[ System Repairs ongoing... 99% completed ]
[ System Repairs ongoing... 100% completed ]
[ System Repairs Completed.]
[ Please wait while the system is booting up. ]
[ Boot finished! ]
[ All Skills are online! ]
[ Notice! Skill - Beelzebuth is upgraded ]
[ Notice! Skill - Resurrect is upgraded ]
[ Notice! Skill - Shield is repaired and upgraded ]
[ Notice! Skill - Shield was already partially upgraded. Excess energy is found. This energy can be used to evolve a skill after meeting certain requirements! ]
[ Notice! The system has found a Host's sealed memory fragments. Do you wish to unseal and view your sealed memories? Y/N? ]
Erik in his soul form, raised his brows.
'Hm?'
He pondered, 'I never realized I had some of my memories sealed. Well, it's true that I don't remember dying, but still... let's just see what were the things that were hidden from me until now. Maybe, I'll find out the whys and hows of my unusual transmigration in Ebony Maw's body.'
After Erik selected Yes, another system screen materialized in front of him. It displayed a new prompt:
[
Would you like to:
1.. Assimilate the memories as your own.
2. View a summarization of your memories on the system's screen.
]
Erik's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
'Assimilate them as my own?' he thought to himself. 'I don't even know how these 'sealed' memories might affect me. Better to play it safe.'
After a moment of deliberation, he chose 2 to view the memories on the system's screen.
Instantly, another screen appeared, larger than usual—probably around 55 inches, floating before him. It flickered to life, and a video—or rather, a memory—began to play.
The first scene was simple yet strange. Two tiny hands waved clumsily in the air, obviously belonging to a baby.
The odd thing was the perspective—he wasn't watching the memory from an external point of view. This was first-person.
"These hands…" Erik muttered, staring at the screen. "A baby? Me?"
The scene shifted.
"Tits!"
Erik's eyes widened in shock as he watched a beautiful woman smiling warmly, leaning close as her breasts pressed against his face. A baby's hands—his hands—clutched at them instinctively.
"Wait… this is breastfeeding?" he stammered, his voice trembling with disbelief. "But this woman... she's not my original mother!"
As the realization sank in, Erik's mind raced. "This memory... it's not from my life on my original Earth. It's something else entirely. Before I transmigrated into the body of Ebony Maw..."
Though Erik was currently in his soul form, his nonexistent heart thudded violently, a phantom sensation of panic and shock coursing through him.
'This means... before I transmigrated into Marvel... I was reincarnated somewhere else?!'
The sheer gravity of the revelation left Erik reeling, his thoughts spiraling. But despite the shock, he continued to watch.
The next few scenes unfolded, showing a baby—himself—growing up with his new, loving mother.
She was a strong woman with an air of resilience about her, capable of both protecting and nurturing her child.
"Yeah, I expected this would be a world of swords and magic," Erik muttered as he watched one particular memory.
His mother stood in the backyard of their modest home, teaching him the basics of magic. Her voice was gentle but firm, guiding him as small sparks danced in his tiny hands.
Another surprising thing was... his name, Erik's mother had named him, Eirikyr. But usually called him Erik.
'Huh...' He smiled.
The scenes shifted, showing days filled with laughter and joy. Erik and his mother enjoyed a simple yet happy life in their rural village.
From the memories, he deduced that his mother was likely widowed—there wasn't a single glimpse of his father in any scene, and his mother always worked alone on the small farm.
However, the warm, serene memories abruptly shifted to one of utter horror.
His mother's laughter was replaced by silence, and the vibrant village was now painted in crimson.
Erik stared at the screen as the memory showed his mother lying bloodied on the ground. Her lifeless body was surrounded by the charred remains of villagers, her hands missing, and parts of her body burned beyond recognition.
"Those motherfuckers of the Empire…" Erik sighed, his voice tinged with bitterness. But he calmed himself with a deep breath, "Sigh… but I know what comes next. It's predictable. I wonder how much brutality I unleashed in that world."
Erik's focus on the screen was so intense that he didn't even notice how he instinctively knew the perpetrators—the Empire's soldiers—were behind the massacre, even though the memory didn't explicitly show the culprits.
The screen then showed a different memory. Erik—now grown—stood atop a mountain, the land around him obliterated and scorched. From the first-person perspective, he saw his adult hands trembling, and his breathing ragged.
The mountain looked melted, twisted, and broken, the proof of the sheer destructive power he had achieved through training.
Another shift in the memory showed a stormy night. Dark clouds loomed above as heavy rain and thunder accompanied the scene.
The angle turned downward, revealing a battlefield soaked in blood. Hundreds of thousands lay dead—an army completely annihilated.
"Heh, revenge is done, eh?" Erik commented dryly, his voice calm but carrying an edge. "Wonder what came next."
What came next took him by surprise. The memory showed a masked figure—the hero of that world—facing Erik in a fierce battle. The hero wore a strange outfit and relied solely on barrier magic. Despite the odd mask covering the face, Erik knew this person well.
"That's the protagonist from the anime - 'Am I Actually the Strongest?'" Erik remarked, his curiosity piqued. "Guess my little rampage made me the bad guy in this world. Makes sense the hero would come after me."
The memory shifted again.
This time, it showed a slightly older version of the protagonist lying dead at Erik's feet.
Perhaps, the outcome of a battle after many years of their first encounter.
Erik's hands were trembling in the rain, his left arm reduced to bloody stumps. The aftermath of the battle was clear—it had been a brutal clash, one that cost one his life and another, an arm.
Despite the gruesome injuries, Erik felt a dark sense of triumph as he noticed something unusual. The barrier magic that once belonged to the hero now flickered around his own broken form.
"So I stole barrier magic…" Erik whispered, both impressed and unnerved by the sheer ruthlessness of his past self. "Well, more like learned his technique... after all, as far as I remember it was an ancient, forgotten magic of that world itself, not a unique isekai protagonist cheat."
The barrier magic's applications were vast and Erik evolved this magic to the point it became a reality-altering magic. The Erik of the past used this barrier magic to create his own system to manage his abilities, gradually upgrading its interface by combining it with other ancient magics to make it more powerful.
However, becoming strong, or ruling the world wasn't his goal.
All he wanted was his mother back. To bring her back from the dead.
But this wasn't the end of his memories. The World of Solo Leveling was next.
=======================
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