"Uh-huh? I… can breathe?"
In the familiar darkness, eyes closed, Faelen Duskborne took a deep breath and calmed himself. Hot air flowed into his nostrils, a feeling he could readily sense. His heightened senses made him acutely aware of the heat that enveloped him. It felt as though a fire close to consuming him was smoldering just under his skin. It gave a biting sensation, enough to comprehend, but he didn't feel unsafe. The heat felt as if it were part of him, and he, in turn, felt as if he could control it.
"Damn… I'm alive. Wait. Then what's my personality this time around? This is my last chance, so I have to at least worry."
As implied by him, he held 'this' moment as very important and distinct from any other. Maybe… he was just being figurative? He could feel a rigid, jagged structure that ran from his upper to lower back. It served as support, and the same jaggedness was on the bottom support. The armrest had a rough texture when he brushed his fingers over it.
"Seems like I'm in a chair. If I don't have any other idea, at least I'm aware a wheelchair's armrest can't feel like that."
There was a particular scent that made his brows twitch a bit. He must have been catching it all along but was so absorbed in his task that he hadn't noticed. It was a scent similar to the one given off when paper is burned. Likewise, it smelled like smoke—a thick one. Feeling fatigue in his neck, he tried to straighten it. As he did so, something like a needle bit into his skin.
"Ouch!" he winced, running his hand to his neck. His hand froze midway as he felt some roughness there. No, not just roughness, but layers of something hard and oily-skinned. It was like rubbing a couple of oiled rocks forming layers over one another, but all at the same height.
"The Ninefold Resurrection Ritual must have gone the hardest way for me this last time. Now, I'm almost overly sure that I have a kind of infection that is incurable. Someone like me can't debate what's fair or otherwise. I spent extra lives after my death, so I don't have any option. Life was so nice that I never wanted to die, unlike others."
"Reality requires my attention first. Who did I reincarnate as?"
He raised his eyebrows as he leaned away from the stony support at his back. Unlike other times, he would neither get excited to find out who he was nor panic. He had experienced what it means to live an original free life, then die, and be resurrected again. Life and death was a deadly game in ninefold for someone like Faelen.
His eyelids lifted, revealing a pair of slit-pupiled, golden eyes that were at first blurred by the array of light which the owner of the eyes had been devoid of for years. Then everything became clearer, though not entirely yet.
From the high spot where he was seated, downward was a path lined with a red carpet—with golden designs flanking both sides—that began from the end of the dark stone stairway leading up to the massive obsidian throne he was seated in, stretching to the end of the throne room at a golden door adorned with gemstones.
Faelen wanted to lift himself from the dark stone throne to catch a better view of his surroundings, but everything in the expansive hall demanded attention. Not as anything specific, but in a way that made his fingers tremble.
On both sides of the throne room, there were open sections revealing a dark, clouded sky view. Flickering light brightened the surroundings slightly. The palace was grand and imposing, with tall, towering spires rising high above it, each bearing a large gemstone at its peak. Alongside the throne room, pagodas with small, creamy windows—five on each—either had their bases shrouded in thick clouds surrounding the palace or were suspended in mid-air, each with pronged spikes beneath it.
Atop some of these pagodas, red dragon banners with emblems were hung. Hearing flapping sounds all around him, Faelen's eyes moved from one place to another until he saw two creatures gliding in the air. They were brown-skinned and had lined wings, not as massive as adult dragons, but like bats that had grown slightly larger.
Strangely, as he locked eyes with the small dragons, he heard their voices in his mind. They had said, "Greetings, Your Majesty," not in the Felix Language he had spoken in his past eight reincarnations, but in a language that seemed impossible to learn. Yet he somehow understood it, even though he checked and was certain that they never opened their mouths. He tilted his head, a faint crease forming in his brows, and sat back properly. Everything here—himself, this otherworldly setting, and the sight of such creatures without feeling fear—wouldn't make sense in one case. But in the other case, it might.
Faelen moved his hand to his neck and rubbed the back a couple of times. Just what piled up there, feeling like an oiled rock to touch?
"Crazy, isn't it? The ritual found no other personality for me than a… beast? A dragon?! I'm fucking half transformed right now." The pitch at which he spoke showed him just how vast this place was. He clicked his tongue and lightly hit the armrest, denting it slightly with the side of his hand. He mumbled like someone who'd come to a final conclusion, "Dragons are known to be fierce, merciless, and if there's another world down below, then creatures like this… I mean, *me too*… are prone to extinction. Anyway, this is my ninth reincarnation after I died at the age of 25. I don't know where the stupid dragon who owns this body is or how many decades it has lived. But I can only be 25 if on earth and will die a tragic death before 40. The same for the past reincarnations. I might as well head down to the human world now and end myself sooner. I can't do this at all. I can't live as a beast!"