The first thing he felt was relief.
Not fear.
Not panic.
Relief.
The stone beneath his knees was cold and uneven, pressing sharply through thin fabric into skin that had long since lost any sense of comfort. His hands were bound behind his back with coarse rope, tight enough to leave his fingers numb, but he barely noticed. Pain had become familiar. Almost mundane.
He knelt on a raised platform in the center of a ruined square.
Around him stood soldiers clad in unfamiliar armor, their expressions ranging from boredom to thinly veiled disgust. Behind them gathered civilians, drawn by curiosity or hatred—perhaps both. And closest to the platform, arranged in a neat semicircle, stood priests in pristine white robes, their presence stark against the bloodstained stones.
He was a prisoner of war.
Nothing more.
His country had fallen weeks ago. Its banners burned. Its generals fled or died. The war that had swallowed countless lives had ended not with honor, but with collapse.
And he had survived it.
Again.
A priest stepped forward.
The man's robes were untouched by dirt or ash, as if the devastation of the battlefield had completely avoided him. Gold-lined symbols glimmered faintly along the staff in his hand, etched with patterns meant to inspire awe—or fear.
"In the name of the gods," the priest declared, his voice echoing unnaturally across the square, "this soldier is sentenced to death."
The crowd murmured.
The word death should have stirred something inside him. Fear, perhaps. Regret. A desperate urge to beg.
Instead, his shoulders sagged slightly.
'So this is how it ends, finally.'
He lowered his head, his gaze falling on the dark stains soaked into the stone beneath him. Some were old. Some were still wet. He wondered how many men had knelt in this same spot, convinced—like he was—that this would be the final moment of their lives.
He felt no hatred toward the enemy standing before him.
Only exhaustion.
He had once dreamed of becoming strong.
Not a hero. Not a champion blessed by the gods. Just strong enough to stop shaking when he lifted a weapon. Strong enough to stand in formation without feeling like a burden. Strong enough to survive without crawling through corpses and rubble.
That dream had died long before this moment.
The battlefield returned to him in fragments.
Mud clogging his boots.
Smoke burning his lungs.
The weight of a sword that felt heavier each time he lifted it.
He remembered hiding behind a shattered shield while younger soldiers charged forward screaming, only to fall moments later. He remembered swinging wildly, his arms screaming in protest, his grip slipping as blood ran down his palms. He remembered being knocked aside, trampled, buried beneath bodies—and waking hours later to silence.
Every time, he lived.
Not because he was skilled.
Not because he was brave.
But because no one noticed him long enough to finish the job.
At first, he had believed effort would change something. That pain would harden him. That surviving battle after battle meant growth was inevitable.
It never came.
Others grew stronger. Faster. Sharper.
He remained the same.
The priest raised his staff.
"Carry out the sentence."
The executioner stepped forward.
The man was broad-shouldered, his armor dented and scarred from battle. He didn't look at the kneeling prisoner with hatred or cruelty—only with indifference. This was routine.
The blade was lifted.
For a brief moment, the kneeling man closed his eyes.
At least it ends here.
The sword fell.
The impact was clean.
His body collapsed forward, rope snapping loose as his weight hit the stone. Blood spread quickly, warm against the cold platform. The crowd exhaled as one, tension releasing in a collective breath.
It was over.
Or it should have been.
A heartbeat passed.
Then another.
Someone screamed.
The executioner staggered back, eyes wide.
The body on the platform twitched.
A ragged breath tore from lungs that should no longer have worked.
The man gasped violently, as if dragged back from deep water, his body convulsing as air forced its way into his chest. His severed wound burned with agony as nerves screamed in protest.
He was alive.
The square erupted into chaos.
"What—?!"
"That's impossible!"
"Did you see—?!"
Soldiers raised weapons instinctively. Civilians stumbled backward in terror. The priests froze, their perfect composure cracking for the first time.
The man on the platform groaned, his vision swimming as he struggled to understand what was happening. Pain radiated through his body, sharp and overwhelming, yet undeniably real.
He was breathing.
Slowly, shakily, he pushed himself onto his hands.
The executioner stared at him as if at a ghost.
The priest recovered first.
"Again," he snapped. "Do it again."
The executioner hesitated only a fraction of a second before obeying.
This time, there was no ceremony.
The blade pierced his chest.
The pain was blinding.
He screamed.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
And then—
He woke again.
This time, the scream tore from his throat before he could stop it.
His body arched violently, pain flooding every nerve as if to punish him for daring to return. The crowd had fallen silent now, fear replacing outrage. Some had dropped to their knees. Others whispered prayers under their breath.
The priests backed away.
"That shouldn't be possible," one of them whispered.
Holy symbols flared as purification magic was cast upon him, light burning against his skin. The pain intensified, forcing him to collapse once more—but his body did not yield.
He lived.
Again.
The priest's staff shook in his grip.
"This is blasphemy," someone said. "The gods—"
"The gods are silent," another replied, voice trembling.
The man lay on the platform, gasping, tears streaming down his face—not from fear, but from pain and confusion.
Why wasn't it ending?
He wasn't strong.
He wasn't special.
He had never been chosen for anything in his life.
"Bind him," the high priest ordered suddenly.
Chains were brought forth—heavy, engraved with glowing runes. They wrapped around his limbs, biting into flesh as divine restraints snapped shut. The pain spiked sharply, stealing his breath.
He didn't resist.
What was the point?
As he was dragged from the platform, bloodied and shaking, his gaze drifted upward briefly—to the sky, clear and indifferent.
No answer came.
No mercy.
No death.
Only the quiet certainty settling deep in his chest:
He could not die.
And somehow… that was worse.