In the final moments, Kai thought this was his end.
But he didn't know that this end was the beginning.
The beginning of a journey that will take him beyond the betrayal. Beyond the weight of his past. A journey to meet new faces, to forge unexpected bonds, and to live a life he had never imagined.
Kai's eyes shot open once more, and his body convulsed as air rushed into his lungs violently. The sudden onslaught of breath is too much to handle. He coughs hard, his entire body convulsing with the force of it, as though his lungs are fighting to remember how to breathe. Each cough felt like it tore through his fragile body, raw and brutal, until he barely managed to draw another breath.
His fingers twitched, scraping against something cold and unyielding. Stone—rough and slick with moisture. He pressed his palms against it, trying to push himself upright, but his muscles felt weak, foreign, as though they weren't his own.
His heart hammering in his chest, each beat erratic and wild, filling his ears with its desperate rhythm. The warmth coursing through his veins is undeniable, but it is wrong. It shouldn't be there.
I died.
The memory surged through Kai, the sharp pain that had torn through his body, the suffocating darkness, the numbing finality of death. He had felt it, experienced every agonizing second of his end.
Then why am I breathing?
Kai's thoughts tangled in disbelief and desperation, raging in his mind, until his gaze fell to his hands.
What the hell?
The hands that met his eyes are small, delicate, and pale. The skin is smooth, unmarked by the scars and calluses he had carried through a lifetime of struggle. His hands shook as he raised them closer, turning them over and flexing the unfamiliar fingers.
"What… what is this?"
He whispered in a high-pitched and unfamiliar voice.
A wave of cold dread swept over him, freezing him in place. He scanned the rest of his body, his eyes widening at the sight of his thin arms and frail frame, clad in simple and tattered cloth. Everything about this body screams fragility.
Is this… me?
His thoughts scramble for an explanation.
His trembling hands brush against his face, feeling unfamiliar contours. Smaller. Softer.
This wasn't him.
It couldn't be him.
No… no, this can't be real.
He stared at the small hands again, his breaths coming in shallow, panicked gasps. The truth was undeniable, no matter how much he wanted to fight it.
This wasn't his body.
What is this?
Kai's breath hitched as the realization of this unfamiliar body weighed on him like an anchor. His mind raced, trying to make sense of it all.
He turned his head slowly. As his vision adjusted, the figures in front of him became clearer.
Children.
They sat still on the cold, damp floor. Their faces are ghostly pale, and their frozen lips are blue as if life had been drained from them. Their empty eyes stare into nothingness, and their pupils are so dull like they belonged to the dead.
"What is this place?"
He forced himself to look down, his breath quickening when he noticed the rusted shackles around his ankles—cold metal, binding him in place, the same as those shackling the other children.
This isn't real.
He clenched his fists.
I died.
I know I died.
Memories of his death are sharp, clear, too real to ignore. The pain. The suffocation. The cold, unrelenting darkness.
But this— is this afterlife?
His mind couldn't make sense of anything anymore.
Or some punishment?
Suddenly, a sharp ding buzzed in his mind. The sound was so familiar that his heart skipped a beat, and the next second a translucent screen materialized in front of him, glowing faintly in the dim light.
"Status?"
Kai stared at the air, his brow furrowing in confusion. It is unmistakably his status screen—the layout, the faint shimmer, and even the font—but something was off. The words are crumbling and distorted, as though the screen itself is glitching. Letters blur and reassemble into gibberish before dissolving again.
"What the…?" he mutters in his voice hoarse.
As he kept staring, the disjointed text began to shift, the words reorganizing themselves with a slow, deliberate movement.
Finally, a message solidified, each word hitting him like a punch to the gut:
Ding
Immortality's Threshold: Success.
Ding
Congratulations.
You succeeded in cheating death and reborn in a new body.
Kai's breath caught in his throat.
He reread the message, but his mind was unable to process the implications.
Cheating death?
Reborn?
Lightning seemed to strike his thoughts all at once. His chest tightened as he grappled with the impossible.
"Reborn? How is this real?"
Before he could fully comprehend the notification, another ding echoed in his mind.
Ding.
Another line of text appeared:
Reseating status due to the effect of the "Immortality's Threshold" skill.
"What?" Kai shouted.
Ding.
Reset start.
The moment he read those words, the status screen blinked twice, its glow intensifying for a split second before dimming.
No. No… stop," Kai shouted again as panic rises in his chest.
Then, with a sharp, definitive flicker, his rank was revealed.
SS → F
Kai's eyes widened as his stats flashed before him, all drastically lower than before. Skills he had painstakingly earned and honed over the years were now grayed out, locked, and inaccessible.
The reality hit him like a hammer: he had fallen from the peak of power to the bottom of the abyss.
"No… no, no, no."
He reached out instinctively, his fingers swiping at the screen as if he could undo the changes.
"This can't be happening. My rank… my skills… give them back!"