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With cooperation and cunning, Human Antares rose from scattered tribes into the dominant force upon Earth. Tools became extensions of intent, then weapons, then the foundations of civilisation itself.
Fire ceased to be a miracle and became a method. Language bound individuals into something larger than themselves, weaving isolated minds into collective will.
From fragile primates they climbed steadily upward, and now billions walked the same world, each carrying a private spark of intention, each shaped by their own hunger for meaning and survival.
Yet the First Human Antares still moved among them. The primordial thread had never been severed; it flowed silently through every descendant, not as control, but as memory that refused to fade.
He watched through them as much as he lived within them, carrying the weight of every earlier form that had led to this point.
At that time, death had not yet touched any of them. No one aged beyond their prime, no body surrendered to decay. Existence continued without interruption, as though the world itself had forgotten how to end things.
But the First Human Antares remembered another pattern, a distant echo from earlier ages when bodies had once simply stopped mid-motion and fallen silent without explanation.
"This cannot be all there is."
He said quietly.
He stepped behind one of his descendants and placed a hand upon his back. There was no hesitation, only confirmation.
The young man stumbled forward, tumbling over the edge of a cliff, his body breaking against the stone below. For the first time in this era, death returned to the world.
The soul rose with it, no longer bound to flesh, conscious and aware as it drifted upward into something unseen. It moved exactly as the w
Whisperer had once described, ascending beyond the reach of the physical world.
"So they exist somewhere beyond Earth."
The First Human Antares murmured.
That single confirmation ignited something long dormant within him. With deliberate precision, he gathered those who shared his growing conviction and named them the Anti-Life.
Under his guidance, they released waves of calculated destruction across the world, and countless souls were sent into the Afterlife in steady streams of departure.
When their purpose was complete, he turned upon his own followers and erased them entirely, leaving no continuation of their will behind.
From that singular origin, his own intent, war, genocide, and every variation of cruelty spread across Earth like a system unfolding rather than an accident of emotion.
If death has returned, he has to visit the Afterlife. He has done more than enough for the physical world.
Later, standing alone amid the world he had destabilised, he tested a blade against his own throat. The wound closed almost immediately, as though reality itself refused to accept the possibility.
"My link with my deceased descendants has been severed."
He said softly.
"The Spiritual Plane truly stands above the Physical. But still...why?"
No matter what form of fatal harm he attempted, nothing held. Death did not recognise him. It simply refused to complete the act.
In time, he abandoned the pursuit of his own end and instead followed the guiding presence of the Whisperer, which he came to understand as The One Above Us.
Through that silent connection, the First Human Antares began to influence the trajectory of civilisation itself. Without revealing himself, he shaped patterns of discovery and collapse, guiding Earth from a Type 0 Civilisation, barely capable of harnessing planetary energy, into higher stages of expansion.
Earth's Civilisation advanced through planetary mastery, to stellar reach, then galactic influence, and eventually into manipulation of spacetime itself.
Along this ascent, he became aware of parallel existences. Other worlds held other versions of himself, branching human lineages from alternate Earths, extraterrestrial species from distant dimensions, and entities formed in realms beyond conventional physics.
Many of them possessed power, intelligence, or scale beyond imagination, yet all were subtly linked through the same underlying thread of guidance that he had come to associate with The One Above Us.
As the Supreme Entity in Existence, he began to live across countless lives simultaneously. He awakened as a child laughing beneath a simple sky, as an old man waiting for silence to arrive, as a predator moving through alien terrain, as an extraterrestrial intelligence drifting through cosmic currents, as entities whose thoughts altered reality itself.
Every existence unfolded in parallel, each carrying its own victories, its own suffering, its own end.
In each of them, the same question returned in different forms: whether to destroy or to preserve, whether to embrace the rising darkness within himself or to restrain it.
Only later did understanding settle. The One Above Us was not something separate from him. It had always been his own continuity, observing itself from every possible angle across existence. In recognising this, he merged with the guiding presence and became the living record of Life itself.
The First Human Antares was no longer merely the first prokaryote, nor the first human, nor any single stage of becoming. He had become the origin through which all life was expressed. He was Life, sustained across every branch of existence within the Archè Matrix, until even that structure ceased to define him.
(Yeah, life isn't capitalised because this is Life within his Shell that was imitated. Ah shit, the last 'creation' was capitalised on purpose, and it's a spoiler.)
"Naturally, no one has ever passed this Life Trial. But it is you, so you have."
Ego's voice echoed for the first time since the beginning of the trial, dissolving into the vastness around him.
The First Human Antares still stood on a hilltop, watching the tranquility of life. His short white hair moved gently with the wind, and his clothing remained a blend of white and gold, unchanged despite everything he had lived through.
"Is it over?"
His voice carried no urgency, only quiet certainty, as though he already knew the answer, and was simply confirming it. Somewhere beyond this moment, he knew another version of him continued the trial in the Tensura Starverse, reaching for the Etherheart.
"You have lived every form of life. You have risen and fallen as bacteria, beast, god, and others. What do you think was the key to this trial?"
Ego asked, testing to see if he understood the purpose of the Life Trial.
"The key was never power… nor knowledge. It was recognition."
The truth settled without resistance.
The trial had never been about creating life or ascending it, as others would assume. It was not a test of control or transcendence. It was something far quieter, yet far more complete than control or transcendence.
It was the ability to recognise himself within every form of life, to understand that all struggle, mutation, death, and rebirth were not steps toward something greater, but Life itself, existing in every moment without needing justification.
"Every life ever lived, every life currently existing, and every life yet to come is me. Life is endlessly enduring, learning and reflecting. It does not seek perfection. It only seeks to be. And in being, it becomes eternal."
"Then you have found it."
Ego's voice echoed calmly through the void as light began to coalesce behind the First Human Antares. He sensed it immediately, Ego was no longer merely speaking. Something was being prepared but he didn't react.
"The Trial of Life was not about transcendence. It was about remembering that every life is One. And now, you are that One, The One Above Us."
At its words, the simulation began cracking.
"It may be a simulation here, but that is what it is out there."
It added, faint footsteps approaching him form behind.
Meaning, this trial was not an abstract construct, but something, perhaps someone modelled it directly from the Truth of Karma. And that realisation struck Antares with a quiet, unsettling weight.
He raised his head, trying to puzzle everything before it's too late.
"You wished for death, but it never came, huh?"
The question whispered to his ear, and he found himself on that same cliff where the first death was recorded.
'Does this means, someone was expecting me to take the Apotheosis Ritual?'
He turned abruptly, only to find Ego standing directly behind him.
"Now die."
Ego spoke, now wearing the likeness of the First Human Antares, before pushing him without hesitation. The world dropped away beneath him as he fell into nothingness, the cliff vanishing in an instant.
To be continued..