Darkness.

Then—a spark.

Then—a flood of light.

A young man gasped as he jolted awake, his lungs burning as if he had just surfaced from drowning in an ocean he couldn’t remember. His mind was blank, yet his body knew something was wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Wherever here was.

He sat up, blinking against the blinding whiteness surrounding him. Endless. A vast, infinite void stretched in every direction. No ground, no sky—just nothingness. Yet, he was standing.

"Where am I?" His voice echoed, yet the silence devoured it instantly.

Then, a voice—deep, omnipresent, emotionless.

"You have awakened."

The young man turned sharply, but there was no one. Only the voice.

"You are the Traveler. The Storyteller. The Witness."

"You will live them all. Every world. Every fate. Every ending."

"Only then will you be free."

Before he could protest, reality shattered.

The First World – A Hero’s Destiny

A sword. A weight in his hand. The air was thick with the scent of ash and blood.

He wasn’t in the void anymore. He was standing on a battlefield, a dark fortress looming ahead. Screams, war horns, the clash of steel—it was a fantasy war.

His armor gleamed gold and red. His hand gripped a sword pulsing with power. He knew its name.

Excalis—the Blade of Light.

Behind him, an army cheered.

"Eldric! The Dark Emperor awaits!"

He turned. A Warrior Princess stood beside him, battle-worn but fierce. Her green eyes burned with determination.

"Eldric?" The name felt foreign, yet... familiar.

Before he could question it, the gates of the Dark Fortress creaked open. A shadow loomed.

"You are too late, Chosen One."

A monstrous king, wreathed in black flames, The Dark Emperor.

Eldric—no, he—felt the weight of destiny crash down upon him. He had to fight. He had to win.

But as he charged forward, sword raised—

The Second World – Cybernetic Rebellion

ERROR.

The battlefield glitched. The sword disintegrated into pixels.

Then—dark streets, neon lights.

He was running. Sirens blared behind him. His hands weren’t hands anymore. Cybernetics. A sleek metal arm aimed forward, a pistol forming from his palm. His mind screamed, but his body moved on instinct.

A wanted poster flashed across a holo-screen:

"Kael-47 – Fugitive Cyborg. Eliminate on sight."

Who was Kael-47? Who was he now?

Drones locked onto him. A tactical HUD flashed in his vision.

"Activating combat mode."

His body twisted, bullets flying. Enemies fell. He was a machine, a rogue weapon.

Yet, even as he fought, a thought burned in his mind:

This isn’t real.

The Third World – High School Love Confession

The world blinked again.

No metal. No guns.

He stood in a schoolyard, a soft breeze rustling cherry blossoms around him.

His heart pounded. He was... nervous? No, someone was nervous.

A girl stood before him. Shy. Blushing. Brown hair swayed as she looked up.

"Renji-kun… I love you!"

Wait. No. This didn’t make sense. He had just been in a war. Then a cyber-dystopia. And now... a high school romance?!

Reality was breaking.

The Fourth World – Zombie Apocalypse

A scream.

He turned—blood.

The high school vanished in an instant.

Now, he was surrounded by ruins, the air thick with rot. A zombie lunged—its jaw unhinged, eyes lifeless.

Gunfire erupted behind him.

"Sergeant Cole! Keep moving!"

His clothes were different. Combat gear. His hands gripped a shotgun.

Instinct kicked in. He fired—the zombie’s head exploded.

But then he saw them. Hundreds. Swarming.

His squad was dying.

"No—this isn’t—"

The Fifth World – Cosmic Horror Awakens

A library. Infinite and dark.

Books floated. Whispers filled the air.

He was kneeling, staring up at something vast, unknowable.

A being made of shifting void and endless eyes.

"You see it now, don’t you?"

The whispers slithered into his mind.

"You are the story. You are the entertainment."

He remembered.

The fantasy war. The cyber-rebellion. The school confession. The zombie apocalypse.

He had lived them all.

And it wasn’t over.

"Do you want to know how it ends?"

The Final Question

The young man—Eldric, Kael-47, Renji, Sergeant Cole—stood at the edge of infinity.

He had seen worlds rise and fall. He had wielded swords, guns, magic. He had fallen in love, fought monsters, ruled kingdoms, died and resurrected.

But he wasn’t any of them.

And yet, he was all of them.

The eldritch being loomed closer.

"Do you understand?"

The young man clenched his fists. His mind burned with memories of infinite lives.

"Who am I?"

The void trembled. The books of every story ever written fluttered open.

"That is the only question that matters."

And as the worlds collapsed into light, he whispered—

"I will find out."

[END OF CHAPTER 1]

Darkness. Again.

The weight of infinite lives pressed on him. He had been a hero, a fugitive, a lover, a soldier. He had fought wars, escaped dystopias, survived plagues, and touched the edge of cosmic madness.

But who was he really?

The eldritch voice echoed through the void.

"You seek the truth? Then walk the path."

Light exploded around him.

And then—he was falling.

The Sixth World – The Kingdom of Lies

He hit the ground hard. Dust and sand kicked up as he groaned, rolling onto his back. Above him, two suns burned in the sky. The air smelled of spices, sweat, and something rotten.

A city surrounded him—golden domes, twisting alleys, markets bustling with people dressed in flowing robes and masked faces. A desert kingdom.

He looked down at himself. New clothes. A dark cloak, a dagger strapped to his belt, a coin pouch filled with unfamiliar currency.

"There he is!"

A shout.

He turned—three guards in red armor rushed toward him, scimitars drawn.

"Oh, come on."

His feet moved on their own, instincts taking over. He sprinted into the market, weaving through merchants and shouting vendors.

"Stop the thief!"

Thief?

Was he a criminal here?

A hand grabbed his wrist.

He spun, a woman with piercing silver eyes staring at him beneath her veil.

"You're late," she hissed.

"Late for what?!"

She didn’t answer. She shoved a scroll into his hand.

"Get it to the Sultan before midnight, or we’re both dead."

Then she vanished into the crowd.

The guards were still after him. He had no idea who he was in this world, but one thing was clear—

He was already part of a bigger story.

The Seventh World – The Machine Mind

ERROR.

The desert shattered like glass.

Now—cold metal, blinking lights, the hum of a vast spaceship.

He gasped, clutching his head. The transition was getting faster.

"Commander Orion, we’re receiving a distress signal from the Outer Rim."

He turned toward the voice. A woman in a sleek spacesuit stood at attention, glowing data panels reflected in her visor.

Commander Orion? Was that him?

He checked his reflection in a screen. A sharp uniform. A badge with his name. His mind filled with new knowledge—star charts, battle strategies, the weight of command.

He had no time to process it.

"Sir! The anomaly is growing!"

Outside the viewport, a black hole pulsed unnaturally. And from its depths—

Something was coming through.

The Eighth World – The Forbidden Cult

Pain.

A ritual chamber. Candlelight flickered against stone walls covered in blood symbols.

He was tied to an altar.

Chanting filled the air. Hooded figures surrounded him, their voices rising in an eerie, rhythmic hum. A robed cult leader raised a dagger above him.

"The vessel is ready. Let the Great One take its host!"

Oh, HELL no.

Adrenaline surged. He twisted, ropes biting into his wrists. His mind screamed—he had to break free!

A shattered memory returned—

In another life, he had defeated a Dark Emperor.

That life still lived in him.

He roared, ripping through the ropes with strength that wasn’t his. The cultists gasped.

The leader’s dagger plunged down.

He caught it midair.

A voice whispered in his mind.

"You are remembering, aren’t you?"

He didn’t have time to respond.

He turned the dagger on the cultist.

Blood spilled.

The world trembled.

The Question of Reality

He wasn’t dreaming.

He wasn’t imagining this.

Every life—every world—was real.

And something—or someone—was making him live them all.

He stood in the void again, heart pounding.

A figure emerged.

Not the eldritch entity from before. This time, it was him.

Another version of him.

"You're finally catching on," the Other Him said, smirking.

The realization crashed down like a collapsing universe.

"Who are you?!"

"The better question," the Other Him whispered, stepping closer, "is who are YOU?"

"And do you really want to know?"

[END OF CHAPTER 2]

The void twisted, stretching and folding in on itself like the pages of an unfinished book, every crease a world that had been written and rewritten.

The Other Him stood there, arms crossed, the very image of calm detachment. He smirked at the confusion flickering in the depths of his eyes.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "But trust me, the truth is worse than you can imagine."

Every word seemed to vibrate with hidden knowledge, like he could see into the very core of him. The pressure on his chest grew heavier. A suffocating weight pulled at his mind, as though reality itself was closing in, locking him in place.

"No more games."

"Who are you?" he demanded, voice strained but steady.

The Other Him chuckled, his voice laced with mockery. "Wrong question," he said, his eyes glinting with something dark, something not entirely human. "You should be asking: what are you?"

He clenched his fists, fighting the rising panic, fighting the overwhelming urge to collapse into the unknown. But the truth was: he didn’t know who he was anymore. He was a traveler between worlds, a being with endless possibilities, and yet... none of them seemed to fit.

The Other Him stepped closer, his presence like a shadow swallowing the light around them.

"Let me show you," the Other Him whispered.

The Ninth World – The Broken Tower

The transition was instantaneous—he was falling, spiraling through an abyss of starlight, and when his feet hit the ground again, the world around him shifted into something ancient, something forgotten by time itself.

A vast ruined tower loomed in front of him, its jagged spires scraping at the storm-filled sky. The air felt thick with the weight of old magic, powerful enough to twist the fabric of the world itself. It was a place that had witnessed wars, betrayals, and the collapse of entire civilizations. A place of dark secrets.

A voice echoed across the ruins, booming with authority, "The Exiled King has returned."

He froze.

His pulse quickened as he looked around. Was he supposed to know what that meant? Who was the Exiled King? Why did the voice seem so familiar? So… like him?

Then he saw it—the towering figure sitting on a broken throne at the center of the ruins. The figure was him, but not quite. This version of him had eyes filled with a deep, unyielding sorrow, a gaze hardened by years of loss, yet still burning with the last remnants of hope.

"You don’t understand yet, do you?" The King-Him's voice was a low rumble, each word heavy with unspoken pain.

He felt an urge to approach, a pull in his chest that felt natural, like he had always known this moment would come.

"Then explain it to me." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. The need for answers burned within him. Who was he? What was this world?

The King-Him looked at him with a mixture of pity and regret. "We are all the same person. But we are also different. Every choice, every path, every possibility—you are living all of them."

His head swam with the implications of those words. The Other Him had already said something similar, but hearing it from someone who looked like him, someone who had clearly lived through suffering, made the weight of the revelation unbearable.

"Why?"

The King-Him stood from his throne, his sword appearing in his hands with a quiet, metallic hum. "Because something is hunting us."

He felt a chill spread through his chest, his breath freezing in his lungs.

"Run!" The King’s voice was commanding, desperate. But before he could even react, a deep, rumbling growl echoed across the tower.

The air shifted. Dark clouds swirled above, casting an unnatural shadow over the ruins. A sound, like a scream from the very earth itself, filled the air.

"It found us."

He looked up. The storm was alive. From the swirling vortex of darkness, a figure began to emerge—a shadow that seemed to absorb the very light around it. The figure was humanoid, but wrong. Its body was made of writhing darkness, and its eyes—eyes that burned like twin stars—focused directly on him.

"You are an anomaly." The voice rasped, each syllable filled with cosmic malice. "You do not belong."

The words sliced through him like a blade, but before he could react, the figure lunged.

The Eraser was here.

The Hunter

His body moved on instinct, but his mind couldn’t keep up. He barely managed to duck under the Hunter’s shadowy claws, the air around him thick with suffocating dread.

The King-Him leapt forward, his sword crashing into the Hunter’s form with an explosion of sparks. But the creature didn’t flinch. It simply reabsorbed the blow, its body shifting and writhing like liquid darkness.

"The Eraser will wipe you from existence," the King-Him shouted, "It is relentless. It is inevitable."

He backed away, heart hammering in his chest. There was no logic to this thing. It existed to destroy—to erase all versions of him, to break the chain of possibility.

But the King-Him didn’t give up. He charged again, striking with furious precision. The Hunter countered with a swiftness that defied logic. With every strike, the creature regenerated, pulling its form back together in a grotesque display of impossible power.

It was like fighting the end of time itself.

And then, with a burst of pure energy, the King-Him was sent flying, crashing into the base of the tower. The Eraser stood over him, its eyes narrowing.

"You will not escape," it whispered, as if it knew something he didn’t.

The Escape

Before he could fully comprehend the horror of the situation, the world around him fractured again. The tower, the storm, the creature—they all disappeared in an instant, replaced by the cold, infinite void. He gasped, choking on the strange pressure in his chest.

He was back in front of the Other Him—the one who had been watching him from the beginning, arms still crossed, his expression unreadable.

"Told you."

"Why? Why is this happening?!" The words escaped him in a rush, a desperate cry.

The Other Him didn’t answer immediately. His eyes gleamed with something… deeper. "The Eraser is a force that hunts us—every version, every path. It’s been chasing us across worlds, across timelines, for as long as we’ve existed."

He swallowed hard. "How do I stop it?"

The Other Him’s face softened, just a little. "You can’t. Not yet. But you can run. You can learn. And you can gather the pieces of yourself, the memories, the power, to stand against it when the time comes."

He wasn’t sure if he could do that—gather his pieces, learn what he needed to know—but the fear in his chest was palpable. "I don’t know how much time I have left."

"Then make it count."

With that, the world around him began to shift again. Another world was calling. Another path. Another chance.

The chase wasn’t over. It had only just begun.

[END OF CHAPTER 3]