Zane had no idea how long he had been asleep. The splatter of rainwater mixed with mud felt both cooling and annoying, yet somehow oddly satisfying.

He remembered the way he died: a car in front of him suddenly braked in the fast lane, forcing him to swerve desperately to avoid a collision.

His own car had slammed into a concrete divider and burst into flames. He could still recall the pain of being burned alive… Wait.

"Didn't I die?" Zane's eyes flew open, then immediately slammed shut with a pained yelp. Abrasive sand was creeping under his eyelids—painful, but nowhere near as agonizing as burning to death. Again… wait.

His mind stalled at that particular word. Again?

"How can I feel pain?" he wondered, eyes still tightly shut. Slowly, he tried to refocus, forcing himself to blink until his vision began to clear.

A wooden wall loomed just inches above his face, a tight, claustrophobic space that confirmed his suspicion. He was inside a box. No—he was inside a coffin.

So he really had died, right? Zane frowned in confusion, the gears in his head turning so fast they threatened to overheat.

He tapped on the coffin lid.

"Screw you, Albert! Pine? You seriously made my coffin out of pine?"

The accusation echoed in the confined space. He had joked with Albert—his so-called best friend—about wanting a nice coffin if he ever kicked the bucket. Apparently, that friend had cheaped out.

A pine coffin felt like a slap in the face.

Another realization hit him: he could feel damp earth around him and smell the dirt, the pungent aroma clinging to his nostrils. None of this should be happening if he were truly dead. Unless…

"I reincarnated?" He rolled his shoulders, flexed his legs, and arrived at a conclusion: "…back into my own body."

The thought was absurd, but so was waking up inside a coffin after being roasted in a fireball of twisted metal.

For reasons unknown, he'd awakened in the same body he died in—intact and (relatively) fine. He pressed upward, half-expecting the coffin lid to budge.

Instead, it broke into splintered shards under his force, and rotten wood mixed with wet soil rained down on him. Coughing, he shoved aside the debris, his fingers sliding across muddy wood fragments.

"Stupid, freaking pine…" Zane grumbled, squinting as sudden sunlight blinded him.

He'd always hated intense sunlight—it gave him headaches and made him sweat—but right now, the warmth felt like a miracle. He was reborn. Reborn into his original body, in one piece, no burns, no horrifying scars.

"Wooohooooooo!" His triumphant roar echoed through the clearing, sending a flock of startled birds into the sky.

Staggering upright, he stretched both hands toward the sun, relishing the exhilarating sensation of being alive. His clothes were in tatters, stained with water and smud, but at least he still had clothes—some small blessing in this bizarre situation.

After a moment, his gaze drifted to a distant silhouette. A colossal cylindrical structure stabbed through the clouds, its sheer size almost incomprehensible.

It cast a massive shadow over the rolling plains and sparse trees below. With just one glance, Zane felt an inexplicable pull, a gravitational tug on his very soul.

An attraction so strong he couldn't hope to ignore it.

"Wh-what is that?" His voice came out raspy, the sound of it grating against his ears. He realized he was basically asking the empty sky for answers, but his thoughts spun too wildly to care.

Then the ground trembled beneath his feet, stealing his breath. His eyes shot to a nearby puddle, its surface quivering like jelly.

"An earthquake?" Zane muttered, struggling to keep his balance. The tremors rippled through the earth like a wave, moving closer with each passing second.

Something massive blocked the sunlight behind him, and he spun around to find the source.

A gargantuan neck arched upward, attached to a giraffe-like body many times larger than anything Zane had seen outside of fantasy movies or bizarre nightmares.

Its limbs alone were the thickness of skyscrapers. Zane froze, his vocal cords refusing to cooperate.

The beast seemed unaware of him—just a random bug on the ground—but that relief vanished in an instant as one of its massive legs, broad as a mountain, came crashing down directly over him.

"Shit," was all he managed to say before everything went black.

[Congratulations for being the first one to die after death.]

[Attuning your deck element: Endless Death.]

[Endless Death: Every death of yours grants you a card. The more gruesome and unique your death is, the higher the grade of the card.]

* *

[Cards obtained: Fire (Ordinary), Mountain Crush (Common)]

* *

[Card Name: Fire

Grade: Ordinary (+)

Evolution: 0/7

Level: 0 (0/100)

About: A fire that burned you to death now becomes your power.

Effect 1: Increased control over fire element by 10%

Cooldown: 2s]

* * 

[Card Name: Mountain Crush

Grade: Common (+)

Evolution: 0/7

Level: 0 (0/100)

About: A foot stamped you into paste; now stamp your enemies.

Effect 1: Turn your step into a massive foot capable of leveling an elephant.

Cooldown: 6s]

Zane opened his eyes wide at the sight of a blue panel shimmering before him. He barely had time to process what he was reading as he kicked up onto his feet, adrenaline surging through his body. Memories of that enormous foot crushing him were too fresh and too vivid.

"What the hell just happened?" he muttered, glancing down at the bloodstains mingled with the tattered clothes he was still wearing. If not for those morbid souvenirs, he might have doubted his own sanity.

He had revived from death just to die again, and then… revived yet again.

"Did I transmigrate into the era of dinosaurs or something?" He pressed his back against a tree, well aware it wouldn't offer him any real protection from a monster whose leg alone could flatten a bus.

Yet the rough bark against his skin provided some semblance of comfort. Peering around the trunk, he saw the massive creature lumbering across the plains, still oblivious to the tiny human it had squashed moments ago.

It wasn't alone. As his eyes adjusted, Zane noticed an entire herd of these behemoths. Dozens, maybe more, all wandering across the overgrown landscape, each headed toward that distant cylindrical structure.

"One, two… forty-five… oh my god, please tell me I'm not in hell," he whispered under his breath. The sheer scale of them defied imagination.

A jolt of fear coursed through him, and he scrambled to find better cover. He spotted a tree with a hollow gap near its base, big enough for him to duck into if he squeezed.

It was cramped and smelled like rotting leaves, but it was dark enough to hide him. It gave him the illusion of safety, which was better than nothing.

He needed to think, to calm down, to make sense of everything. Closing his eyes for a brief second, he focused on the strange blue panel he had glimpsed moments ago.

It flickered at the periphery of his vision, prompting him to will it back. Sure enough, with a single thought, it materialised in front of him.

Name: Zane

Title: The One Who Died After Death

Attuned Element: Endless Death

Essence: 0

Deck: Iron (0/10000)

Unlocked Slots: 10

•Slot 1: Fire

•Slot 2: Mountain Crush

Note: You can use Essence to either upgrade the level of your cards or upgrade your Deck. Upgrading your Deck will unlock more card slots and card evolutions.

"So I died and somehow returned to my body, died again, and awakened some kind of game-like panel?" Zane mumbled.

"And I'll earn new cards every time I die…" He deliberately avoided thinking too hard about that second sentence in the system's description—the part about "gruesome and unique" deaths.

Memories of the car crash flooded back anyway, the sensation of his flesh cooking in searing flames. He shivered.

Taking a moment to settle his nerves, he inhaled deeply.

"I don't want to die again," he said firmly, shaking away the negativity, "at least not now, after dying two times."

He needed to find safety. A settlement, a cave, a shelter—anything to keep him from being pulverized by monstrous feet. The only prominent landmark was that giant tower spearing the clouds in the distance.

"Well, I sure don't see a friendly village or a wizard's cabin around here," he muttered, rubbing his chin. "Looks like the tower's my only clue."

The thought of finding a safe place fuelled his resolution to block every ounce of anxiety in check. Zane stepped outside not knowing what he dreaded most now hovered above watching him closely.