Lee woke up on a floor of cold, polished stone. The air was different here—heavy with the scent of incense and old dust. He was lying in the center of a gargantuan hall. High above, light filtered through stained-glass windows, casting jagged shards of crimson and violet across the floor.

  He stood up, his head throbbing with a dull rhythm. The hall was lined with rows of towering statues. They were terrifying to behold—each one was headless, their necks ending in smooth, flat stumps. Their stone hands were lifted just above their stomachs, palms cupped as if offering something holy. Resting in each pair of hands was a thirty-centimeter dagger, the blades forged from a dark, matte metal that seemed to swallow the light.

  Driven by a sudden, magnetic urge, Lee reached out and took a dagger from the nearest statue.

  The moment his fingers brushed the hilt, a voice erupted—not in the room, but inside his skull. It was a chaotic symphony of whispers, thousands of voices speaking at once. He pulled the dagger closer to his ear, trying to make out a single word.

  Suddenly, the cold metal turned fluid. The blade surged forward, sinking directly into his temple. Lee braced for the agony, for the spray of blood, but there was nothing. No pain. No wound. The dagger simply vanished into his head, leaving behind a cold, humming sensation in his brain.

  The hall began to dissolve. The stained glass shattered into light, and the headless statues melted into the floor.

  The Classroom

  When the world solidified again, Lee was sitting at a small, sleek desk. He was in a classroom filled with children who looked mostly human, though their skin had a slight iridescent sheen. In the front of the room was a massive wall-mounted screen—the technology looked incredibly advanced, yet the casing was cracked and weathered with age.

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  The door slid open with a hiss. A woman walked in, carrying a device the size of a notebook.

  Lee felt his breath hitch. She was breathtaking, but she was fundamentally not human. Her eyes were a vibrant, glowing green with slit pupils like a cat’s. Her hair was a shock of deep purple that moved as if it were underwater. As she gestured with her hands, Lee saw thin, delicate scales along her forearms that sparkled like diamonds when the light caught them.

  Despite the scales and the eyes, she was stunning—curvy, with a kind face and a presence more beautiful than any celebrity Lee had ever seen in Seoul.

  "Good morning, children," she said. Her voice was sweet, melodic, and hummed with a friendly warmth. "Today, we will learn our history from the very beginning. The origin of our existence."

  She tapped her screen, and the wall behind her flickered to life. Images of a lush, blue-and-green planet appeared—a world Lee knew by heart.

  "Millions of years ago," the teacher began, "there was a planet of incredible power. Its people were so advanced they fully harnessed the energy of their star. They traveled to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, building empires across the void. But then, the planet became unstable. For reasons lost to time, it was completely destroyed."

  She looked at the class, her slit pupils widening.

  "That world was the Planet of Origin," she said softly. "It was called Earth."

  The floor felt like it had vanished beneath Lee’s feet. The blood drained from his face as a cold, paralyzing realization hit him.

  He hadn't been transported to a different world or a magical dimension. This wasn't some fantasy dream. He had been reborn millions of years in the future. Everything he had fought for—his election, his power, his city—was nothing but cosmic dust.

  He was home, but home had been dead for a millions of years.