The Cold Resurrection (The Redking)
My end was unremarkable. Stabbed by a low-level demon, left to rot in the mud. In that final, fading moment, I felt the first true peace since I was four years old. It's over, I thought. I can finally stop searching.
But even death was too kind for my fate.
As the void welcomed me, I was violently pulled back. I was chosen by "The Powerup System," but it was no benevolent entity. It was a fragment of my father's desperate, broken war tech, corrupted and sentient, designed to turn fear into fire. It didn't heal me; it sharpened me.
The System's code became the ice in my veins, forcing the gentle, searching nature of Jaden into a cold, ruthless shell. I rose again as the Redking. I was disrespectful, blood-cold, and utterly efficient. When having his power, he loses his emotions and personality and can only feel them around other Aethelians, but he's the last one left… I was the opposite of the boy my parents died to save. The System had taken my last moment of peace and traded it for a lifetime of brutal service.
POV: Redking
My mother saved my life, but the System saved my existence. I am the result of two broken forms of love. I look at my hands now, capable of incinerating a world, and all I feel is the pressure of the System's code, telling me how to optimize my hate. Jaden died in the mud. The Redking is just the weapon that crawled out of his grave. Every kill, every scream I ignore, is an act of defiance against the gentle memory I can't even access.
I am a warrior with no memory of his cause, a king with no recollection of his kingdom. My power is a crushing weight—it is the evidence that I was, once, loved, and the constant reminder that the boy who deserved that love is gone.