Chapter 1: The Path After the Last Breath
From the forty-third floor, the city looked like offerings laid at his feet—rivers of gold and white flowing endlessly below. Ten years ago, Zain Rudra had walked those streets with empty pockets and hungry eyes.
Tonight, the streets bore his name in red: RUDRA.
The harbor stretched dark beyond the sprawl, container ships sitting like sleeping giants under cranes that never stopped moving. His reflection stared back from the glass—sharp suit, tired eyes, and the weight of everything he'd built.
Ten years. Ten years since he'd had nothing but anger and a plan scribbled on cheap paper.
The night air smelled like rain and diesel and money.
He pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over his father's contact, then shoved it back in his pocket. Let the old man see it in tomorrow's news.
'Rudra Empire Becomes Largest Private Conglomerate in Asia.'
Twenty-eight years old, and he'd won.
He smiled, pressing his palm flat against the cool glass. Everything he'd bled for, right here.
A sharp crack split the air.
Zain's chest exploded in heat before his brain registered the sound. He looked down—red spreading across his white shirt, fast, too fast. His hand came away wet and dark.
'No.'
"Guards!" The word tore from his throat, raw and desperate. "GUARDS!"
Pain lanced through his sternum like someone had shoved a burning rod through his ribs. He staggered back from the glass, legs suddenly boneless. The city tilted sideways. His cheek hit cold concrete that still held the day's warmth.
'Someone shot me. Someone actually—'
He tried to push himself up, but his arm wouldn't respond, shaking uselessly. Blood pooled beneath him, spreading in a dark circle that looked black under the dim rooftop lighting. Each breath came shallow and wet. His vision blurred at the edges.
'No no no—not like this—'
Business rivals. The Ashford deal. That politician he'd exposed and used—the one who'd trusted him right before Zain burned his career to ash. Didn't matter now.
Each heartbeat arrived slower than the last, echoing in his skull like a countdown.
The city lights below began to dim.
Then everything stopped.
Not slowed—stopped.
The wind froze mid-gust.
A piece of paper that had been tumbling across the rooftop hung suspended in the air three feet from his face. Even the blood spreading from his chest had gone still, its edge perfectly smooth like dark glass.
'What…'
Zain blinked. Wait—when had he last blinked? He tried to move his hand. It responded, sluggish but functional. The pain in his chest felt distant now, muted, like someone had turned down the volume on his dying.
'Am I dead?'
But his thoughts felt sharp, clearer than they had any right to be. He turned his head slightly—the paper was still there, frozen. The blood hadn't moved. The wind had actually stopped, not died down.
Everything in a sphere around him had frozen solid in time.
But he was awake. Aware.
That's when the space two feet from his face began to ripple.
Concentric circles spread outward—like a stone dropped in still water. At the center, something darker than night began to open. Not a tear. Not a hole. A distortion that hurt to look at directly, like his eyes couldn't focus.
The portal—if that's what it was—pulsed with a rhythm that matched his fading heartbeat.
Then light burst from its center.
The light wasn't white—it was every color and no color at once, a beam that seemed to exist outside normal perception. It didn't illuminate the rooftop or cast shadows. It simply 'was', pouring from the portal's center and shooting toward the area between his eyebrows, slightly above the bridge of his nose.
A translucent screen materialized in his consciousness—geometric patterns and symbols he couldn't read but somehow understood.
He tried to pull back, but his body wouldn't obey, still locked in its dying state. The screen held steady, and within it, something moved—shapes that might have been patterns, or symbols, or living things. His mind couldn't categorize what he was seeing.
Then a voice spoke.
It came from everywhere and nowhere—inside his head, behind his eyes, resonating in his bones. The voice had no gender, no age, no accent. It simply 'existed', like a fundamental law of physics given sound.
"Zain Rudra."
His name in that voice made his spine lock up. Not from fear—from recognition his conscious mind couldn't grasp, like hearing a song from a dream he'd forgotten.
"Your thread ends here. Twenty-eight years, three months, fourteen days. The bullet severed your heart's major vessel. You have ninety-seven seconds of consciousness remaining before biological death completes."
Clinical. Factual. Like reading a coroner's report on his own corpse.
"But are you ready to die like this?"
The voice emphasized each word with cruel precision, mocking the pathetic nature of his end.
"Shot on your own rooftop after building an empire. How fitting."
Zain's thoughts raced, sharp despite everything. 'What are you?'
He didn't speak aloud—couldn't, with blood filling his throat—but the thought felt like shouting into a void.
"What I am is... complicated. And frankly, you lack the framework to understand it yet. But what I have to offer? That's refreshingly simple."
A pause, and somehow Zain felt the system considering him, the way a scientist might observe an interesting specimen.
"You've spent your entire life refusing to accept limitations, haven't you? Building empires from nothing. Destroying those who stood in your way. All that fire, all that ambition—" A pause, almost affectionate. "And now a single piece of metal ends it. The universe has a sense of humour, I'll give it that."
Was that amusement in the voice? Mockery?
'If you're here to gloat—'
"I'm here to offer you a choice, Zain Rudra. You have two paths."
The screen shifted, and suddenly Zain could 'feel' something in his awareness—two roads, clear as physical paths stretching before him, though he saw nothing but the light.
"Path One:Accept binding with me.
I offer you existence beyond this world's limitations. Immortality is possible, but not guaranteed. Power is attainable, but never freely given. You will face dangers that make tonight's assassin look like a mercy. Most who walk this path die screaming. Some wish they had never taken the first step."
"But you will 'live'. Truly live. Not this hollow victory you call success—chasing numbers, destroying enemies, filling voids with conquest. You will pursue something absolute. Something real."
A pause
"Path Two: Reject the binding.
Accept your death. I will ease your passage—no pain, no fear. You will fade from this existence peacefully, your consciousness dispersing into the natural cycle. Your empire will crumble within five years. Your name will be forgotten within twenty. You fought well, for a mere mortal."
The words carried no emotion, just observation.
A pause. The light seemed to focus, intensifying.
Zain's pulse—still beating, somehow—thundered in his ears.
"Choose quickly. Seventy-one seconds remain."
The voice dropped lower, genuinely amused now.
"Though I suspect you've already decided. You're not the type to go quietly."
There it was again—that subtle mockery, like the system found his predictability amusing.
Zain's thoughts came fierce and certain.
'I'm not ready to die. Not before they do.'
'Path One. I choose Path one.'
"Of course you do."
The light pulsed, brighter, and warmth flooded through his chest—not painful, but intense, like liquid fire replacing his blood. He felt something moving inside the wound, tissue knitting together, vessels reconnecting. The flow of blood reversed, pulling back into his body instead of spilling out.
As the healing progressed, something else changed. His body felt different—stronger, denser, as if every cell had been compressed and refined. He felt lighter too, like invisible weights had been lifted from his limbs.
It lasted thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of the most excruciating sensation he'd ever experienced—every nerve ending screaming as his body rebuilt itself from fatal damage.
Then it stopped.
He could breathe. Actually breathe, deep and full. The pain was... gone.
Zain pushed himself up on shaking arms. His hands trembled—actually trembled—as he pressed them against the concrete. When was the last time his hands had shaken? He couldn't remember. His breath came unsteady, rapid, like he'd just surfaced from drowning.
'I died.'
The thought hit like a second bullet. Not "almost." Not "nearly." He'd died. Felt the darkness swallow him. Felt his last heartbeat echo into nothing.
And now he was breathing.
He touched his chest. The fabric was torn and soaked black with blood. His fingers found the wound—a shallow, torn gash still bleeding weakly. No hole through his ribs. No torn artery. Just... surface damage.
His fingers twitched as they traced the spot where the bullet had struck. Fatal. Should have been fatal.
He looked down. In his palm sat a bent coin—metal warped around the flattened bullet lodged in its centre. He didn't remember picking it up. Didn't remember it being there at all.
to anyone who saw it, the story would be simple: impossible luck. A coin that stopped a bullet meant for his heart.
His breath came faster. Too fast. His lungs burned as the air tore in and out of his chest in short, broken pulls. Not pain—shock. The kind that came when the body realized it should be dead and wasn't.
'What the fuck.'
His hands were shaking again. Actually shaking. Not from fear—from the 'wrongness' of it. His body remembered dying. Every cell screamed that this wasn't possible, that he should be bleeding out on this rooftop, that resurrection wasn't 'real'—
But he was alive.
He forced his breathing to slow, jaw clenching as he shoved the shock down, buried it under cold calculation. Later. He could process this later. Right now—
'What happens now? You said I'd die regardless.'
"Ah, there he is. The businessman returns."
'Answer the question.'
"Direct. I like that." A pause. "Your consciousness will be extracted and transferred to a new vessel in a cultivation realm. As a newborn, naturally—reincarnation tends to work that way. "But don't worry—whatever it is that makes you ,YOU? That comes back with your memories."
'When?'
""The transfer happens when you're ready. As for memories—they return at physical maturity. Around 20 years in your new body. A frustrating wait, I imagine, but necessary for neurological development.""
Zain's mind raced. 20 years as a child with no memory of this? No. First—
'I need time here. Before the transfer.'
""Oh? And what does a dead man need time for?""
'I have things to finish. People who need to pay for tonight. I'm not leaving until I settle this.'
A pause. The system's tone shifted—genuinely interested now.
""Revenge. How delightful . Very well, Zain Rudra. How much time do you require?""
'I'll figure that out. But not yet—I need to understand what you've done to me first.'
""Smart. Test your new capabilities. Understand your advantages. Then we'll discuss timelines.""
The voice carried approval.
""Time will resume in three... two... one...""
The wind hit him like a slap. The paper tumbled past his face and skittered across the rooftop.
His blood—no longer frozen—sat in a dark pool around him, though the flow had stopped.
Zain stood slowly, testing his legs. They held—no, more than held. He felt 'powerful' in a way he never had before. Lighter. Stronger. Like his body had been operating at sixty percent his entire life and someone just flipped a switch.
He gripped the concrete railing to steady himself. The material cracked under his fingers—a spiderweb fracture spreading from his grip.
He stared at his hand. At the damage he'd just done without trying.
'What did that thing do to me?'
Not just healing. Enhancement. He could feel it in every muscle, every breath. This was proof. Tangible, undeniable proof that cultivation was real.
The rooftop looked exactly as it had—except now he was standing, breathing, alive, with smooth skin where a bullet hole should have been.
He looked down at the city sprawling below. Somewhere down there, someone had tried to kill him. Someone had pulled a trigger, thinking they'd ended him.
The thought crystallized cold and sharp. Not anger. Not fear. Just calculation.
They'll think I'm dead. Good. Dead men don't have to play by rules.
Zain was still trying to grasp everything that had happened—
the gunshot, the frozen world, the voice, the impossible healing.
It felt unreal. Too fast. Too sudden.
Like his life had skipped a step.
Then—
"The rooftop door slammed open.
"Mr. Rudra!"
A security guard burst out first—gasping for breath, tie torn loose, eyes scanning for threats. Two more followed close behind, weapons raised, sweeping the space in quick, overlapping patterns before locking onto Zain.
Then they saw the blood.
The dark spread across the concrete—too much of it, the kind of volume that suggested severe injury. Their eyes snapped to Zain—standing upright, chest torn and bleeding, but alert. Mobile.
"The man checks himself a fraction of a second later, the barrel dipping as his eyes catch up with what he's seeing."
"Sir—the alert said ballistic impact—"
"How are you—?" Daniel caught himself. "Sir, we need to get you inside. Medical is on the way."