

Past:

In the vast cosmos where countless stars were being born and destroyed at every second, a colossal black vortex emerged, destroying the eternal cycle of creation and destruction.

Akin to an enormous black hole, it devoured everything around it.

Countless stars and galaxies, once blazing and vibrant, were broken down into their primal forms.

They converged at the center of the vortex which was shrinking at every passing second.

Eons passed by in this remote place of the cosmos.

From a once beautiful tapestry of colorful nebulae and star clusters, all that remained was a black portal that formed at the center of the vortex.

At long last, the black portal cracked, and a person in black robe emerged from within.

"Hmm.. well it took longer than I expected to arrive here. Welp, doesn't matter since I don’t have anything better to do anyway."

In this desolate place of destruction, the man lazily stretched his arms like it was a natural thing to do.

“Before I start looking for the first vessel, I might as well clear up the area before those nosy fellows discover something and make this a lot more complicated than it has to be.”

The man flicked his fingers, and everything around him turned back to how it was eons ago.

Not a trace of him remaind in Svemir.

He waved his hands, and a couple of objects floated in front of him.

“Whew... Now comes the interesting part, which one to choose?”

He swiped his hand, and the items started flying randomly in every direction. They emitted different colored glows, leaving behind a destinct trails behind their trajectory.

He once again flicked his fingers to retrieve them, and this time, and one object remained.

It was a tome bound by vines, with a closed eye in the middle of it. The time was surrounded by a purple halo, giving it a mysterious vibe.

“Oh! To think that it would be Ominira, this'll be fun to watch” the man cackled as he looked at the image drawn on the book.

It was the portrait of a man standing atop a ruined city, looking at a broken moon in the sky. Thousands of crows surrounded him while an army stood behind him on their knees, both paying homage to their Monarch.