The darkness wasn't darkness. The silence wasn't silence. And the void... the void wasn't empty. These were the only conclusions Alexandre's mind, stripped of a body, senses, and any point of reference, could formulate. He existed as a point of pure consciousness, floating in an absence of everything so absolute it became an overwhelming presence.
There was no echo of ambulance sirens, no shouts from his men, no pain from his crushed body. The memory of his death was like a film watched by someone else: a factual event, devoid of the pain and panic. He was Alexandre. He was dead. These were the only two pillars supporting his sanity in this infinite nothingness.
Like an architect before a blank canvas, he tried to analyze. To measure. To understand the structure of the place he was in. But there was no structure. No dimensions. It was like trying to calculate the load-bearing capacity of a dream. For the first time in his two lives, his logic found no purchase.
It was then that the nothingness began to change.
It wasn't a sudden shift, but a slow and deliberate coalescence. The void before him began to weave itself together, the very fibers of non-existence twisting like threads on a cosmic loom. Light and shadow danced, not as opposites, but as partners, forming patterns of a geometric complexity that Alexandre's mind, accustomed to right angles and parabolic curves, could barely process. The shapes were impossible, yet harmonious. The structure was illogical, yet perfectly stable.
At the center of this impossible tapestry, a humanoid form took shape. It was made of galaxies and nebulae, its hair was slow-motion comets, and its eyes were neutron stars, ancient and possessing a gravity that pulled at Alexandre's very attention. He knew, with a certainty that transcended knowledge, that he was in the presence of a fundamental power. An architect on a scale he could never conceive.
Alexandre processed the information with the pragmatism that defined him. Fear and awe were luxuries his situation did not permit.
A twinkle that resembled a smile flashed in the goddess's stellar eyes.
She extended a hand made of stardust, and an image bloomed in Alexandre's mind. A world of jagged continents, walled kingdoms, ancient forests, and mountains that looked like claws scratching at the sky. A world saturated with an energy he had never felt, but which his consciousness now understood as "mana." He saw knights in gleaming armor, monsters snarling in dark caves, and clans that moved like smoke in the shadows.
Alexandre's mind cataloged, with a strange lack of surprise.
the goddess corrected.
The offer was absurd. And yet, it made perfect sense. His life was over. The pain of his loss, the longing for his team... it all felt distant now, part of a completed project. Before him lay a new blueprint, a new challenge.
Alexandre's mind raced. Power. Superhuman strength? Invulnerability? The ability to conjure fire or lightning? They were obvious choices, the tools of a warrior. But he wasn't a warrior. He was a planner. A leader. A man who won not through brute force, but through a superior understanding of the situation. In any project, what was the most valuable asset?
he projected to the goddess.
The goddess was silent for a moment, her neutron-star eyes seeming to pierce the essence of his soul. The stardust smile returned, wider this time.
The goddess's form began to draw closer, and she touched the point of consciousness that was Alexandre.
The sensation was of being pulled by an invisible hook. The nothingness unraveled, and his consciousness was stretched, compressed, and shot through a tunnel of blinding light. Memories of steel, concrete, and the camaraderie of his men mixed with new concepts of mana, clans, and magic.
His consciousness, the focal point that was Alexandre, dissolved into the torrent. The architect was about to be born again, not with a blueprint in hand, but with a new and terrible clarity in his eyes.