I am the new [Punisher]

<The new [Punisher] has been successfully selected>

I felt my body getting compressed and my consciousness became wide awake. I tried opening my eyes, but I wasn't able to. It was as if I no longer had eyes in general.

My body felt like it was being forced into something else. No, it was more like my soul was being forced into something else. I wanted to scream in pain, but it was clear that my old body was now gone. Once I felt that my soul was shoved inside a container, my senses went numb and all I could do was listen to what was happening around me.

A divine voice spoke, accompanied by another. They were having a conversation.

Divine voice#1: <You were able to find one?>

Divine voice#2: <Am I that unreliable to you...>

Divine voice#1: <If I could choose between working with the incarnate of evil or you, I'd pick the first option>

Divine voice#2: <You->

Divine voice#1: <I'll begin the unifying process. Get the nullification machine ready>

My soul, which was stuck inside something, was raised and I heard the sound of clicking surrounding me. I could only guess what was happening from my hearing, since my vision was pitch black. Alien-like sound effects kept echoing loudly and my head slightly ached at the noise.

After a few minutes, I felt my trapped soul being raised again and I was placed on a flat surface. The grinding sound of a machine was heard and something aggressively scooped through my insides. The pain was unbearable as I struggled to get away from it.

Clug-ung!

The scooping abruptly stopped and the two divine voices panicked as they argued.

Divine voice#2: <What the!?>

Divibe voice#1: <What happened??>

Divine voice#2: <I-I don't know either!>

Divine voice#1: <Tch, you broke it, didn't you?!>

Divine voice#2: <I said, I don't know! What are you blaming me for!?>

One of them sighed, and it bounced around like a harp playing in a marble hall. I heard the machine power down, and they whispered to each other anxiously.

Divine voice#2: <... What do we do?>

Divine voice#1: <It never broke before. Not even once...>

A large object poked my soul and they spoke once more.

Divine voice#1: <The nullification was finished before it broke, right?>

Silence ensued.

Divine voice#1: <It was finished before it broke... right?>

The divine voice probably saw no signs of a positive answer from the other, and it groaned.

Divine voice#1: <Urgh... The deadline is today and we don't have time to look for another compatible soul!>

Divine voice#2: <I have an idea>

Divine voice#1: <And I never asked>

Divine voice#2: <We can just let it slide and pretend that nothing happened>

Divine voice#1: <You're insane! The nullification process is the third most essential part; what are you on about??>

Divine voice#2: <It'll be fine. Have you ever heard of a [Punisher] going haywire due to not going through the process?>

Divine voice#1: <That's because none of them have ever not taken the process. Don't try and act slick with me>

The other divine voice pretended not to listen to what the other had said, and it lightly hummed a melody as it picked me up. The latter spat out abusive language at the suddenly easygoing divine voice. My trapped soul was then thrown into somewhere and I was finally able to move.

The first thing I did was open my eyes. And despite opening them, I was still met with the same pitch black scenery. My body was floating in the empty space, and I gazed downward to see the area below

... I immediately regretted my decision once I saw that I had no private parts. The build of the body was identical to an athletic man, but there was no... Nevermind.

Moving on, I tried moving around the space by doing a swimming motion, but soon I gave up after 2 minutes.

'Guess I'm stuck here forever...'

I crossed my arms and accepted my fate. Not as if I had anything that mattered in my previous life either. My thoughts relaxed and I decided to take a nap. But apparently the universe told me 'no' and my body was pulled at high speed by an unknown force. That alone made me widen my eyes as I screamed, but not a single sound came out.

Out of nowhere, a blinding light flashed through the entire area I was in and engulfed my body.

My eyelids reflexively shut themselves once the light came into contact with my vision. It was a good thing too, because if I hadn't, I wasn't sure if I would've been able to see, even after catching a glimpse of how bright it was.

I patiently waited while my body was still being forcefully moved to who-knows-where. My mind kept cursing at whoever or whatever caused my situation to be as it is now, and it was at that moment that the mysterious force that pulled my body abruptly came to a pause.

'Did they read my mind?'

I found it to be a little creepy at first, but I slowly warmed up to the fact as I found it convenient.

One of my eyelids carefully began to move up. I was hesitant when doing so because I had thought of the possibility that another light would flash at me to the point of almost becoming blind. Seeing as how there were no traces of light around, I inwardly sighed with relief.

'Where is this..?'

My head faced back-and-forth as it switched to my left and my right. My pupils shrunk as I was struck with awe.

A captivating yet penetrating abyss was what surrounded me. But there were also infinite gleaming stars present as they were scattered throughout the seemingly endless space. Each star was unique as they were all differently shaped, colored, and bright. The colorful assortment of these stars gave off an aura that made them out to be extremely appealing and tempting to whoever stumbled across this view.

A faint smile formed on my face and I unconsciously felt somewhat captivated. Suddenly, I noticed that one of my hands was reaching out to one of the stars beside me and I quickly tried to hold it back. Unfortunately, the tip of my middle finger had already gotten a touch of the star.

I stumbled away from the star thinking that I would have to face a consequence for even coming into contact with such a divine looking object. But what happened soon after was the exact opposite of what I had in mind.

The gear-shaped star swirled as it flew in front of me. It stopped as it paused in the middle and slowly trembled. It suddenly grew larger than me in size as it exploded, leaving a gear-shaped hole behind.

I was dumbfounded for a second as my eyes started to blink profusely. My brain couldn't comprehend what had just happened. The sentence 'is this a good thing or am I going to get in trouble later?', kept repeating over and over in my head, and I gained a headache.

'... It must be a portal.'

No doubt about it, the gear-shaped hole in front of him was absolutely a portal. And a genuine one at that.

The outlines of the hole were wavy as they were tinted with copper. And from the other side of the hole a whole new world could be seen. The view of it was slightly hazy since there was some sort of invisible barrier barricading it.

I stretched out my hand in an attempt to pass through the portal, and it easily penetrated the invisible barrier. I inwardly gulped and forced my way inside the gear-shaped portal.