"Sleeping in the shed again?"
"Probably. Some say he's too scared to stay alone."
"Or too stingy to spend his whole salary on a house."
Laughter followed.
Din's body jerked upright as the whispers reached his ears.
"What… where…" For a moment his mind felt blank. No thoughts, no memories.
It was as if he were trapped in a trance until, suddenly, everything clicked.
"Lieutenant… war… shot."
"I died?" Din whispered. It felt unreal. From discovering the Lieutenant General's betrayal to realizing he'd been a pawn, then waking up here?
"Where am I?"
The question was answered by one of the most revolting smells he had ever encountered. The stench of manure filled his nose. Din choked, struggling to breathe until, strangely, his body began to adapt. After a minute, he finally took a deep breath.
"Whose body is this?" Din looked at his hands - thin and fragile. His limbs were weak, his skin pale. He was younger and malnourished.
At that moment, he heard a beastly howl pierce through the air. He flinched and winced in pain, his brain twitching. Din collapsed to the ground clutching his chest. His heart pulsated, ready to explode any moment.
When he looked up, the roof of the barn was gone. When he looked down, he was no longer kneeling on the hays. He looked to the front and a vast land stretched ahead of him.
Fragments of memories started to fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle made of broken glass pieces.
This body's name was also Din. And this was a different world - a chaotic burial ground of gods and monsters.
Long ago, gods walked among humans. They blessed their followers with divine powers, and for a time, prosperity reigned. Then, without warning, the gods vanished.
Din's heart filled with sorrow and despair as he saw the memories of the world flash past his eyes. It was a world that the gods gave up, the world that its creators and guardians deserted.
In their absence, they appeared. The sky darkened as death-filled ruins crashed into the world. From those ruins, corrupted beings - creatures of death - rose. Within years, humanity collapsed. Without the gods, their blessings faded, and humans became nothing but prey.
Din heard the cry of a mother holding the torn body of her baby, the sound of blood gushing out of the throat of a man impaled by a beast's fangs. He shuddered in fear and pain. These were the memories, but they felt real. He felt connected to the past he hadn't lived.
Human territory shrank as a dark fog devoured the land. But then, one human awakened a new power - something beyond divine blessings.
It was called Holek: a power that transcended human limits.
Those who awakened Holek became transcendent beings capable of fighting the corrupted. Holek could destroy not just flesh but origin itself. Since the corrupted beasts could regenerate endlessly, only high-rank Holek users could truly kill them.
One by one, more awakened. Humanity pushed back the tide. Hope returned—until he appeared: a humanoid being surrounded by death, whose chaotic presence destroyed every human powerhouse and halted humanity's advance.
From then on, expansion ceased. Yet humans survived. Their reclaimed land was vast enough to rebuild civilization. Over time, they realized their world itself had changed - larger, stronger, the air rich with vitality.
Yet, Din, overwhelmed with the chaotic mix of visions and sounds, couldn't feel joy at the revival of mankind. There was something not quite right. He couldn't put a finger on it, but this peace, this new prosperity, there was just something about it that was wrong.
Regardless, Din saw that humans learned they could tame corrupted and enhanced beasts. Civilization flourished again, though danger never disappeared.
At the top of society stood the Holek users, while ordinary humans like Din struggled to survive.
Din gasped as he was firmly back in the stinky barn again.
The ringing in his ears stopped. The darkness in this place was now comforting.
Drenched in sweat, Din clenched his weak fists. Even the army back home wouldn't have accepted someone with this frail body.
He looked around the beast shed, his so-called home. The air was thick with the smell of dung and roars from the caged creatures. Disgusting, yet familiar.
Din knew, for someone like himself in this life - a powerless orphan drowning in debt - it was the only place for him to live and the easy spot for bullies to find him.
His meager salary was stolen every week. He couldn't afford rent, so he slept beside the beasts, surviving on scraps and the occasional help from a friend.
He sighed and stood, the stench of beast waste clinging to him.
"It's almost time for her to visit again. I should probably wash up. She's the daughter of the garden's owner, after all," Din muttered as he stepped outside.
Sunlight spilled across a vast, lively landscape. The wind carried the scent of grass and distant flowers.
He'd been here all his new life, Din knew. Yet, to him it still felt unreal. One moment he'd been dying for his country. The next, he was reborn into this forsaken place.
"There's no real difference between this world and the last," he murmured, eyes firm.
He'd already died once. He wouldn't die again.
The first lesson drilled into any soldier was simple: observe, adapt, survive.
"I need to get closer to her," Din thought, recalling the vague image of the girl.
This body had held deep feelings for her. She was the reason the previous Din hadn't given up on life - and she visited every two months.
Today, she would come again.
Just as Din stood outside, sorting through his thoughts, a loud growl erupted from his stomach.
"Yes… the owner of this body died yesterday, and I know why now," Din muttered, clutching his abdomen.
An intense hunger bolted through his body, making his knees weak. Step by step, he forced himself toward the river.
Around him were other workers like him - the gardeners and beast keepers - yet no one bothered to glance his way. His thin, malnourished frame looked as though a strong breeze could blow him away, but still, no one cared.
Here, everyone minded their own business. Occasionally they gossiped about minor things, but in truth, everyone here belonged to the lowest tier of humanity's pyramid.
They had been here all their lives. None of them had ever seen the inner human cities - only this place, this endless garden of beasts.
***
A few kilometers away, a vast shadow moved swiftly across the land. In the distance, a large enclosure caught the creature's attention, and its speed increased.
It was a low-level Enhanced Beast, a descendant of the eagle family. After the great transformation of the world, this once-normal bird had evolved beyond divine and mythical beasts. Now, as a speed-type enhanced creature, it was enormous, each wing stretching ten meters across, its body towering eight meters tall.
A bright, multicolored crown of feathers adorned its head.
With a piercing screech, it announced its presence to the skies.
Upon its back sat two figures - both human - yet the beast showed no signs of agitation. It was completely under control.
"My lady," the taller of the two spoke softly.
One of them was the very person Din was preparing himself to meet - Ariel, the daughter of the garden's owner. The other was her guardian, Lyn, the tamer of the beast they rode.
"Yes, Lyn?" Ariel replied, eyes sparkling with excitement.
She was young, beautiful, and full of life - an innocent soul with the curiosity of a child but the charm of a woman. Ariel loved to explore, and her favorite place to visit was her father's garden - one of the few peaceful sanctuaries left under human protection.
It was there she'd met Din - a weak, timid boy who worked among the beasts. He'd captured her interest at first sight - first in disgust, then curiosity, and finally in pity. But the pity quickly grew into empathy, a sentimental connection with someone she could never have imagined relating to, even in her strangest dreams. He was no longer just a window through which she could steal a glimpse of the poor, but an emotional intrigue. These days, she visited him whenever she could.
Lyn, looking at Ariel's face full of anticipation, was quietly uneasy. She urged the beast to move faster, trying not to show her discomfort.
If her master discovered that she had brought Ariel out of the city - especially to see a lowly worker - there would be severe consequences. Lyn didn't want to find out what those might be.
The great eagle glided over the boundary, descending toward the sprawling lands below. Ariel could feel the shift in the air.
They were no longer in the city now. They were entering the Garden.
Gardens were vast sanctuaries where Enhanced and Corrupted Beasts were kept, as well as where fruits and resources for human consumption were grown. Depending on rank, these gardens were the backbone of humanity's fragile civilization, like industrial farms in Din's old world.
Her father's garden was considered low-tier compared to others, but it was still enough to grant him a respectable position within the Federation. Because of that, Ariel had a small measure of freedom - freedom she often used to sneak away and visit him.
"Din, I'll be there soon," she whispered into the wind. "Are you waiting for me? I brought fruits and even cooked meals. I can't wait to tell you everything."
Her voice was soft but filled with excitement as the eagle soared above the land - carrying with it the promise of another fateful meeting.