"Even love burns, in the end."
The wind howled through the broken stone arch at the edge of the village. Blood painted the earth, thick and black beneath the dying sun. Smoke curled from shattered homes, carrying with it the last whispers of peace.
Rael staggered to his knees, fingers trembling as he reached for the child in front of him — a girl no older than five, hair matted with blood, eyes wide open, unmoving.
His voice broke. "Lia…"
Behind him, the sound of flames consuming wood was louder than the screams had been.
He didn't hear her breathing. He didn't feel her warmth. She was gone — like the rest of them.
Like his wife.
Like the village.
Like the man he used to be.
Hours Earlier
"Chief Rael! They've passed the ridge! It's them!"
Rael looked up from the straw mat, blinking under the noonday light. The message came from Daro, one of the watchboys barely in his teens. His face was pale, eyes wide.
"Are you sure?" Rael asked, already moving. "Banners?"
"Red. Like last time."
His stomach sank. The Red Scars. Raiders. Slavers. Monsters.
Rael gripped the edge of the doorframe as a sickening chill ran through him. "How many?"
Daro hesitated. "A lot."
"Sound the bell," he whispered. "Gather everyone into the hall. And… wake the hunters. All of them."
They had no warriors. No cultivators. No swords of fire, no techniques passed down by clans. This was a village of farmers, weavers, and children.
And Rael had kept them safe for ten years. Through storms, famine, beasts. Even the plague hadn't taken them.
But this?
The sky turned red as the first arrows fell.
Screams erupted. A mother clutched her child and collapsed as a shaft buried into her back. Men tried to fight with hoes and shovels. A few, with blades dulled from lack of use.
Rael stood in the middle of it all — no armor, no power, just a wooden spear in hand. He yelled commands, pulled wounded to shelter, pushed the weak behind stronger bodies. He bled. He wept. But he did not run.
He didn't see when they broke through the gate.
He only saw her — Alina — standing at the center of the village square, holding a kitchen knife, hair blown by the wind.
He screamed her name.
Too late.
They dragged her down before his eyes.
He ran until his legs gave out.
He fought until his arms were numb.
They beat him. Laughed. Stripped him.
Made him kneel as they took her — again, and again — her face turned toward him, not in hate, not even in pain.
But in sorrow.
She mouthed something.
Forgive me.
Then they slit her throat and tossed her beside their baby daughter.
He watched others die: old Garo, who taught kids to whittle wood. Blind Mira, who sang to the crops. The twins, whose only crime was wanting to fly kites.
The Red Scars didn't take prisoners this time.
They weren't after slaves.
They were after something else.
They'd come for him.
When it was done, Rael was the last left alive.
Naked. Bleeding. Broken.
They tied him to the cross-post at the village center. One of the raiders walked up with a grin and a pail of oil.
"You're the chief, right?"
Rael spat blood. Said nothing.
The man chuckled and poured the oil over him.
"Word is, you pissed off someone rich. Noble brat with ties to the inner sect. He said burn the village. Leave you alive long enough to understand why."
A torch was brought. The wind blew harder.
Rael thought of Alina's eyes.
He remembered the warmth of his daughter's hands.
Then came the flame.
The pain was unlike anything he'd known. The skin peeled. His throat was raw from screaming. The world twisted. Colors bled into one another. Time stretched.
He did not die quickly.
But in those final moments… he heard it.
A voice.
No, not a voice.
A whisper — cold, calm, and ancient.
"Do you want to live?"
He laughed. It was broken, gurgled, half-mad.
"I want to kill."
"Then live."
Now – Earth, Outskirts
The air stank of rust and mildew. A fan creaked overhead, swinging left and right like a tired pendulum. The room was dim, the paint peeling, the bed spring stiff.
Rael sat up slowly, breathing hard. Sweat drenched his chest.
He blinked at the stained ceiling.
No pain. No flames.
His body… was young. Untouched.
He looked around.
A narrow single-room house. Thin walls. An electric kettle sitting atop a plastic stool. His sister's jacket hanging from a nail in the wall. A tattered poster of a luxury hovercar — the kind they could never afford.
This was Earth.
This was poverty.
This was… home?
"You look confused, meat."
The voice made his heart skip.
He froze.
"Welcome back. Though technically, this is your first time."
He looked toward the door. His sister's voice echoed faintly outside — arguing with someone over rice prices again.
"I crawled in when your soul was tearing apart. Now I'm here. We're here."
Rael stood slowly. His hands were rough, calloused, but small — teenage.
"I… was dead."
"Not anymore. You're in this runt's body now. Your Earth version. I just made sure the soul settled right."
He stumbled to the mirror hanging on the cracked wall.
The reflection stared back.
A poor boy. Slender. Black hair. Faint shadows under his eyes. No scars. No burns.
But his gaze was… too old. Too broken.
"I'm not him," Rael muttered. "I'm… me."
"And they'll pay."
His mother coughed from the corner cot. She stirred in her sleep, wrapped in three blankets to fight off the cold.
His sister's footsteps approached outside. The door creaked.
He didn't turn.
A holo-ad flickered on the broken television beside him.
[NOW LIVE: HEAVENNET — EXPERIENCE THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL WORLDS!] Enter, fight, rise. Find your destiny.
Rael's eyes narrowed.
The world he lost.
The devils he had to kill.
The truth he now remembered.
"That's not a game," he said softly.
The voice in his mind chuckled.
"No. That's a gate."