Requiem of the Pathways

The city at night was a cruel thing, cold, indifferent, and utterly unbothered by the suffering beneath its flickering streetlights.

Adam staggered through the narrow alley, each breath more labored than the last. His hands, slick with warm blood, pressed against his abdomen, a useless attempt to hold himself together.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

His day had been painfully ordinary. Wake up. Go to work. Come home. A routine so lifeless it dulled the edges of his existence.

And yet, fate, or perhaps simple, blind misfortune, had decided tonight would be his last.

The blade had been quick, cold steel slipping between his ribs before he could even flinch. He hadn't seen the mugger's face, only the glint of a knife under the pale glow of the streetlamp. A demand for his wallet. A slight hesitation on his part. Then pain, hot, blinding, all-consuming.

Now, he lay slumped against the alley wall, the distant hum of passing cars a cruel reminder that life would go on without him.

Is this all I was meant to be?

A meaningless life, ended in a meaningless way.

His body grew colder. His thoughts slowed, stretching thin like whispers in the wind. And then, nothing.

The space between life and death was neither bright nor dark. It simply existed.

Adam found himself floating in an endless void. There was no ground beneath his feet, no sky above, only a vast, colorless expanse stretching beyond comprehension.

And yet, he was not alone.

A presence stirred, not a person, not even a being in any sense that made sense. It was existence itself, vast, boundless, and immeasurably powerful.

A voice, deep and unfathomable, echoed around him.

"An unfortunate end, wouldn't you say?"

Adam turned, if such a thing was possible here, and found himself staring into the abyss.

The voice carried no emotion, yet beneath it lay something unsettling. Amusement, perhaps.

"Ah… a soul that still clings to itself. Interesting."

Adam's thoughts were sluggish, his very essence struggling to grasp the entity before him. "Who… what are you?"

The presence smiled. Not in a way he could see, but in a way he could feel, as if reality itself had bent into an expression.

"A question without an answer. Call me what you will, a god, a force, or ROB. It matters little."

A god. A ROB. A being with boundless power.

Adam swallowed, the weight of his own insignificance pressing down on him. "Why am I here?"

The ROB chuckled. "Because," it said, "I am feeling generous."

The void around them shifted. Images flickered into existence, worlds brimming with magic, gods, devils, dragons, and things beyond mortal comprehension.

"Tell me, Adam Morgenstern," the ROB mused, "if you could have anything, anything, in your next life, what would it be?"

Adam's mind, sluggish as it was, sharpened. A wish. A second chance.

And then, memories surfaced. Not just of this life, but of another. A past that had no place in this existence.

A story he had once loved, Lord of the Mysteries.

Power beyond gods. Pathways. Sequences. The hidden truths of the cosmos. A system that defied fate itself.

His pulse quickened.

What if?

He clenched his fists, golden eyes burning with newfound resolve.

"I want to bring the Beyonder Pathways into my next life."

Silence fell, stretching impossibly long.

The ROB regarded him, amusement shifting into something deeper.

"Oh?"

For the first time, Adam felt something stir within the void. A force beyond words, beyond comprehension.

"Now that is a fascinating wish."

The ROB's voice turned thoughtful.

"The knowledge of the Pathways will be sealed within a Blasphemy Slate in your soul," it said. "You will start at the lowest Sequence, forced to rediscover what you once knew."

Adam frowned, but before he could question it, the void around him trembled.

The ROB's amusement deepened, though it said nothing more.

Some truths were not meant for him to know.

A weight settled deep within him, something vast, unknowable, brimming with potential.

The ROB laughed, a terrible sound that sent ripples through the very fabric of the void.

"In return?" Adam asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"In return?" the ROB repeated, voice dripping with amusement. "You will walk a path unlike any before. A path of power. A path of madness. A path of divinity itself."

The void trembled.

"Now, go."

The last thing Adam heard before the darkness swallowed him was a whisper, soft, almost affectionate.

"Do entertain me well, boy."

A baby's cry shattered the stillness of a dimly lit chapel.

Father Abel, an aging priest with tired eyes, stared down at the infant in his arms. The child was small, fragile, but his eyes, golden and sharp, carried something unnatural. Something that made the priest shiver.

"This one… isn't like the others," the priest murmured.

The nun beside him, Sister Catherine, glanced at the child with a mixture of curiosity and concern. "Another orphan?"

Abel nodded. "Left at our doorstep, just like the others." He sighed, rubbing a weary hand over his face. "Prepare a place for him."

As the nun carried the baby away, the priest turned toward the altar, staring at the aged wooden cross that hung above it.

"God…" he whispered.

For the first time in years, his prayer was not one of guidance or gratitude.

It was a warning.

Because when he looked into the child's golden eyes, he felt it, something ancient, something watching.

And though he did not know it yet, the first Beyonder had been born into this world.