For now it's unpolished. 8 will update later
____&____
His soul drifted silently above a vast forest.
It was midnight. Darkness blanketed the land, and an unnatural silence consumed the woods. There was no wind, no chirping insects, not even the rustling of leaves. It was as if life itself had abandoned the forest.
The soul continued to float, drawn toward something unseen.
As it drifted deeper into the darkness, figures slowly emerged below.
People.
They wore crimson and black robes, their faces hidden beneath deep hoods. They stood in perfect silence, forming a circle around a blazing fire.
A cult...
That was the soul's first thought.
And then it saw the bodies.
Corpses impaled upon long spears surrounded the gathering, their lifeless forms swaying gently in the still night.
A demonic cult.
Before the soul could understand what it was witnessing, an irresistible force seized it.
It was pulled toward the fire.
Faster.
Closer.
Until there was no escape.
The flames swallowed it whole.
Suddenly—
His eyes snapped open.
He was inside the fire.
Agonizing heat engulfed him, yet the flames did not consume him.
His body was blackened and cracked, covered in layers of burned flesh and hardened ash, as though he had already burned to death long ago... and yet he still lived.
Then a memory surfaced.
A memory he had never forgotten.
._______.
Raghavendra slowly opened his eyes.
Flames surrounded him from every direction.
His body was horrifying to behold. It looked as though it had burned to death long ago, its skin buried beneath thick layers of black ash and charred flesh. Every movement caused bits of burnt skin to crack and fall away.
Yet beneath the agony...
He felt power.
Raw, overwhelming power.
And with that power came something else.
Hunger.
Anger.
Madness.
It wasn't his own.
It belonged to this body.
Whoever this young man had been, he had been kidnapped, sacrificed, and burned alive by the cult surrounding the fire. The hatred lingering in the body had fused with Raghavendra's soul, leaving behind one final wish.
Kill them all.
The fire suddenly died.
At the same instant...
Raghavendra disappeared.
The fifteen cultists smiled, believing their ritual had succeeded.
"The sacrifice has awakened!"
"We've done it!"
"Our master will reward us!"
Then...
A head rolled across the ground.
Before anyone could react, another cultist collapsed.
Then another.
And another.
Heads fell one after another as if an invisible executioner was walking among them.
Panic erupted.
"What is happening?!"
"Where is he?!"
One of the older cultists widened his eyes in horror.
"No..."
"It's not that we can't see him..."
"He's moving so fast... our eyes can't even capture him."
The slaughter continued.
Within five minutes...
Silence returned to the forest.
All fifteen cultists lay dead.
Every one of them had been decapitated.
Not a single drop of blood remained inside their bodies.
The blood covered only one person.
Raghavendra.
His lips were stained crimson.
His hands dripped with fresh blood.
His legs were soaked in it.
The layers of burnt flesh finally crumbled away, revealing smooth, pale skin beneath.
He was surprisingly handsome.
Long white hair flowed down his back, and atop his head stood two soft leopard ears.
He let out a slow breath.
"The hunger... is gone."
Fragments of memory flooded his mind.
Earth...
He remembered living there once.
He remembered dying.
But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember how.
Then another life surfaced.
He had been a hero in a kingdom called Cuba, giving his life while fighting a demonic empire.
Another memory followed.
He had once served as an ordinary foot soldier in the army of a mighty Soul King.
In the end, that king had sacrificed his own soldiers—including Raghavendra.
After countless years wandering as a lonely spirit...
He finally had a body again.
This body and his soul had completely fused.
Even death would never separate them.
Suddenly, another memory struck him.
"The pendant..."
It had always followed him.
No matter how many times he reincarnated, the mysterious pendant had floated beside him.
But now...
It was gone.
He searched around in confusion before feeling a strange warmth on the side of his neck.
He touched it.
A tattoo.
Its shape was identical to the pendant.
Seven circular gems were engraved into the design, each a different color.
Yet they were only markings.
The pendant itself had vanished.
"What happened to you...?"
There was no answer.
As the madness faded, his human emotions slowly returned.
Regret.
"I shouldn't have done that..."
"Killing them was one thing..."
"But drinking their blood... bathing in it..."
He lowered his head.
"That wasn't me."
For a moment.
Then another wave of hatred surged through his mind.
"No..."
"They deserved it."
"They burned an innocent man alive."
"If there are more cultists like them..."
"I'll hunt every last one."
His crimson eyes grew cold.
"I swear it."
After calming himself, Raghavendra searched the corpses.
He found several rings, leather pouches filled with gold and silver coins, strange pendants, a few identification cards, and a black stone engraved with crimson symbols.
The rune radiated an ominous aura.
A demonic rune...
He had no idea how to use it.
As he continued searching, one identification card caught his attention.
He froze.
The picture on the card resembled him almost perfectly.
Not completely.
The man in the picture had the same white hair...
The same leopard ears...
The same face.
Raghavendra stared at the card in disbelief.
"...Is this me?"
Just as Raghavendra was about to inspect the identification card further, a sharp pulse erupted from deep within his heart.
Thump.
His body froze.
Thump.
The beat echoed through every vein in his body.
Suddenly, his eyes burst into brilliant light.
One iris glowed with radiant gold.
The other shimmered like polished platinum.
An invisible pressure spread through the forest as if the world itself had fallen silent.
Then...
A calm, emotionless voice echoed directly inside his mind.
«Conditions fulfilled.»
«All prerequisite conditions satisfied.»
«Neural barriers removed.»
«Soul Records recovered.»
«Synchronizing memories...»
«Synchronizing authority...»
«Synchronizing host...»
«Synchronization complete.»
«The Self-Evolutionary System AI has been successfully activated.»
«Congratulations, Host.»
«After countless reincarnations... you have finally awakened the System.»
Raghavendra stood motionless.
"...System?"
The word felt both unfamiliar and strangely nostalgic.
Before he could ask another question, countless streams of golden light burst before his eyes, weaving together into a translucent screen that only he could see.
The impossible...
Had just become reality.
"What is this...?"
Raghavendra asked himself.
The moment the words left his mouth, another transparent window appeared before his eyes.
Not a normal screen.
Not a game-like interface filled with numbers and rankings.
Just a simple record.
STATUS
---
Name: Raghavendra
Age: 14 (Current Body) / 17+ (Soul Age)
Height: Average
Weight: 25 kg
Race: Snow leopard
Condition: Recently Awakened
Skills:
- Muscle Builder
- Super Soldier
- Diary Record
- Gender Bender
- Soul Devourer
- Link
- Sacrifice
---
Raghavendra stared.
There were no levels.
No strength points.
No complicated calculations.
Just his existence recorded in words.
Then his eyes moved toward the skills.
The more he read...
The more shocked he became.
"These..."
He already understood.
These weren't random abilities.
They were pieces of his forgotten lives.
Muscle Builder.
A memory surfaced.
A world where humanity had awakened.
A world where monsters could appear at any moment and ordinary people had to become fighters to survive.
But Raghavendra wasn't a warrior there.
He was just a bodybuilder.
A man who trained his body beyond human limits.
That effort had become a skill.
Super Soldier.
Another memory.
A futuristic world filled with advanced technology, alien threats, and endless wars.
In that life, he wasn't a hero.
He was a soldier.
An enhanced warrior created to fight on the front lines.
His body was modified.
His mind was trained.
His survival instincts were sharpened.
That life had left behind this skill.
Diary Record.
His expression changed slightly.
This one was different.
He remembered a peaceful life.
A life where he was a professor.
A researcher.
A man who wrote down everything he experienced in his diary every single day.
But that world...
It was already heading toward destruction.
An apocalypse had begun.
His diary had become the only record of his thoughts.
And now that habit had transformed into an ability.
Then he saw the next skill.
Gender Bender.
Raghavendra's expression became complicated.
"...That life."
He remembered.
His sixth reincarnation.
A life as a demonic incubus.
A completely different existence.
A life filled with temptation, deception, and strange powers.
That experience had also become part of him.
Then his eyes moved to the next one.
Soul Devourer.
His face became serious.
This one...
He knew where it came from.
His life as a soldier serving under the Soul King.
The life where he was betrayed.
Sacrificed.
Where his soul had learned to consume other souls just to survive.
Then there were two skills he didn't recognize.
Link.
Sacrifice.
Raghavendra stared at them.
"I don't remember these..."
Perhaps they came from a forgotten life.
Or perhaps...
They were connected to something deeper.
For now, he decided not to worry about them.
His eyes returned to the status screen.
Over and over, he read it.
This was proof.
Proof that all those lives weren't dreams.
They were real.
Then suddenly...
His gaze shifted back to the identification card.
The picture.
The name.
The race.
Everything matched.
The status screen had already identified the card as belonging to him.
Raghavendra slowly tightened his grip.
"So..."
"This body wasn't just a random vessel."
He looked at his reflection in the card.
"This is my body."
The body of the leopard-eared boy who was sacrificed by the cult.
The body that carried hatred.
The body that called for revenge.
And now...
The body that had awakened the system.