The icy metal beneath him. The constant jolting as the truck rattled over uneven roads.
Every sensation screamed at Moro: this is real.
He had touched death itself, yet when he opened his eyes again, he was one year in the past.
Moro sat stunned, unable to stop the flood of memories surging from the depths of his mind.
One year ago, he had woken up inside this exact cage truck.
Back then, the unfamiliar surroundings and suffocating bars had fused with the cold and shaking to birth pure, paralyzing panic that dominated every emotion.
Now, returning with full awareness, he refused to scream like he had the first time.
He forced himself calm almost instantly, sweeping his eyes across the compartment once more.
Through the faint light leaking in from small holes in the walls, he could see two rows of iron cages lining the long cargo hold.
Each cage held one naked person.
Moro was among them, just as bare.
His gaze moved slowly across the others—male and female, all roughly 14 to 16 years old.
As he looked, the faces began overlapping with memories from his first life.
While he observed them, the slight noise of his awakening drew their attention. Most stared back with dull, empty eyes.
Only two or three showed faint confusion.
Moro ignored them and lowered his head, avoiding the stares.
What the hell is going on?
The image of Feitan—those vicious eyes boiling with rage—flashed vividly before him.
The cold bite of a blade across his face, the feeling of life being severed, still lingered.
It coiled around his heart like a venomous snake, chilling him to the marrow.
Yet—
He pressed a hand to his chest. His heart pounded fiercely.
Still alive!
Confirming that fact, Moro closed his eyes and did his best to steady his breathing.
This bizarre escape from death made him appreciate the simple miracle of breath more than ever.
A moment later.
He slowly opened his eyes, looked down, and naturally turned his gaze to the back of his right hand.
The Annual Rings tattoo was still there!
His spirit jolted.
He clearly remembered: the rings had only begun to appear the day after he first transmigrated, taking several days to fully form.
But right now, at this exact point in time, the complete tattoo was already present.
That was the first difference.
Moro focused harder and lifted his hand into the weak light for a clearer view.
Under the dim glow, he quickly noticed the change.
The innermost white ring that had been fully filled… was now pitch black.
And the tiny black infinity symbol at the very center was gone.
In its place:
Lv.1
Moro's eyes shifted.
Judging from the blackened ring, everything that had just happened was almost certainly caused by the Annual Rings.
But the infinity symbol turning into Lv.1—he had no idea what that meant.
Etude of Love…?
For some reason, Morena's face drifted through his mind.
"Lv" stood for level, and levels were the core gimmick of Morena's Nen ability.
It was impossible not to connect the two.
But was there actually a link?
If the Annual Rings' effect was to send him back one year upon death, then what role did the level symbol play?
Moro lowered his gaze, organizing the scattered information.
As he thought, he unconsciously raised his left hand and brushed his fingers over the rings on his right.
"Hm?"
That was when he noticed something new on the back of his left hand.
A red "X" mark.
Its edges were inky black, radiating an ominous aura.
"This is…?"
His pupils shrank. All attention locked onto the new symbol.
In that instant—
His consciousness lurched, like a small boat swallowed by a whirlpool, blurring for a single heartbeat.
One breath.
Feitan's face appeared again.
This time so clear he could see the icy killing intent hidden beneath the rage.
Shnk!
The sensation of a blade slicing his face and the suffocating grip of death slammed into him, amplified tenfold.
Then endless darkness swallowed everything.
Moro experienced his death in perfect, horrifying replay.
Immediately after, consciousness blurred once more.
The scene crumbled like weathered stone, replaced by a heart gripped tightly in pitch-black hands.
He stared at that heart and suddenly knew, with absolute certainty, that it was his own.
The knowledge was forcibly downloaded into his brain.
Along with it came a single term:
[Death Node]
"Hm?"
Abruptly, awareness snapped back to reality.
Moro blinked. He was still in the exact same posture.
"Death Node…?"
He muttered in disbelief, then slowly raised his head. He stared at the rusted bars in front of him, sighed, and leaned back weakly against the bars behind him.
Death Node.
In other words, the exact moment he had died: June 23, 1997.
Killed by Feitan's blade.
Then regressed to the day he first arrived in this world: June 7, 1996.
No question—he had been given a second chance.
But the Death Node branded onto him would not vanish just because he came back.
If he failed to destroy the Death Node before June 22, 1997, his heart would shatter into pieces and he would return to death's embrace.
The only way to destroy it:
Before the original death time arrived, personally kill the one who created the node—Feitan—and cancel out the red "X" on his left hand.
In short, within one year, he had to murder Feitan, who currently had no idea Moro even existed.
Only then would the curse of the Death Node be lifted.
"One year, huh…"
Moro exhaled, thinking of those black hands crushing his heart. It felt disturbingly like being stabbed through the chest by Kurapika's Judgment Chain.
Death Node it is.
Whether he could destroy it or not was another question, but it was still infinitely better than being dead.
Besides…
He glanced at the Lv.1 symbol in the center of the Annual Rings.
He didn't yet know what the level did, but it probably wasn't anything bad.
He just had to figure out how to raise Lv.1 to Lv.2 and test it.
First things first—deal with the current situation.
Moro gathered his thoughts and looked through the rusted bars.
In a few hours, this truck would reach a mental hospital built high in the mountains.
On paper it was a psychiatric facility.
In reality, it was a front for human trafficking and organ harvesting.
Yes.
From the moment they were locked in these cages, Moro and everyone else had already been branded as livestock.