Nowhere.

  I woke up to pitch black. I could not feel my body.

  What happened? I thought to myself for a few seconds.

  Ah, now I remember. The fire and carnage. I remembered it all.

  The carcass of the appendages trickled black blood, nanites pouring onto my body, they were on my skin, in my lungs, and inside of my head, as I closed my eyes with the raging fire imprinted into my memories of those final moments.

  Shaking those horrible thoughts aside, I looked around. How am I not dead? What is this place? I hope I am not stuck in some purgatory of sorts.

  Right, this is definitely purgatory. Or... it could be hell. Who knows.

  As I pondered about where in the world I was, it was if a light switch has been flicked, the void turned bright white.

  As I slowly adjusted to the brightness, an unknown male voice greeted me. “Hey there.” He said.

  “...What are you?!” I shouted. Somehow, there was no voice, but I could hear myself.

  What seems to be a boy dressed in luxurious white and gold robes, and a veiled face, manifested before me. He has long, golden hair, smiling as he floated towards me.

  “Mmmm, I think you can call me a god, and that I manage life and death, thought judging from your thoughts, you probably don't care about anything deeper than that. To sum it up, I am just here for a little visit because of some ominous otherworldly disturbance… which led me to this small primitive planet of yours.”

  He scratched his chin, looking to the side, “There seems to be something malevolent emanating even further into the center of this galaxy. I don’t think even my powers could get rid of it. I’ll talk to the other gods about it soon enough and come up with something, though non of this should matter you.”

  He turned his head back to me. “Anyways, today is your lucky day, as I have taken an interest in you! I can see that your soul have a very strong will, so if you want to, I can grant you another chance at life, how about that?"

  System… message? Gods of the World? All these events happened in an unrealistic manner that it feel like a... game.

  I shrugged off those thoughts from my mind. This is another chance at life we are talking about. I must take this offer seriously.

  For a stubborn person like me, well, the choice is obvious. I am willing to take any chance to be able to live again.

  I...

  With a mere thought, the translucent window blurred, and when it cleared up after a split second, it now shows a new dialogue.

  “Oh yeah, by the way, what is your name? Just bored, so fear not if you don't want to speak of it.” The veiled god asked, a magical staff appearing out of thin air and spinning around him.

  I shrugged. Good question, what was my name again?

  Oh yeah. My name.

  “Nina. My name is Nina.”

  I, Nina, and billions of other innocent people are dead because of the wars that created "it" which took over the world.

  This exoplanet, and our home planet, and thousands of other planets, that which no longer belongs to humanity.

  The blue screen flickered.

  Right after I finished reading the sentence, the white void rippled, as I felt myself start to float upwards.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  The coldness of the white void is replaced by stream of warmth, as the surroundings went from white to a golden hue. The veiled god looked up and waved at me slowly, with a silly smile that's probably unbefitting of one in such position of power.

  “Good luck, and hopefully we never meet again! For I am the god of life and death!” He shouted happily, his beautiful long hair flowing like river, reflecting thousands of golden light.

  It's getting brighter! I can even see a white tunnel at the end of my vision..!

  “Mmn?”

  Where am I?

  The warmth of the sunlight persisted as my eyes snapped open and quickly looked away from the sun to not blind myself. I am not dreaming.

  I scrambled up from the floor, and the sleepiness before quickly dissipated as I realized I was on the grassy field of a forest. However, with a glace, there seems to be parts of a destroyed balcony of an apartment surrounding me.

  No signs of walled cities in preparation for attacks from Collective machinations, no relay towers unraveling a large shadow below city centers in the name of limitless electricity, no freezing blizzards that stop for 1 hour and start again, killing all life caught in its winds.

  I saw a colossal animal flying in the sky. It was a gigantic blue bird, with wings engraved with beautiful water crystals, and trails of water floating behind its tail. It flew proudly in the sky.

  Is this truly another world?

  I looked down and found myself wearing the same outfit I wore before I exploded along with a death contraption by a gunship on fire and burned and crushed to death while black goo dissolved me.

  All I’ve worn since entering the freelancing workforce was a cheap collared shirt, a gray raincoat tied to my waist, and this stupid pair of dolphin shorts. The black workboots didn’t help with my aesthetics any bit. Compared to that majestic bird… I may as well never surpass it.

  Grahhh! Aesthetics doesn’t matter right now, l am alive again!

  As if on cue to halt my celebrations, the blue screen from back in the void appeared before me again, showing a surprising line of dialogue.

  Now this is interesting. The screen disappeared after I finished reading it, so I decided to try it out. I thought of opening the profile…!

  Similar to the blue box, a different type of screen imprinted itself onto my consciousness, and I laughed tiredly as I realized that this world is a big fantasy game.

  Nina

  Class: [Sentient machine]

  Class trait: Nanomachine swarm

  Skills:

  [Properties scan] – Lvl. (1)

  [Assimilation] – Lvl. (1)

  Passives:

  [Adaptive language understanding]

  [Adaptive Pain Immunity]

  [Adaptive Heat resistance]

  Wait, what?

  I am made up of nanites??

  My breathing stopped, quite literary, as I barely digested this realization. So that burning hot sensation that I barely remember as the nanomachine liquid fuses onto my body actually happened?

  I touched a flower on the ground, and with a thought of [Assimilation], it slowly turned silvery and collapsed into a fine white powder, then it suddenly melted into this weird silver goop and moved towards my shoe. I gasped in fear.

  The gray goo touched my right shoe, and within seconds it could no longer be seen, fusing into my shoe and becoming one with it.

  Oh wow, I'm really not human anymore.

  It was unsettling that I could turn things to dust, or silver gooey stuff, with just a touch. So I made a vow to myself to not to use this yucky skill until I really needed it, like an emergency.

  Skill – [Assimilation] – Lvl. (1)

  Consume and assimilate an object or person and convert them to resources for use. Assimilated organic matter helps develop new skills and passives, while assimilated inorganic materials increase processing power.

  I looked at the horizon, it was morning, as birds chirped, and agile little animals scuttled on the tree branches. They don’t look like anything on Earth at all, which truly told me that I was on another planet.

  There was absolutely zero sign of the towering isolation walls, nor the horrendous noise of the relay towers. While I still miss Earth, some of the more vile creations of humanity should better rest in piss and remembered by no-one.

  Time to get moving. Can’t contemplate all day, can we?

  As I vaulted over the balcony fence and landed on the grassy field with a thud, and pondered on what to do next. There are grasses, flowers, and trees everywhere, which is truly a sight to behold after the endless blizzards.

  Yes. I will find civilization first. That is the most important goal right now.

  I walked towards the forest, away from the grassy clearing of the decimated apartment.

  Away from my world beyond saving, away from my past.

  This is the start of my journey in this new world.

  MEMORY FRAGMENT DETECTED:

  Farewell, Earth.

  I looked back, as the Earth begrudgingly disappeared from my view. Little did I know, this will be the last time I ever see Earth again.

  "The Earth, our mother planet, represents humanity's legacy, and no matter what, we must carry on the torch, as we voyage through the stars." The officer beside me said to all the passengers, some cheering, and some crying.

  "Alright, everyone, head to the cryochambers and await your call!" A staff said, as officers in gray outfits started guiding the passengers towards.

  I was still a kid at the time, so awaiting the procedures was a blur, and once that was done, I was already in that cramped sleeping tube.

  I had to wave goodbye to a lot of my old friends when I left Earth as one of the selected "pioneers", and so I had no one, not even my own adoptive parents, on the starship with me.

  As the tubes and wires connected to me, and a strange gas fills the chamber, I did my final farewell in my mind with the blue planet.

  Goodbye, Earth.

  Then, possibly a very long time passed, I don't know. But when we all awoke again, something felt a little off.

  "So what do we do now?" The starship's captain asked a man dressed in all black, with a purple triangle emblem on his uniform.

  "Under the decision of a VAL subsidiary organization, we are to direct all passengers to a better starship, which will arrive at your destination planet in around... four hours."

  Technology has progressed so much that it became faster than our starship. Our time spent on the ship, all wasted.

  Once we were at our destination planet, those powerful people called in terraforming machines and made it habitable within a month's time. I was adopted by another family, and I get to have a few more years of happiness.

  Then to humanity's horror, "it" was created.

  END MEMORY FRAGMENT

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