The chants rose like a storm, battering him with their unrelenting fury. Thousands of voices screamed for his downfall, each syllable a dagger, each cry a judgment.
"Down with the traitor! Justice for the people!"
Daniel Evernath gripped the marble railing of the capitol balcony, his fingers trembling as they pressed into the cold stone. His face was pale, his chest heavy with the weight of betrayal.
Below him, the streets were alive with chaos—a tidal wave of humanity surging against the gates. Their faces twisted in rage, their eyes burning with blind conviction.
Signs scrawled with slurs waved like banners of war, and his likeness, crudely drawn and defaced, was paraded through the mob. Effigies of him burned in crackling bonfires, filling the air with the acrid stench of smoke and hatred.
*These were my people,* he thought bitterly. *These were the ones I swore to protect.*
He turned his head slightly, glancing back at the towering oak doors that led to his office—the sanctum where he had labored day and night to create a better future.
He had crafted policies to heal a fractured nation, fought to uplift the forgotten and the oppressed. Yet it was in that very room that his ideals had been gutted and left to rot.
"How did it come to this?" he whispered, his voice trembling.
But he knew. He *knew.*
The answer wore a familiar face. His deputy—his protégé, his closest confidant—had been the knife in his back. Smiling, calculating, and ruthless, the man had planted seeds of doubt, nurtured them with whispered lies to the press, and watched as they grew into a full-blown storm.
Corruption.
Treason.
Fraud.
It didn't matter that none of it was true. The truth was powerless against a lie when the lie was what the people wanted to hear.
"People don't need truth," the deputy had told him with a smirk just days ago, his words dripping with venom. "They need someone to blame. And you, Daniel, make the perfect scapegoat for the party."
A crash jolted him from his thoughts. The gates had fallen.
The mob poured into the courtyard like a flood, armed with whatever they could wield—clubs, chains, torches. Their fury was primal, an unstoppable force fueled by ignorance and manipulated rage.
"Sir!" one of his bodyguards barked, grabbing his arm. "We have to go! Now!"
Daniel didn't move.
He stood frozen, staring at the mass of humanity rushing toward him. Their faces blurred together, a sea of mouths screaming for his death, of fists raised to destroy him.
But he didn't see strangers. He saw the faces of the farmers he had helped, the workers whose livelihoods he had fought to protect, the families he had once promised a brighter future.
And now, they wanted his blood.
Despair coiled around his heart, cold and suffocating. His chest heaved as his mind screamed for an answer, for something to make sense of it all. But there was nothing.
"I gave them everything," he murmured, his voice barely audible over the roar.
"Sir, we need to—"
"I sacrificed *everything* for them," he continued, his voice breaking. "My career. My family. My life. And this… this is how they repay me?"
His despair twisted, hardened. The cold weight in his chest ignited, blazing into something darker, something sharper. Rage clawed its way to the surface, its heat searing away the remnants of his idealism.
"They don't deserve it," he hissed, his words trembling with venom.
"Sir?"
"They don't deserve the truth. They don't deserve leaders who care. All they want is someone to hate. Someone to crucify. And I…"
His lips curled into a bitter snarl. "I was foolish enough to think they deserved better."
The oak doors behind him burst open. His guard spun, weapon drawn, but it was too late. The mob surged forward, a wave of chaos that swallowed the defenders in seconds.
Daniel turned to face them, his expression defiant despite the tremor in his body. The first blow struck him—a wooden club slamming into his ribs. Pain lanced through him, but he didn't fall.
Another strike hit his shoulder, and then another. The pain blurred together, becoming a dull roar that matched the fury around him. Blood dripped from his lips as he raised his head, glaring at the faces twisted in righteous fury.
"You want justice?" he rasped, his voice cutting through the cacophony. "This… is this is your justice? A mob? Blind and hungry for destruction?"
They didn't stop.
The blows came faster, harder, until his legs gave out and he crumpled to the cold marble floor. His vision swam, the faces of his attackers blending into shadows.
Through the haze of pain and darkness, his mind burned with a single, searing thought:
If i survive this. Never again. Never again will I serve the whims of the ignorant.
---
When Daniel opened his eyes, the world felt... wrong.
The harsh marble floors, the acrid smoke of burning effigies, and the deafening roar of the mob were gone.
Instead, the air was damp and cold, carrying the faint scent of mildew and incense. He lay on something coarse and uneven—a bed, but one that creaked under the slightest shift of his weight.
Where… am I?
His heart thudded erratically as he raised a trembling hand to his face. It wasn't his hand.
The skin was ghostly pale, stretched thin over bony fingers, the veins spidering just beneath the surface. It shook violently, as though even the effort of moving was too much.
What's wrong with me?
Panic clawed at his chest. He tried to sit up, but his body refused. The muscles, if they could even be called that, protested with sharp pains, and he collapsed back against the lumpy mattress. His breathing was shallow, rapid, and uneven.
"This… isn't real," he muttered, his voice weak and hoarse. The sound startled him. It wasn't his voice either.
Memories of the mob flooded his mind—their hatred, the blows, the betrayal. His last moments flashed vividly: falling to the marble floor, his blood pooling around him as the world turned black.
Did I survive?
Before the panic could fully consume him, a soft chime echoed in his ears, freezing him in place.
[System activation commencing.]
*
*
*
[Welcome, Lucian Thorne.]
The voice was calm, mechanical, and utterly foreign. Glowing text appeared in his vision, shimmering like a mirage.
[You are dying.]
[Survive.]
[Complete designated tasks to Extend your Life.]
He blinked, his pulse racing. "Lucian… Thorne?" he whispered, testing the name. It felt alien, like a coat that didn't quite fit.
"Is this… a dream?" His voice trembled. He looked around the room—wooden walls, a small altar in the corner, and a single, flickering candle. The air felt damp and heavy, grounding him in a reality he couldn't deny.
This wasn't his world.
This wasn't his body.
A sudden wave of nausea hit him as the truth began to crystallize. The life he'd built, the ideals he'd fought for, the betrayal that had ended it all—it was gone.
The man who had stood on the balcony, the one who had died surrounded by rage and fire, was gone.
The faint hum of the system's interface broke through his spiraling thoughts. The words "Complete tasks" and "Survive" lingered in his mind like a taunt. Slowly, confusion gave way to clarity, and clarity gave way to something sharper.
He stared at the trembling hand again.
Weak.
Pathetic.
But it moved. He was alive. Somehow, against all odds, he was alive.
Daniel's lips twisted into a bitter smile, his exhaustion and fear slowly eclipsed by a simmering resolve. His name might have changed, his body might be frail, but his will remained.
They had taken everything from him once, but never again.
"I'll survive," he murmured, his voice steadying. "And this time… I won't serve them. I'll make them serve me."