Asher sat motionless by the window, his hand resting against the cool stone sill. Morning sunlight spilled across the room, catching motes of dust in the air. Outside, the training grounds pulsed with youthful noise—shouts, laughter, the clash of wooden blades.
He didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Didn't blink.
His mind wasn't here.
It was still on that scorched battlefield.
The stench of burnt flesh, the screams of the dying, the eerie silence that followed.
He could still feel the heat of the Bloodroot Core in his palm. Still hear the chants of the Sacred Order. Still feel his ribs cracking as a blade of judgment pierced his side.
And then—nothing.
Until this morning.
Until this moment.
Regression.
The word itself felt too… clean. Too simple for what had truly happened.
He'd died.
And now he lived again.
Asher exhaled slowly, eyes half-lidded. He could feel the air differently now. Softer. Younger. His body ached with the dull emptiness of mana starvation, not the tearing agony of cursed overload.
He flexed his fingers.
No blood. No scars.
Just a boy's hand.
Sixteen years old. Again.
It should've been impossible.
But then again… so was the Bloodroot Lotus Core.
Asher leaned back in his chair, eyes distant.
It had taken everything to refine it.
The Bloodroot Core wasn't just a magical artifact.
It was the artifact.
A vessel of forbidden power—constructed with soul-ink rituals long lost to time. A heart-like core of crystallized mana infused with an endless spiral of death and desire. Its essence was built on slaughter. Thousands had died to feed its bloom.
But that had only been the beginning.
To complete it, he had offered more than corpses.
He had poured in his own soul, shaving it bit by bit in the ritual flames. Over decades, he fed the core spells crafted from madness, secrets stolen from dying dragons, cursed chants once whispered by ancient voidkin.
And still, it wasn't enough.
Until the Sablemarch Massacre.
The day he turned an entire city into ash and silence.
He hadn't wept. Hadn't hesitated. Because in that moment, Asher had been something else—something monstrous.
And yet…
The Bloodroot Core had bloomed.
It pulsed with life. With pain. With truth.
But it was never meant to save him.
He had forged it to break the order of the world. To shatter the lies of the "righteous." To poison the sky and devour the hypocrisy of light.
But in the end, the hypocrites won.
He chuckled bitterly.
And yet—he'd survived.
He had crossed the river of time.
The last function of the artifact was buried beneath centuries of lost lore: Mana Cycle Reversal.
A self-destruct enchantment layered with temporal inversion.
It didn't take him back a few seconds. Or a few days.
It sent his soul six hundred years into the past.
That was how long he had lived.
Six centuries of war, betrayal, study, murder, corruption, failure, and growth.
Six hundred years of clawing his way through the world's underbelly, from discarded clan child to nightmare of the continent.
No wonder everything felt so small now.
No wonder this bed felt like a child's crib.
He rested his face in his hands, breathing shallow and slow.
"Six hundred years…"
Even saying it felt hollow.
He had outlived kings and legends. Had watched empires rise and burn. Had seen the stars change names in the sky. And now… he was sixteen again.
He hadn't even had facial hair at this age.
Asher tilted his head back and stared at the wooden ceiling.
It wasn't just the body that made him feel weak.
It was the distance.
The sheer, unbridgeable chasm between the person he had become… and this moment.
He was starting over. Truly.
No power. No artifacts. No titles. No respect.
But…
He smiled faintly.
He did have one thing.
Memory.
Knowledge.
Experience.
And that… was more dangerous than any blade.
---
Asher stood and began to move through the room. His legs were stiff, unused to such softness. Everything felt so… gentle.
His previous life had been spent in darkness—half of it underground, the other half in fields of fire. There was always an enemy. Always a target. Always blood.
He had never really rested.
Never paused to… exist.
He ran a hand along the window frame.
The wood was old but not rotten. The clan's carpenters had built it well. He remembered—barely—that this room had once belonged to his father. A gift to him when he turned sixteen.
He stopped.
No.
That wasn't right.
This had been his room because his parents had died the year before his awakening.
Their deaths weren't suspicious. Just unfortunate. A rogue beast, a failed escort, a mountain path too unstable.
They were nobodies in the clan. Mid-tier. Loyal, silent, and ultimately forgotten.
Asher clenched his jaw.
He didn't even remember what they looked like.
In 600 years, he had forgotten their faces.
But he remembered the loneliness. The ache of being unwanted. The looks from the elders. The constant comparisons to others. The knowledge that he was just one of many unremarkable Greaves children.
And then came the Awakening.
His lips curled into a bitter smile.
C-grade Affinity.
A death sentence for anyone who wanted to make a name for themselves.
Most people could only awaken one or two elemental affinities, usually based on their bloodline. Affinity quality was graded from S to E—rarely did anyone go beyond A.
And C… C was the mark of a stepping stone.
Mediocre. Uninspiring. A waste of resources.
That had been his start.
But Asher hadn't accepted that fate. Not then. Not ever.
And so he clawed, learned, and cheated his way to power. If others trained for ten hours, he trained for twenty. If they studied safe spells, he deciphered forbidden ones. If they begged for teachers, he learned from corpses.
But it had cost him his soul.
It had cost him… everything.
Now, as he stood in the quiet of his childhood room, he felt the weight of that again.
He pressed his hand to his chest.
A steady heartbeat. Still human.
Still sane.
For now.
---
He turned away from the window and sat back down.
This time, calmly. Thoughtfully.
What now?
He had a second chance.
A new beginning.
So what would he do with it?
"Power."
The word came unbidden to his lips.
But not just for revenge.
Not just for anger.
He had outgrown petty rage centuries ago.
He wanted power to control his path. To shape his fate instead of being shaped by it. To never again depend on the favors of others. To stand at the peak without needing to bow to the rules of the world.
And for that… he needed to start somewhere.
Somewhere small.
Somewhere humble.
His eyes narrowed.
The Greaves Clan.
They weren't powerful enough to dominate the Umbral Court, but they weren't irrelevant either. A mid-level family with old blood and decent records. A few elders in the right circles.
In his last life, he had left the clan early—burned too many bridges after his awakening. They had branded him a rogue.
But this time?
This time he would play it smart.
He would play the game.
He would use the clan's resources—its training halls, its spirit libraries, its contacts, its protection.
He didn't need to love them.
He just needed to use them.
And to do that…
He needed them to believe in him.
He needed to rise—slowly, carefully—like a shadow cast behind the sun.
Asher stood again and looked at the old mirror.
Sixteen-year-old face.
Calm eyes.
No more hesitation.
No more chaos.
Just a plan.
A path.
And patience.
---
Someone knocked at the door.
"Master Asher," the servant boy called from outside, his voice nervous. "Your formal robes have arrived. The elders wish for all initiates to gather in the outer courtyard."
Asher didn't answer right away.
He looked around the room once more.
The pendant by the bedside. The old book on the table. His father's dagger, long rusted, resting on the wall.
All of it was a time capsule.
A relic of what he once was.
But he wasn't that boy anymore.
He couldn't be.
He wouldn't be.
He picked up the dagger and slipped it into his belt.
"I'll be out in a moment," he said, his voice clear.
The servant gave a hurried nod and scampered off.
Asher walked to the table and picked up the black robe folded neatly there.
Clan colors. Simple. Plain. Functional.
He ran his fingers over the fabric.
And then—he smiled.
Not out of joy.
Not out of fear.
But because for the first time in centuries…
He had time.
He had power.
And he had a future to rewrite.