The world was wrong
Rudraunsh sat in the center of a smoldering crater, his breathe shallow, heart unnaturally still. The ground beneath him pulsed with corrupted qi - black veins stretched out like cracks across a broken mirror eating away at the soil. His hands trembled, coated in soot and dried blood. His shirt had burned away, revealing a lean, pale body... but not the one he remembered.
This body was different. Taller, stronger, marked by strange etchings that glowed faintly beneath his skin like runes etched by death itself.
"I died..." he whispered to no one. "Didn't I?"
His lost memory from Earth was faint- metal against bone, a scream, then cold,. The face of someone dear, out of reach. Then silence.
Now... here he was. In a world where the air thrummed with spiritual force. Where he could see motes of glowing qi dancing like fireflies in the breeze. Where mountains floated, and the sky bled violet during twilight. He was no longer on Earth.
Another world... and not the first time, something inside him murmured.
"Who am I now?" he asked aloud
Then the whispers began
Not from the wind, but from beneath the earth. Low, guttural voices-dozens, maybe hundred-chanting his name
"Soul Requiem..." "The Plague of Light..." "He walks again..."
Rudraunsh stumbled to his feet, every muscle aching but already regenerating. He looked at his reflection in a nearby mirror shard. His eyes-once brown-now shimmered with deep silver, like moonlight on a frozen lake.
He turned sharply. From the mists surrounding the crater's rim, robed figures had appeared- not approaching, merely watching. Cultivators. Some young, others seasoned, all armed. Their expressions were conflicted: fear, reverence, and dread.
One of them, an old man with silver beard, stepped forward, planting his sword into the ground.
"It can't be..." he murmured. "The Requiem of The Thousand Souls has returned. After million years..."
Rudraunsh blinked. "Who are you talking about?"
The man pointed directly at him.
"You."
More whispers among the cultivators. Some backed away. A few dropped to one knee in fear. Others tightened their grip on their weapons, trembling.
Another stepped forward - a young woman in indigo robes, bold but cautious. "You don't remember who you were?" she asked
He shook his head. "I only remember... dying."
She hesitated. "Then let me remind you."
She drew a jade talisman and tossed it at his feet. It unfolded midair, revealing a glowing illusion - a battle. An entire army turned to ash under a single man's command. Cloaked in black, wielding chains of bone, standing atop a mountain of corpses, laughing as golden palaces crumbled to dust.
"That was you. The world's greatest calamity. The necromancer feared by even the gods. The Soul Requiem who erased empires and brought the Nine Heavens to their knees..."
Rudraunsh stared in silence. That... was him? That monster?
He didn't know whether to laugh, cry or run
"But if he was so strong," Rudraunsh said slowly, "why is he dead?"
The old man replied. "Because the heavens united to destroy him. You were sealed by the God of Light, cursed never to rise again."
Another voice spoke, this one laced with venom. "Then we should end him now before he remembers what he was."
Rudraunsh's eyes narrowed. The speaker - a golden-robed cultivator - raised his sword.
Before Rudraunsh could move, the earth trembled. Black tendrils erupted from beneath the ground, binding the man mid-air, draining the life from him in seconds. His skin shriveled, eyes turned to ash.
Gasps filled the air. Even Rudraunsh stared at his own hands
"... I didn't mean to do that"
No one responded.
The shadows recoiled. The wind howled. And above them, storm clouds swirled unnaturally, coiling like dragons.
Something ancient had awakened.
Then came a sound - a shrill cry from a skeleton followed dozens or in millions circled Rudraunsh protectively, as if welcoming a long lost king.
One of them, a skeleton of high level with exotic armor looked at him and knelt saying "Welcome back... Master."
The cultivators fled. Even the bold woman vanished into mist, her last words echoing in the breeze. "He doesn't remember. But when he does... the heavens will burn again."
He didn't ask for this.
He didn't want this power.
But he couldn't deny it either.
Something within him - buried deep and wrapped in chains was waking. And when it did, the gods who sealed him would tremble once more.