Why… why can't I feel my body?
Ah. Because it's gone.
My head lies on shattered stone, severed cleanly from my neck. My crown—once the symbol of a continent's ruler—sits crooked beside me, soaked in my own blood. Around me, scattered like broken toys, lie my arms, my legs… my torso.
The body that conquered nations. The flesh that carried an empire. Now butchered, discarded, cooling on the ground.
How… did it come to this?
I—who united the realm after a thousand years of war. I—who brought peace where even gods had failed.
Killed. By the gods themselves.
Hot tears spill from the eyes of my severed head. Dip… dip… dip…Each drop mocks me more than the last.
"I… don't want to die…"
My voice is barely a whisper, trembling through a mouth no longer attached to lungs. A plea swallowed by a dead battlefield.
But fate never cared for my desires.
This is how my reign ends—not in glory, not in peace, but in a slaughter beyond imagination.
The sky splits open.
A man with two radiant wings, drenched in divine blood, rises slowly into the heavens. His golden light flickers—his life burning away—but victory curls faintly on his lips.
"Finally… it's over."
His words echo like judgment.
Behind him stands a horror beyond mortal comprehension: a six-armed elder god, limbs long and skeletal, body towering higher than the snow-capped mountains. Every breath it takes bends the air like reality itself fears it.
It watches my death with cold amusement.
And just like that—
My life ends. I wish there was a second chance.
Darkness swallows me.
No…Not darkness.
Hunger.
A cosmic, endless hunger tearing at my soul as I plummet—down, down, down—into a pit of writhing crimson.
Hell.
Chains of molten shadow lash around what's left of me.Countless screams ripple through the abyss, millions of voices begging, pleading—only to be silenced by the void.
I reach out.For salvation.For mercy.For anything.
But only the abyss responds.
I was ready—ready to accept eternal torment for the sins I carved into the world,for the blood I spilled in the name of peace—
When suddenly—
Light.
A single thread of blue brilliance cuts through the scarlet abyss.Soft, yet immeasurably vast.Hell recoils in fear.
The chains binding me snap like brittle bones.
The light touches my soul as a soft thread.
Warm.Calm.Infinite.
And then a voice speaks— gentle, overflowing with sorrow.
"Your time is not yet over."
The abyss shatters.
My consciousness ruptures—
And I vanish.
I had no sense of time.
Seconds or centuries—both felt the same in the void that cradled me.
Then, faintly, like the first spark of a dying star, awareness returned.
Who… am I?
The question ripples through the emptiness.
And then—a vision.
I see a newborn boy, slick with blood, crying in the arms of a weary queen. Courtiers kneel, priests chant blessings, and King Phillip—stern, proud—whispers a single name.
Mine.
Memories slam into me all at once.
I was that child.
I was the prince—the heir—the warrior—
The Emperor who ruled the world.
Alex.
That was my name.
I see it all:
Cities burning to ash under my command.
Cities rebuilt under my protection.
Armies marching through deserts, mountains, oceans—
leaving behind countless corpses, the price of unity.
I see women screaming, men tortured, families broken—
and I see dining halls overflowing with laughter,
brothers raising cups in victory,
comrades dying shoulder to shoulder on blood-soaked soil.
I see artifacts of impossible power.
Empires kneeling.
Peace forged from the bones of tyrants.
I see my coronation.
My triumphs.
My sins.
Then—
war.
A war not of mortals,
not of kings,
but of gods.
Blades of celestial light shattering mountains.
Divine blood raining like burning meteors.
The sky rupturing under my roar.
I see myself fighting the heavens,
defying fate itself—
until the Elder Gods descended.
Their shadows devoured the sun.
Their laughter broke my will.
Their hands tore apart my body—
and ended me.
The final memory hits like a hammer:
My severed head lying on the battlefield.
My crown crooked.
My last breath begging for a second chance.
"So this is what I am,"
I think to myself as the visions dissolve.
A king.
A conqueror.
A monster.
A savior.
And now—a dead man
I drift through the broken shards of my memories.
Faces rise and fall in the darkness—
some blurred like fog,
others sharp enough to cut.
My mother…
The only warmth I ever knew.
Assassinated by my brother before I even understood what the word power meant.
My father…
A titan of a man, a war god in human flesh.
He died on the battlefield clutching the banner of our collapsing empire.
My brothers and sisters…
The ones I played with as a child—
the same ones I later executed with my own hands
because the throne demanded it.
My wives…
Trophies draped in silk and hollow smiles.
Some adored me.
Some plotted behind jeweled curtains.
Two tried to slit my throat while I slept.
My children…
Dozens of sons and daughters bearing my blood.
And I…
I never spoke to any of them for more than fifteen minutes.
What kind of father rules the world
but cannot speak to his own child?
When did it happen?
When did my heart turn to stone—
and then get chained to something even heavier?
When… was I ever free?
Ah.
There was a moment.
A fragile, almost forgotten one.
I am small again, trembling with fever.
My mother holds me in her arms.
Her warmth is the whole universe.
My father stands behind her, proud and young, untouched by war.
In that memory—
I am not an emperor.
I am not a tyrant.
I am not a monster.
I am simply… a child.
And the realization strikes me like a blade across the throat.
I regret my life.
Not because I died.
Inevitable.
If you provoke the heavens long enough, eventually the heavens answer.
A dry laugh escapes me.
Haha—If you are a lion, rule your jungle.
But don't be foolish enough to bite a dragon's throat
and expect the sky to forgive you.
Because the sky…
the endless sky I tried to conquer…
was never mine to claim.
—Wait… this light… where is it coming from?
Soft murmurs reach my ears—unintelligible, gibberish words that make no sense.
A warmth spreads through me, and tears begin to flow.
—Am I alive?
I open my eyes.
A woman stands before me. Beautiful. Radiant.
The kind of beauty that isn't just skin-deep, but a pure, unshakable love.
Her gaze pierces me, and my chest tightens—this is… care, devotion, warmth…
Beside her stands a man in gleaming white armor.
The light bouncing off his polished armor washes over my body.
—Body? Wait… wasn't I torn apart?
Tears stream uncontrollably. The sight is… mesmerizing, overwhelming.
Then—two small hands brush against my vision.
Are… are these my hands? Why are they so small?
I try to speak.
A sound forms in my throat…
But it isn't words.
It's just…
Blah-blahhhhh.
The woman leans closer, smiling softly.
"Congratulations, sir," she says gently,
"You have a boy."