NOVEL WEB Chapter 5: Destroyer
He was floating, not dying, not drowning, at the bottom of the ocean, even though the ship's oxygen was long gone. He should've been dead, but he wasn't. Something had changed.
He was glowing.
The light poured out of him, cutting through the suffocating darkness, drawing the shadows toward him like moths to a flame. In the chaos, he had become something else.
The illuminate vortex, a force of light in the deep, a paradox within the void.
Luther's voice broke the silence, steady but hollow. "AI, what's the status of the ship?"
The AI responded in its usual cold, factual tone: "The vessel is critically damaged. Structural integrity is at zero. Complete functionality requires an external energy source of significant magnitude."
Luther stared at his hands, now pulsating with raw, unearthly energy. "Can I… can I channel this into the ship?"
"Energy transference from an organic host is unverified," the AI replied. "Potential outcomes: overload, system collapse, or success. Probability of success, less than 12%."
He almost laughed. A faint, bitter sound escaped his lips. "Twelve percent, huh? Better odds than I've had so far."
Placing his hands on the shattered console, he let the energy surge through him and into the ship.
It was like opening a floodgate, raw power rushed out of him, igniting every dormant system.
Lights blazed, the ship groaned, and the ocean around them seemed to quake.
"System reactivation in progress," the AI announced. But then, its tone shifted, urgent and panicked:
"Overload detected. System stability at critical levels. Volatile response imminent. Overload… Overload…"
The ship lurched violently, rocketing through the water with impossible speed.
The controls glowed white-hot beneath his hands as the hull screamed in protest. Luther clenched his jaw, his body straining to hold it all together.
"Come on!" he shouted, sweat dripping down his face as the ship surged toward the surface.
And then a deafening explosion of bright light flooded his view.
A blinding burst of energy erupted, throwing him free of the ship.
He gasped as he broke the surface, his body landing on a jagged scrap of metal.
The ocean around him was eerily still, but something was wrong.
The sky above wasn't Earth's sky. It was a strange, alien violet.
The water shimmered unnaturally, reflecting colors that didn't exist back home.
Two suns burned on the horizon, one a deep, fiery red, the other a soft, pale blue.
Luther coughed, forcing himself upright as he clicked on the AI embedded in his watch. "Where… where am I?"
The AI processed the question, its response blunt and unfeeling: "You are in Timeline X, an alternate universe."
His heart raced. "Timeline X? What about my timeline? What happened to it?"
The AI paused, as though calculating how to deliver the devastating truth. Finally, it spoke, its words a cold dagger to his chest.
"Your timeline has been destroyed."
Luther froze. "Destroyed?" he whispered, his voice breaking.
"By channeling the vortex energy, you triggered a catastrophic destabilization. The resulting surge ruptured the fabric of your reality," the AI explained matter-of-factly.
"Your timeline no longer exists."
Luther's glowing body dimmed, the light faltering as despair crashed over him like a tidal wave.
His knees buckled, and he fell to the cold metal beneath him.
He wasn't just a man anymore. He wasn't even a savior.
He was a light in the infinite dark of a world that wasn't his, a being of energy and regret, carrying the unbearable truth:
He had destroyed everything he had ever known.