Warmth.
Wetness.
Noise.
My senses tore open all at once, raw and unfiltered, like someone had ripped the veil of oblivion away and hurled me into existence.
I couldn't breathe. My chest spasmed violently, my tiny lungs straining against themselves. Then—instinct, raw and primal—my mouth opened, and a piercing cry split the air.
A cry that wasn't mine.
The pitch was too high, the sound too small. I froze—not outwardly, no, a newborn body had no control for that. But inside, within my mind, I froze.
This isn't my voice.
Light seared my eyes, blurred and blinding, and shapes loomed above me. Giant shadows—no, people. A woman sobbed somewhere close, her tone quivering with joy and exhaustion. A man's voice followed, deep yet trembling. I couldn't catch the words—only the cadence of relief, the rhythm of awe.
What… what is happening?
Memory surged.
The last moments of my old life slammed back into me—blood in my mouth, cold metal biting into my ribs, the sound of my heartbeat slowing into silence. The suffocating realization that I was dying, and that death was not the gentle nothingness I once imagined.
And then—darkness.
Not the sleep of death, not the void of unconsciousness. Something else.
An endless abyss where sound itself seemed forbidden, where I drifted weightless, stripped of body and breath. I should have been afraid, but instead I felt… suspended. Waiting.
Then the voice came.
It wasn't loud. It didn't thunder. Yet it was everything.
It was one voice, but it was also many. A choir in unison, speaking as though they had always existed, as though silence had only ever been their pause.
"We welcome you, lost soul."
The sound didn't echo. It didn't need to. It filled me from the inside, as if my very essence vibrated with the weight of its words.
"Do not ask who We are. You could not grasp it. Know only this: the world into which you are cast trembles at the edge of ruin."
Images seared across the darkness—towers crumbling, fire tearing through skies, rivers of blood, shadows howling from rifts in reality. Gates, vast and jagged, opening into something blacker than void.
"The Gates of Hell stir. When they open, existence will fracture."
I wanted to scream at them, to demand why me, why any of this—but I had no voice, no body, only thought.
"We grant you gifts, not as charity, but as necessity."
Light burst in the void, weaving into me, sinking into the deepest marrow of a soul that should have already unraveled. Words carved themselves into my essence, not as sound, but as truth:
Godly Analyzing Eyes - To see patterns of mana, to untangle secrets, to make mastery natural.
Synthesis - To merge or divide techniques, to rewrite strength itself.
Predator - To claim fragments of dying souls, if seized before they dissolve.
Elemental Affinity and All Attribute boost given - +5 to all elements and +2 to all attributes
And last, this world is corrupted with evil hearts of men. They have given there young once curse in guise as a boon. AI created by men to give there young once better chance are now just left as another tool of spying in those men. Our gift to you is we lift off that restriction and leash for you and then we are also granting you a psuedo soul which is going to habit the AI and make it your true companion
"You will be reborn. Become strong. Unite what is broken. Or all shall fall."
And then, without warning—light again. Blinding. Crushing. Overwhelming.
The voice faded, but the words burned within me.
---
The present returned.
A newborn's body, frail and trembling, wrapped in cloth. My skin burned with cold air, my ears rang with the shouts of attendants. I felt hands cradling me, far larger than I could comprehend, lifting me gently.
A woman's face swam into view through my blurred vision. Her eyes were swollen with tears, her hair damp with sweat. Yet her expression… gods, even through my haze, it was radiant.
"My son," she whispered, though to me it was only sound, muffled and broken. Still, I knew. Mothers did not need translation.
For a moment, my will cracked. Despite everything, despite the gods, despite the mission, I felt something pull at me—something warm, fragile, and terrifyingly real. A bond.
The man leaned closer, his rough hand brushing my forehead. He looked proud. Overwhelmed. Perhaps even fearful. I couldn't hold onto the details—the eyes, the jawline, the words—but the feeling lodged in me like a blade.
I wanted to speak, to cry out—not as a baby, but as myself. To tell them I was not truly theirs, that my soul carried memories of another world, another death.
But no voice came. Only another infantile cry, shrill and weak.
And so I remained silent.
---
Inside, though, my mind churned.
I had been reborn. The gods—or "We," whatever they truly were—had thrust me into this world with gifts and a mission no sane man would want. A mission to unite the fractured, to prepare for the coming of Hell itself.
Why me?
Perhaps because I was disposable. Or perhaps because fate itself required a pawn.
It didn't matter.
What mattered was this: I had been given a second chance.
In my old world, I died powerless, bleeding in the alley of the city i once protected. But here… here I had tools. Abilities. Potential beyond comprehension.
I had a family who, though they did not know me, would love me. A name, an inheritance, a new life.
And yet, beyond all that, I had a duty.
The voice had not asked—it had commanded. Unite the world. Stop the gates. Become strong enough to stand before Hell itself.
The thought should have broken me. Should have filled me with dread. But instead…
Instead, I felt something stir inside my fragile chest.
Resolve.
---
I do not know what this life holds for me. I do not know the shape of my path, the faces of allies or enemies.
But I know this:
I will not waste this second chance.
I will not die powerless again.
If gods themselves entrusted me with gifts, then I will wield them to their limits.
If shadows await to devour the world, then I will become darker still.
And if the title of Shadow Monarch is but a relic of heritage, then I will carve it into destiny itself.
The world will unite. The gates will not claim us.
This is my vow, whispered not from lips, but from soul:
I have been born again. And this time… I will not fail.