"So… I failed, huh?"
Kell's voice was calm as he looked down at himself.
The body beneath his gaze was unfamiliar—too light, too small, breathing on its own with an irritating rhythm. Skin instead of immortal flesh. Bones that felt fragile even without touching them. Before he could examine further, a low, grating screech echoed from ahead.
Kell lifted his head.
A small, green-skinned humanoid stood a short distance away, hunched and tense, clutching a crude stone weapon. Its proportions were wrong—too thin, too sharp in places—and its eyes burned with a feral hostility Kell had never encountered in all his millennia of existence.
"Hm." His expression barely changed. "What kind of little human thing are you?"
There was no grief in his tone. No anger. Just mild curiosity.
After all, he had died at the pinnacle of his life—one step away from ascending into the infamous, surreal Immortal Realm. Compared to that, this… interruption felt trivial.
The creature snarled.
Without warning, it lunged.
Kell's eyes narrowed in faint surprise. He shifted aside instinctively, but his movement was slower than expected. The stone weapon grazed his forearm, tearing skin open in a long, burning scratch.
He froze.
Pain.
Real, sharp pain surged through his nerves.
Kell looked down at the injury, flexing his fingers slightly as blood welled up. "So this body is weak enough to feel pain from something like this," he said quietly, more intrigued than angered.
He raised his gaze again. "It seems you have some enmity with the original owner of this body. But I am not him. It would be wiser for you to stop now—otherwise, you won't survive the nex—"
The creature lunged again.
Kell sighed.
This time, he moved more carefully. No arrogance. No wasted motion. He slipped past the attack, already adjusting to the limits of this fragile, mortal frame. This wasn't his immortal body—the one that could face heavenly tribulation head-on. Carelessness here would mean death.
As the creature rushed past him, Kell's hand shot out.
His fingers clamped onto the back of its neck.
With a sharp twist and a downward force, he slammed the creature's head into the ground. A dull thud echoed—but the skull didn't shatter.
Kell blinked.
"…Right." A faint, self-mocking breath escaped him. "I really have become this weak."
Annoyed now, he struck again. And again. Each blow was precise, efficient—technique refined over countless lifetimes, even if the power behind it was lacking.
At last, the creature went limp.
Kell straightened, exhaling slowly.
Before he could rise fully, the corpse began to glow.
The body dissolved into countless motes of pale light, drifting upward before suddenly rushing straight into Kell's chest. His eyes widened—but before he could react, a translucent blue panel flashed into existence before him.
[ +10 EXP Gained ]
[ First Kill Bonus: +40 EXP Gained ]
[ Level Up ]
Panels appeared one after another, overlapping his vision.
Then—
A warm tingling spread through his arm.
Kell looked down just in time to see the scratch on his forearm closing, skin knitting together as if it had never been there.
"…Interesting."
At the same time, something else stirred within him. Not memories. Not knowledge. More like instinct—rules settling into place, as if this world was imprinting its laws directly onto his existence.
He could reject it.
Yet curiosity won.
"Is this… the heavenly law of this world?" he wondered.
The word surfaced naturally, guided by that foreign instinct.
"Status."
A new panel unfolded before his eyes.
----
[ Status ]
Name: Kell Feldren
Tier: 1 – Low Level
Level: 1
EXP: 0 / 100
Strength: 3
Agility: 5
Endurance: 6
Magic: 7
Willpower: 10
Free Stat Points: 1
Skills: None
----
Kell stared at the panel in silence.
Finally, his expression shifted.
Not fear. Not excitement.
Confusion.
"…What kind of heavenly law is this?" Kell thought.
His gaze lingered on the single line that bothered him the most—Free Stat Points.
Numbers alone were strange enough. Strength, mind, soul—reduced to measurable values as if existence itself could be tallied and weighed. But this…
Choice.
This "heavenly law" did not merely record growth. It distributed it. No predetermined destiny. No rigid fate carved into bloodline or talent. It allowed an individual to decide what aspect of themselves would grow stronger.
Kell's brows knitted slightly.
"So the body, the mind, and the soul are separated… yet governed under one system." His thoughts sharpened. "And growth is not enforced—it is allocated."
In his world, cultivation was a brutal climb. Talent determined the ceiling. Resources decided the pace. One's path was forged through pain, chance, and slaughter. No heavenly law ever asked what one wanted to become.
This one did.
"Just what level of heaven governs this world?" Kell wondered. "Did I… mistakenly step into a higher realm?"
The idea unsettled him more than his own death.
His thoughts drifted to the mortals of his former world—fragile beings with lifespans barely exceeding sixty years. He remembered their final words, whispered with desperate hope as they lay dying.
'Born into suffering… reborn into blessing.'
'Endure this cursed life, and the next will be kinder.'
Kell had dismissed such beliefs as meaningless comfort for the weak.
Yet now—
"Is this what they meant by a blessed life after a cursed one?" he mused.
Before the thought could settle, a sharp screech cut through the air.
Kell's eyes snapped forward.
At the same instant, the blue panels vanished from his vision—smoothly, instantly, as if the heavenly law itself had sensed his attention shifting.
"…Oh?"
Understanding dawned.
"So it withdraws when the host is engaged." Kell gave a slow nod. "Pretty thoughtful."
He straightened, eyes calm and focused as the sound grew closer.
"At least," he added quietly, "it's better mannered than the heavens of my world."
As soon as the words left his mouth, more figures burst into view.
Green.
Small.
Fast.
Several of the same creatures came charging toward him, faces twisted with raw fury, screeching as if he had committed some unforgivable crime. Their hostility was so intense that, for a brief moment, Kell was genuinely puzzled.
"…Why are they this angry?"
He had barely finished the thought when understanding dawned.
"I see," he murmured. "So I'm standing inside some kind of formation."
His gaze swept across the surroundings. The terrain felt enclosed—not physically, but structurally. Too orderly in its chaos. Too consistent. In his former world, this kind of feeling was familiar.
Secret realms.
Unowned lands filled with traps, constructs, and automated guardians—places meant to test, kill, or filter intruders. Many cultivators had perished in such places simply because they mistook them for natural environments filled with treasures.
"These creatures…" Kell narrowed his eyes. "They're not beasts. More like constructs—or something close to it."
But the creatures didn't give him time to refine the theory. Their screeches sharpened as they closed the distance, weapons raised, killing intent crude but unmistakable.
"Well," Kell said calmly, rolling his shoulders, "looks like I need to find the exit of this place quickly."
His attention flicked back to the unseen panel he now instinctively understood how to access.
Strength was the lowest.
That displeased him.
"Allocate."
[ +1 Strength ]
The change was immediate.
Muscles tightened beneath his skin. His bones let out a faint cracking sound—not painful, but deeply unsettling. A rush of unfamiliar energy surged through his limbs, rough and unrefined, but undeniably real.
And before his mind could fully adjust—
Kell had already moved.
He stepped into the incoming creature's path and threw a punch.
The moment the strange warmth faded, his fist connected with the side of the creature's face.
Crack.
The sound was solid. Satisfying.
The creature's lower jaw shattered outright, its body spinning sideways before collapsing to the ground in a twitching heap.
Kell's expression shifted immediately.
Pain exploded from his knuckles.
"…Right." He hissed quietly. "Still a fragile body."
He had no time to inspect the damage.
Another creature lunged from his blind side.
Kell twisted away just in time, abandoning closed fists. This time, his hand shot forward open, fingers snapping around the creature's neck. He yanked it down and slammed it backward toward the ground—not wasting time with repeated blows.
The added strength showed its worth.
With a sickening crack, the creature's neck snapped under the force. Its body went limp instantly.
Kell didn't slow.
One after another, the green creatures came at him, screeching madly. He moved with ruthless efficiency—dodging, grabbing, striking where it mattered—but his body betrayed him again and again.
Scratches opened along his arms.
A blunt weapon caught his ribs.
Another blow clipped his shoulder.
And beneath it all—
Exhaustion crept in.
His breath grew heavier. His movements, slower.
"…So this is fatigue," he muttered grimly.
It was a sensation he hadn't felt in so long that the memory of it barely existed anymore. In his immortal body, endurance was endless. Here, every movement drained something finite.
Still, he endured.
When the final—tenth—creature fell, dissolving into fading light, Kell straightened unsteadily.
Then—
[ +10 EXP Gained ]
[ Level Up ]
Warmth flooded his body.
The pain vanished.
The cuts sealed.
The bruises faded.
And more than that—
"…Did my energy recover as well?"
Kell flexed his fingers, then clenched his fist. The heaviness was gone. His breathing returned to normal. The exhaustion that had threatened to overwhelm him simply… disappeared.
"…Hah." A soft, incredulous sound escaped him. "This world truly doesn't do things halfway."
His gaze dropped to the ground.
Something glimmered faintly among the dirt and debris.
Kell crouched and picked it up.
A small crystal—uneven, translucent, glowing softly from within.
"…Condensed energy?" His eyes sharpened.
He turned it between his fingers.
"Is this similar to a spirit stone?"
Surprise stacked upon surprise. Reincarnation. Status. Levels. Recovery through slaughter. And now, tangible energy crystallized from slain creatures.
Kell exhaled slowly.
"I really have no idea what kind of world this is," he admitted.
But curiosity burned brighter than confusion.
"For now, I should leave this place."
He slipped the crystal into his pocket, barely sparing a glance at the unfamiliar clothes he wore. Garments were irrelevant.
What mattered was—
"If cultivation is still possible here…"
His eyes hardened with resolve.
"…then rising again isn't a question of if."
After all, there was a reason he had prepared the reincarnation stone in the first place.