'So I finally died huh?'
Although I was a bit shocked—and yeah, a bit afraid—dying was something I had already prepared for... for a long time now. Honestly, I was surprised I even made it to nineteen.
A normal guy might have broken down, screamed, begged for a do-over. But me? I just blinked at the void swallowing my vision and let out a sigh.
I don't know what I expected from the afterlife. Maybe a glowing staircase leading to Heaven. Maybe a flaming elevator heading south. At the very least, I thought there'd be someone with wings and a clipboard.
Not left to drift off into the endless nothingness.
You know, just like this one actually.
...That was a bit of a lie; instead of being endless nothingness, it looked more like endless everything, like a distorted, endless, chaotic kaleidoscope.
I am pretty sure none of the religions I knew about described an afterlife like this one. What the fuck happened then?
Did I slip on a banana peel while driving to the highway to hell, or step on a pool of blood on the staircase to heaven?
Either way, if this was the afterlife, then someone definitely screwed up the UI.
I floated—drifted?—spun? Honestly, there were no cardinal directions here. Up, down, left, right… all of it was subjective, and somehow none of it mattered.
I couldn't feel my body.
And yet, I was conscious. That's the worst kind of horror movie beginning, isn't it?
I wasn't what people would call religious, but I did believe in the existence of god or godlike beings out of pure belief that they existed solely to make my life miserable. I do wonder that, if gods were actually real, which one I managed to piss off so hard they took personal offence to me living?
Or maybe it was just bad luck. Like walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror, and stepping on a black cat's tail all at once. Yeah, that's the level of cosmic screw-up we were dealing with.
I was a pretty cautious person, but when the universe itself wants you dead, then even caution is just fancy wordplay before the reaping.
And reap me it did.
How did I die, you ask?
Well, it was a day like any other— same shit, same gravity.
Until gravity gave out.
I was walking home from my part-time job at a ramen place that paid in leftover noodles and trauma, when a goddamn satellite—yes, a satellite—decided to commit murder-suicide right above my head.
No truck-kun. No mysterious old man offering me a second chance. Just a flaming NASA-grade "oops" ending my life like a bug under a microscope.
So yeah. I died. I know pretty fucked up. Probably one of the most hilarious deaths, I could have had a stroke, or got run over by a truck, but nope. A flaming, burning satellite literally decided I was toast. Thanks, universe.
The last thing I remember before hitting the ground—well, the lack of ground—was the crack of absolute cosmic absurdity. I figured, if there's any justice, the universe owes me at least a break or a refund on this whole "life" package.
I have to say, that was one hell of a shitty life. I tried to make the best, but life is not fair, neither is fate. Sometimes, your best will just be equivalent to someone's horrible.
Did I regret the life I lived? I definitely did.
Humans were weak creatures, and I was the limited-edition, collector's item kind of weak. Emotionally bankrupt, socially bankrupt, financially bankrupt—basically a clearance sale on all the things that make life worth living.
I didn't even get a girlfriend, man. Not even once. Closest I came was when a girl in high school lent me a pen and smiled. I still have that pen somewhere, probably the only relic of hope I ever owned.
I couldn't even ask her for the cap of that pen, probably she was expecting it back.
There is little you can do when the big wheel of fate decides that today is the day it absolutely robs you of everything you hold dear, and there is scant you can do to struggle.
But I got over that. I have learned to cope with the whims of fate, when life decides to give you the worst it can give you, the only thing you can do is persevere until the wheel of fortune turns again.
...Speaking of, still waiting for that turn on good luck.
Still, is this really it? Is this all there is to my life? Or my death? Just wandering the infinite kaleidoscope forever until I run out of thoughts and become a non-entity?
Fuck, that's terrifying. Is it still too late for me to start praying to some god of sorts?
Might as well, because unlike before, I have literally nothing to lose.
I placed together what I assumed were my hands (I was kinda more like a shapeless blob right now, floating in the kaleidoscope right now, but that was another can of worms) and prayed to... something? Whoever would listen anyway.
Please.
There weren't enough words to describe what I felt while I prayed. I couldn't string together words I wanted to beg or scream with. I wanted to curse everything, the world around me, the gods that may or may not exist, yet at the same time, I was tired.
Over time, you learn helplessness.
At some point, the only thing left that you can blame your bad luck for is yourself.
The cosmos is cold and unfeeling; it looks at your misery with nothing but apathy. It's up to you to try and carve a place for yourself in the world with what it gives you.
Just as I was about to give up and let my thoughts wander until even my ego vanished, I heard, no, felt something. A rumbling, spinning, and grinding of thousands of gears forming into a thought-like speech was inserted into my head.
[Such despair.]
The voice was mechanical, layered, and distorted—like a thousand angelic choirs whispering through a corrupted speaker. It wasn't a sound so much as a direct imprint inside my consciousness.
[Such… irony.]
"Hello?" I thought—because I didn't really have a mouth anymore. Or ears. Or anything that could be legally recognised as a body.
[You have been weighed. You have been measured. You have been found… hilarious.]
...Okay, so the Voice had a sense of humour.
[Would you like to file a complaint against the universe? Y/N]
"Y. Definitely Y. Super Y."
[Too late.]
"What the fuck do you mean 'too late'?!"
[DO YOU DESIRE ANOTHER CHANCE?]
Yes, yes a thousand times, I want to live. I cannot be satisfied leaving behind a life like that. I want to experience life for real; I don't want to leave life with such regrets.
Whatever chance is given to me, I'll take it. Whatever opportunity you hand me, I'll grasp it. Just give me something, a chance.
[AFFIRMATION. REGISTERING USER...]
The grinding of countless gears in my head dimmed down as instead, a translucent panel replaced the noise with visual data, and I waited patiently as the window of me gave me feedback again.
[CALIBRATING ACCORDING TO USER...]
[THE LUCIFER LEVELING SYSTEM IS ONLINE.]
The what?
Wait—Lucifer? As in the Lucifer? The Morningstar? The Original Sin? Mister "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" himself?
What kind of system did I just install—Windows Inferno Ultimate Edition?!
—I mean, sure, I was desperate, but I wasn't trying to become Hell's Customer Support.
Still, the panel kept unfolding in front of me like some divine smartphone interface from an edgy mobile gacha game:
[LUCIFER SYSTEM – USER PROFILE INITIALIZED]
• Name: Dominic Nocturne von Morningstar
• Race: Demon (Suppressed) / ???
• Level: 1
• Job: None
• Title: [The Forsaken Lucifer], [He Who Shouldn't Be Awake]
• HP: 100/100
• MP: 0/100
[Attributes]
• Strength: 1
• Agility: 1
• Stamina: 1
• Intelligence: 2
• Sense: 5
[Warning: All attributes currently locked due to Core Fragmentation]
[System Note: You are pathetically weak. Please do not attempt to fight anyone. Even a rabbit. Especially a rabbit.]
"Well, that's a confidence booster."
[System: Sarcasm detected. Logging User Personality Trait: 'Coping via Humor.']
Another screen popped up.
[Main Quest Activated]
• Title: [Welcome Back, Prince]
• Objective: Awaken in your new body. Survive the first hour.
• Reward: Access to System Store, +1 Stat Point, Random Loot Box
• Failure: Permanent Death. Again.
"Wait—'survive the first hour'?! What the hell does that mean?!"
[Initializing Transmigration Protocol in 3… 2… 1…]
I didn't even get time to protest. The kaleidoscope collapsed in on itself, the swirling everything twisting into a single thread, and my thoughts were yanked out of the void like a fishhook snagging my soul.
My consciousness slammed into something solid, cold, wet, and absolutely awful-smelling.
Like mouldy sulfur mixed with regret.
I groaned—or at least tried to—but what actually came out sounded like a drowned goat having a panic attack. My body—a body!—twitched and spasmed, as if someone had rebooted an old CRT television with a baseball bat.
My back arched involuntarily. My lungs refused to cooperate. My heartbeat sounded like a dying drum solo, and my throat was so dry it might as well have been sandpaper duct-taped to a cactus.
All I could think was:
"Why does everything hurt?!"
My vision was blurry, dim, and red-tinged—like trying to see through dried blood. Which, to be fair, I might've been. The smell of sulfur was real, the wetness was probably slime, and the cold was seeping into my bones like I'd been thrown into a demon's meat freezer.
I was awake. Alive. In pain.
And most importantly… I had limbs.
Shaking, I lifted my arms—or what I hoped were arms. They were thin, pale, and covered in what looked like demonic ritual tattoos or permanent marker scribbles from hell. My fingers trembled like a meth-addicted spider.
"Okay," I rasped, voice hoarse. "Either I've been reborn as a metal band's album cover… or I've woken up in someone's Satanic fanfiction."
[System Notice: Congratulations, you are alive. Barely.]
[Quest Updated: Survive the first hour — 59 minutes remaining.]
"Greeeaaat."
I sat up—or tried to. My head slammed into something hard and stone-like above me, sending me right back down into the swampy slime I apparently spawned in.
"Ow. Okay. Spawned in a coffin. Nice. That's not ominous at all."
I groped around and felt rough stone above and around me. Yep. Definitely a coffin. Or maybe a sarcophagus. Or maybe a glorified trash can for demon royalty.
[System Hint: Hold your breath. Preparing shockwave burst.]
"Wait—what—"
BOOM!
The stone lid blasted off like a missile, flipping through the air and crashing into a nearby wall with the grace of a rejected Fast & Furious stunt.
Sunlight—or something like it—poured down on me, blinding my eyes, while acrid wind rushed in, making me gag. I coughed, sputtered, and crawled my way out of the stone box like a newborn cryptid learning to crawl.
And there it was.
A ruined temple.
Twisted black pillars, shattered stained glass, dried blood across a crimson marble floor. And in the centre, where I'd emerged from what I now realized was a demonic sacrificial altar, stood a circle of seven empty thrones—each carved with a different sigil representing a deadly sin.
And all of them were cold.
Abandoned.
Yet burning with residual power.
[System Message: Location – Sanctuary of the Seven Vows (Sealed)]
[System Message: Transferring Memories of Dominic Nocturne von Morningstar…]
A searing pain exploded in my head—
SHIT!