The last thing I remembered was the blinding headlights, the deafening screech of tires on wet asphalt, and the surreal sensation of my body becoming a ragdoll launched into the nothingness. There was a brief, excruciating symphony of shattering glass and crumpling metal, and then… silence. A profound, empty silence that stretched into eternity.
But eternity, it seemed, was negotiable.
I did not wake up. There was no 'me' to wake. Instead, a point of consciousness coalesced in a space that defied description. It wasn't dark; darkness is merely the absence of light. This was the absence of everything—no light, no sound, no temperature, no up, no down. It was the blank canvas before the universe was painted, the silence before the first note of creation. The Void.
And in this Void, I was not alone.
A presence manifested. It wasn't a shape, not in any conventional sense. It was more like a complex, four-dimensional idea given a faint, shimmering outline—a silhouette of swirling galaxies and dying stars, of cosmic dust and the birth of nebulae. Its gaze, if it could be called that, settled upon my fragile speck of awareness, and I felt not malice, but an immense, indifferent curiosity, like a scientist peering at a unique microbe.
"ANOMALY DETECTED. CONSCIOUSNESS FRAGMENT #7,441,892,556. DESIGNATION: KAI REED. CAUSE OF DISPLACEMENT: CATASTROPHIC CESSATION OF BIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS. EXTRACTION PARAMETERS... FLAWED."
The voice was not sound. It was pure information, data and concepts imprinted directly onto my soul. It spoke of timelines, of cosmic threads, and of a minute, almost laughable error. My death hadn't been fated. It hadn't been a tragic twist of karma. It had been… a clerical error.
"A CASCADE IN THE PROBABILITY MATRIX," the being continued, its tone one of mild annoyance, like a programmer finding a bug in an old line of code. "YOUR QUANTUM SIGNATURE WAS MISTAKEN FOR A DECAYING SOLITARY ENERGY PULSE SCHEDULED FOR RECYCLING. YOUR PHYSICAL VESSEL WAS TERMINATED PREMATURELY. THIS IS A STATISTICAL IMPROBABILITY OF 0.0000001%. AN IRREGULARITY."
I tried to feel anger, horror, despair. The emotions were there, but distant, muted by the sheer scale of the being before me. I had been erased by a cosmic typo. "So… that's it?" My thought-voice was a pitiful whisper in the infinite quiet. "I just… stop?"
The entity seemed to pulse, a ripple of what might have been the equivalent of a shrug moving through the fabric of non-reality. "THE STANDARD PROTOCOL IS REINTEGRATION. YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS PATTERN WOULD BE DISASSEMBLED, ITS EXPERIENCES CATALOGUED, AND ITS ESSENTIAL ENERGY RETURNED TO THE BACKGROUND SOURCE. A PAINLESS CONCLUSION TO AN EXISTENTIAL ANOMALY."
Standard protocol. I was a bug to be fixed, a misplaced decimal to be corrected. A cold, vast resignation began to settle over me.
"HOWEVER," the voice intoned, and the single word carried the weight of a supernova, "MY FUNCTION IS TO MAINTAIN BALANCE. AN ERROR OF THIS MAGNITUDE, HOWEVER MINUTE, CREATES AN IMBALANCE. A DEBT IS OWED. COMPENSATION IS REQUIRED TO RESTORE EQUILIBRIUM."
Hope, a fierce and desperate thing, ignited within my formless being. "Compensation?"
"YOU MAY NOT RETURN TO YOUR ORIGIN POINT. THAT TIMELINE HAS ALREADY ADJUSTED TO YOUR ABSENCE. CREATING A NEW VESSEL IDENTICAL TO THE LOST ONE IN THAT WORLD WOULD CAUSE PARADOX. INSTEAD, YOU WILL BE TRANSPLANTED. A NEW EXISTENCE IN A NEW REALITY BRANCH. AND, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE TERMINATION ERROR, YOU MAY ARTICULATE FIVE PARAMETERS FOR THIS REINCARNATION. FIVE… WISHES. CONSIDER THEM CONFIGURATION SETTINGS FOR YOUR NEXT LIFE."
Five wishes. The concept was so vast it was paralyzing. I could ask for anything. Wealth? Power? Immortality? But the memory of my helpless, fragile human body being torn apart on the asphalt was fresh. I would not be weak again. I would not be a victim of chance, of silver bullets, or of arbitrary weaknesses. I needed a foundation of absolute, adaptable strength.
"Where will I go?" I asked, buying a moment to think.
"A REALITY BRANCH DESIGNATED FOR ITS HIGH PARANORMAL ACTIVITY AND NASCENT SUPERNATURAL ECOSYSTEM. A LOCALE OF SIGNIFICANT LEY LINE CONVERGENCE. YOU WILL ARRIVE AT GEOGRAPHICAL COORDINATES CORRESPONDING TO A PLACE KNOWN AS BEACON HILLS, FIFTY OF THAT WORLD'S SOLAR CYCLES PRIOR TO A MAJOR CONFLICT NEXUS."
Fifty years before the events of Teen Wolf. I knew that show. I had all the time in the world to prepare, to build, to become something the nascent werewolves, hunters, and darker things couldn't even comprehend.
My mind, honed by a lifetime of consuming stories and strategizing in games, began to work at lightning speed. I needed a core form, a system for growth, absolute security, versatility, and infinite fuel. The blueprint formed with terrifying clarity.
"My first wish," I declared, my thought-voice gaining strength. "I wish for a physical and spiritual foundation based on the entity known as Rimuru Tempest—a slime of infinite potential. But not merely a copy. An upgraded template. I want all core skills: Predator, to consume, analyze, and replicate; Mimicry, to assume any acquired form; Great Sage, a supreme cognitive and analytical engine; a Demon Seed housing my will and magic; and most crucially, the capacity for Infinite Evolution. No hard-coded caps. My growth, my evolution, must be boundless, limited only by what I can acquire and comprehend."
The Void Being was silent for a moment. "A NON-STANDARD, SELF-MODIFYING ARCHETYPE. GRANTED. THE TEMPLATE IS SET."
"Second," I pressed on, the plan solidifying. "I require a framework to interface with this potential. I wish for a System. A mental interface to quantifiably track my growth, status, and skills. But more than that, I want it integrated with a repository. A library containing the theoretical and practical knowledge of science, magic, and unique abilities from countless fictional realities—manga, anime, films, games. This repository is not for free downloads. I must use an internal energy source to purchase, integrate, and upgrade these abilities. Let this energy be Magicules, the fundamental particle of magical power. The System will be my guide, my catalog, and my forge."
"AN INTERFACE AND ECONOMY FOR CROSS-DIMENSIONAL KNOWLEDGE ASSIMILATION. A COMPLEX REQUEST, BUT WITHIN PARAMETERS. GRANTED."
"Third is security," I stated, my focus sharpening to a razor's edge. "I will have no inherent, universal weaknesses. No equivalent of kryptonite, wolfsbane, or mystical nullification fields that can arbitrarily shut down my powers. My abilities can be overpowered, outsmarted, or countered by superior force or specific, earned magic, but there will be no singular, easily exploited vulnerability. My existence must be inherently resilient to passive negation."
"THE PRINCIPLE OF INVULNERABILITY TO CONCEPTUAL WEAKNESSES. A DEFENSIVE PARADOX, BUT ACCEPTABLE AS A CONFIGURATION RULE. GRANTED."
"Fourth, versatility and creation," I said, envisioning the scope of my influence. "I wish for two supreme, synergistic authorities. First, Biokinesis at a cosmic level. Absolute control over biological life in all its forms, from the cellular to the spiritual. This includes but is not limited to: instant healing, genetic optimization, reversal of aging, copying the innate abilities of any biological entity (like a Werewolf's shifting or a Kanima's venom), designing new life forms, granting others supernatural biological powers, and even true resurrection of the recently deceased, restoring both body and soul. Second, Technokinesis of equal scale. Absolute understanding, control, and creation of technology. I can upgrade any machine, modify any code, create advanced technology from first principles, seamlessly interface with and control digital networks, and dominate the online world. These are not just powers; they are my right and left hands for shaping reality."
The Void seemed to hum with the scale of the request. "DUAL AUTHORITY OVER THE BIOLOGICAL AND THE ARTIFICIAL. A GRANT OF CREATOR-LEVEL DOMINION WITHIN YOUR SPHERE OF INFLUENCE. THE BALANCE DEBT INCREASES SIGNIFICANTLY. GRANTED."
I took a metaphysical breath for the final, most critical piece. "My fifth wish. Fuel. All my abilities, the System, my evolution, my powers—they require energy. I wish for an infinite, internal wellspring of Magicules. A perpetually renewing source that grows in potency and output as I grow, forever matching my capacity, ensuring I am never limited by a lack of power, only by my skill, knowledge, and imagination in wielding it."
There was a long, heavy silence. The being's galactic silhouette flickered, calculations running on a universal scale.
"AN INFINITE SOURCE CONTRADICTS SEVERAL LAWS OF THERMODYNAMIC EQUIVALENCY ACROSS REALITIES," it finally stated. Then, a sense of what might have been cosmic amusement. "HOWEVER, YOUR TERMINATION WAS ALSO A CONTRADICTION. BALANCE IS PARAMOUNT. GRANTED. THE WELLSPRING IS BOUND TO YOUR SOUL-CORE. IT IS INFINITE IN DEPTH, BUT ITS FLOW RATE IS TIERED TO YOUR EXISTENCE LEVEL. YOU WILL NEVER EXHAUST IT, BUT YOU MUST STILL LEARN TO OPEN THE VALVE WIDER."
Five wishes. A blueprint for godhood in a world of teenage werewolves.
"CONFIGURATION IS COMPLETE. THE DEBT IS PAID. INITIATING TRANSFERENCE TO REALITY BRANCH: TEEN WOLF. TEMPORAL COORDINATES LOCKED. SPATIAL COORDINATES: BEACON HILLS, CALIFORNIA. ARRIVAL IMMINENT."
The Void began to dissolve around me, not into light, but into a rushing torrent of raw, multicolored energy. I felt my consciousness being pulled, stretched, and then compressed with terrifying force. Sensations I had no words for assaulted me. The last echo of the Void Being's voice reached me.
"BEGIN YOUR EXISTENCE, ANOMALY KAI. EVOLVE. AND DO NOT CAUSE TOO MUCH… STATISTICAL DEVIATION."
There was a soundless pop, and the universe snapped into place.
I was… small. I was vast. I was formless. I was everything.
My vision, if it could be called that, was a 360-degree spherical perception. I saw towering sentinels of brown and green—trees. I felt the soft, damp texture of decaying leaves and rich soil beneath me. I smelled petrichor, moss, and wild, untamed life. I was in a forest. The Beacon Hills Preserve.
I looked down at myself, or rather, I perceived my own form. A semi-translucent, azure-blue sphere of gelatinous substance, roughly the size of a basketball. A small, core of intense, violet energy pulsed gently at my center—my Demon Seed, my Soul Core. I was a slime.
A wave of data cascaded across my perception, clear and intuitive.
[System Initialization Complete!]
[Welcome, User: Kai Reed.]
[Race: Ultimate Slime (Prototype)]
[Core Skills: Predator, Mimicry, Great Sage, Infinite Evolution, Magicule Wellspring (Infinite), Biokinesis (Cosmic), Technokinesis (Cosmic)]
[Current Magicule Reserves: ∞/∞ (Tier 1 Flow Rate)]
[Status: Optimal]
A calm, utterly rational voice spoke within the heart of my being, separate from my own consciousness. ["Greetings, User. This is the cognitive unit designated 'Great Sage.' All functions are operational. Beginning environmental analysis."]
I focused on a patch of moss nearby. An instinct, deep and primal, surged. Part of my gelatinous body extended, forming a pseudopod that enveloped the moss. A command resonated within me.
[Predator.]
The moss vanished. A flood of information followed.
[Moss (Genus: Bryum) absorbed.]
[Biology analyzed.]
[Chlorophyll synthesis pathway understood.]
[Basic Photosynthesis Skill acquired.]
[Magicule conversion efficiency increased by 0.001%.]
It was working. Everything was working. I had no mouth, but if I did, I would have smiled. I was here. I was powerful. And I had fifty years.
I turned my perception upwards, through the canopy of the ancient trees, towards the clear California sky. Somewhere beneath this soil slept the Nemeton, a focal point of power. In this town, werewolves would one day run, banshees would scream, and hunters would stalk.
But not yet.
First, they would have to contend with me.
[Great Sage,] I thought, my will firm. [Establish a base of operations. Begin scanning for local mineral deposits, ley line convergences, and any nascent supernatural entities. Prioritize stealth and data acquisition. We have a world to understand… and eventually, to redefine.]
["Acknowledged. Scan commencing. Welcome to your new life, User.]
The slime, a spot of impossible blue in the green and brown woods, began to move, gliding silently towards the heart of the Preserve. The game was afoot, and I held every cheat code in existence.