Ren's eyes snapped open with a gasp that tore at his raw throat. He wasn't dead. He was in his own cramped, shabby apartment. Morning sun, thick with the city's haze, slanted through the cheap blinds, striping the worn floorboards. His phone was blaring its grating alarm, the same one he snoozed three times every morning. He slammed a hand down on it, silencing the noise. His heart hammered against his ribs not with fear, but with a profound, bone-deep confusion.
He looked at his hands. They were his. He scrambled out of bed and stared into the cracked mirror above his dresser. The same tired face stared back. But he remembered the pain, the darkness, the absolute certainty of the end. It felt more real than the lumpy mattress beneath him.
Before he could spiral further into the temporal whiplash, a translucent blue screen, like something from a video game, flickered into existence in the air before his eyes. It was so crisp and real he flinched back, stumbling over a pile of laundry.
[System Initializing... Host integration complete.]
[Primary Objective: Vengeance.]
[Analyzing Host's Demise... Cause: Corporate Negligence, Malicious Overwork.]
[Primary Function Unlocked: The user will gain the power to conquer any woman he desires.]
[First Power Granted: Aphrodisiac Aura - Lvl. 1]
Ren stared, his breath caught in his lungs. This was impossible. A dream? A hallucination brought on by a near-death experience? He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. The screen was still there, steady and unwavering. It was real. He had died, and something—God, the devil, he didn't know or care—had sent him back. It had given him a second chance, and more than that, it had given him a weapon.
A slow, cold smile, utterly alien to the timid man who had died the night before, stretched across his face. Adrian, Leo, Mark, Thorne. They had treated him like dirt. They had worked him into an early grave. A low chuckle escaped his lips, a harsh, grating sound in the quiet room. They were all going to pay. He was going to take their perfect, polished worlds apart, piece by beautiful piece.