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- The Dark Forest, Dungeon world -
- January 26, 1939 -
The heart of the Dark Forest was a world that seemed to breathe around Aryan—thick air, damp leaves that whispered secrets, distant roars that made the canopy tremble. Shadows curled between ancient trees like living things. It was the perfect place for him to disappear into his own thoughts, his weapons, and the endless dance of survival.
He'd been here for hours already, hacking through packs of Tier 4 and Tier 5 monsters that stalked the undergrowth. Their roars and shrieks were now just background noise to him—each swing of his blade, each flicker of magic was precise, practiced. He didn't waste energy anymore. Every kill dripped with purpose: Meta Points. He needed them badly this time.
His boots crunched over a fallen branch as he paused near a moss-choked stone wall, a fragment of something that once was. It had been pure chance—just another ruin hidden in the roots and vines—that made him stop. He'd stepped inside, more curious than cautious, and found the room where the air felt heavy and strangely still.
There, under the collapsed timber and creeping mold, he found the skeleton—just a pile of old bones, curled in on itself as if trying to stay warm until the end. The diary had been clutched to its ribs, its leather cover cracked but somehow whole, its pages still stubbornly readable.
Sitting on a broken pillar, Aryan had flipped it open, expecting little more than mad scribbles. Instead, he found a window to another life.
"To whoever finds this, know I crossed these woods seeking answers… May my words help you avoid my end…"
He read it all. Each page described monsters he'd just cut down with bored efficiency—yet here they were, once feared enough to drive this lone traveler into despair. And there were lines about the wider world—cities, empires, old rivalries—names that made Aryan's chest ache with an odd, almost childish warmth.
Alliance. Horde.
It was impossible not to grin a little. Sitting in this damp ruin, he could almost smell the cheap instant noodles, feel the sticky keyboard under his fingers. He'd been nineteen again for a heartbeat—laughing with his friends, bickering about loot, spending hours in a stuffy cyber café in Delhi, yelling at each other over headsets as they stormed dungeons and raided enemy capitals.
He closed the diary for a moment, letting the nostalgia wash over him. A world like Warcraft—so close, yet not quite the same. Of course, his system wouldn't just drop him into an exact copy. There were twists here—this Dark Forest was massive, the scale of it unreal compared to any zone in the game. It practically split the entire realm in half, an ocean of monsters and ruin, a buffer between two civilizations that could never fully reach each other.
And now, here he was—another traveler crossing these same woods. Except he wouldn't die on a stone floor. Not him.
His wristband flickered to life as Vaani's soft, clear voice chimed in.
"Master Aryan, your current MP count is eighty-seven. The Parallel Existence skill requires at least two thousand. At this rate—"
"—I know, Vaani," Aryan said, pushing himself off the pillar with a quiet sigh. "No lazy farming today."
He rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight of his last big upgrade. The Soulprint Lock had cost him dearly. It made him safer—untouchable in one sense. But it had killed off his old Shadow Clones too. The irony wasn't lost on him. Power always asked for something back.
He thought about the skill he'd found in the shop—Parallel Existence, from Tensura. Not clones, not illusions, but himself, split and real. A true upgrade. With it, he could be everywhere at once—an entire army in one man's skin. The idea thrilled him.
But for that, he needed MPs—more than he'd ever farmed at once. He'd cleared packs all morning, but the little monsters were scraps. He needed something bigger, richer. The diary's last pages gave him an answer.
He looked out through the tangled treeline. Far ahead, the ground rose into jagged, mist-wrapped peaks. Even here, standing in this shadowed ruin, Aryan could sense the pulsing weight of what lay there—an ancient den of dragons, led by something old enough to be worshipped as a god.
A grin flickered across his face—feral, reckless.
A Dragon God, huh? He thought. Well, I do need the points.
He slipped the diary into his inventory, patting it once like an old friend. Then he stepped out of the ruin and into the forest's hush again.
His footsteps were quiet, but inside, Aryan felt the hum of battle already. He would bleed this world dry for every scrap of strength it could offer. If this was the price for protecting what he'd built—his family, his people—then he'd pay it, monster by monster, god by god.
Up ahead, the trees thinned, giving way to a rocky trail snaking up toward clouds that glowed faintly with flickers of scales and wings. Somewhere up there, something ancient was waiting—hoarding centuries of stolen power.
And Aryan, in his worn boots and sweat-soaked clothes, smiled to himself.
He'd come to collect.
—
- Kamal Asthaan, Ujjain, Bharat -
- January 26, 1939 -
The air in Aryan's private quarters inside Kamal Asthaan was pleasantly cool—a welcome change from the humid, beast-choked mountains he'd just returned from. Outside, the palace hummed with distant life: guards changing shifts, aides shuffling papers, somewhere a soft melody from a radio drifting down the hallway. But here, behind thick carved doors, there was only peace—and the muted ache that came after a fight worth remembering.
Aryan lay sprawled on the wide divan near the open window, one arm draped over his eyes, shirt still half open, chest rising and falling with slow, tired breaths. He could still feel where the Dragon God's flame had nearly seared through his barrier—still hear the rumble of wings, the crunch of ancient bones beneath his boots when it finally fell.
He had returned in an exhausted state, half-burned clothes, and a grin that wouldn't quite leave his face. He'd pushed himself far—maybe further than he should have. But the MPs were worth it. They always were.
Five thousand left, he reminded himself lazily. Plenty to spare for emergencies. And now, the Shadow Clone's replacement—Parallel Existence—was humming quietly inside him. He could feel it, like a second heartbeat under his skin, ready whenever he needed to be everywhere at once. No more burning out clones like paper dolls. This was real—solid, terrifying, liberating.
A soft ding echoed inside his mind, breaking through the haze of pleasant exhaustion.
[System Notification: Mission Progress Achieved]
Vaani's voice chimed in a heartbeat later, warm and gentle as always.
"Master Aryan, congratulations. You have triggered another controlled chrono disturbance. Cause: transformation of Johann Schmidt into the Red Skull ahead of the original timeline."
Aryan moved his arm, blinking up at the ceiling with a faint laugh. So that maniac actually did it… He hadn't meant for that. Not directly. Butterfly effects. A simple action by a being like Aryan who was already an anomaly in the timeline could cause massive disruptions in the timeline. Time had a way of tripping over itself when Aryan started meddling.
The System's text flickered again:
[Mission Reward: +200 MPs credited.]
He felt the points slide into his reserves—the timeline effects wouldn't amount much disruptions due to this, as this event was already set in stone.
However, a timeline shift at this point indicated that Aryan couldn't exactly depend on his meta knowledge for any future events. He had to be careful.
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