How long has it been?
Cal struggled to recall how much time had passed since he first entered this world. He stared at the mountain of corpses before him, his eyes soulless and lifeless.
These corpses weren't the carcasses of monsters native to this world. If one looked closely, the majority of them bore similar faces and attire. They were nearly identical, the only differences being the brutal ways they had died. These bodies weren't strangers—they were all him. Each corpse was a trace of his existence, a testament to the countless times he had died.
When he first discovered that he could revive after dying, Cal had been filled with hope. He had confidence that he could survive this world. Perhaps, he had even entertained the delusion of defeating the monstrous beings that ruled over it.
But that hope was shattered after he tasted death again, and again, and again. Each death brought excruciating pain, more unbearable than the last. Slowly, his will crumbled under the sheer weight of the agony.
"FUCK! FUCK!"
Cal stomped the ground, his eyes blazing with hatred. He despised what he had become. He loathed the mysterious man who had brought him to this hell. All he wanted now was to die permanently, but each attempt at ending his life only brought more torment.
Suicide didn't free him. He would revive, and the pain would remain. The damnable pain went beyond any physical experience he'd known.
"I thought I'd get numb to it," Cal muttered bitterly. "But I didn't. It just gets worse."
Each death had stripped another piece of his sanity. The agony of dying didn't diminish—it only escalated, like some cruel cosmic joke. He clenched his fists as anger surged within him.
"It's all because of that bastard!"
Cal's eyes flared as he remembered the man who had made him this way. That bullshit offer, that sick smile. He knew, deep down, that he was just entertainment for that man. Somewhere, somehow, that bastard was watching him suffer with glee.
Cal tilted his head toward the sun, his voice a low growl.
"Someday, you bastard... once I find you, I'm going to kill you."
But even as he made the vow, Cal knew it was a delusion—a false hope. The odds of survival in this world were slim to none. Eventually, his willpower would shatter completely.
He laughed bitterly. What was the point of fighting anymore? He wasn't even capable of using magic. All his mentor, Erik, had ever taught him was physical combat. But here, brute force was utterly ineffective. At best, he could barely take down a red goblin.
"Why am I even here?"
Cal leaned against a tree, his gaze drifting back to the mountain of corpses. It wasn't an exaggeration to call it a mountain. His lifeless bodies stretched across a 500-meter radius, each one a grim reminder of his failures. He had lost count of the number of times he had died.
The shaking ground snapped him out of his thoughts.
Rumble. Rumble.
Cal sighed as he turned toward the source of the sound. A massive, humanoid creature loomed in the distance, its heavy footsteps shaking the earth.
The Demon Titan.
The sight of the colossal being sent a chill down his spine. It was the culprit behind most of his deaths—a monstrous force of destruction he couldn't even scratch.
"Demon Titan," Cal whispered, his voice trembling.
The creature was a towering 350 meters tall, clad in dark red armor that covered every inch of its body. In its hand, it held a massive war axe, larger than the tallest trees in the forest. According to the records in his family's royal library, the Demon Titan had once been the right hand of the Demon God, a berserker who had nearly annihilated humanity 500 years ago. Only the combined power of the Six Supreme Sorcerers and the Divine Hero had managed to defeat it.
Now it stood before him, alive and as menacing as ever.
Cal scoffed. "The records might as well be fairy tales. Look at me now."
He had no idea what was happening in the human world. Had his enemies already taken over the Amaranthine Kingdom? Were his family's assassins celebrating their victory? None of it mattered anymore.
The Demon Titan stopped walking and sneered at him. "Human. Ready to die again?"
Cal didn't flinch. He simply walked toward it. "Just ki—"
SPLATTER!
Before he could finish, the axe came down, crushing him instantly.
Pain exploded in his mind as his body reformed a few meters away. He screamed, clutching his chest.
"You bastard!" Cal spat blood, his voice hoarse. "I'm not done—"
BANG!
The titan's massive foot crushed him again.
"I can't hear you clearly, human," the titan mocked, its booming laughter echoing across the battlefield.
The cycle continued. Each time Cal revived, the Demon Titan killed him in increasingly brutal ways.
He was thrown, crushed, sliced apart—again and again. It was a one-man massacre, and Cal was the victim.
"Stop, you fucking maniac!" he screamed, tears streaming down his face. But the titan only grinned as it raised its fist once more.
Cal knelt on the ground, trembling. His willpower was unraveling. Despair clawed at his heart, suffocating the faint flickers of hope.
Still, he refused to give up. Grabbing a rock, he charged at the titan, only to be flicked away like an insect. Blood mist filled the air.
"I... can't... anymore..." Cal whispered as he lay on the ground, staring blankly at the sky. The Demon Titan raised its axe again.
But the killing blow never came.
Cal opened his eyes, confused. The scenery had changed. The battlefield, the titan, the corpses—they were gone. He was standing in a familiar place, though he couldn't remember why it felt that way.
Clap. Clap.
"Congratulations!"
The voice froze Cal in his tracks. He turned and saw a figure standing a few feet away—a man whose calm smile he would never forget.
"You," Cal hissed. His fists clenched.
The man—the one who had brought him to this hellish world—was smiling as if nothing had happened.
"What the fuck did you do to me?"
"Relax," the man said with a shrug. "You didn't die for real. Think of it as a test."
"A TEST?!" Cal lunged at him, but a crushing gravitational force pinned him to the ground.
"You should be thankful," the man continued. "Most souls dissolve into nothingness after death. But you? I gave you a chance to live again."
Cal gritted his teeth. "You think I should be *grateful* for the suffering you caused me?!"
The man ignored him and snapped his fingers. A swirling white portal appeared behind Cal, pulling at the air around it.
"There's the portal back to the mortal world," the man said. "Step through it, and you can continue your life."
Cal hesitated. "Why should I trust you?"
The man smirked. "You don't have to. But if you want to survive, you'll go through."
Before Cal could respond, the man conjured a ball of red light and sent it into his forehead. Warmth flooded Cal's body, though there was something intimidating about it.
"What did you do?"
"I gave you a functioning magical core," the man replied. "Without it, you'd die the moment you returned."
Cal stared at him in disbelief. After a lifetime of being unable to use magic, he now had the ability.
The man's smile widened. "Consider it a gift for surviving."
Cal turned toward the portal, his heart pounding. He took a step forward but stopped when the man spoke again.
"I never introduced myself, did I? Well, Prince Caladros, it's been a pleasure. I am Astaroth, the Demon God."
Cal's eyes widened in horror, but before he could react, the portal swallowed him whole.
---
The Demon God Astaroth watched the portal vanish. Beside him, a humanoid figure clad in dark red armor stepped forward.
"Was introducing yourself really necessary?" the figure asked.
Astaroth chuckled. "Who knows?"