...
It was all darkness, not the comforting darkness of sleep or the darkness you see after closing the eyes. Here there was no sound, no sensation, just an endless void stretching all over. This was the absolute nothingness where time seems to have lost all its meaning.
Seconds? Days? Years? He couldn't tell. He just floated there for who knows how long unable to do anything.
Then a flicker of awareness came. It returned like it was always here. One moment there was absolutely nothing then came sensation, beneath him something cool and damp. Probably ground he thought so. Whispers of breeze that seemed to hit him like he was naked.
But there was something wrong, very wrong with his body. It was the powerful body he was familiar with.
It felt alien.. Small. Coiled. Compact. His limbs, he doesn't seem to feel them. Where they should have been he only felt a sinuous length. Where bones should support him, He found only a supple of muscles. His entire existence felt slender.
Panic seized his mind. He tried to move, but instead of standing, he glided forward, smooth belly scales rippling against the forest floor. He tried to speak but a sharp hiss escaped his mouth, freezing his thoughts.
What the hell?
This wasn't his body. This wasn't even human. Confusion gripped his thoughts. But before he could do anything, memories came crashing back like a tide, fragments of life he felt both distant and vivid.
...
Aurelian Sors never had what anyone would call a normal life. Not in his first life, and certainly not in his second.
An orphan, A survivor. A man who had stared at death more times he could count and laughed it of. Danger was his addiction, and adrenaline his drug of choice.
His first life which he doesn't seems to remember much. A kid thrust into the world called Earth that offered no mercy. He had a learned early that survival meant what others feared. He wasn't like other childrens. While they played games, he studied combat. While they learned arithmetic, he did everything to gain edge. Martial arts, Parkour, Street Brawls. He knew the streets didn't care about kid with no parents, they only recognised strength.
But life had a cruel sense of humor, for once he thought he had found his salvation.His Love. He met her, fell hard, and even married her, true to his nature. Impulsive and reckless. Two months later, she left. Not just that she literally left him for another man, the one who was more rich, offered her a stable life.
Heartbroken Aurelian didn't know what to do, so he did what most fools do. He started drinking. It was one such cold night where he stumbled out of the bar, fully drunk and became another victim of Truck-kun.
Pathetic isn't it? But fate wasn't satisfied and gave him another life.
His Second life wasn't in a ordinary world. It was the world of Fantasy with Supers awakening different kinds of superpowers. Where some could manipulate elements, some could bend space, some could regenerate from severed head wounds.
And Aurelian, he had something far beyond ordinary. A gift and a curse at same time.
Devour, a power that allowed him to devour the essence of his enemies and gain their superpower for his own use. It wasn't that broken as it sounds there were naturally some limits. He was limited to ten slots, but it was far from over as it could also allow him to fuse similar kinds of powers to create something far greater.
Fire manipulation combined with explosion has created him inferno, which could easily level buildings. A healer's touch with regeneration has granted him near immortality. With each power and fusion he grew stronger.
For years, influenced by his previous life. He has kept his true ability hidden, showing only the physique type powers. His teacher had betrothed him to a woman he somewhat found pleasing.
He had trusted her, loved her. Shared his secrets. He had been foolish. It all started in an ancient ruin, holding one of the seven unknown supreme grade treasure. Aurelian had fought through the bloodshed, torn through countless foes feeling no pain, but betrayal stung deeper than any wound.
By her. His wife sold him out, led him to the trap set by her companions. In that moment he remembered his first life. He showed every trump card, turning the battlefield into a slaughter house. Without any possibility for escape true to his reckless nature, he choose his own ending.
With a smirk on his bloody lips, he crushed the treasure with his final attack. The last thing he saw was her eyes, wide with horror before the darkness claimed him.
...
Aurelian, lay still for some time in his thoughts, the memories of his two previous lives washing over him like waves to the shore.
He attempted to curse, but what came out of his mouth was a sharp hiss. His mind went back to the sensations he felt before.
He flickered his tongue, many scents formed a vivid map in his mind. Vibrations traveling through the ground of the distant movements. His body... didn't feel human. It felt long and slender.
Then it hit him, he looked at himself. No arms. No legs. Just a long pale white body. A sharp hiss escaped his mouth, but it wasn't fear than gripped him now, it was fury. Fury at the fate that played him like a joke, fury at that women and fury at his own foolishness.
After these lives he was not a man who simply accepted his fate. He was lucky and thankful that he got third chance at his life and now, he would cherish it. He will adapt like he always did.
Aurelion, once no.. twice a man who feared nothing, had been reborn as a snake and this time, He would forge his own Destiny.
...