---
The city still slept, wrapped in the hush of pre-dawn silence. A few streetlights flickered like dying stars. A warm breeze stirred the littered sidewalks — empty fast-food wrappers, fallen leaves, a crumpled manga page drifting past like a forgotten memory.
Paul walked beside Alex, their footsteps echoing faintly between shuttered storefronts.
They had just spent the entire night doing what they always used to — gaming until their eyes burned, binging anime, arguing about overpowered protagonists and tragic endings. For a moment, they were seventeen again. No deadlines, no bills. Just two kids, wrapped in fantasy.
"Man," Alex said with a yawn, dragging his feet, "I haven't pulled an all-nighter like that in years. My boss is gonna crucify me if I'm late."
Paul chuckled. "Worth it though. I needed this."
He didn't say what he was really thinking — how empty the days had become. How even when surrounded by people, he felt like an NPC in someone else's game. Life had become a loop. Wake, work, scroll, sleep. Repeat.
But this? This night with Alex? It reminded him who he used to be.
Then the world changed in a heartbeat.
---
It started with a scream — glass shattering, a blur of motion across the street.
A man burst from the corner store. Face bloodied. Eyes wide with panic. In his right hand: a knife, still dripping red.
He wasn't running from anything. He was charging — wild, chaotic — straight at them.
Paul's mind blanked.
The man raised the blade.
Alex froze.
Instinct roared to life.
"Alex, MOVE!"
Paul shoved him with everything he had.
He felt the blade slide into his side like a metal whisper — not pain at first, just pressure, then cold. The air fled his lungs.
He stumbled back.
His foot hit the curb.
Headlights flared.
A horn shattered the dawn.
Then—
Impact.
---
Silence.
Then something deeper than silence — a vast blackness, stretching on forever.
No weight. No breath. No time.
Paul floated in it, thoughts unraveling like thread. His life didn't flash before his eyes. Only one thing echoed:
At least Alex is alive.
But just when he thought it was over…
A voice called from beyond the dark:
> "Rise."
A second voice, ancient and broken:
> "The Legend must walk again."
Then a third, quiet and cruel:
> "You died once. Now die again — properly."
---
He gasped — air rushing into lungs that weren't his.
Dirt poured from his mouth.
He clawed upward, fingers trembling, tearing through roots and rot.
Somewhere far above, thunder cracked across a dead sky.
And Paul broke through the earth, coughing, screaming, alive in a world that had long forgotten the meaning of mercy.
He collapsed onto the cracked stone floor of a ruined temple, breathing hard. Around him, torches burned with violet flame. Ancient runes pulsed beneath layers of dust. And in the center of the chamber stood a mirror.
He saw himself — or what he had become.
A tall, pale figure. Cloaked in black and gold. Eyes like glass. A scar across his chest that glowed faintly red.
This body was not his.
But it remembered him.
And so did the world.
---
Far beyond the hills, bells began to toll.
> "The Dead One has returned!"
Monks ran. Soldiers sharpened blades. Kings whispered in fear.
And somewhere deep below, a sealed god stirred in its prison and smiled.
---
Paul stood in silence.
He didn't know why he was here.
He didn't know who he was supposed to be.
All he knew was this:
He died saving his best friend.
And now, in a cursed world that feared his very breath…
He would live for himself.
---
[End of Chapter One]