I woke up screaming.
Or I tried to. What emerged from my throat was a dry, hoarse croak—the sound of vocal cords scraped raw by smoke, sulfur, and perhaps something worse.
Heat came first. Oppressive, humid, and suffocating. The air was so thick it felt like drowning in warm honey, saturated with the smell of minerals, old earth, and the unmistakable, acrid odor of something burning.
Me.
Then came the cold. It sliced through the vapor like a winter blade, bringing the bite of icy wind and the electric ozone of the storm outside.
My eyes cracked open. The world spun—blurred, doubled, and fragmented, as if I were looking through the shards of a shattered mirror.
Stone. Dark and uneven. Water. But not just water. Boiling, mineral-rich soup.
I was half-submerged in a bubbling natural pool, fed by thermal vents deep in the mountain's roots. The heat was the only reason I wasn't a frozen relic. Above me, stalactites hung like rows of teeth in a predator's mouth, dripping condensation that hissed as it hit the surface. Beyond that, a wide, irregular cave entrance framed a storm raging with vindictive fury. Lightning carved the sky into jagged pieces.
I'm alive.
The thought felt heavy. Wrong. My body felt different—denser, heavier, like I was wearing a suit of skin that didn't quite match my seams.
I looked at my hands. My right hand was white-knuckled, fingers locked in rigor around a pulsating crystal that had fused to my palm.
My left hand... was gone.
A stump remained. Cauterized and furious. The raw, bubbling flesh was healing with a grotesque, visible speed—like watching time-lapse footage of a wound closing, except it should take weeks but was happening in seconds.
It wasn't magic. Not the clean kind. It was something biological, aggressive—like a cancer forced to be useful.
The Fractal Repair
The regeneration wasn't clean. It wasn't human.
The new flesh didn't grow in smooth layers; it formed in geometric, almost crystalline patterns. Fractal skin stitched itself together according to blueprints that ignored biological norms. [Semi-Immortal] was working overtime, and the cost was a symphony of burning nerve endings and the sound of fractured bones knitting themselves together inside my skull.
I tried to scream again. Only a hoarse grunt escaped.
Then, letters burned before my eyes—not the clean blue of the Academy, but an erratic, flickering red. It looked like corrupted data struggling to load on a dying machine.
[SYSTEM INTEGRATION: CRITICAL][HOST BODY ASSIMILATED][Analyzing...]
Name: ...a nameless slave... (Designation: Anko)
Class: Slave Knight (Shinobi of the Divine Priestess)
Fate: To become a demon and slaughter the Divine Blood
Talent (Intrinsic): [Semi-Immortal], [Mark of the Slave], [Joy of Killing]
Divinity (External): [Possessed], [Blessed by Light]
Status: Severe trauma. Left arm severed. Mana circuits overloaded.
Beneath the corruption, a single line of calm, golden font appeared, superimposed on the red chaos like sunlight piercing smoke:
[Grace]: Be possessed by the Firekeeper.
I stared at the words until they blurred. Nameless. Slave. Demon. I laughed, a wet, bubbling sound that tasted of copper and ash.
"Well," I rasped. "Let's play."
The Physics of the Fall
My mind drifted, unable to hold the present. I fell backward into the memory of the descent.
I remembered the weightlessness. The absence of gravity as soldiers screamed, plummeting into the blue immensity. The abyss opening like a mouth.
I had acted on instinct. Or perhaps on the thing that lived in the spaces between my thoughts.
I plunged the stolen katana into the ice wall. The metal screeched against stone, a sound that set my teeth on edge. Sparks showered my face. My boots smoked as I tried to brake against the vertical descent.
But gravity doesn't negotiate. Kinetic energy was building to a terminal point. One impact and I'd be turned to mush.
"Pretty please, hold up there," I whispered, desperate enough to beg an inanimate object.
The sword answered. Not with words, but with heat.
The blade became translucent. Veins of liquid gold surged from my hand onto the steel. A harmonic resonance followed, making my bones ache. The ice didn't just melt—it sublimated. It passed from solid to vapor in an instant. The pressure increased. The rock cracked. The sword acted as a capacitor, absorbing energy it couldn't contain.
I channeled everything into it. Not mana—I didn't know how—but Willpower. The same stubborn refusal to die that kept me sane during eighteen years of loops.
I want to live. I hate this prison. I am disgusted with this fate.
I pointed the blade downward, trying to use the discharge as a thruster.
BANG.
It wasn't an explosion. It was a blackout. A sphere of pure, golden, burning force expanded from the tip. Sound was replaced by a vacuum, followed by a shockwave. It was like being struck by a train made of sunlight and fury.
The recoil launched me sideways. I skipped across ice and ancient sediment like a stone across water.
The last thing I remembered: my left arm catching on a sharp rock. A snap. Excruciating pain. Then, the void.
Scavenging the Self
I dragged myself out of the pool, inch by miserable inch. This body—Anko's body—was athletic, lean, and defined by a lifetime of survival. But it was on the edge.
"At least alive," I murmured, trying to inject bravado into the humid air. "Handsome? Maybe under the dirt."
I leaned against a stalagmite and searched my pouches with trembling fingers.
"Looting myself. How ironic."
The inventory was a grim ledger of my new life:
Three Blue Crystals: Rough-cut, pulsating with cold light. Mana batteries or currency.
A Dubious Potion: A clay vial smelling of rotten eggs and mint. I wasn't desperate enough to gamble yet.
A Whetstone: Worn. Useless to a man with one arm and no blade.
A Leather Handbook: A ledger. Names. Dates. Locations. Targets. Debts. Contracts.
Finally, I looked at the sword. Or what was left of it.
At the bottom of the pool, the broken katana was dissolving. Disintegrating into tiny sparks of gold and geometric cubes. They rose through the water like fireflies and drifted toward me. I flinched, expecting pain.
Instead... warmth.
They sank into my chest, embedding themselves over my heart like luminous studs.
Concept integration.
"I'll think about it later," I sighed, letting the geothermal heat seep into my borrowed bones. "When my brain stops leaking."
The Inner World
Sleep wasn't rest. It was a destination.
I stood in ankle-deep water. Black as the void. Stretching endlessly. Above, there was only the crushing pressure of something vast watching from the dark.
In the center stood a tree. Skeletal. Leafless. Dying. Carved into its trunk was a burning, golden mark. The same symbol the figure in black wore.
I tried to run, but the water held me like tar. From the darkness behind the tree, a whisper echoed:
"One day, everything will end."
The voice was his. It was here. Inside me.
I woke with a start, back in the cave. Still here. The storm. The boiling water. And the empty space where my arm used to be.
The Broken Pendulum
I forced myself to stand. Standing was a defiance of the fate written on my status screen.
[Class: Slave Knight]
[Talent: Mark of the Slave]
"A slave? Me?"
I groaned. I had been mutilated, possessed, and hunted, and now I was property. Stamped with the one label I despised more than death.
"To become a demon and slaughter the Divine Blood."
"Terrible job description," I croaked. "No benefits."
I looked at the jagged rocks nearby. The urge rose—dark and seductive. End it. Slash your throat. Reset the loop. My hand found a sharp stone. The grip tightened. Just one quick cut.
I hesitated.
Wait.
I looked at my stump. At the storm outside. I had fallen, crashed, and slept. And I had woken up without a reset. There was no "Good morning, Kai." No ivory blade at my throat.
The Loop was truly broken.
The stone fell from my hand. A sound bubbled up—a chuckle that built into a laugh, then exploded into a manic cackle that echoed off the damp stone. My mood swung violently from suicidal despair to electric ecstasy.
I thrust my remaining hand toward the ceiling, flashing a victory sign at the ghosts.
"Finally!" I roared, my voice cracking. "Finally out of that damn whore of a Loop!"
I was a one-armed, enslaved cripple in a demon-infested war zone with no allies and no plan. But I was free.
"What bad could happen now?" I asked the darkness, manic grin stretching my face. "I've already lost everything."
That just meant I had everything to gain. A burden I had carried for centuries—for eternities—lifted from my shoulders. The future was terrifying and dark, and it was beautiful.
"Everything else," I whispered, letting sleep pull me under again, "is a problem for later."
Somewhere in the dark, text bloomed across my vision.
[Grace]: Trial Phase 2 – Initiated.
[Status]: Critical but stable.
[Warning]: Host rejection possible. Synchronization: 72 hours.
[New Objective]: Survive until dawn. [Secondary Objective]: Reach the Ashen Temple before the Asura finds you. [Tertiary Objective]: Do not lose the other arm. You'll need it.
I didn't open my eyes. I just smiled.
"Grace," I mumbled. "You're a real bitch, you know that?"
[Grace]: I've been called worse by better men. [Sleep, Firekeeper. The real Nightmare begins tomorrow.]
I let the darkness take me.
[Dawn arrives in 8 hours.]
[The Asura is 47 kilometers away and closing.]
[The Divine Blood has noticed your survival.]
[Someone is coming.]