1 Memories and Pathway

"Haah!!" Max took in a deep breath as he regained consciousness in a damp and prickly bed. Straining a bit, he was finally able to open his eyes, but what he saw horrified him to the core as he instantly realised where he was, and prepared for the worst.

'I suppose I deserve an ending like this right after coming to life.'

However, even after a few seconds, nothing happened and Max opened his eyes once more, only to see the same giant red moon he had seen before, turning everything in his surroundings an unsettling hue of crimson.

Quickly, Max thought of something and grinned in relief, only to realise that he did not have any teeth. All of a sudden, two sets of memories flooded into his mind, one indefinitely larger than the other, clashing with the already existing memory of his precious life.

One memory was of the original owner of the body, whose name was Max Verstappen. He was a 15-year-old teenager with a passion for machinery and engineering, and a dream to become a priest for the God of Steam and Machinery. Unfortunately, he was one day kidnapped from his house by some goons who were actually involved with slave trading and were on their way to take him from the intis Republic to Backlund. 

Thankfully, some individuals who claimed to be from the Church of the Evernight Goddess stopped the carriage of slavers in a small town called Tingen and killed off all the slavers. Unfortunately, as soon as this happened, two individuals in red robes suddenly attacked and killed the believers of Evernight who had just freed Max using methods beyond that of normal humans.

After this, they proceeded to maim the bodies of the dead, including Max's own by removing all their teeth as well as their pinkie fingers from their right hands. He assumed them to be from the Aroura Order, but Max was not supposed to know this knowledge, and Max had also already died.

This is where the second set of memories came into play. These memories belonged to Samuel, an ex-student with a Master's Degree in Business Administration that he got while his whole planet was in lockdown due to a certain illogically fast-spreading pandemic originating from a certain bat-eating country. Anyway, he had not paid any attention to university and somehow passed the post-graduate degree with good marks to get a decent job.

Unfortunately, his workplace had no lack of enemies who wore polite smiles on their faces all day, only to bite you in the back constantly. It reached the point that Samuel was almost fired, but after begging his boss for a few days, he was allowed to remain in the office.

Since that day, Samuel made up his mind and completely changed his behaviour. He no longer cared about making friends but also made sure to flatter his superiors in various ways. He only did the work he was told to do by his superiors, and not 'helping out' his co-workers.

Over time, he became more efficient in the art of manipulating others and removed all competition from his path to advancing, inevitably resulting in the firing of countless employees who stood in his way.

One day, when he was about to be promoted to Director of the Financial Department, a man jumped in front of his car. Swivelling sharply, Samuel had managed to avoid the man, but ended up on the wrong side of the road, and hit another car that was headed straight for him.

Thankfully, he kept his seatbelt on at all times while driving, not to avoid accidents like this since they had never actually happened to him, but to avoid being caught by the police and having a record of misconduct or something similar from staining his reputation.

The seatbelt along with the timely deployment of the airbag had saved his life. However, the accident still caused him a concussion as well as severe bleeding from the glass fragments everywhere.

The door was suddenly opened, and after removing the seatbelt, Samuel was dragged out by a man of similar stature to himself. However, his vision was blurry and he could not see anything clearly, nor could he hear anything that sensible.

But after a few seconds, his hearing was the first to return to him and he heard the words of the man who had saved him by dragging him out of the car.

"…you are probably wondering how I knew it was you…I still remember that time Mr. Samuel, when you told me to work together with Jack on the Women Empowerment Advertisement. I was so happy to be recognised by a senior and had worked so hard with Jack. But then, our project was not only cancelled but we were also fired for trying to steal our co-worker's hard work! Do you know what Jack and I had been through?..."

"So naturally, we both investigated everything, and after a few months of searching, we found the group responsible for not only stealing our work and taking credit for it, but also putting false charges on us with HR to get us fired. But we were not able to talk with them since they avoided us like the plague."

"Well, until a month ago when you had them fired. That is how I uncovered the truth, that you were behind everything. From the beginning. And not only had you used us and got us fired, but you had done it for the simple reason of asserting the chain of command on juniors?"

"Do you know what happened to me? Well, nothing except for the fact that I could not get a proper job and had to work part-time. But I could still survive on it. But Jack? His father was dead and his mother in the hospital. How was he supposed to pay the hospital bill with just part-time jobs like me?"

"So, Mr. Samuel, can you guess what happened next? His mother was removed from the hospital that could actually treat her Huntington's disease to a public hospital, which then sent her to an old-age home for the retired, where she retired from life not long after. In depression, or whatever he was going through, Jack also followed her, perhaps in hopes of meeting her once again."

"And now, I am the only one remaining. An orphan with no family or friends other than those who are dead or who I never knew about and are dead to me. Well, I had only one thing left to live for. Revenge. From. You."

By now, a considerable crowd had gathered around the crash, and many had already called for ambulances. More importantly, Samuel's vision had finally recovered and he recognised the man before him immediately; he was the one who had stood in front of his car.

But then, from the story he had just been told, another image overlapped with the blond bearded man in front of him. It was the image of an innocent and incompetent new employee whom he had used to assert his authority, while also removing those from the company who would not be able to achieve much and just waste away their lives at the sh*tpile that was his company.

Not that he was defending his actions, they were most definitely ruthless, manipulative, disgusting and even cold-blooded. But he had not known about Jack's family condition, and nor had he cared. It was not his problem at the time, but from the tone of the man in front of him, perhaps it might turn out to become his problem very soon.

"K- Kai?" Samuel spoke through coughs as he recognised the man in front of him, and noticed the crazed smile and blank eyes he had.

"He- he" Kai ginned more and he pulled out a gun from his jacket and blasted 7 holes into Samuel's face, hoping he would feel the pain of each shot, only to be disappointed that Samuel had died after the first two.

Immediately, the crowd around Kai ran in different directions to avoid this crazy murderer, hoping not to turn into a number on a news channel within hours.

…

Meanwhile, Samuel had opened his eyes in the body of Max, and after a few moments, the memories of Max as well as a third smaller portion of memories flooded into his mind.

This third portion of memories was the information of a particular Pathway he had never heard of before. But the names used for each of these potions were absolutely terrifying, yet they gave Max a strange sense of thrill.

----------

Outer God: Unity

Singularity Pathway- Related to Gravitational Force

Decay Pathway- Related to Weak Nuclear Force

Paradox Pathway- related to Strong Nuclear Force

Spectrum Pathway- Related to electromagnetic Force

----------

Among these different pathways, Max only had the potions and detailed information about the singularity pathway, but it was the names of these sequences that were world-ending in nature.

----------

Singularity Pathway- Related to Gravitational Force

Sequence 0: Singularity

Sequence 1: Celestial Entity

Sequence 2: Dark Sun

Sequence 3: Fate Deceiver

Sequence 4: Demon Destroyer

Sequence 5: Knowledge Purger

Sequence 6: Lightbringer

Sequence 7: Blinded Visionary

Sequence 8: Fools End

Sequence 9: Bender

----------