Chapter 1: The End of Nothing
Kael Renhart did not feel pain.
He did not feel sadness.
He did not feel anger.
He did not feel fear.
Nor joy, nor love, nor grief.
There was nothing left inside him.
For years, he had been broken, tortured not by strangers, but by the blood that ran through his family's veins. They called him a criminal from birth, a curse born without empathy or feeling, a monster that had killed animals since he was a child, and had even attempted murder on others. Yet no one had tried to save him. No one had tried to understand.
His family's cruelty was a punishment, but not for crimes they truly knew. It was punishment for what he was: empty, cold, and incapable of connection.
The cold stone floor pressed against his battered body. His wrists were raw from the shackles that had never loosened. He looked at the ceiling, a cracked void of peeling paint and silence.
His mind was empty. Void of thought, void of emotion, void of hope.
He didn't cry. He didn't scream. He didn't plead. His soul was numb beyond any reach of feeling.
When he had killed animals in the past, it had been without thrill, without malice, without even curiosity. It was a mechanical act, a way to touch life when he couldn't touch feeling.
When he attempted to kill a man once, he did not hesitate out of mercy or remorse, but because he did not understand what moved others to feel pain. The eyes staring back at him were empty too, mirroring his own void. That moment froze him, just a fraction, but it was enough to stop.
No one else could stop the torture. No one could stop the endless torment in silence.
He had been beaten until his bones cracked. Starved until his body trembled. Locked away until his mind almost shattered. Yet he still did not feel.
And now, his body was giving up. His breath was shallow, each inhale weaker than the last.
But inside him, there was still nothing.
Until suddenly, a single drop of something foreign slid down his cheek.
A tear. One tear. A spark of life.
Then, a voice. Gentle, sorrowful, divine.
«Forgive me, my child,» it whispered.
«It was a crime of mine that I made you suffer in silence.»
«Let me compensate you, even if just for a moment.»
«I hope you find happiness in your heart.»
The words were soft like silk, yet they echoed through the endless void of his being.
His eyes fluttered closed.
His breath stopped.
His life ended.
There was no cold.
No pain.
No sound.
No body.
Only stillness.
But then, light.
A distant glow that pulsed slowly in the black, like a heartbeat. It moved toward him, or maybe he toward it. There was no way to tell.
And then, he felt something.
Warmth.
Then heat.
Then emotion.
It crashed into him without warning.
Grief.
Guilt.
Regret.
Shame.
He convulsed. His fingers clenched. He gasped.
A cry tore from his throat, raw, broken, painful.
He curled up, shaking violently. His forehead pressed into something soft and warm. Grass? Yes, grass.
The sky above was bright. The wind was gentle. The air smelled of life.
And his chest… burned.
Emotions were flooding in like a dam had broken. His breath hitched. Tears spilled down his cheeks. His whole body shook. He screamed again, this time not from injury, but from feeling.
And it was overwhelming.
He sobbed into the earth. The dirt beneath him was damp with his tears.
He didn't know how long it lasted.
But eventually… it passed.
His breath slowed. The pain faded. The flood of emotion eased into a dull ache.
And for the first time in two lives, Kael truly opened his eyes.
Above him stretched a blue sky, dotted with drifting white clouds. All around, a field of green. Trees shimmered in the distance, their leaves glowing faintly, unnaturally, as if touched by magic.
Then he noticed it.
He could feel it, everything. The world around him pulsed with invisible threads of energy. Like breath, like life.
Mana.
He knew what it was. Even though he'd never heard the word before in his old world, now it was familiar. Like a memory he hadn't made himself.
His eyes widened. He touched his chest. His body, this body, was strong. Too strong. Not just healthy, but… overwhelming. Every muscle responded with flawless precision.
And even more shocking, he had complete control. His power didn't feel foreign. It didn't resist him. It felt natural, as if it had always been a part of him.
Along with that realization, knowledge began to surface in his mind.
The name of this world: Irelya.
A world where magic and swords coexisted with modern structures.
Cities powered by mana reactors. Walled strongholds. Magic academies. Hunter guilds.
And the threat that loomed over it all:
Void Creatures, monsters from rifts that devoured emotion, corrupted flesh, and shattered minds.
The people who fought them were called Hunters.
He knew their ranks. Their methods. Their history. Their legends.
He knew the common currency, the basic etiquette, the cities, the factions.
All of it, implanted directly into his mind. Like it had always been there.
And floating before him, hovering in pale gold light, was a translucent message.
[By Divine Order]
Name: Kael
Status: Transmigrated
Reason: Compensation for Divine Neglect
Power Level: Equal to the Two Strongest Beings Alive
Limitations: Do Not End the World
Freedom: Absolute
Kael stared at it, motionless.
He had died.
Now he lived again.
Stronger than anything he had imagined. With emotions he had never known. In a world not his own, but somehow familiar.
The voice, her voice, lingered in his memory.
«I hope you find it… happiness… in your heart.»
He sat in the grass, feeling the breeze, the warmth of the sun on his face, the slight tug of mana dancing through the air. For a long time, he didn't move.
And then, slowly, his lips parted.
A whisper.
«I don't know what happiness is…»
His hand clenched the grass.
«…but I'll find it… and…I don't want to fight. Not if I don't need to. Not anymore »
He looked to the horizon, intending to walk, somewhere, anywhere. But just as he stood,
A scream.
Faint. Distant. But not missed.
His ears twitched slightly.
It was far, so far that no ordinary person could've heard it. Yet the pain in that scream traveled through the silence like a ripple across water. A man's voice, high-pitched with terror. The sound of someone who had already accepted death before it arrived.
Kael didn't hesitate. He extended a hand in the direction of the scream.
With a pulse of thought, he sent out a thin wave of mana, invisible to the naked eye. It soared over dunes and stone, brushing against the world and reflecting the shapes, the echoes, the horror.
His eyes snapped open.
«…What is this,» he murmured, voice low.
A battlefield, no, not even that. A massacre.
Dozens of corpses. Men and women. Torn apart. Butchered. Dismembered beyond recognition.
They weren't bodies anymore. Just pieces.
Flesh torn open, bone splintered and scattered like broken glass. Some corpses were flattened sacks of meat, mashed by something far beyond human strength. Arms twisted the wrong way. Heads missing. Entrails spilled like threads unwound from a broken doll.
The sand, no longer golden or brown. It had turned a deep, rotten red. Thick with blood. Soaked so thoroughly that the ground itself looked bruised.
Metal lay twisted and torn, swords bent in half, shields shattered like thin plates. Whatever had done this hadn't just killed, it had destroyed. Ravaged. Consumed.
And in the center of it all stood the thing.
A creature darker than shadow. Even with mana perception, its surface revealed no detail, only an outline, like a void wrapped in vague form. Its body was shaped wrong. Too many limbs? Or not enough? The brain refused to make sense of it. Its edges pulsed and shifted slightly, like it didn't belong to this world.
It had a face, but only just. Something twisted. Fanged. Moving. Its smile was wide, sharp, gleaming, and filled with joy so wrong it made the air feel colder.
It was chewing. Something dangled from its mouth.
Kael focused, and saw.
A leg. Freshly torn. Blood dripping from its jagged edge, nerves twitching as it was devoured.
The monster let out a sound, half chuckle, half snarl, muffled by meat.
And there, just a few meters away from it, was a man.
No weapon. No defense. Just him, sitting in his own blood, crying. His legs were gone, both sliced off above the knee. He clutched the stumps desperately as if trying to hold in the pain, even though it was already far too late.
He didn't look like a soldier. More like a thug. Dirty, unarmored, trembling. His face was pale, streaked with tears and snot. He begged, but not with words, only whimpers and heaving sobs.
His body shook. His voice broke.
«P-Please… I don't… I don't wanna die…»
The monster paused its chewing.
Its face twisted again, an expression resembling delight.
Then it took a step forward.