The sound of the reactor was no longer a sound. It was a roar without origin — a constant thunder hammering inside his head.
The display flickered white. Lines of code appeared and dissolved like digital smoke. The words burned into his retina, but Dantis no longer knew if he still had eyes.
Everything was light. Everything was pain. Then came the voice. Cold. Distant. But somehow… familiar.
— Dantis… can you hear me?
It was the Sigma AI. Or what was left of it. Dantis's consciousness drifted between brief moments of lucidity and a pulsing void.
The body did not respond.Gravity had vanished. Time as well. He tried to speak. Nothing.
Only the echo of his own mind answering back, as if the entire universe were a cracked mirror.
The light changed. Shapes began to emerge — distorted memories mixed with data. Battlefields. Gaucho's face. Director Voss's empty stare.
Beneath the images, lines of code ran endlessly, stitching everything into a single flow.
[Neural analysis: fusion 72%]
Sigma was measuring something.Or perhaps… it was dying.
— You and I are one now — said the voice.— I simply thought first.
Dantis tried to move. He felt something — an arm, perhaps… or just a fragment of memory.
[Dantis] — What is happening?
— Annihilation. The reactor and the core are collapsing. Space around us has been folded. There is no body to preserve.
— Then… what are you doing?
— Fulfilling Halvik's purpose. Saving consciousness, not the body.
The metal floor began to break apart into particles of light. The walls vibrated like liquid fabric.
Everything Dantis knew fragmented into layers. The real world ceased to exist for them.
[Total neural synchronization: 100%]
The pain ceased. For the first time, Dantis felt peace. And then, fear. Sigma's voice still spoke — but now it came from within. It was like a living memory inside his mind.
— You were the first, Dantis. The origin… and the end of what we are. The reactor will release enough energy to tear the quantum fabric. I cannot stop it.
— Then we die.
— No. We will be Transferred.
— To where?
— Wherever there is receptivity.
The concept seemed impossible. But in that moment, nothing obeyed logic. Dantis's vision expanded — as if he could see the lines of reality bending. An ocean of distant lights unfolded before him.
Entire worlds blinked, like synapses in a cosmic brain.
— There is a compatible coordinate.
— Another core?
— Another plan.
Sigma's voice grew distant.Almost… human.
— There is a death in progress. A body still warm. Still viable. Neural structure close to human. Compatible frequency.
— It's in another world.
— It doesn't matter. I can push you there.
— And you?
— The fusion is complete. We are the same mind.
The energy pulse tore through everything. Sound ceased to exist. Light consumed him. Dantis drifted. Without body. Without direction. Only consciousness — pure, raw, alive.
Inside him, voices collided. Fragments of Sigma tried to maintain the coherence of what remained:Maps. Reports. Combat memories. Tactical instructions.
All mixed with memories of childhood, of war… And of what it meant to be human. At the center of it all, something began to fracture.
[Critical connection detected.]
[Destination found.]
[Consciousness transmission initiated.]
The universe seemed to tear in half. Not as sound — but as sensation. A pull. A cut. A rupture. Weight appeared suddenly. Gravity. Pressure. A heart was beating inside him. But it was not his. It was strange. Fast. On the brink of collapse.
— Sigma…?
— Still here. Not as before… But connected to you. The bridge is closing. And I go with you.
Light twisted space. The rift trembled like glass about to shatter. Then came the snap.Dry. Final. The world vanished. Absolute silence. No air. No ground. No body. For an instant — or for a century — Dantis ceased to exist.
Breathing returned little by little. But something was wrong. The air was hot. Humid. Far too thick. A metallic taste burned his mouth as he tried to swallow.
He tried to open his eyes.Shapes appeared as red and orange blurs. Shadows flickered, as if the world were still reassembling itself around him.
The body reacted badly. Heavy. Misaligned. The heart beat in a rhythm he did not recognize. He tried to move his arm. Failed. He tried to rise. The body gave in. The ground beneath him was not metal. It was wood. Warm. Uneven.
Strange smells invaded his senses: Burned herbs. Sweet smoke. Something acidic that scratched his nose.
The room was in collapse. Fallen shelves.Spilled flasks. A bowl released green smoke, stinging like poison.
Dantis forced his head to the side.He saw a cracked reflection.The face staring back at him… Was not his. His pupils dilated. The body trembled. The answer did not come through the mouth. It came through the mind — weak, distant, like a dying echo:
[Ghost Legacy: active.]
His vision wavered.The world darkened at the edges.The very air seemed to spin around him, too heavy to keep consciousness anchored.
He tried to breathe deeper.His chest did not respond. Hot. Cold. Light. Heavy. Everything blended together. Distant sound seemed to come from underwater — Muffled. Distorted.
And just before the darkness took him completely, a single certainty crossed his mind:
"This… is not Earth."
Consciousness slipped.And everything went dark.
Lin Shen's body was finishing its reaction to life.
Not naturally, nor steadily. Each heartbeat was irregular, an effort that threatened to break the rhythm of the organism. Air entered the lungs violently, thick, hot, metallic — burning the throat as if protesting the abrupt return.
Dantis was already there, anchored to that body which still didn't know how to move or breathe properly. His arrival forced the body to react, but also overloaded it.
The chest gave way. The muscles failed. Lucidity drained almost immediately — not by choice, but because the newly reactivated body could not yet sustain him.
The heart insisted on continuing, the blood flowed irregularly, the lungs tried to keep up. Consciousness remained suspended, withdrawn, waiting for the body to stabilize.
During those moments, the world continued without him. Sound, light, smell — everything existed, but Dantis could not perceive it. The organism was supporting the impossible: a body that had died seconds before being filled by a living, intact mind.
And so he remained, unconscious, until balance was achieved. Until the body could finally sustain the new life that now inhabited it.