A teenage boy, around the age of 16-17, was sitting on the roof of a wooden house, watching the sunrise. A slight smile on his lips and he gazed at the rising sun.
A gentle breeze blew through the air while birds chirped in the surroundings, creating a tranquil and picturesque scene.
He still remembered when he climbed up to the rooftop for the first time. His mother and father were both angry and scared.
They scolded him for a long time for doing something so dangerous, but then afterwards they hugged him and cried for a long time, being happy that nothing happened to him.
And to prevent him from doing something reckless again, he was forced to sleep in his parents room for a while.
The boy knew that he had made a mistake and hadn't taken his parent's feelings into consideration, so he decided to not do such a thing till he was old enough.
After his 10th birthday, he started to climb to the rooftop to watch the sunrise, and now it has become some sort of morning ritual for him.
He would wake up very early, do some exercises, run around the house, and then climb up to the roof to sit to watch the sunrise, and would sit there till his mother would call him for breakfast.
"Venfir come down. Breakfast is ready!"
Hearing this the boy "Venfir" would go down to eat breakfast with his parents. After that he would help his father with the vegetable garden till lunch.
Afternoon was his least favorite time of the day, because he would have to go and play with other kids.
He had always been a bright child since childhood, some would say that he was quite mature for his age. This was a bit surprising for his parents, but they just chalked it to him being a genius.
But the problem started when he started to interact with other children from the village, who were of his age.
Venfir was physically a little kid, mentally he was around 50 years old, because he still remembers his previous life completely.
His parents thought that he was unable to get along with other children because he didn't know them, so they would always encourage him to play with kids his age.
In the beginning Venfir would just pretend to cry and say that he didn't want to leave them, but soon they started to get worried.
Realizing that this worry han started to become a concern Venfir decided to just act his age. He didn't want to but for the happiness of his parents he would do anything.
It was tough for him in the beginning to converse with other kids as a kid, but he was adaptive, if nothing else. Soon he made friends with many kids, while being rivals with some.
He was exasperated with that, but if this was making his parents happy, then he would just with the flow.
After 'playing' with his 'friends' till sunset, Venfir would return home, wash up, and sit with his parents to eat dinner with them.
After that, Venfir would go to bed, where his mother still sang him a lullaby. Though he protested half-heartedly, he secretly looked forward to it every night.
For him, this was the perfect life that he had always dreamed of in his previous life.
In his previous life, Venfir, called Rudra back then, lived in a world that was just starting to rebuild itself after the fall.
He was orphaned when he was five years old. The reason being his parents were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Having no next of kin, he was placed in an orphanage. The people in charge of the orphanage were decent people who tried to help him as much as they could.
They even tried to get him adopted a few times, but he would just run away and return. At first, the orphanage workers were angry, but after it happened six times, they gave up.
When he was 18, Rudra left the orphanage and tried to find out what happened to his parents. He learned his parents were simple school teachers.
While out with him, they were caught in the crossfire of two rival gangs fighting. One gang's boss opened fire with an assault rifle in the middle of the street.
His parents successfully shielded him from the bullets, but they themselves couldn't survive.
After finding this out, Rudra cried for days but eventually resolved to find the culprit and take revenge.
At first, it was just a spur-of-the-moment thought, but when he learned his parents' killer had escaped prison, it became his obsession.
Knowing he needed strength, resources, and training, Rudra decided to join the army. He rose to officer rank and conducted several successful operations. But revenge was always at the back of his mind.
His honorable discharge came after a mission where he went against orders to rescue civilians caught in a gang crossfire, echoing the trauma of losing his parents.
Though the mission was successful, his superiors noted his tendency to prioritize personal morality over strategic objectives, marking him as unsuitable for continued service.
After his discharge, Rudra tried to find his parents' killer again but learned the man had become an international criminal and died in a gang's internal strife.
This left Rudra without any goals.
One of his acquaintances from the military contacted him with an offer to join a mercenary group. At first, he wanted to refuse, but he eventually agreed, knowing the money would be helpful if he ever settled down.
But soon after, a catastrophe struck the world.
A mysterious energy called "Soul Energy" swept across the earth and around 30% of the humans couldn't handle it and mutated.
This phenomena was not limited to just humans and was worse in animals where more than 20% mutated while 99% of them turned bloodthirsty. It was as if hell appeared on earth.
Order fell and chaos refined supreme in the whole world. But this catastrophe also brought a hope of survival as well, because the ones who survived the initial soul energy wave were able to harness the power of soul energy.
Firearms were still useful on humans and low tiered creatures, but were almost useless against Tier 3 or higher creatures.
Soon it was discovered that weapons coated with soul energy were able to damage higher tiered ones but this also had a limit of only damaging 1 tier higher.
Cold weapons such as swords, daggers, spears, etc. became the preferred choice for fighting. While firearms were just used as a defensive measure against low tiered creatures.
Rudra's combat experience allowed him to adapt and rise to Tier 7, becoming a front-line defender for humanity for ten grueling years.
When the situation started to settle down on the frontlines, he decided to retire to a quieter life as he had become wary of all the fighting.
As he was about to leave a middle aged man came to see him. It was the father of a girl he saved a while ago, Neera, who approached him, asking him to be her bodyguard.
Rudra hesitated but remembering the girl's innocent smile he agreed.
One day, Neera was targeted for kidnapping. Rudra foiled the attempt, then tracked the culprits to their hideout. There, he found the leader was none other than his parents' killer, alive.
At that instant all the memories that he had forgotten came rushing back and he lost his cool and attacked the perpetrator. But to his surprise he found that the man had not been slacking and had reached Tier 6.
Not only that, there were four more Tier 6 people there and 10 Tier 5, and around 50 other's ranging from Tier 4 to Tier 2. But this didn't deter him. He was determined to kill his parents and in the process remove a potential danger for Neera.
He fought them alone. Lost his eye, lost his left hand, but he kept on fighting. He didn't stop till everyone in that hideout was wiped out. By the time everything ended he was almost at the end of his life.
But when he exited the hideout he was fortunate to see Neera's smile one last time. After that everything went dark.
The next time he had opened his eyes he found himself staring at an unfamiliar woman's face.
For a while he felt confused about how he could have turned into a child but then reached the conclusion that he had been reborned and for some reason he still remembers his previous life.
He found that his new parents really loved and cared for him. He had finally found the family that he was denied in his previous life.
His parents in this new life of his were simple village people that lived a quiet and mundane life and made a living by growing vegetables.
Venfir felt lucky to have been given a second chance to find happiness in this new life. He had a loving family, and they lived far from the chaos of the world, in a quiet and peaceful environment.
But the thing about luck is that it can change without warning, and when it does, even the gods may find themselves powerless to stop it.
While Venfir welcomed a new day, he was unaware that today was the day that everything was about to change.
An unforeseen storm was creeping closer with each passing moment. A storm that will set into motion a new era.
This new era would not only change the fate of this world, but the cosmos itself.