Aslan regains consciousness.
He doesn't hear the beep of hospital machines, nor the distant hum of voices — only complete silence.
The last thing he remembers is his foot slipping on the staircase, the sudden rush of unbearable pain, and then… nothing.
Is he dead?
If so,
Then he dies on the very day he thinks his life will finally be in his control.
Raised in an orphanage, Aslan never knew anything about his parents.
For eighteen years — the years before becoming an adult in the eyes of the law — he passed from one orphanage to another.
Never belonging anywhere.
Never able to decide anything for himself.
Still, he endures.
He studies relentlessly, pushing himself beyond limits.
When he turns eighteen, he finally steps out of the system.
He earns a full scholarship to study at a university.
It is supposed to be the start of his life.
Two years later, he secures an internship at a well-known company.
And that is the day his accident occurs.
Now, he can't tell where he is.
There is no sound.
No sensation.
For a moment, he fears he has gone deaf.
As time slips by in silence, his mind grows heavier.
Slowly, his consciousness unravels again…
And he sinks back into unconsciousness.
The next time he wakes, he knows.
He has died.
And now, he is reincarnated into a new world.
But this time, he has won the lottery of life from the very start.
He is an Innate Demon.
Born with the Authority of Plague.
The Authority of Plague, in every way, makes him an evil demon.
But it doesn't matter.
Evil or good — meaningless.
Because he is immortal.
Truly immortal.
Until the very end of the world.
And he doubts he needs to worry about that, for the world itself is still young, barely born.
He almost laughs.
In his last life, powerless, drifting.
In this life, he will be among the most powerful beings to exist.
No more chains.
No more struggle.
Now, he only has to wait.
Wait for his transformation from energy into physical form.
He carefully manipulates his essence, weaving energy as though moulding clay.
He chooses to be born as he remembers himself in his past life.
But this time, refined.
Aslan fine-tunes his new body — sharpening his features, making himself handsome, tall, flawless.
Time blurs.
The endless darkness of waiting stretches into eternity.
Then suddenly, a tremor shakes him awake.
Through his spirit sense, he looks outward.
And he sees the sky burning.
Fragments of light, blazing, tear across the heavens.
It is not stars.
It is not meteors.
Great fragments of a shattered plane are plummeting down through the firmament.
The sky itself has broken.
He does not know what it means.
But to him, it is beautiful.
A rain of broken heaven.
Fire-red, golden, and violet streaks carve through the blackness.
He watches in silence.
Silent awe.
Until the last fragments fall, and the night grows still again.
Then Aslan turns inward once more.
And he returns to condensing his physical body.
After some time, Aslan's body forms.
It is the body of a ten-year-old human child.
He hesitates.
Should he be born now?
Or should he wait and let this body mature into adulthood?
The thought gnaws at him.
But he is unwilling to remain trapped any longer.
He wants to see the world.
Being born in the form of a ten-year-old does not mean he will not grow further.
It only means that to emerge older, he would need to wait longer inside this womb created by the world itself.
And waiting is no longer an option.
So he reaches out with his thought.
He whispers to the world, to the womb that cradles him as his mother.
He wants to be born.
The womb begins to fade.
Light enters his eyes.
Sound fills his ears.
The scent of earth and grass enters his nose.
The taste of nature lingers on his tongue.
And the feeling of soft blades of grass touches the soles of his bare feet.
Breath fills his chest.
He lives.
He gains all these senses.
But in exchange, he loses some.
Inside the womb, he can sense the entire Middle Plane as if it lives within him.
Now, that clarity is gone.
The world feels distant.
His spirit sense, which once spread through the entire Middle Plane, shrinks.
He can still faintly sense the Upper Plane above and the Lower Plane below.
And he knows he can enter them.
But instinct screams at him.
Disaster would befall him if he stepped into those realms.
He doesn't know why.
But he guesses.
He is an Innate Demon of the Middle Plane.
The Innate forces of the Upper and Lower Planes would never welcome his intrusion.
So he walks away from the thought.
And he begins walking north.
The forest stretches endlessly.
He passes by beasts he recognises from his old world — wolves, boars, snakes.
And others born only of this plane — strange creatures of scale, horn, and mist.
They do not fear him.
They understand him.
And he understands them.
But even that is not enough.
Animal voices are not human voices.
What he longs for is companionship.
Something that looks like him.
Something that feels like belonging.
At last, the forest breaks.
Beyond it rises a ridge of stone hills.
Aslan climbs.
Step by step, he ascends until he reaches the crest.
And there, beyond the hill, he sees it.
A small human tribe.
Fires burn among their simple huts.
Children run.
Men and women work.
Fragile, fleeting lives flicker before his eyes.
His chest stirs with something strange.
Warmth.
Hope.
He wants to walk among them.
He wants companionship.
So he steps forward.
And he begins to climb down the hill, toward the human tribe.
Before nearing the tribe, his clothes change.
They become rough animal hides, worn and patched like those of the tribe.
His entire body is bathed in dust, as if shaped by the earth itself.
He wants the tribe to think he is a child of another tribe, separated and lost.
Scratches appear on his skin, marks portraying the act of living in the wild.
He does not come across the tribe directly.
Instead, he lets the roaming members outside the tribe's boundary notice him.
A few of the tribal members do.
They come across him and take him back to their village.
He understands their language perfectly.
And speaks with them, telling the name of a tribe further away from them.
Since his birth, his goal has been clear.
This tribe — to connect with them.
Before he was born, when his spirit sense spread throughout the Middle Plane,
He had already been aware of this tribe and their neighbours.
They all speak the same language.
So, as a lost child of a nearby tribe, he should be able to understand and speak their language.
Within minutes of entering the tribe, Aslan observes some coughing among the people.
He does not care.
It is an ancient time.
Sickness is common.
They could be sick for many reasons.
He eats the dinner served to him.
Though he does not need to eat, he still eats.
Even if the food is bland and tasteless.
He has to continue the act.
Later, they give him a shack to sleep in with other tribal children.
But in the middle of the night, the tribe erupts in coughing fits, high fevers, and sweating.
Dirty sores appear on their skin.
At first, Aslan thinks they ate something bad.
That is the cause of the sickness.
He wants to heal them with his hidden magic powers.
But then he remembers.
I am the Innate Demon of Plague.
The thought comes with dread.
He looks at the tribe members struggling in pain.
Some even die.
He releases his spirit sense.
He finds his power inside them, spreading and growing.
They are afflicted by his plague.
Because of him.
Now, all of them will die.
Because of him.
He feels the familiar helplessness — the loss of control.
Unable to change what his existence has done to those who welcomed him.
He rises up into the sky.
He flees toward his hidden valley.
With a heavy heart, he makes his decision.
He will not come out again.
Not before he can control his power.