The phrase "The King remembers you" continued to echo through Rhaevia’s mind, vibrating through her neural pathways like a heavy physical strike.
BOOM!
Something deep inside her consciousness violently shattered. The ancient subterranean facility vanished in a flash of blinding crimson light, the obsidian walls dissolving into absolute nothingness.
The alien creature disappeared, and even her own physical body seemed to dissolve into an endless dark void.
Rhaevia suddenly found herself standing somewhere else entirely.
Intense, suffocating heat pressed hard against her skin. The surrounding air smelled overwhelmingly of iron blood, bitter ash, and burning flesh.
She knew this place. Her dark pupils contracted sharply into tiny points.
A ruined, apocalyptic battlefield stretched out endlessly beneath a blood-red sky. Mountains of human and monster corpses covered the cracked, scorched earth, while thousands of motionless undead stood silently across the horizon.
And directly before her, stood the Zombie King.
Its enormous, skeletal body towered over the battlefield like a mountain of death, clad in dark, jagged armor. Crimson energy burned like miniature suns within the empty, hollow sockets of its skull.
Rhaevia’s hand instinctively reached downward toward her side, searching for the familiar hilt of her sword.
Her sword. The heavy steel weapon she had carried through the final, desperate battle of her previous life on Earth.
"This is the apocalypse," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly.
She remembered this exact moment. She had stood on this very soil before. She had fought this monstrous entity, she had severed its neck, and she had died right alongside it.
But something was fundamentally wrong with the scene unfolding before her eyes.
Rhaevia slowly lowered her hand, staring down at her pale fingers. She wasn’t holding her steel broadsword, nor was she wearing her torn, blood-soaked military uniform from Earth. Instead, she was wearing the pristine, silver-trimmed academy uniform of her current interstellar life.
Her breathing abruptly stopped.
"No," she breathed, her mind spinning.
This wasn’t a standard memory. At least, it couldn’t possibly be one.
The Zombie King slowly raised its massive, skeletal head. Its glowing crimson eyes locked directly onto her soul.
Then, it spoke.
It did not communicate through telepathy, nor did it use the distorted, guttural roar she remembered from Earth’s final hours. It spoke clearly, smoothly, and almost calmly.
"You will return," the monster declared.
Rhaevia’s entire body went deathly rigid, her knuckles turning white.
"What?" she demanded, taking a cautious step back.
The Zombie King slowly extended one enormous, armor-clad skeletal hand toward her.
"You will return," its deep voice echoed across the burning wasteland, vibrating through the red sky. "You will cross the boundary between death and life."
Rhaevia stumbled backward, her heels catching on the cracked earth. "That’s completely impossible."
She remembered the final battle with terrifying clarity. She remembered driving her blade straight through its skull, she remembered its massive body collapsing onto the dirt, and she remembered her own consciousness fading into darkness.
There had been no conversation like this. There had been no prophecy, no cryptic warning, and no discussion of returning.
The Zombie King’s skeletal jaw curved into a dark, terrifying smile.
"You have forgotten," it rasped.
The entire ruined battlefield suddenly fractured beneath Rhaevia’s feet like brittle glass. Cracks of blinding crimson light spread rapidly across the ground. The endless undead army vanished into thin air. The blood-red sky collapsed downward, plunging everything back into absolute darkness.
Rhaevia frantically reached forward into the void.
"Wait!" she yelled.
The Zombie King’s final, lingering words followed her into the dark abyss:
"The King remembers what you cannot."
BOOM!
Rhaevia’s eyes snapped open in the physical world. She gasped violently, clutching her chest as cold air rushed rapidly into her lungs. Her vision was completely blurred, taking several seconds to adjust.
Cold metal deck plates. Bright, sanitized white lights. The distinct, familiar scent of military-grade disinfectant hanging in the air. And someone was holding her.
Rhaevia instinctively tensed her muscles, struggling against the firm grip.
"Easy," a deep, smooth voice commanded softly.
The familiar, authoritative tone immediately halted her movement. Her blurred eyes slowly focused, taking in the dark blue military uniform, the polished silver insignia, and a stern, remarkably handsome face.
Major General Raevor Veyr.
The youngest Major General in the Empire was holding her firmly against his chest, one heavy arm supporting her back while his other hand steadied her trembling shoulders. His usually cold, unreadable expression was visibly, deeply tense.
"Rhaevia," he said softly, his dark eyes searching hers.
She stared at him in complete disbelief. "Major General...?"
Raevor’s dark eyes scanned her pale face for any sign of lasting trauma. "You collapsed during the diagnostic sweep."
Rhaevia’s breathing remained uneven, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
She looked past his broad shoulder, taking in their surroundings. The ancient, dark subterranean facility was completely gone, replaced by the sterile interior of a high-tech military medical chamber aboard the flagship.
Yet, the haunting words remained burned into the deepest corners of her mind: You will return.
And for the very first time since transmigrating into this interstellar era, Rhaevia realized with a chilling certainty that someone else might have known about her second life long before she ever did.
Raevor carefully shifted his grip, supporting her weight without crowding her space. He could feel the residual, chaotic waves of her mental power pulsing erratically against his own 3S Sentinel pathways, humming with an undeniable 100% compatibility.
"Your mental pathways experienced a severe spike," Raevor stated, his voice dropping into a low, private register. "What did you see while you were unconscious?"
Rhaevia looked directly into his dark, piercing eyes, forcing her expression back into a cool, composed mask.
"I saw a nightmare from a lifetime ago, General," she replied smoothly, pushing herself back slightly to stand on her own feet.
Raevor did not immediately release his hold on her arm, his thumb lightly pressing against her wrist pulse. "In my experience, Cadet, nightmares that shatter diagnostic systems are rarely just dreams."
"Then perhaps you should upgrade your diagnostic systems," Rhaevia offered, a faint, dark smirk returning to her lips.
Raevor’s eyes narrowed slightly, but before he could press her further, the medical bay’s priority chime chimed sharply. The holographic screen behind them flickered, displaying an urgent communication request from the flagship’s main bridge.
[ALERT: DUCAL FLAGGSHIP RYTHUNDEIR HAS ENTERED SECTOR ORBIT.]
[DUCHESS RYTHUNDEIR REQUESTS IMMEDIATE BOARDING CLEARANCE.]
Raevor slowly withdrew his hand, straightening his posture to his full, imposing height as his stoic expression settled back into place. He glanced at the notification, then turned his gaze back to Rhaevia.
"It seems your family has arrived to claim their dark horse," Raevor noted flatly.
Rhaevia smoothed down her uniform sleeve, her dark eyes flashing with quiet intrigue. "Then let us see if they came for an E-rank failure or a 3S Guide."
Raevor offered a single, tight nod, stepping aside to lead the way toward the main docking bay. "Regardless of what they expect, Cadet Rythundeir, remember that your official file remains under my military jurisdiction."
"Is that a warning or a promise, General?" she asked, walking alongside him with equal confidence.
"It is both," Raevor replied coldly as the blast doors slid open before them.