Despite the ruined condition of the body, he begins adjusting the spine, rolling his shoulders with unsettling calm as bones shift back into place. Blood seeps through his clothes, but he barely seems to care.
He bites into his thumb, inspecting the bleeding wound. The skin knits back together slowly, sluggishly.
"Hmph. Regeneration's still active, but... daaamn, even an enchanted squid could heal faster."
This is no longer Irvine speaking.
"It will take a while before I can leave this shitty place."
The soul now occupying this frail shell is someone else entirely.
Livne Atniel, the Skywrath Comforter, has arrived.
"Fine. Let's check the memories first. Might as well learn something about this kid's life before I use his body."
Closing his eyes, Atniel sinks inward, letting his spirit access the host's memories. Almost immediately, he finds himself floating in a surreal internal realm, above a plane, an endless gray flatland filled with uniform buildings stretching in every direction beneath a colorless sky.
There is no life here, no sun or stars. Only architecture, repetitive and cold, homogenous buildings as far as he can see.
"Such a weird memory structure he has here…"
He descends and gets into one of the buildings, walking quietly along a corridor lined with numbered doors. Behind the fourth door, he discovers a luminous sphere, a nebula of memory suspended in the air.
"Found it!"
As he touches it gently, images surge into his mind.
He sees the bullying… the beatings… the despair.
Then, the beautiful girl with silky golden hair, Maya Helzenski.
Then the vision of a room, their laughter, her body.
An orc. An elf. A man. A two-headed ogre.
Her expression is not one of fear, but of indulgence and ecstatic, betraying her innocent baby face.
Atniel recoils as if struck. His expression twists with shame and grief.
"Lord above," he breathes. "Forgive this servant for witnessing such filth."
He turns away, jaw tight. The pain in the memory is raw, and it isn't just Irvine's. The outrage stirs something inside Atniel too.
"Is this the reason he committed suicide?"
But as the vision fades, a strange emptiness lingers.
"Eh, that's it? Where's the rest?" he murmurs.
No, he is not expecting for the continuation of that indecent act. He is expecting more of Irvine's memory, but there's no more to be seen.
"That's weird."
Curious, he moves to the next room and finds another floating nebula. It turns out each room only contains a single day of Irvine's memory, a condition Atniel had never found so far in the dozens time digging people's memories in the past.
"Ah, maaan… this'll take decades."
Still, he moves from room to room, from one building to another, observing, learning. He watches how Irvine combs his hair, or doesn't at all, how Irvine walks with a subtle limp, how he munches so long before swallowing his food.
Atniel notes even the most private moments with uncomfortable clarity.
"Stands up to pee, huh?" he mutters with a scoff. "Unrefined habit."
And then, without intending to, he mutters with mild surprise, "For someone so thin, he's... oddly gifted. Tch."
Then…, just as he finishes with three blocks of buildings, something shifts in the distance. He senses a presence, someone still conscious.
Atniel leaves the building and makes his way toward a central intersection of lanes. There, standing motionless in the middle of the road, is Irvine.
The boy stands, eyes closed, expression vacant, as black tendrils wind from his temples into the floor, snaking like corrupted data cables.
Atniel's heart quickens as he approaches cautiously.
"This isn't right," he murmurs. "He's not supposed to be here."
He reaches out and taps Irvine's cheek.
"Hey, buddy! You still alive?"
Suddenly, a jolt runs through the cables. A surge of light flashes from the boy's eyes and mouth. For a moment, Irvine becomes a beacon, white energy pouring from within.
Atniel stumbles back, stunned. Then something tears into his back, sharp, cold, and invasive.
"Aaargh… that hurts!"
More tendrils crawl along the floor, too fast to dodge. They wrap around him, pierce his limbs, latch onto his spine. They burn him spiritually, like something is anchoring his soul in place.
"What are these things?!"
His vision distorts. He tries to move, but his body won't obey. It feels like sinking into mud, like shouting into silence.
"Elisha!" he calls out. "Can you hear me? I need help!"
But no answer.
The gray around him dims.
The sky above, if it could even be called that, darkens to black.
***
Back in the real world, Irvine's body convulses violently. His limbs flail in spasms, his breath catches.
And then…
"AAAAARRRGHHH!"
He gasps awake with a sharp inhale, lungs seizing as if they've been reborn under pressure. Cold sweat clings to his skin. His chest heaves, his arms tremble.
For a moment, he lies still, staring blankly at the sky above. The clouds have thinned, revealing a field of stars so vivid they seem etched into glass.
And above them hang two moons; one full, glowing with silvery intensity, the other a distant crescent just beginning to rise.
"No…" he whispers.
His breath stutters. His fingers curl into the dirt beneath him.
"No, no… How am I still alive? That fall should've killed me."
He stares at the moons, as if they're part of the joke.
Those are Rinides and Nophus.
The twin moons of Bastardia.
With a grunt, he pulls off his filthy military uniform, already stiff with dried blood. He expects torn skin, bones poking through, maybe a new orifice or two. But instead, his body is completely unscathed, not a bruise, not even a scratch.
"What the hell is going on here?"
He checks his cracked digital watch. Over six hours have passed since he swan-dived off that building. That's the six hours he doesn't remember, and…
"I'm still in this shitty place? There's no fucking way!"
He'd expected to wake up in the realm of the dead, maybe drifting in some endless void or floating over a field of flowers. But no, he's still here, still very much alive, still stuck in the Morbid District.
And of course, surviving a suicidal plunge doesn't mean he's out of danger. Not in this area.
"Well, I can't stay here..." He slips the uniform back on, glancing around uneasily. "I'm okay with dying, but being eaten alive? Not on my bucket list!"
This is the one place once famous for its decadent nightlife. But now, the district lies in ruin, an abandoned shell after the Great War. It's a ghost town by morning, monsters buffet by night.
Everyone knows why this place is empty. It's not just the ruins or the shame of a lost war. It's the monsters, biological leftovers from some failed experiment, hybrid beasts bred in labs, unleashed in battle, and now too stubborn to die.
As if on cue, something snarls behind the broken walls. A group of Spiky-spines White Fangs lurch into view, mutts from a science-fiction nightmare.
Part wolf, part something worse, they stand as tall as Irvine himself, some even bigger, each with spiny ridges across their backs and mouths overflowing with far too many teeth.
Their eyes gleam with hunger. And they're circling, slowly approaching from all directions.
"I really hate this shitty world," Irvine grunts, his eyes drifting aimlessly as his shoulders slump, like a man bracing for whatever hits next.
So much for a peaceful, low-effort exit. Now he's the main course at a dinner party hosted by mutant dogs.
With no way out and no reason left to fight, he sinks to his knees. His arms dangle at his sides, shoulders slack, his voice as lifeless as the ruins around him.
"What are you waiting for? Come on. Eat me."
But before the beasts can oblige, a voice rings out in his head. It's loud, commanding, and completely unexpected.
<< You can't just decide that! >>
It sounds like it's shouting directly into his brain, like a pissed-off priest mixed with a motivational speaker.
<< I know your life stinks and this world's gone to crap. But this isn't just about you! >>
Irvine flinches, glancing around in alarm.
The beasts still prowl toward him, jaws gleaming with saliva, oblivious to anything but the hunt. Yet the sudden voice, so close, so real, sends a strange current through his body, momentarily overriding his fear and making him forget the fangs closing in.
"Who… who said that?"
<< Don't even think about checking out again while I'm around! That kind of act is among the top sins God despises. You'll be tortured in the afterlife! >>
Irvine's eyes narrow.
"Afterlife? Wait… are you the Angel of Death?"
The voice pauses. Just long enough to feel like it's thinking.
<< …Yes. I am the Angel of Death. >>
"…Seriously?"
<< It's not your time yet. You still have a role to play. Think about your family. Your mother. Your cute little sister. If you die now, who's going to protect them in this hellhole of a world? >>