Beast Sovereign: Rebirth Of The Star Age

Silence.

It was the first thing he felt, so deep that even his heartbeat hesitated to exist within it. The void pressed from every direction, heavy yet weightless, infinite yet intimate. I’m starting to think I’m dead.

Then came warmth.

A faint glow brushed against his skin, pulsing like a newborn star. Maybe this is a dream.

He opened his eyes.

The light was blinding. For a moment he thought he was still adrift in the cosmic sea, where broken fragments of worlds circled endlessly around him. But no, the light here was colder, sterile. Artificial. I’m starting to think I’m trapped.

He blinked several times, his vision sharpening to reveal a white ceiling streaked with transparent circuitry. Faint blue holographic numbers hovered in the air, shifting every few seconds. The scent of metal and antiseptic filled his lungs. I think I’m lost.

He was lying on a bed. A soft hum of machinery vibrated through his spine. He slowly sat up, his movements unsteady. I think I’m broken.

His hands caught his attention first, small, pale, trembling. They didn’t belong to him. His claws, once large enough to tear through stone and starlight alike, were gone. In their place were fragile fingers, faint silver-blue veins glowing beneath the skin. I’m someone else.

“This isn’t my body,” he whispered.

The sound of his own voice startled him. It was lighter, softer, human. I’m human.

For a long while, he simply stared at the glass panel beside the bed. The reflection wasn’t clear, but enough to reveal a young face: silver hair disheveled, skin too fair, eyes dull yet threaded with faint golden light. I’m a ghost.

That light shouldn’t exist.

Not in this form.

His chest ached. Memories came like shards of broken glass, flashes of battle, galaxies collapsing, the burning cries of his kind, and Lyra’s final smile before she turned into dust and stars. I’m haunted.

He gritted his teeth, clutching the bedsheet until his knuckles whitened. He remembered his end, the sealing ritual, the howl that split the heavens, the moment his body burned away leaving only essence scattered across the void. I’m cursed.

So why was he here? I’m not supposed to be here.

A faint chime interrupted his thoughts.

From the wall, a floating orb of light emerged, its metallic surface gleaming faintly. It hovered before his face, scanning him with a vertical blue line.

“Welcome back, Ren,” a soft synthetic voice said. “You have been unconscious for forty-seven hours. Your vitals are stable. However, your neural readings show unusual resonance. Shall I alert the medical staff?”

Ren.

The name echoed in his mind like an unfamiliar melody. He didn’t know it, yet something inside him responded.

Memories not his own flickered: a small apartment filled with scattered books, an academy ID, a woman’s voice calling, ‘Ren, wake up, you’ll miss class!’

I’m two people.

The images twisted painfully with his real past, flames, claws, blood, and ozone. Two lives overlapped until he could no longer tell which belonged to him. I’m lost.

He pressed a hand to his forehead. “No, stop. I am Rian. I am”

His breath hitched. Even his name sounded foreign here, swallowed by sterile silence. I’m forgetting who I am.

“Ren,” the orb said again, voice softer now. “You are exhibiting distress. Would you like me to administer a calming sequence?”

“No,” he snapped. “Just be quiet.”

The orb dimmed, hovering obediently at his side.

Rian, or Ren, as this world called him, lowered his hand and took a deep breath. He needed to think. I’m running out of time.

The energy here was strange, faint but structured, almost mechanical. It hummed beneath the floor, running through cables that pulsed with faint spiritual energy. This wasn’t the world he once knew. I’m in a different world.

He extended his senses instinctively, attempting to touch the ether around him.

Pain shot through his skull like a spear.

He gasped and collapsed back onto the bed. No response from the stars. No echo of the cosmic beasts. Only silence.

“I’ve fallen too far,” he murmured.

He lay there for a while, eyes fixed on the ceiling’s pale glow. He could still feel a faint beat within his chest, the fragment of his core that had survived. Small, unstable, but alive. I’m not giving up.

He clenched his fist. “Then there’s still time.”

The door to the room slid open with a soft hiss.

A woman in a white coat entered, her expression calm but distant. Her eyes were a soft amber behind transparent lenses that reflected faint blue symbols.

“You’re awake,” she said. Her tone was clinical, but there was a trace of curiosity. “You should have stayed under observation. Your brain activity spiked far beyond the acceptable limit during stasis recovery.”

He said nothing. His mind was still a storm of questions. I’m a prisoner.

She tapped a small device on her wrist, and a holographic panel appeared above her palm. “You’re lucky, Ren. Most patients with neural overload don’t wake up intact. Did you feel anything strange while unconscious?”

He hesitated. “Dreams,” he said finally. “And light.”

Her eyes flicked up from the panel. “Light?”

He nodded. “Like stars.”

For a heartbeat, something unreadable crossed her face. Then she smiled politely. “Residual optical hallucinations from neural recalibration. It will fade soon.”

She shut off the panel and stepped closer. “Do you remember who you are?”

He froze.

Part of him wanted to say no, to pretend ignorance. But the part that still remembered the roar of galaxies refused to let go.

“I’m Ren,” he said slowly. “Ren Arclight.”

The words came out too easily, as if they had always been his.

“Good.” Her smile softened. “I’m Doctor Selene Voss, chief neurologist of AstraTech Medical Division. You were transferred here after an incident at the Nexus Academy, a spirit-energy malfunction. Do you recall anything?”

He frowned. “Nexus Academy?”

Her brow creased slightly. “You really don’t remember. Perhaps it’s better that way. Rest for now, your system is still stabilizing.”

As she turned to leave, he asked quietly, “Doctor. What year is it?”

She paused at the doorway. “Cycle 4721 of the Star Calendar. Why?”

The number struck him like thunder. In his world, the last recorded age had ended at 2810.

He had been gone for nearly two thousand years. Everything I knew is gone.

When she left, silence returned, but this time, it felt heavier.

Rian lay back, staring at the faint constellation projections rotating above him. Cycle 4721. The world had changed. The beasts, the heavens, everything he once ruled, gone or transformed into things he barely recognized. I’m a stranger in a strange land.

And yet beneath all that change, a faint echo pulsed quietly inside him, waiting for him to rise again. I think I still have a purpose.

He closed his eyes and whispered to the void, “Lyra… if your soul still lingers, guide me once more.”

Somewhere deep within the machinery of the city, a faint resonance answered, like the sigh of a star breathing in its sleep.

I’m not alone.