The ceiling.
The same cracks. The same flickering light. The same silence pressing on his chest like a coffin lid.
Mike blinked awake in Loop 63.
Mio's storm-colored eyes hovered over him, worry she didn't yet understand swimming in them. He gave her the same crooked smile he always did, squeezing her hand before letting go.
She didn't need to know. Not yet.
Loop 63
The wave screamed open.
[System Chime!]
[Telekinesis Capacity Enhanced: 89.6 Million Tons → 179.2 Million Tons]
The power surged through him like molten iron, his grip on the world heavier than ever before. Entire highways curled like ribbons. Cars folded into marbles. Skyscrapers groaned, their steel frames collapsing under the invisible weight of his will.
But the laughter came. Always the laughter.
"You can pile the world on your shoulders, and I'll still rip it away."
Brad's voice. Unseen, untouchable.
The loop ended in ruin.
Loops 64–66
The numbers climbed higher, each chime mocking him.
[179.2 Million Tons → 358.4 Million Tons]
[358.4 Million Tons → 716.8 Million Tons]
[716.8 Million Tons → 1.43 Billion Tons]
By Loop 66, Mike's telekinesis was monstrous. He split rivers, bent bridges into knots, and crushed armies in the palm of his mind.
But Chloe's golden fire always sputtered out. Mio's Absolute Protection always cracked. Brad's unseen hand always tore through them.
Strength meant nothing against inevitability.
The Choice to Flee
By Loop 67, despair carved deep lines into his resolve. For the first time, he tried something different.
He didn't fight.
When the alarms blared of the coming wave, when the time for battle came, Mike turned his back. He grabbed Mio and Chloe and teleported them far away.
The wave was worldwide—it still hit them. Powers still awakened. Mio's storm raged, her Absolute Protection blossoming in blue. Chloe's Solar Flare still burned gold. Mike's telekinesis still doubled in force.
But there was no battlefield to unleash them on. No strategy. No war.
Just running.
The first year passed in hiding. Then two. Chloe's Solar Flare grew brighter, but it lit only dark caverns and abandoned shelters. Mio practiced her shielding on storms instead of enemies. Mike's telekinesis became terrifying, but he used it to build shelters, carve tunnels, keep them alive.
For a time, he let himself believe this was salvation.
Then Brad found them.
The unseen voice tore through their haven like a blade through cloth. Chloe burned first, snuffed out mid-scream. Mio's shield cracked. Mike hurled continents of force into the shadows—
And failed.
Loop 67 ended in blood.
Survival Years
Other attempts stretched longer.
Loop 68: Two years.
Loop 69: Nearly three.
Loop 70: Five years.
Five years of running. Five years of teleportation jumps, empty cities, scavenging, hiding in places the wave had scoured clean.
Five years of watching Chloe's fire blaze brighter than the sun but never once against the true enemy. Five years of watching Mio's Absolute Protection hold against storms and quakes but never against Brad's hand. Five years of Mike's telekinesis bending landscapes, only to realize he was bending them for nothing.
And then Brad came. Always Brad.
"Did you think you could escape inevitability?"
It was never a battle. It was an execution.
Monarch of Space — A Flicker
During those wandering years, Mike leaned heavily on the Monarch of Space. Teleportation was their lifeline, their only shield against annihilation.
But something shifted.
On the edge of perception, when he pushed his spatial control to extremes, he felt a flicker. A hint of a second technique, something not meant for war but for something else entirely.
It was unclear. Undefined. Like a seed waiting for the right soil.
Mike didn't chase it. Not yet. But it lingered in the back of his mind.
Loop 71
He returned to the battlefield.
The wave split the sky.
[System Chime!]
[Telekinesis Capacity Enhanced: 1.43 Billion Tons → 2.86 Billion Tons]
The battlefield bent under his power. Trenches split the earth. Beasts collapsed in waves under the crushing grip of his mind. For moments, the sky itself seemed like it would yield to him.
And still, Chloe died first. Mio's shield cracked second. Brad's laughter came last.
Always.
Loop 72
[System Chime!]
[Telekinesis Capacity Enhanced: 2.86 Billion Tons → 5.72 Billion Tons]
Mike's grip had become divine. He could shift tectonic plates, shatter continents, drag oceans across land. His telekinesis was now greater than the forces that shaped the planet itself.
And yet, none of it mattered.
The loop broke.
Loop 73 — The Shift
The wave roared open, and Mike braced for the usual doubling of telekinesis.
But the sound that echoed wasn't familiar.
[Ding!]
[Unknown Ability Awakened]
A surge unlike any he had ever felt tore through him. Not weight, not force—something deeper. Something immeasurable.
A strange aura flickered to life within him.
[Ability: ???]
[State: Awakened]
No name. No explanation. No description.
Only the undeniable truth: something hidden had finally stirred awake.
His telekinesis did not grow this loop. Instead, the Unknown Ability pulsed inside him, like a heart beginning to beat for the first time.
Mike straightened, vision sharp, heartbeat loud in his ears. For the first time in countless regressions, something felt different.
Something new had entered the game.
The loop ended, but the echo of that power lingered.
Loop 74 awaited.
And the question that would shape everything:
What exactly had he awakened?