The bullet train zipped through the vast urban landscape, the sound of its wheels humming beneath Reece's feet. He sat in one of the cabins, his body still, but his mind was far from calm. The world outside the window passed by in a blur—modern skyscrapers, bustling city centers, and rolling green fields. Yet Reece barely registered any of it. His thoughts were too loud, his memories too overwhelming.
The headache that had plagued him since the morning was back, this time with a vengeance. It pounded at his temples, each throb a reminder of the immense strain his mind was under. He had assumed the worst of it had passed, that he had stabilized his regression enough to function normally—but he had underestimated the toll of meeting Lorna again. Seeing her after all these lifetimes had stirred something in him, something buried deep beneath layers of past lives and forgotten pain.
"Damn… who'd have thought seeing her again would cause such a problem?" Reece muttered under his breath, his hands massaging his temples. The headache wasn't just physical—it was the mental strain, the memories pressing against his mind, demanding attention.
But this was no ordinary headache. It was a consequence of his Gift—the curse of regression. Normally, Prima would handle the brunt of it, acting as a buffer, a database that helped him store and manage the thousands of years of memories from his previous lives. But with Prima offline, Reece was left to deal with the weight of all those lives alone.
Without her, his mind was vulnerable, open to the relentless flood of past experiences. And without training in primal mana, his soul was still weak, his body fragile. Each time a wave of memories surged forward, it left him gasping for air, his thoughts fragmented and chaotic.
His gaze drifted to the people moving about in the cabin. Businessmen, students, commuters. All of them going about their lives, blissfully unaware of the enormity of what lay ahead for them. For all of humanity. He envied them, in a way. They didn't have to live with the burden of a thousand lifetimes weighing them down. They didn't have to carry the pain of countless losses, the memories of a past that no longer existed.
For now, Reece thought, I need to relax. Letting the memories flow passively into my subconscious should help… I should let this happen as I meditate.
It was a technique he had mastered long ago—one of the many practices he used to cope with the side effects of his regression. Meditation allowed him to compartmentalize his memories, to let them sink into the background until he was ready to access them. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was the only way to maintain his sanity while Prima was offline.
He glanced around the cabin, looking for a spot where he could sit undisturbed. Finding an empty corner, he moved quickly, settling himself into the seat. He needed to stay out of sight. The last thing he wanted was to attract attention or become a nuisance to other passengers.
Closing his eyes, Reece let out a slow, deliberate breath. He relaxed his body, allowing his mind to drift inward. The chaos of his thoughts began to blur at the edges, the noise fading into a dull hum. He let go of the mental barriers he had been holding up, allowing the flood of memories to wash over him, slowly trickling into his subconscious.
But just as he began to sink into his meditation, the flood became too strong.
His breath hitched. The world spun. The memories, once a gentle tide, surged forward like a violent storm.
The battlefield stretched out before him—an endless plain littered with bodies, drenched in blood. The scent of iron filled the air, mingling with the stench of death. Spells crackled in the distance, lighting up the sky in bursts of blue and purple. Weapons clashed, metal on metal, the sound reverberating like thunder.
Reece stood at the edge of the battle, his black, tattered cloak billowing around him in the harsh wind. His eyes, cold and calculating, scanned the chaos below. This was the 51st floor of the Tower, a floor steeped in blood and conflict. Humans fought humans. Humans fought beasts. Humans fought Drakkari, a reptilian race from a distant planet. And all for what? More power. More resources. More authority.
It was always the same.
Greed.
The war raging before him was nothing new. Battles like this were waged on countless floors of the Tower, from the 95th floor down to here. And yet, despite the scale of the conflict, Reece hardly cared. He had seen it all before—thousands of times in countless lifetimes. Greed, ambition, and the lust for power had always driven humanity to destroy itself.
But this time was different.
This time, he wasn't here for the war.
Reece's gaze shifted, narrowing as he focused on a specific point in the distance. The battle was brutal, chaotic, but his attention was locked on one individual—Lorna. She was fighting on the front lines, alongside her best friend, Nia, and her brother, Jack.
Reece's heart clenched. He had seen this before. He had lived it. And he knew exactly how it would end. This was the event that changed Lorna forever. The moment that shattered the woman he loved and turned her into something cold and unrecognizable.
In every lifetime, no matter what he did, this moment played out the same way. Lorna would lose her brother and her best friend in this senseless war, and it would break her. She would abandon everything she cared about, consumed by her grief and a thirst for revenge.
No longer the bright, hopeful woman she once was, Lorna would become a weapon—a tool for the guild that had manipulated her. She would throw herself into the Tower's most dangerous missions, seeking power at any cost, until one day, they would betray her. Her guild would use her and then discard her, sending assassins to eliminate her once she had outlived her usefulness.
And Reece... Reece had lived through it all. He had watched her die, again and again, in every lifetime.
"Not this time," he whispered, his voice low and hard. "I won't let it happen this time."
Reece's hands clenched into fists, his nails biting into his palms as he watched the battle unfold. He had tried to stop this before. He had tried to save her, to prevent the events that would lead to her death. But no matter what he did, the outcome remained the same. Fate was cruel, and the Tower was even crueler. It had taken him lifetimes to accept that some events were inevitable. And this was one of them. A canon event he could not change even with his monstrous strength
But this time... This time, he wasn't just going to stand by and watch. He had learned from his mistakes. He had learned how to act from the shadows, how to change things without drawing attention to himself.
Currently, in this memory, Reece was a Level 73 climber, deep into his 168,990,823,571st regression. His strength was feared across the Tower, whispered about in hushed tones. But his strength wasn't enough to save her—not if he wasn't careful.
As he walked through the battlefield, the blood-soaked ground squelching beneath his boots, he kept his movements slow, deliberate. He didn't want to be noticed. Even though he could easily wipe out half of the armies clashing here, his goal wasn't to win the war—it was to protect Lorna and ensure she survived this day.
His heart ached as he remembered her bright smile, the warmth of her laugh. But now, in this memory, those things were long gone. She had been dragged into this conflict by a classmate of theirs, a wealthy guild member who had manipulated her, using her love for her brother and her desire to protect her family against her. He had promised her the cure for her brother's illness, a promise that had led her into this bloodbath.
"Fucking bastard," Reece muttered under his breath, his eyes flashing with anger. He had seen it all before. The betrayal, the lies, the manipulation. And it was all because some rich kid wanted to get closer to Lorna. He had courted her, convinced her to join his guild, and when she was no longer useful, he would toss her aside like garbage.
Reece's jaw tightened. He couldn't stop everything from happening—fate was too deeply ingrained in this event. But he could change the outcome. He could prevent the worst from happening. This time, Lorna wouldn't lose her brother and her friend. This time, he would keep her safe.
He moved silently through the battlefield, his cloak blending with the shadows. His presence was masked, his mana suppressed to avoid detection. He was careful, calculating. His enemies were powerful, and he knew that one misstep could change everything. Even though he was a feared climber, renowned for his strength, he had learned the hard way that raw power wasn't always enough.
As he approached the front lines, Reece saw her—Lorna—engaged in combat with a group of Drakkari mages. She was strong, her movements precise, but she was outnumbered. And behind her, in the chaos of battle, her brother Jack and her best friend Nia were fighting for their lives.
In every regression, this was the moment where everything went wrong. A group of enemies would break through their defenses, and in the chaos, Jack and Nia would be killed. Lorna, distracted by the battle, wouldn't be able to save them. And when she realized what had happened, the grief would consume her.
But not this time.
Reece's eyes narrowed, his heart pounding in his chest as he stepped forward, drawing closer to the battle. He could feel the weight of the moment pressing down on him, the familiar dread pooling in his stomach. This was it. The turning point.
He wouldn't let her fall.