Death felt… anticlimactic.
There was no pain, no tunnel of light, no divine voice announcing judgment. One moment, Kael Veridian was sitting at his desk, staring at unfinished assignments and a half-empty cup of cold coffee. The next, everything simply went dark.
Then came sensation.
Cold. Wet. Heavy.
Kael gasped and instinctively tried to breathe, only to choke as liquid filled his lungs. His body jerked violently, coughing and retching as he rolled onto his side.
Air burned into his chest.
He opened his eyes.
Gray skies. Rain. Mud beneath his palms. The smell of iron and rot.
"This… isn't my room."
His voice came out hoarse and unfamiliar. Higher. Younger.
Kael pushed himself up, his arms trembling as if they belonged to someone who hadn't eaten properly in weeks. His hands were small, thin, covered in dirt and shallow scars.
Not his hands.
He froze.
A flood of memories slammed into his mind.
A boy. Six years old. Named Kael — the same name, but not the same life. Born into a minor noble family in a medieval world ruled by magic and knights. Diagnosed as spirit-defective. No mana. No aura. No future.
Discarded.
Left to die in a swamp during a hunting trip.
Kael's breathing grew shallow.
"So… I died. And took over this kid's body?"
The rain continued to fall, washing blood from a shallow wound on his forehead. The original Kael's final memory surfaced — his father's cold eyes, his mother's silence, the servant's hands pushing him into the mud.
Abandoned.
Kael laughed weakly.
"Wow. Even in fantasy worlds, trash gets treated like trash."
He tried to stand and nearly collapsed again. His legs barely supported his weight. Every muscle screamed in protest.
This body was beyond weak.
But something felt… strange.
Not physical. Deeper.
Inside his chest, where his heart should be, there was an emptiness. Not pain. Not cold. Just a vast, silent void, as if a part of his existence had been hollowed out.
Kael closed his eyes.
And saw it.
Not with sight, but with awareness.
A black sphere inside his soul.
It had no form, no energy, no presence — yet it felt infinite.
A voice echoed, not external, but intrinsic.
Authority detected.Spiritual Core: Hollow.Status: Dormant. Empty.
Kael's mind went blank.
"…What?"
He didn't know how he understood it, but the meaning was absolute.
This wasn't magic.This wasn't aura.
This was something else entirely.
A third system.
Something that existed above the natural laws of this world.
He focused on the black sphere.
Instantly, information flowed.
Hollow: The authority to contain, devour, rewrite, and fuse all spiritual systems.Current capacity: 0%Current power: NoneCondition: Incomplete vessel
Kael swallowed.
A bitter smile formed on his lips.
In a world where people were born with mana circuits or aura cores, he had neither. Instead, he had a container — but nothing inside it.
A cup with no water.
Useless.
Yet…
Kael's eyes sharpened.
A container meant potential.
Infinite potential.
"If I can fill it… I can surpass everything."
He dragged himself out of the swamp and into the nearby forest, using branches to support his weight. His clothes were torn, soaked, and thin. His stomach twisted with hunger.
But for the first time since waking up, he felt something close to excitement.
This world had abandoned him.
Just like his old one.
He would return the favor.