The sun filtered through the morning haze, casting a soft, golden light across the small village. The air, crisp with the scent of dew and earth, filled the quiet morning with an unspoken promise. A distant river hummed with the rhythm of time, while birds soared lazily overhead. The world felt unhurried, as though it had not yet awakened fully.
Inside a modest room, a boy lay still in the gentle embrace of sleep. His face was youthful, unmarked by the passage of time, yet in the silence of his slumber, something stirred. Strange, fragmented images flickered behind his eyelids—visions of a storm tearing through the sky, the crackling of fire, the vastness of mountains, the weight of uncountable stars pressing down upon him.
The memories came and went in jarring flashes: a life that felt too full, too distant to belong to someone as young as the boy before the mirror. Faces, names, and places blurred together, as if they belonged to a different life altogether.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open, and his breath caught in his chest. He sat up quickly, heart racing, skin prickling with the disorienting sense that something was terribly wrong. His hands trembled as they reached up to touch his face, confirming what his mind had already begun to deny. He was no longer the person he remembered being.
"Where... where am I?" His voice came out in a hoarse whisper, as though his throat had forgotten how to speak after centuries of silence.
He looked around the small room—wooden walls, a humble bed, a window letting in the warm sunlight—and everything felt both familiar and alien. His mind scrambled to make sense of it. He had been here before, hadn't he? No. This was different. He was different.
Was this... a dream? The thought flickered through his mind, as fragile and elusive as a puff of smoke. He couldn't be sure. Everything felt real—the weight of his body, the simplicity of his surroundings, and yet...
He glanced down at his hands, pale and small, untouched by the hardships of time. His fingers trembled as he traced the smooth, unscarred surface. This body was young. Too young. Too fragile.
I was... an Immortal.
The memories surged again, pulling him under like a riptide. The climb through the stages of cultivation, the battles fought against impossible odds, the final, agonizing ascension. He had been one with the stars, standing on the edge of eternity, free from the constraints of mortality.
But now? Now he was nothing more than a child, no older than he had been before the journey began. Was this real? Was he truly back in his childhood body?
His heart ached with the weight of the question. He wanted to scream, to lash out at the unfairness of it all.
"I've lived, died, and transcended…" he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "And now I'm here again. In this body." His gaze turned toward the window, where the village lay quiet beneath the rising sun.
A sharp pain blossomed in his chest, but it wasn't from the confusion of his mind—it was the sting of realization. If this is a dream, then what does it mean? The idea of time felt impossibly warped. Had the last centuries been real? Had he truly ascended, or had it all been an illusion?
The silence of the room stretched on, the weight of his thoughts hanging heavy in the air. He clenched his fists, frustration building with every passing second.
He rose unsteadily from the bed, walking slowly to the mirror on the wall. He stood there, staring at the reflection before him—a boy with dark brown eyes and messy brown hair, his face still soft with the innocence of childhood. But when he looked into those eyes, he saw something different. Something ancient.
The eyes staring back at him were not those of a child. They burned with an unspoken knowledge, with the wisdom and sorrow of a thousand lifetimes. They had seen the rise and fall of kingdoms, felt the sting of betrayal, tasted the bitter loneliness of immortality.
The boy's hands shook as he touched the glass, trying to understand what he was seeing.
"I... I remember everything. I remember becoming Immortal. I remember the pain, the power, the isolation. But…" His voice faltered as the truth settled in. "But it feels like it was someone else's life."
He turned away from the mirror, pacing the room as his mind swirled in chaos. The memories were too real to dismiss, too vivid to ignore, yet they felt distant, like a dream he couldn't fully grasp.
Why am I back here? he thought desperately. Was all of that really real? Or was this the dream?
The voice—the voice from Heaven—whispered in the recesses of his mind, a faint echo of an old memory. "Was it worth it?"
The question struck him like a thunderclap, sharp and piercing, reverberating through his very being. He stopped in his tracks, hands clenching at his sides.
He remembered now. The isolation. The sacrifices. The endless weight of immortality that had crushed him from the inside out. He had once walked the path of the Immortal, reaching the peak of human existence, only to find that the summit offered nothing but emptiness. He had transcended death, broken the laws of nature, and yet... it had not been worth it.
His mind raced as he confronted the voice's question again. "Was it worth it?"
No, he thought bitterly. No, it wasn't. Not at all.
But then, the anger inside him turned to something else—something far colder.
"If this is a second chance, then I'll make it worth something." His eyes darkened with determination. "I'll correct every mistake, every regret. I'll do it all over again."
A bitter laugh escaped him, raw and hollow. "Heaven," he muttered to the void, "you've given me this second chance, but don't think I'll play by your rules. You told me immortality wasn't meant for the faint of heart. Fine. But there's no such thing as going back in time. You can't rewrite the past. And yet, here I am, given a chance to reshape the future. You can't stop me now."
His words hung in the air like a challenge, but he knew—he knew—the weight of this opportunity. This time, he would not be the same. This time, he would change everything.
He walked toward the door, his mind set. He had returned for a reason, and this time, he would not waste it.
Outside, the village was waking up, the simple bustle of daily life unfolding before him. But his eyes, now full of purpose, saw the world differently. This time, he would not let it slip through his fingers. He had a second chance—and he would use it.
"I will not let the past dictate my future," he whispered, a fire igniting within him. "I will change everything."
And with that, he stepped into the morning light, his journey beginning anew.
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