Blackness stretched forever. No breeze, no earth beneath, no sky above—just endless, choking darkness. Then a blue spark cut through, followed by soft mechanical whirring.
Adikara drifted helplessly, feeling nothing, weighing nothing. He tried moving but had nowhere to go. Terror gripped him. Is this death? The eternal punishment those temple priests warned about all those years?
Just as fear swallowed him whole, a sharp ding! cut through his skull.
[System Boot Sequence: Complete.] [Welcome, User: Adikara.] [Initializing Reconstruction Protocol.]
Glowing symbols—somehow readable—materialized before him. His chest tightened as strange energy surged through his broken body, sealing torn flesh, fixing broken bones. He gasped for air that wasn't there. Like thousands of tiny needles stitching him back together from the inside.
"Who's there?" he whispered hoarsely.
[Svara, at your service,] came the reply. [Primary Objective: Assist you in survival, conquest, and dominion.]
The voice wasn't male or female—cool but oddly familiar, like someone you've known forever but can't quite picture. Something playful lurked under its formality, like it enjoyed a private joke.
"You're... helping me?" Adikara couldn't believe it. Nobody ever helped without wanting something worse in return.
[Affirmative. Survival rate without assistance: 0.2%. With Svara: 99.999%.] [Proposal: Rebuild, gather strength, overthrow current regime, establish new dynasty.] [Mission Codename: System Overthrow.]
The words hung suspended like burning stars.
Adikara stared at the floating panel, heart pounding. A chance. A real chance to live—and not just survive, but strike back against the world that crushed him.
Tears formed in his eyes. Not sad tears. Not scared tears. Tears from something he'd almost forgotten: hope.
[Would you like to begin tutorial mode?]
Before he could answer, the darkness shuddered—and suddenly gravity crushed down on him. Cold mud squelched between his fingers. Rain stung his face. The brutal reality of Mahadipa had returned.
But so had he.
Different now.
And not alone.
Above him loomed crumbling temple walls—and nearby, voices:
"Another corpse? Toss him in the ditch."
Adikara's fists tightened. He wasn't a corpse anymore. He was the beginning of the end.