
by Metal pen
Humanity’s first near-light mission was supposed to change history.Instead, it stranded Kyle Bennett six thousand light-years from Earth and nearly four hundred years in the future. Moments before disaster struck, Kyle witnessed something impossible: stars being born, worlds forming, and a voice in the void warning him: YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE. FORTUNATE ONE. Now trapped in the middle of a galactic war, Kyle is hunted by the Duanga — a fanatical empire that exterminates entire civilisations in the name of holy conquest. To them, Kyle is not just a lost pilot. He is a sign. A weapon. Possibly even a prophecy. Rescued by a cynical alien salvager named Clem and aided only by Charli — the shipboard AI slowly becoming something far beyond her original programming — Kyle is pulled into the desperate struggle of Cluster, a coalition made from the surviving remnants of species nearly wiped out by the Duanga’s crusade. As ancient mysteries surrounding the anomaly begin to surface, Kyle realises getting home may no longer be the most important thing at stake. Because whatever touched him in the void is awakening again. MAN OUT OF TIME is a character-driven military space opera featuring: survivor fleets first contact cosmic mystery evolving AI ancient anomalies desperate last stands and a galaxy trying to survive extinction.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 4 Oct 2026, 19:48 UTC
Entry forecast updated 4 Oct 2026, 19:48 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 26% of similar stories
not enough data yet
needs about a week of observations
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 20–49 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.