"F*cccccck!!"
Annabeth wanted to scream. Instead, a shrill wail escaped her—a baby's cry.
Her emotions were a tangled wreck. Just moments ago, she had faced utter annihilation. Now? She was back at square one, cradled in the arms of fate like some cruel joke.
This was beyond ridiculous. She had already lived two short, miserable lives. And now, a third? Was this some divine blessing, or had she pissed off the wrong ghost?
Did one of her countless victims curse her to a perpetual cycle of rebirth and violent deaths? Or maybe, knowing her, had she been dumb enough to accidentally cast some forbidden spell that trapped her soul in an eternal time loop? Either way, one thing was clear: fate was determined to have the last laugh.
"Maybe both," she thought, shrugging in resigned acceptance.
Annabeth was no stranger to forbidden magic. She had mastered the art of trapping human souls, using them as ingredients for her spells—sometimes even absorbing them. She had pillaged, murdered, tortured, imprisoned, and experimented on so many innocent lives that she had earned the title Mistress of Despair. And she loved it. She lived for it.
They said that after killing your first innocent victim, you became addicted to it. It wasn't just about ending a life—it was about control. The power to bend someone's existence to your will, to hold their fate in your hands, to see them squirm in helplessness... and then, just when they thought they might die, you give them a glimmer of hope. Just a tiny sliver of light. You watch them cling to it, their hearts convinced they might live.
But then you crush it. You rip away that hope, watching as they die inside, their bodies struggling to accept the inevitable. They spend their last breaths cursing you, their words, their thoughts, and their very souls branded with rage. Congratulations; you are all they can think about in their last moments.
"Maybe one of those curses finally got to me," she mused bitterly.
A cold twinge of hopelessness twisted inside her, so deep it manifested as the loud wailing of a helpless baby. She wasn't naive enough to ignore the fact that despair had become her new master, and it was teaching her lessons she'd rather not learn.
Just then, someone picked her up as if pulling her out of her hopelessness, the familiar hands of a man gently patting her back. She knew that face all too well, and it seemed that her frantic crying had caught the attention of this particular man.
"Huuuusssshhhhh my little angel," he said, while gently rubbing her back, trying to stop her crying.
This was Lord Flinn, Annabeth's father. A wealthy merchant from the northern reaches of the Alibarnair Kingdom, he defied all expectations for someone of his station. Towering at 6 foot 4 with a body built like a bear, Lord Flinn didn't dress like a merchant. His wardrobe was modest, his attire simple, giving strangers the impression of a common man, though the moment you saw him, you knew he was anything but. Black hair, brown fierce eyes, a thick black beard—the man was a black bear with a human skin mod. His cheekbones were so sharp, they could probably chop firewood if he felt like it. A gentle giant to those who knew him, but a negotiator so ruthless, he could drive the hardest bargains with just a look.
One glance and anyone could tell that Lord Flinn was no mere commoner, yet his lack of jewels and his simple dress didn't signal nobility either. But this was the northern region, where all sorts of characters roamed. Unwritten rules were the law of the land, and the unspoken order of the day was always the same: mind your own d*mn business.
But right now, there was no room for business or rules. Lord Flinn stood helplessly, trying desperately to comfort his newborn daughter, whose wails echoed through the room. His expression was a mixture of concern and despair. Tears streamed down his face as his heart twisted in agony—his wife, the woman he loved, was slipping away right before his eyes.
"Do we have anyone here who can cast healing magic above Tier 5?" Ms. Luwi, the head midwife, asked her two assistants. The moment the words left her mouth, she realized how ridiculous they sounded. Her assistants were nothing more than trainees. She'd been working with them for a month now, and they were barely capable of anything above Tier 2.
Both assistants shook their heads, confirming what Ms. Luwi already knew.
She had no illusions. If anyone in the room could cast magic of the higher tiers, it would have to be her. But even her magic was limited—Tier 5 at most. And right now, that wasn't nearly enough. Her mind was reeling from the panic of the situation. The lady in labor had suddenly developed severe internal bleeding after the birth, her body unable to handle the strain.
Ms. Luwi had been caught off guard. She was accustomed to difficult deliveries, but this—this was unlike anything she had encountered before. She hadn't even had time to prepare herself. In her panic, she blurted out a question that was all too obvious: they didn't have the healing power required.
The bleeding was too severe. The woman's life force was too weak to support even Tier 5 healing magic. At this level, the patient's life force had to act as a catalyst for the magic to take effect. Tier 6 healing was a different story—the healer could transfer their own life force to the patient, but no one here could manage that.
Ms. Luwi was left with a brutal choice. She could stop the bleeding, but at the cost of the patient's life force, which would undoubtedly accelerate the mother's death. Or she could let the bleeding continue, hoping to find a Tier 6 healer in time, but that risked dragging the mother through excruciating minutes or hours of agony before she finally succumbed.
The situation was deteriorating unnaturally quickly. The nearest Tier 6 healer was either at home or at the hospital, and getting her here in time would be impossible at this rate.
Desperation hung in the air like a thick fog, pressing down on everyone in the room
Tension snuck in and found a seat as time seemed to stretch, uncomfortably slow and relentlessly fast at once. The baby's wailing filled the space as if practising for the inevitable. It only made things worse—every sob, every breath it took, seemed to mock Ms. Luwi's indecision.
She was paralyzed. There was no decision she could make that would change the outcome, and yet, she kept hesitating, hoping for something—anything—to change.
In the end, her hesitation became her decision.
The woman on the bed stopped moving, her labored breathing coming to an abrupt halt. A hush fell over the room. No one spoke, but everyone knew it: the mother was gone. The truth was there, heavy and undeniable. But acknowledging it was a different beast altogether.
Ms. Luwi frantically pushed her magic into the woman's body, futilely hoping for a miracle. She knew it was hopeless, but her hands kept moving, driven by desperation. No response. Healing magic couldn't revive what had already been lost.
The baby had stopped crying too. Its cries had been silenced, either by the actions of its father or the weight of the moment. The silence was deafening.
Lord Flinn, his expression hollow, held the baby tightly to his chest. His wife was gone, and with her, the last shred of hope he had clung to. The weight of the loss crushed him. Wealth, power, status—all of it was useless now. He had nothing left to cling to but his newborn daughter, and even she felt like an anchor. His tears were silent, but his sorrow bled through as if the loss had drained him of everything else.
Annabeth, still a newborn, felt the familiar sting in her heart. It was strange, that ache, because it wasn't truly hers. The feeling was a ghost from another life—a memory, perhaps, or a thread left behind from her past. She had seen this before, felt it before, but now she was too psychologically insane to understand it. The pain was still there, faint but persistent, and for a fleeting moment, she felt the weight of it.
"Seems the only thing changing this time is still me," she thought, trying to steady her emotions. Even in the face of tragedy, there was something unnervingly unchanged about her.
In her previous life, her father had raised her alone after her mother's death. He had withered away, his face drawn and his smile a rare sight. She had watched him grow old too quickly, the toll of his losses etched into his every feature. Eventually, he had remarried, and shortly after, he was gone—poisoned by his new wife.
And now, it seemed, nothing would change. If history had any say in the matter, Lord Flinn had just six more years to live before his life would be claimed in the same, tragic manner.