chapter 1 - Screams & confusion

*Ding*

*Ding*

...

..

.

*Ding*

"@lexa, stop. " a croggy voice exclaimed.

*Ding*

*Ding*

" I said @lexa, stop. "

*Ding*

*Ding*

The figure laying on the 'bed' frowned from the loud alarm that kept ringing and suddenly moved sideways to strike the stupid cylindrical thing that should've been on top of a small drawer, just beside his bed.

"ah..."

But his hands got caught in something and hit his head on a hard surface with a loud *thunk* sound.

"Ouch, What th_!"

He then tried to get up whilst cursing, only to hit something once again as he stood up with a much louder *thunk* sound.

The man squirmed in pain as his hand worked its way towards the bump on his forehead.

"what's going on?"

He rubbed his forehead in confusion.

The man noticed some sort of tattered skintight suit covering his arm, as well as most of his body. He then proceeded to touch them, giving him his normal sense of touch, as if it was a part of his skin.

"...? "

The man started looking at his surroundings.

On both sides of the man's 'bed' are covered by numerous intricate lines of glowing pipes the size of his forearm. Going in and out of a crystal-like small dome that surrounded the 'bed'.

Excluding the soft lights that came from the luminescent pipes, the outside of the dome is nothing but darkness. As if he's in the vast space he once saw on TV documentaries and movies.

*badump*

He unconsciously clenched his hands hard, as a sense of dread overflows his head, looking at the dark abyss on top of his bed felt like 'it' is also looking back to him, fully displaying his fear of the unknown.

*Badump*

'What is this place...'

The man's breathing ragged.

*badump*

'I should've been sleeping at home.'

The man kept asking himself questions, trying to drive away his fears to no avail...

Minutes passed yet nothing comes into mind at what's currently happening to him. Panic overcame him and clutched his chest that's becoming more painful as time slowly passed, as his heart rate kept on rising to a dangerous level. Minutes felt like hours as his mind spun, thinking away over, and over.

The man wasn't a genius, but he wasn't dumb enough to not guess that he wasn't in his home, but the question in his head is, where is he.

The first thought that came to his mind was the dark yet familiar abyss outside the dome and made him shiver.

'Did some retard in NASA got bored and drugged me before shoving me into a one-way rocket to space?'

The man became delirious as crazy thoughts ran on his mind.

And as his mind came to the tipping point...

[Warning!]

[Host's physical and mental readings are reaching dangerous levels]

"Ahhh~~~~!"

A sharp screaming akin to a girl's voice filled the small dome.

.....

....

...

..

.

< an hour later >

The dome regained its silence.

The man calmed just a tiny bit after a long session of screaming and a little bit of crying.

"I... I'm never going to watch horror or any kind of sh8y shows ever again... "

He took a few deep breaths to calm himself before calling out.

"Hello, does anyone hear me?"

No one answered.

*gulp*

"That thing earlier, are you still there?"

*Ding*

[System Welcome's Host. Please calmly ask any questions you may have regarding your current situation.]

The man jolted in fright at the sudden appearance of a voice in his head. but barely kept himself from doing something embarrassing again.

He looked around, making sure if he was alone, checking for any hidden cameras around as this whole situation might have been some prankster's tricks.

Yet no matter how much he searched, he found nothing but unfamiliar things surrounding him.

"Y-you... Are you some sort of AI?" He then answered.

[Correct, This one is called "#&^%~*-+=£&" Artificial Intelligence of War God's Workshop]

"..."

The man almost scratched his head at the gibberish-like name part of the system's introduction, but instinctively chose to not mind it, going straight to the latter part instead.

"A war gods what?"

[War God's Workshop]

[ The War God's Workshop is responsible for creating both civil and military armaments for the Great Zirconian Empire.]

The man blanked out. Failing to comprehend any of the AI's words.

'what? Zirconian Empire?'

He looked through his meager knowledge of the earth's numerous countries, but nothing checks out with the so-called empire.

'Then it's probably some kind of an alien Civilization or something... '

"uhh... Do you know where we are?

Is this outer space?"

[Yes we are in outer space.]

[But the current location is unknown.]

"W~What do you mean?" the man asked nervously.

[Apologies to the Host, the system has been in shutdown mode for an unknown period of time.]

[My sensors are only picking up unfamiliar regions of space. Which in turn, made the systems star map obsolete.]

"No... That... you can't be serious!?" He couldn't help but shout in despair as he flops back on the 'bed' with a soft *thud*.

The man didn't completely comprehend most of what the system words meant, but all he thought was the prospect of getting stranded in space.

"Ah... Am I doomed to drift in space until I die, unable to return to Earth!?" The man teared up and started crying pathetically once again.

[Notice!]

[Host has already died on dimension number 4,267,912,231 and has been taken by the system to this dimension, which the host currently resides in and thus, would not be able to return to your original dimension.]

"..."

*Beep*

*Beep*

*Beep*

[Host Unresponsive]

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

*~~part 2 of the chapter~~*

*Beep*

*Beep*

[Host Unresponsive]

*Beep*

*Beep*

[Initiating Full Body Scan]

[Process Completed]

[Host's mental readings are spiking]

[Accessing Data Base for similar cases]

[Process complete]

[Match found: None]

[Drafting alternative solution]

.....

....

...

..

.

[Process Completed]

[Injecting memories of the body's previous owner to the host.]

....

...

..

.

The silent, unmoving man suddenly twitched, his dull eyes slowly regained their clarity.

"These are..." His eyes widened in shock as images of different planets with all colors and sizes inside different star systems' going directly into his brain.

But the shocking images didn't stop there, as they showed lots of different races, space entities, space crafts, sceneries, cultures, technologies, and most importantly, people, lots and lots of people who are of different races living inside the wide universe.

A lifetimes' worth of memory that does not belong to him kept flooding into his head, threatening to make his meager 21st-century brain explode.

[Process Completed]

"Unbelievable... I... Am I in a parallel universe!? "

The man exclaimed amidst the migraine, completely forgotten the despair he felt just a while ago. Astonished and had a hard time believing what was currently happening to him.

"...." He then unconsciously closed his eyes, completely engrossed in the foreign memories of his current body.

Time slowly passed as he absorbed a large amount of knowledge.

Only a few hours passed before he returned from his dream-like state. Completely unaware of the changes the foreign memories made to his mentality.

"Interesting... " The man's temperament changed from his cowardly behavior earlier and turned into a much calmer one.

'Looks like this body's previous owner is a relatively well-established person'

He recalls the memories of this body's owner for any useful information such as names, organizations, etc.

'let's see... Oliver Evans of the bio-enhanced human race, commonly known as 'The Red Baron' due to his noble background and red hair, ace pilot of a large-scale mercenary force called 'The Golden Ring Army'. Currently on a mission with a hundred of his subordinates towards an uncharted star system situated on the frontier regions of the Elysian Empire of the newly discovered Volton Galaxy. A Galaxy which has been discovered just a few decades ago.'

The man frowned as he held his aching temple's between his fingers. As he kept checking out a large amount of information in his head, making him dizzy.

A memory of his own suddenly surfaced in his mind reminding him of his home, parents, and siblings back on Earth. But he bit his lips, forcing them out of his already chaotic head, and vowed that he would certainly look for a way to go back to their side in the future.

But he suddenly remembered what the system said earlier and felt depressed.

"Right, there's no more chance of me being able to get back home. I died... Haa~" a defeated sigh escapes through his mouth as he felt heartbroken.

Taking a couple of deep breaths and wiping away the tears and snot to calm himself.

A few minutes passed before he brought his right arm up and traced his fingers at a machine on his other arm.

A soft light came from the machine as a holographic display showed different things such as his body's status and different types of icons for its various functions.

He scrolled through the thing, looking for something.

And after a few moments.

"Found it." He tapped an Icon which then Showed an incomplete galactic star map.

"Hey, system"

[Please give me your orders, Host]

"Are you be able to connect with this arm-brain?" pointing at the bracer that covers most of his arm.

[Yes, Host]

"Great, please start copying every information inside this arm brain, also, stop calling me host...err, sir should be fine for now."

[Understood, Sire]

His eyes twitched from being called sire for the first time in his life, making him feel a bit embarrassed, contemplating whether he should change it again. Only to shake his head.

'now isn't the time for these things.'

"Show me the uncharted star system we are currently at."

Light particles started appearing in front of him, but this time they did not come from his arm brain.

His eyes shone as multi-colored light appeared in front of him, not from the arm-brains hologram, but directly in his retinas instead.

" A.R. Huh, Cool..."

The star map started zooming in and out, as the system looked at the stars visible around the ship and started hacking the arm-brain for its recorded LKP(last known position, Calculating their current coordinates. It then showed a star system with four celestial bodies. A sun, a planet a tenth the size of Earth, and two moons.

His eyebrows twitched, as he started recalling Oliver's experience in the aforementioned star system.

"Damn, how can a person be so unlucky."

Oliver and his subordinates started killing each other after they found the inheritance of a very advanced unknown ancient civilization out of greed.

Oliver, who won at the end after suffering grievous injuries, died right after he touched the relic, having his soul destroyed in the process of taking the inheritance due to his weakened state.

The man gave his condolences to the unlucky Oliver and himself. "May you find peace in the afterlife. "

The man's head shook left and right, trying to get rid of the depressing thoughts, and gave himself a double slap in the face.

"Alright, This Craft, what is it?" he then asked the voice in his head.

[Zirconian escape craft developed for the God of War's use, high defensive capabilities, the fastest craft of its size, as well as one of the best of the many stealth systems in its time.]

"Any weapons?"

[A pair of fixed Size-three energy type autocannon is installed at the front of the craft, Sire. ]

"What about fuel? "

[The craft is currently connected to the War God's workshop, energy won't be a concern.]

"What do you-*sigh*... Alright, then plot a course to the nearest spaceport."

'There's a lot of questions brewing in my mind right now, but... .' the man frowned as he thought of the Golden Ring army's forces

'I need to get out of here fast. Oliver's scout group we're supposed to rendezvous with the main forces that are on their way to this star system.'

"Set course for the nearest space station."

[Understood]

[setting route.]

The crystal ship turned to a certain direction before revving up its engine with a low hum.

[Commencing first acceleration]

The spacecraft gave a sharp cry as it rapidly accelerated, reaching sub-light speed in just a couple dozen seconds, without influencing its interior.

[First acceleration complete]

[Initiating Faster than Light travel.]

The Crystal craft started to emit blood-red particles that immediately surrounded it before a strong force ripped through space, creating a small rift.

The speeding craft entered the rift before it vanished, leaving a blood-like trail at its wake.

*~~~~*

A day's time later.

A million or so kilometers where the crystal craft made its jump.

Three dozen lights coming from warp gates erupted in the dark void of space, as numerous ships came out of them and formed a small-scale fleet in a formation.

Each of the ship's bows had a golden ring painted on them, giving out their Identity as the mercenary group 'Golden Ring army'.

On the bridge of the largest ship inside the fleet's formation, sitting in the captain's chair is a towering being of three meters.

The being is currently looking at the ship's radar with a frown.

"What's going on, why is nothing showing in our scanners?"

He ordered a specialist to check again.

"Commander, no abnormalities or miscalculation have been found."

The Commander then turned towards the Captain on the helm with a questioning look.

"We have successfully arrived at the correct coordinates, Commander."

Their answers made the Commander frown deeper.

"Then where the hell is the uncharted Star System gone to."

The Commander looked in the radar specialists' direction.

"Initiate Omni-directional high detailed scan. "

"Yes, Sir."

The specialist tweaked the radar, sending numerous radar wave types in deep space. It didn't take long before the results were displayed.

"Sir, nothing on the radar. No ships are in the immediate space beside our fleet, the uncharted systems celestial bodies or any kind of debris are also nowhere to be found. This... the radar's also not picking up even any small asteroids or debris ... its, its as if we are in a dead space..."

"..." The commander shuddered at the findings.

An uncharted star system mysteriously vanished from the Galactic star map. such a situation is a first, even for a seasoned veteran like the commander himself.

A sudden chill crept on the bridge's crew at the abnormal situation. The universe has a lot of freak phenomena in which, even an advanced civilization as they are, have no knowledge of.

The commander tapped his fingers on the armrest, deep in thought.

A few breath's time passed before he gave out further orders

"Send the scout buoys out and gather as much data in the surrounding space as possible, try to find our forward unit as well..." the commander thought of the hundred-man team that was sent in advance for reconnaissance with a frown. The team had suddenly cut off their coms a few days ago. Only leaving a final report of their recon mission's success in finding ruins of an unknown civilization.

The Commander barked out orders to the officers in the bridge.

Small scout crafts numbering thousands, launched out of the thousand-meter Capital-class ship, scattering into different directions of the deep and dark void of space.