“God, please let this work!”

Aurus’s breathing quickened as he looked at the magic array beneath his feet. Thousands upon thousands of glowing runes were spread out across the hall forming dozens of circles with himself in the middle of it.

The hall he was in was as enormous as it was empty, the only items that could be seen were those integrated into the magic array. Crushed-up fairy wings and ‘Ghast Rat’s Ashes’ were but a few of the items lying in the middle of smaller magic arrays spread across the room.

In his hand Aurus held a white strand of hair excluding a holy aura, it was the hair of a God, one that had died by the hands of their enemies. If he would succeed on this day, it would be because of this hair, this item with near-limitless power.

It was at this point that the massive door at the side of the room began shaking. The door was enchanted beyond belief, but Aurus knew it would not be enough. These things could destroy anything, even the gods. A mere door would not stop them for long.

Aurus breathed in deeply before doing two things. First, he took the white strand of hair and he put it in his mouth, swallowing it, then he took a blood-red knife out of its scabbard.

The red knife was beautiful, it would make any person that saw it fall in love with it, its power was great, but dangerous. If you used this knife once it would not only take the life of the person you stabbed, but it would take your own life as well.

Ignoring the rattling of the door, Aurus looked at the blood-red knife one last time. It was the knife that was once used by Lucifer, the king of the underworld. And now, he would be the last user this knife would ever have.

Aurus pointed the knife towards the air and took in a deep breath. A moment later two things happened at once.

On one hand, the enchantments on the massive door broke, causing it to open with a bang.

But it was too late, in the middle of the rows of magic arrays stood Aurus, the red knife plunged into his own heart. The holy aura of the hair of Chronos and the demonic aura of the knife of damnation clashed. The amount of energy caused by this clash was unbelievable yet all of it was eagerly absorbed by the magic arrays around Aurus. 

The light coming from the magic array brightened so much anyone in the universe could see it. Any of the final Gods, Devils, Humans, and Demons looked at this light, with but the faintest of hope. Yet after this, everything disappeared into nothingness.

------------

Aurus felt his soul travel through space and time. He could see everything and nothing. He saw the dawn of man and God. The ten-thousand worlds covering the universe, and the destruction of all that ever was.

His soul traveled through space and time until it got to its destination. His soul arrived on earth in the year 2080. This was the beginning of his true journey.

Looking at the world below him, he saw a boy, barely fifteen years old. He had messy brown hair and intoxicating green eyes. In most places, he would be called rather pretty, but in this town where martial arts was extremely popular, he was called girly instead.

The boy was crying, he cried a lot. But this time it wasn’t because of his situation or because he was robbed by some bullies. It was because of the deaths of his parents. The plane they were in had crashed but a few hours ago. He was an orphan now.

Aurus sighed as he looked at his younger self. The boy sat in his bed as tears streamed down his face. He was home alone but Aurus knew that wouldn’t last. It wouldn’t be long now before his uncle would arrive making his day even more miserable.

Aurus moved down, he was a soul, invisible to all. And he would take over the body of his younger self.

At least, that had been the plan.

Just as Aurus began moving down a certain pressure engulfed his soul. The world itself had noticed an intrusion from another world, it was trying to suffocate him.

“No, NO!”

In this weakened state Aurus had no chance at fighting the will of a world, he rushed down as fast as he could but it was too late, parts of himself began disappearing. He could feel his memories being eaten away and his sense of self dissipating.

When he finally got down to the boy, his soul was but a tenth of what it once was. The part that saw itself as Aurus was gone, all that was left were its instincts and desires. The biggest desire of this stray soul was entering the body in front of it, and so it did.

------------

Aurus had been crying for over an hour when something happened, something that would change his life forever. He could feel himself change in but a moment, at first he felt shocked but then he got assaulted by a severe headache. He felt like screaming as changes were made to his mind, yet just as he was about to scream out, he realized something. The pain wasn’t actually that bad.

What he had found a terrible pain but moments before, felt more like an annoying itch to him now. As if he was used to much worse pain than this.

His emotions dulled a bit as all that had happened seemed oh so insignificant. His parents died, but somehow he was no longer so distraught by the fact. After all, he had lost so many people already.

Aurus had a moment of clarity ‘What? No, I haven’t!’ but it lasted only for a moment.

He fell into silence as he thought of all that happened to him. He lost his parents, he got bullied, but he didn’t do a thing about it.

Anger started taking charge of himself, but this anger wasn’t directed toward anyone but himself ‘Why the hell haven’t I done anything about it?’

Then, the anger made way for confusion.

He could tell something weird happened, his perspective changed, but he didn’t know why, had the grief changed something in his mind? Had the death of his parents caused him to see things clearly.

Yeah, that had to be what had happened.

Aurus calmed himself knowing that emotion would get one killed. As for who would kill him, he didn’t know, but it just felt right to be careful.

For the next couple of minutes, Aurus sat there, he began feeling somewhat afraid. It wasn’t normal to find the death of your parents natural and not care about it. He was supposed to be crying as he had been just minutes before.

Just as he thought the grief might have broken him emotionally, he could hear someone ring the doorbell.

He quickly got out of his bed as he got a bad feeling. He quickly walked downstairs, passed the living room, and opened the door.

As soon as he did so, two men came into sight. The one in front was bald and wore casual clothing, he also seemed to be in a pretty good mood. It was Aurus’s uncle. The man behind his uncle had a suit on and carried a black briefcase, his expression was neutral, borderline grave.

Before Aurus could even say anything, his uncle had already stepped inside, pushing him aside. The second man though waited and looked at him, “Hello sir, could I come inside?”

Since the man was polite, Aurus was as well and so he gestured for him to enter as well.

“My, my! This place will need some serious renovating, the dark colors, lack of new furniture!” uncle Liam noted as he shook his head casually

Uncle Liam had a very likable face. People generally loved him, he always smiled and laughed with people, making them feel comfortable. That is… until he no longer needed him.

Despite only ever having seen his uncle be kind to him, Aurus somehow knew what his uncle was like now, he was an opportunist, he used people and situations for his own benefit. He manipulated and fooled more people than he could count, most of whom still unaware of his true personality.

Now, this uncle Liam was moving through his parents’ house like he owned the place. He looked through drawers and inspected the paintings without even glancing at Aurus. After a few minutes had passed, he finally looked at the second man that entered before speaking, “Well, tell him, will you? Not like he’ll believe me.” uncle Liam said, continuing to look through the house.

The man in a black suit, looked at Aurus gravely, “I think you should sit down, there is something I have to tell you.”

Confused, Aurus decided to do as the man said and he sat on one side of the dinner table, gesturing the man to sit on the other side. Even though Aurus did not like his uncle was looking through his house at all, he had a feeling it would be best to figure out what was going on first.

The man in the black suit put his briefcase on the table and opened it, taking out a couple of documents. He immediately placed two of them on the table, one where Aurus was sitting and one before another seat. 

As soon as these papers were placed, his uncle came towards them and sat on the empty seat, looking at the paper briefly before signing it.

Cautiously, Aurus read over the document. It was a document he had to sign to confirm he saw his parents’ will.

With a feeling in his stomach that he hated, Aurus looked at the suited man, “It says to sign once I have received the will, I haven’t.”

The man looked at Aurus with a bit of pity before grabbing some other papers from the suitcase.

“Today, on the first of January 2080, I will be reading the wills of Rudolf and Jennifer Slade to their adopted son, Aurus Slade, and Rudolf’s brother, Liam Slade.”

After saying this opening phrase, the atmosphere in the room changed slightly. Aurus’s uncle had a shit-eating grin on his face as he waited for the following words in anticipation while Aurus wasn’t entirely sure of why that was.

“The will goes as followed. To the adopted son, they leave one-thousand credits. And the debt accrued in order to expand their business, numbering a total of one-hundred thousand credits.

“To the uncle, they leave their business and all properties within their name. Included but not limited to, their residence at the time of death. The machinery still to be delivered to said address. All devices and objects bought by them. All devices and objects owned by their son. And all of their money, except for one-thousand credits.”

After saying what was on the paper, the suited man felt sick, but he tried to hide his personal feelings as he placed some more papers in front of the two people at the table. These were the official papers stating what they had both received.

Looking at the list, Aurus felt lost, his parents loved him, they saw him as their own child and cared for him deeply. It was incredibly hard to believe that they left everything to his uncle, even leaving him with their debt.

He saw his uncle quickly signing what needed to be signed before returning it and continue exploring the house.

When the man in the suit was left alone with Aurus, he decided to say something, “Boy, let me just advise you on one thing. You should appeal to the court and ask for the debt to be dropped. As long as you get a decent lawyer, there should be no reason for them to reject you considering your age and the circumstances.” the man said in a friendly tone before talking in a professional tone again.

“Now, I am afraid that you do have to sign these papers. You don’t have much of a choice.”

Hearing his words, Aurus knew he was right. Even if he didn’t sign, this was his parents’ will. He could see their original handwriting on one of the papers that proved it. As well as their signatures on practically every page. And so, he signed.

After the stranger packed the documents into his suitcase again and left the house, Aurus was left feeling strange.

He still didn’t cry. Thus far, this was simply how it was. He had a strange sense of deja vu. This event was simply unavoidable.

Then he thought of the man’s word. He would need to appeal to the court to get rid of the debt. For this, he needed a lawyer, and he couldn’t expect anyone to do a case like this pro bono.

He would need at least five thousand credits to get a lawyer that would do this time-consuming case.

As Aurus thought of this, his uncle came back into the room, he still had a smile on his face but it dimmed slightly when he looked at Aurus.

“You have an hour to pack up and leave, I already have a buyer for this place,” he said heartlessly.

“I’m fifteen, you’re not allowed to kick me out!” Aurus said, trying to find something to stop himself from going homeless.

“Tch, my brother adopted you, we are no blood-relatives and I have no obligation to care for you. Go to an orphanage if you want a place to stay at. You got thirty minutes to leave now.”

After saying this, uncle Liam went to the kitchen, making some food as if this was his place, since technically, now it was.

Aurus looked at the envelope he had gotten from the man in the black suit. It held one-thousand credits, it was all the money he had now.

He then quickly went to his room and grabbed a backpack. He was sure that if he grabbed two suitcases like he wanted to, his uncle would stop him and take whatever valuable bits he had on him away.

With the limited space a backpack gave, it would probably be best to take the essentials. A phone, charger, laptop, food, water, and some clothes.

But when he went to the closet to grab some clothes, a large box grabbed his attention. It was the last gift his Parents gave him. His parents said they would be gone for a couple of months and gave him their newest product just a few days before release.

It was a virtual reality helmet. One that would make you part of the game. There had been headsets like this before, but this one was different. It included all the senses, even touch, completely realistically. The game it was made for was also much more amazing than any game released before this day. Out of the three hundred beta testers that were allowed to publicly talk about it, none had a bad time playing.

But, the box was big, it would take up nearly all of the space in the backpack.

Still, he had this feeling that he couldn’t miss out on it, he glanced at one of the posters on his bedroom wall, it said ‘The Continent Of Pangea: There truly is nothing like it.’

It was a quote said by a celebrity who was one of the beta testers, however basic it was, all testers agreed that ‘There truly is nothing like it.’ was a good way to describe the game.

“Shit.” as he cursed, Aurus took his computer and a portion of the food he took away, grabbing the headset instead. After placing it in, he only had enough space to grab an extra battery pack, these were required to even play the game.

Then, without hesitating a moment later, he walked out of his room, and then, ignoring his uncle who was still in the kitchen, he left the house, with only a headset and a thousand credits to his name.