What is “life”?

It’s a mysterious energy that causes ordinary molecules to work in concert, overcoming entropy to organize, create, and replicate. It maintains and propagates itself, seemingly into eternity.

Seemingly.

The truth is that “life” is finite. And as suddenly as it appeared in the universe, it one day disappeared.

Fortunately, “life” had progressed far enough to have its own creation prevent its demise. The different life forms worked together to find a way to preserve the energy. To save what was left, and keep it going by other means.

Many amazing technological breakthroughs were made during this time. Forces akin to magic were brought into existence. But the life forms could never be sure they would survive long enough to use them…until they finally created the Reincarnation System.

When a person is about to die, their “life” is taken back into the System and put in a new body, and they are reborn. Body becomes corpse, but nothing dies. No “life” is wasted.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

But everything has a cost. And the cost of cheating death is forcing it to come and find you.

The Reincarnation System produces an Exhaust whenever it is used. The Exhaust is a force of death that almost seems to seek revenge on the life forms that cast it away. If it kills people, they will only be reincarnated again, and more Exhaust will be made. If too much Exhaust forms at once, its destructive power could overwhelm the entire system.

So, in order to keep death at bay, we who are not alive give ourselves up to fight.

We are called the Phaetons.

Instead of “life”, we are filled with an experimental “life-like” energy, which may someday be the answer to the question of “life”.

For the moment, it cannot be used for reincarnation. But it is still taken up by the System, which means that it produces Exhaust.

However, the Exhaust produced when the System tries to process the “life-like” energy is quite unlike the normal version. It is more powerful, more deadly.

More sentient.

Only a small amount of Exhaust of that type has ever been made. After those few crises, it was decided that the Phaetons’ “life-like” energy must be prevented from entering the System at all costs.

So a different system was made for us. Before we die, we and all the energy we hold are simply destroyed. We burn away, never to exist again.

It’s a necessary sacrifice.