Vega Terra. Standard Year 2314.
The city of Aethelburg floated gracefully among stratospheric clouds, an architectural jewel woven from smart metal and photochromic glass. Flickering light bridges connected it to other floating cities, creating a colossal, shimmering spiderweb in the sky. Below, the planet's restored green surface stretched like a forgotten tapestry.
Inside one of the soaring residential towers, in a minimalist apartment where walls were ever-shifting data screens, Heze stared into emptiness.
Not the existential void he often contemplated in his spare time, but literal emptiness. A hole in the largest data archive ever known to human civilization.
As a cognitive economist, Heze's job was to analyze trillions of terabytes of market data to predict consumer behavior. He was paid handsomely to see patterns where others saw only noise. Yet his personal project, his obsession, was an anomaly he called the "Null Memory."
"Run diagnostics on the CryoCorp Data Incident again," Heze commanded calmly. His apartment AI, "Lyra," responded in a synthesized feminine tone.
`Running deep archive diagnostics... CryoCorp Incident, date 34.8.2312. Result: 1.2 zettabytes of data missing. Archive integrity: 100%. Fragmentation rate: 0%. Data deleted: 0 bytes.`
Heze leaned back in his ergonomic chair. The same result, for the 217th time. Impossible. Data couldn't just vanish. It could be corrupted, deleted, fragmented—each leaving a digital "scar." But this? This was perfect absence. As if those 1.2 zettabytes had never existed at all.
In his world, transhumanism was the norm. Humanity had conquered disease and aging through organic implants and memory augmentation. Soul and data were nearly synonymous. Major factions had formed around this philosophy. The Cult of Echo worshipped stored memory as a form of immortality, believing data archives were their heaven. To them, Null Memory was the ultimate blasphemy—anti-memory, anti-existence.
On the other side, the pragmatic Order of Singularity saw it merely as an advanced system bug, a technical challenge to be solved on their path to soulless progress.
Heze rejected both. He saw it as neither sin nor bug. He saw it as a fundamental question. If information could be utterly null, what about consciousness? What about the soul?
That night, driven by frustration and intellectual obsession, he decided to do something insane. He would bypass all security protocols and connect his consciousness directly to the source coordinates of the Null Memory anomaly. He wanted to feel the nothingness itself.
"Lyra, activate direct cognitive interface. Target: Null CryoCorp Coordinates. Override all safety protocols," he ordered.
`Warning, Heze. This action has a 99.8% probability of causing permanent neural damage or total cognitive erasure. Confirm?`
"I've never been more certain in my life," Heze replied, fitting the cold neuro-helm onto his head.
The world around him vanished. Darkness. Then, he was within the data stream. Trillions of informational lights streaked past him like stars in a digital galaxy. He sped toward the anomaly—a black point in an ocean of light.
As he entered it, all sensation ceased.
No light. No sound. No data. No thought.
Only... silence.
Absolute, cold, perfect silence. This wasn't terrifying darkness, but calming emptiness. All his existential angst, all his questions about meaning, all the noise of modern civilization—it was all gone. Here, within this void, nothing needed questioning because there was nothing.
In his apartment, the AI Lyra screamed in panic.
`CRITICAL COGNITIVE LINK! BRAIN FUNCTION DECLINING! NEURAL PATTERNS VANISHING! HEZE, SEVER CONNECTION! HEZE!`
But Heze no longer heard. He had found the answer he'd sought. Not in information, but in the absence of information itself.
His final thought wasn't fear or regret, but a profound, absolute understanding.
"Ah... so this... is perfect nothingness."
His heart stopped beating. His body in the chair grew cold. In the digital universe, his consciousness—his soul—now fully resonating with the concept of "Null," dissolved into the void.
Yet, he did not vanish.
In another dimension, in a world named Eulogia, an ancient anchor embedded within a cursed bloodline sensed that resonance. The Soul Anchor within the dying body of Nihil Aethernis Nocturne found a compatible soul—one that had already understood and embraced the void.
And it pulled.
Consciousness came not as a dawn, but as shards of glass stabbed into the eyes.
One moment, Heze was dissolving in the perfect silence of the Null Memory. The next, sensation crashed back with brutal force. The deep, bone-seeping cold of stone. The stale odor of stagnant air. And a pressure—a heavy, oppressive foreign energy smothering everything like a wet shroud. This was the antithesis of the void he'd just embraced; this was existence rendered unbearably dense.
With a rasping groan, Heze's consciousness forced the unfamiliar body to move. His eyelids scraped open, revealing a dim chamber. An isolation cell crafted from black obsidian, etched with chains of glowing silver runes. This wasn't Aethelburg. This wasn't Vega Terra.
He tried to rise, joints protesting with audible cracks. This body felt terrifyingly weak, brittle as if it might crumble at any moment. He looked at his hands—pale as marble, with long, slender fingers. Not his hands.
Gasping, he crawled towards the only reflective surface in the gloom: a ceremonial silver dagger lying on the floor, likely dropped. He stared into its dull sheen.
The tragic face of an aristocratic young man stared back. Skin nearly translucent. Hair, long and bone-white, spilled like liquid darkness onto the black floor. And his eyes... eyes of a deep, haunting crimson.
Heze's heart—or the heart belonging to this body—pounded with horror and dissociation. This was a nightmare. A post-death hallucination.
Just as his rational mind screamed denial, a familiar-yet-alien interface of cobalt blue flared into his consciousness, clear and undeniable:
[Soul Anchor Activated]
A subtle vibration resonated in the core of his being, as if an invisible hook had sunk deep and anchored fast.
[Binding Modern Soul: 'Heze' to Ancient Vessel: 'Nihil Aethernis Nocturne']
Nihil Aethernis Nocturne. The name echoed with a grief and despair that weren't his own.
[Primary Quest Issued: Reconcile Two Lives]
[Objective: Understand the vessel's past, accept its fate, or forge a new one.]
[Reward for Completion: True Integration.]
[Penalty for Failure: Soul Annihilation.]
Heze stared back at the crimson eyes in the reflection. Analysis, logic, data—that was his world. And now, this system in his mind was the only data he had. His mission was clear, and the penalty absolute. He was no longer Heze, the cognitive economist. Nor was he yet Nihil, the cursed noble. He was both, and neither. An anomaly trapped between two lives.
Elsewhere in the sprawling mansion of House Nocturne, within a study paneled in dark wood and draped in opulent tapestries, Alban Nocturne sipped his red wine. A fire crackled comfortably in the marble hearth, its light dancing across his handsome, arrogant features.
Finally, it was over.
His youngest brother, Nihil—the family's "shame"—had finally succumbed to the curse binding him. The priests had confirmed his death an hour ago. No more whispers in the corridors. No more pitying glances from other noble houses. No more burden staining the great name of Nocturne.
Now, he, Alban, was the sole remaining male heir of his generation. His path to the leadership seat of House Nocturne lay smooth before him. He was already planning his next moves: strengthening the alliance with House Virell, perhaps through a betrothal to one of their daughters now that his family's "blemish" had been... cleansed.
A frantic knock shattered his pleasant reverie.
"Enter," Alban commanded, irritation sharpening his tone.
A captain of the guard rushed in, face deathly pale, breath ragged. "Young Master Alban… it's… it's dire!"
Alban set his glass down slowly, cold eyes narrowing. "Compose yourself, Captain. What could be graver than wine served too cold?"
"The Isolation Vault… where… where Young Master Nihil's body lies," the captain stammered, voice trembling. "The silver runes binding it… they've all cracked! There's… there's a strange energy leaking out. Not Blessing, not dark magic… something else. Something hollow!"
The warmth from the fire and wine vanished from Alban's body instantly, replaced by an icy stab. His satisfaction froze into something colder, harder.
The problem he thought buried had merely been dormant. And it seemed... it had just awoken.
"Assemble the Elite Squad," Alban ordered, his voice as sharp as shards of ice. "Seal every corridor leading to the lower wing. No one is to know of this."
He rose, his luxurious robes whispering behind him. "I will deal with this myself."