In the blink of an eye, the void dissolved into something cruelly familiar. I stood, breathless and unmoving, before a small, two-story concrete house. Its worn, grey facade loomed against the sky, surrounded by the skeletal shapes of other rural buildings long faded from memory. My gaze dropped slowly to my hands, and I realized I wore the same suit in which I had died—ironed, formal, stitched with quiet dignity from my old world. Behind me stretched an endless sea of wheat, golden and untamed, bowing gently beneath the touch of the wind. The sun hung high, soft and warm, and a breeze stirred the stillness with a tenderness too kind for what this place represented. Not a soul moved within sight, yet my heart stopped as if a blade had pierced it anew.

I knew this house. I knew every crack in its faded paint, every creak of its tired bones. This was where it all began. My first home. My first life. My first family. The place where I learned to laugh and... cry. The place where I learned what it meant to grieve.

Another blink—and I was inside. The scene unfolded without mercy. A memory, vivid as flame, stretched out before me. I watched, powerless, as a small boy with soft brown hair and wide black eyes—myself—sat perched at a worn dining table. Across from him, a woman with kind brown hair and gentle blonde eyes smiled, her warmth filling the little kitchen like sunlight after rain. My mother. My first mother. Beside her, a broad-shouldered man with black hair and black eyes that mirrored my own leaned forward with quiet pride. My father. My first father. They were celebrating something—something small, something precious. A cake sat between them, handmade and lopsided, but radiant with love.

“Mother! Father!” My voice broke from my throat, raw and desperate, but it passed through them like wind through smoke. They didn’t hear. Of course, they couldn’t. These were only ghosts—echoes of a time long buried beneath layers of scar tissue and years.

Then the door burst open. Shadows spilled into the light. A man cloaked in black stepped into the home, his intent sharper than the blade he carried. My father rose, confusion etched across his face. Words formed on his lips—Why? Who?—but they never reached sound. The knife was faster. It slid beneath his ribs with terrifying ease, staining the floor red beneath him.

My mother’s scream shattered the air. She scooped up my younger self, clutching me to her chest as she ran for the door, but the assassin moved like smoke, like inevitability. His blade found her back before her feet found the threshold. She fell. Still holding me. Still shielding me, even as her life poured out in crimson pools across the floorboards.

“Mission complete,” the cloaked figure murmured into a device at his ear. Then, as suddenly as he’d come, he vanished into the shadows he seemed born from.

I stood trembling in the ruins of memory, breath tearing raggedly through my chest, tears burning down my face. I whispered to no one, to nothing, to the aching wound inside me that had never truly healed. “It’s okay. I took my revenge. It’s okay.” But was it really? Was this one of the deity’s cruel gifts? Forcing me to relive the worst of my pain, to remind me what I’d clawed my way back from, just to prove I still had the will to stand?

The world shifted. Faces blurred. Voices bled into one another until the house was full—not with warmth, but with strangers. A crowd. Officials. A man, my uncle’s face—black hair, black eyes like my father’s—stood over my younger self, plucked from beneath my mother’s cooling body. His voice was tired, burdened with duty. “Let’s take him to an orphanage.”

Time jerked forward without kindness. I was nine. Alone in a crumbling orphanage slated for closure thanks to government cuts no one fought to prevent. The manager’s office appeared around me, then dissolved just as quickly into chaos—the manager’s arrest, her cries, the whispers of corruption. Next, I found myself among a sea of frightened children, all of us lined up beneath the cold gaze of a nobleman whose white hair gleamed like frost beneath the sun. His eyes were cruel, his smile thinner than a blade.

“They’ll make good slaves,” he murmured, weighing us like cattle on the auction block of his gaze.

Then Sina—our pink-haired manager, small but fierce even in handcuffs—burst into the room, her voice raw with defiance. “Don’t you dare make these children slaves, you filthy noble!”

Her words cracked through the air like glass underfoot, but the man only smiled, as if pitying her courage. “I’ll only take two,” he said, softer than silk, more venomous than poison. “The rest can be… disposed of.”

“They’re meant to transfer to another orphanage!” Sina’s voice shook with fear, with anger, with helplessness. “Don’t touch them, you pervert—” That cracked his facade. His face twisted. His fists struck her until her body crumpled beneath them, until only the intervention of law stopped him from silencing her permanently. “She’s needed alive for her execution,” someone reminded him, as if that justified restraint.

He took two children. Ordered the building burned. Left the rest of us to fend for ourselves like rats scurrying from flames. I watched myself again, silent amid the crying. I hadn’t cried then. Not for myself. Only for Sina, who’d taught us how to fight with our fists when the world struck first. Who’d treated us not as burdens, but as family. Seven years later, I would watch that noble hang for his crimes, his twisted grin silenced at last beneath the weight of justice. But none of that eased the burn of this memory now.

Another shift. I was fourteen, seated beside my past self in the arena stands. After the orphanage, I’d found work sweeping floors in a modest shop—small kindnesses traded for bread and shelter. Below us, two men prepared to fight not for glory, but for the throne itself. One would rule; the other would serve as knight until death called him home. “Ladies and gentlemen!” The commentator’s voice rang through the stands, bright and hollow. “Welcome to the selection of our new king! Fear not—the shields will protect you. Please welcome our finalists: Caster and Shimon!”

Blades met. Ki roared. Fighting spirit cracked the very air. I watched as Shimon moved like lightning, carving wounds into Caster with merciless speed. But Caster only smiled, blood staunched by sheer force of will. They clashed again, powers swelling until their weapons shattered and the first of the protective barriers crumbled to dust beneath their might. When the dust settled, only Caster stood. The crowd roared. A new king was born from blood and steel.

I remembered how that battle had sparked something in me—a hunger not just to survive, but to rise. To prove that even a nameless orphan could challenge the world’s cruelty. But dreams came with costs, and academy fees had been beyond what my meager wages could hope to gather. 

Time melted again, and with it, so did I. I walked beside my younger self through the streets of Volhara, errands pulling me through markets and noise and indifferent crowds. But something in my bones recognized this day. This moment. My heart clenched in my chest, dread blooming like ice beneath skin.

Then I saw it—the alley corner, the thugs, the boy. My younger self noticed first, eyes narrowing, steps quickening not for gain or glory, but because someone needed help.

The first punch was embarrassing. My younger self's fist connected with one of the men, but he might as well have hit a stone wall. The thugs turned, their attention shifting from their original target to this new annoyance. But the noble boy wasn't helpless. He seized his chance, his stance shifting as he gathered his ki. His first punch dropped one of the men instantly, unconscious before he hit the ground. Then came a side kick, enhanced not just with ki but with a whisper of fighting spirit—remarkable for someone so young, given how much harder fighting spirit was to master than mere ki. The remaining thugs fled, dragging their unconscious companions. "How did you do that?" my younger self asked, amazed. The noble boy shrugged. 

"Just ki—everyone uses it in fighting. And thank you for saving me." He paused, considering. "Would you like to come to my house?" "I need to inform my employer first," past-me replied. "I'll come with you," the boy offered. As we walked to the shop, he asked, "What's your name?" "Nova Veincer." "I'm Rohald von Jeniyold, at your service," he replied with an exaggerated bow that made us both laugh. The shop owner, waiting outside his medical store, gave his permission readily enough. 

Then we made our way to Rohald's mansion, where guards eyed my younger self with suspicious curiosity. Inside, the wealth on display was staggering—artifacts and devices gleaming in the lamplight, a massive dining table dominating one room, plush sofas lining the walls. 

 The chief butler, elegant despite his years, led us to the family head's office. Rohald asked me to wait outside while he and the butler went in. Minutes later, I was summoned. The family head shared his son's good looks—purple hair, black eyes, aristocratic features. I bowed, introducing myself. "Thank you for saving my son," he said, his voice warm but measured. 

"He's asked me to make you his guard at the academy. Would you be interested in attending East Royal Academy? We would cover all expenses and provide a monthly wage. Your only duty would be to protect my son while there. Do you accept?" My younger self stood frozen, stunned by this turn of fortune. "Yes, my lord. I will." After discussing the details, we left the office. The family head instructed me to move into the manor to prepare for the entrance exams. Outside, I turned to Rohald. 

"Did you arrange all this?" He grinned. "Consider it gratitude. Besides, aren't we friends?" "Yes," my younger self replied, "we are." The scene began to shift again, and I braced myself for what memory would surface next...