Subject 05 was standing, his body covered in blood.
It was not his blood.
He looked toward the sky, quietly admiring the beauty of the world.
Four psychics appeared. Each one radiated the aura of Tier 9.
"Well, Subject 05, you have met your demise. Did you really think you could kill us and reach Tier 10?"
Subject 05 laughed.
"I only failed to reach Tier 10 because you interrupted my tribulation."
Without hesitation, the four psychics charged forward.
Kael Dravon stepped ahead first. He was tall, with crimson hair and sharp amber eyes, his hands wreathed in flames. A master of pyrokinesis.
Serina Vale followed, her silver hair flowing over her shoulders, emerald eyes glowing with a gentle light. She radiated a soothing warmth as a vitakinesis expert.
Ryn Vos came next, his jagged black hair falling over storm-grey eyes. Sparks of lightning danced around him, his Electrokinesis surging in the air.
Darius Venn moved last. His pale skin contrasted with his deep black eyes, eyes that seemed to drink in light itself. His mnemokinesis warped the very sense of memory and perception around them.
Darius stepped forward, his black eyes narrowing. Heat shimmered in the air around him as he raised his hand. A blade of fire materialized in his grasp, its molten edge twisting and flickering like it was alive.
The flaming sword slashed toward Subject 05.
He slipped to the side, the blade passing close enough to scorch the edge of his hoodie and fill the air with the smell of burnt fabric.
Kael moved next. With a sudden roar of flame, a cyclone of fire erupted around him. The vortex twisted into a towering spiral before crashing toward Subject 05 like a living storm.
Subject 05 spread his hand. Water condensed from the very air, swirling into a dense shield that wrapped around his body. The flames struck it with a hiss, exploding into steam that cloaked the battlefield in a suffocating fog.
Through the mist, a flash of light burst forward.
Ryn's lightning ripped through the haze and struck Subject 05 square in the shoulder. The jolt tore through his body, locking his muscles in place. His left arm went limp, useless.
They had prepared for this moment.
He tried to focus, to think, but then his mind was pulled somewhere else.
He saw himself as a boy, laughing in the sunlight, chasing after a tall man whose smile felt warm and familiar.
Subject 05's brows furrowed. These were not his memories.
Mnemokinesis.
Darius was weaving illusions directly into his mind.
Subject 05 clenched his jaw and forced his own mnemokinesis inward, unraveling the false visions thread by thread until the world snapped back into focus.
But it was already too late.
A blade burst through his abdomen, driving the air from his lungs and sending a hot wave of pain through his body. His knees buckled as the metallic tang of blood filled his mouth.
Subject 05 looked down at the place where the blade was lodged in his body. Heat seared through him, his internal organs burning with every heartbeat.
In that moment, he smiled.
Kael froze for a second, then instinctively stepped back.
"Why are you smiling, bastard? It's already over. You're dying today. So much for being called the perfect psychic. In the end, you were nothing but a tool," Kael mocked.
The flames roared. Lightning cracked. The air twisted with psychic force.
Subject 05 stood in the middle of it all, blood running down his side, a blade buried in his abdomen.
He began to laugh.
It was not the laugh of someone defeated. It was deep, steady, almost amused.
"Do you know what is funny," he said, his voice carrying through the chaos. "For years they called me the perfect psychic. A masterpiece. A weapon no one could rival."
He looked at each of them in turn, his dull grey eyes sharp despite the pain.
"And yet here I am, bleeding in front of four people who think they have won. You believe that today is my end."
His smile widened.
"You are wrong. Today is the day I take everything from you. Your victory. Your satisfaction. Even the right to say you killed me."
Kael's jaw tightened, but Subject 05 kept going, his words low and deliberate.
"You have spent your lives mastering your powers, but I have spent mine mastering the one thing none of you will ever touch, control over my own fate."
He gripped the blade in his stomach, blood dripping onto the scorched ground.
"And now I decide where my story ends."
His eyes glowed as he activated three forms of kinesis — chronokinesis to tear open the flow of time, mnemokinesis to lock his consciousness in place, and aetherkinesis to force his soul beyond the present.
A deep hum shook the air.
The battlefield wavered like water, the edges of reality bending and curling inward. Color bled from the world, replaced by streaks of silver light. The ground beneath him fractured into an endless void, stars bursting into existence in the cracks.
He felt his body breaking apart, each fragment of himself unraveling into threads of pure thought. His heartbeat slowed, yet every second stretched into eternity. The voices of the four psychics became distant echoes, stretched and warped until they were no longer words but strange, haunting tones.
The vortex of time pulled him upward.
He saw moments flashing around him — battles he had fought, faces he had forgotten, worlds he had never seen yet somehow recognized. The stars blurred into a single beam of light that pierced the darkness.
Then he let go.
Self-destruction tore through what remained of his body.
His soul shot forward, swallowed by an ocean of white.
...
In a quiet room, a teenager around the age of sixteen slowly opened his eyes.
Black hair fell to his shoulders, framing a pale face. His dull grey eyes stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment before he sat up and swung his legs off the bed.
He walked to the window and unlatched it.
The moment it opened, the scent of rain swept in, cool and fresh.
Outside, the world was unfamiliar.
Tall buildings stretched across the skyline. Strange vehicles moved along wet roads. Wires crisscrossed the air between steel poles, humming faintly with power.
"What is this… where have I been reborn?" he murmured.
This was Subject 05.
Every psychic possessed two things — a psychic channel and a seed. The psychic channel determined the mind's capacity to control power. The seed was the core where a psychic's essence was stored and nurtured.
Now, he was alive again. Reborn. Yet he had no idea how much time had passed since his death.
Closing his eyes, he focused inward. He found the seed within himself and examined its state.
Tier 1.
The technique he had used to escape into the future had taken everything. His body. His power. His progress. All of it was gone.
But he did not feel despair.
Instead, a faint smile touched his lips.