Eiden Cross did not wake up chosen.
He woke up audited.
"This is the sixth summoning this quarter!"
"And five of them worked!"
"That is not the point—"
Stone pressed against his palms. Cold. Solid. Unapologetically real.
He blinked upward at a ceiling painted with faded constellations.
Incense smoke drifted in heavy layers, thick enough to sting his throat.
Beneath the sweetness lingered something metallic.
Not fresh blood.
Old rituals.
He pushed himself upright.
Five other teenagers knelt around a glowing circle carved into the stone floor.
Symbols pulsed faintly under their knees like veins of light. Each of them shimmered in some cinematic way.
One boy's fingers flickered with controlled flame.
A girl's hair floated gently, unaffected by gravity.
Another radiated a soft golden warmth that made nearby priests visibly relax.
Eiden looked down at his own hands.
Nothing shimmered.
No sparkles. No glow. No dramatic hum in the air.
Just skin.
And a faint tremor.
A priest rushed forward and grabbed his wrist without introduction.
He turned Eiden's palm upward the way someone might inspect a cracked plate.
They waited.
The circle brightened.
The other five heroes glowed stronger.
Eiden remained aggressively normal.
The priest pressed harder.
Still nothing.
A murmur spread across the chamber.
Not fear.
Not outrage.
Disappointment.
"…No response," the priest announced.
It wasn't cruel.
It was procedural.
Eiden stared at his hand like it had betrayed him personally.
They were escorted into a vast royal hall lined with banners and armoured guards.
The king sat on a dark throne carved from black wood. He didn't look evil.
He looked tired.
Like a man who had invested heavily in something unreliable.
One by one, the summoned heroes were evaluated.
"Channel."
Flames erupted.
"Channel."
Lightning cracked through the crystal sphere.
"Channel."
Golden light washed across the marble floor.
Polite applause followed each display.
Then it was Eiden's turn.
The royal appraiser handed him the crystal.
"Channel."
"From where?" Eiden asked.
"From yourself."
That felt optimistic.
He focused as hard as possible on the idea of having hidden potential.
He imagined heat. Pressure. Anything.
The crystal remained dull.
The appraiser rotated it slightly, as though checking for scratches.
"No affinity. No contract. No deviation detected."
Silence fell like paperwork being stamped.
The king exhaled.
"Another failure."
Not anger.
Inventory loss.
A general stepped forward, scar across his cheek.
"Send him with the conscripts."
The king waved his hand.
Decision made.
Eiden felt like an extra chair removed from a banquet table.
"Wait," he started. "Maybe it activates later—"
But the court had already moved on.
Wind magic demonstration.
Applause.
He was escorted out.
They handed him a spear.
It looked tired.
The metal tip was chipped. The wood slightly warped.
The Armor they tossed at him didn't fit properly.
"Front line reinforcement," a soldier said flatly.
"That's it?" Eiden asked.
The soldier shrugged. "We're at war."
They marched him before he could argue further.
The battlefield arrived without music.
It arrived with mud.
Mud that swallowed boots.
Mud that clung to ankles.
Smoke crawled low across the ground.
Orders overlapped into meaningless noise.
Across the field, the demon army advanced.
Not monsters.
Soldiers.
Uniform Armor.
Disciplined ranks.
Their shield wall moved in clean synchronization.
Signal horns sounded in precise intervals.
They looked organized.
Professional.
The human line did not.
Someone slammed into Eiden from behind.
He stumbled forward, breaking formation.
He looked up.
A demon soldier stood only a few steps away.
Humanoid.
Armoured.
Eyes calm and sharp.
They locked gazes.
The demon did not roar.
Did not taunt.
He assessed.
The spear entered Eiden's stomach with clean efficiency.
There was no dramatic impact.
Just pressure.
Then heat.
Eiden blinked down at the wooden shaft protruding from him.
"That seems… wrong," he muttered.
Warmth spread under his ribs. His breath shortened into shallow, confused pulls.
The mud felt very cold against his knees.
He tried pulling the spear out.
It didn't move.
Someone nearby screamed.
He thought he should scream too.
He didn't have the air.
This can't be it.
I just got here.
His vision darkened at the edges.
The battlefield noise stretched thin.
Then snapped.
Black.
No voice.
No divine explanation.
No glowing interface.
Nothing.
Then—
Pain.
The spear again.
The mud.
The scream.
But it was wrong.
The scream reversed, sucked back into lungs.
Blood crawled upward along his shirt.
The spear slid backward out of his body and into the demon's grip.
The demon stepped back.
Soldiers rose in reverse collapse.
Horns inhaled their notes.
The sky brightened unnaturally.
The battlefield folded inward like a page being forced back into place.
Eiden felt every second rewind through him.
The pain reversed.
But he remembered it.
That was the worst part.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Stone pressed against his palms.
Incense flooded his lungs.
"…successful resonance!"
He jerked upright.
Same chamber.
Same shouting.
Same five glowing heroes.
He grabbed his stomach.
No wound.
No blood.
Whole.
His breathing came sharp and uneven.
"I died," he whispered.
No one reacted.
The ceremony continued.
The priest approached.
Eiden spoke before thinking.
"No response."
The priest paused mid-step.
A flicker of confusion crossed his face.
Then he grabbed Eiden's wrist.
Waited.
"…No response."
The murmur rippled again.
Almost identical.
But not exact.
The priest coughed half a second later than before.
Reality wasn't replaying.
It was being rebuilt.
They were led into the hall again.
Flame.
Lightning.
Blessing.
Sword aura.
He knew the order now.
When the crystal reached him, he didn't try.
The king sighed.
"Another failure."
The words felt thinner this time.
Eiden swayed slightly.
His thoughts felt slower.
Heavy.
Like he hadn't slept in days.
His eyes burned.
That hadn't been there before.
The fatigue wasn't from battle.
It was deeper.
As if something inside his head had been dragged backward violently and forced into place.
If this keeps happening…
He swallowed.
I won't be able to think straight.
As soldiers escorted him out again, his head throbbed faintly.
They gave him the same spear.
The same Armor.
The same indifferent nod.
He turned slightly while walking.
One of the other heroes — the one with the sword aura — glanced at him.
Just briefly.
Unease flickered across his face.
Like noticing a line of text slightly misaligned.
Then it vanished.
Eiden blinked.
For a fraction of a second—
He saw the battlefield.
Still continuing.
The demon formation advancing.
The place where he had died now empty.
Then it disappeared.
Stone corridor.
Footsteps.
Paperwork.
The war did not pause for him.
His grip tightened on the spear.
So that was the rule.
When he died—
He came back.
To the last time he woke up.
No warning.
No choice.
And each return stole something.
Clarity.
Rest.
Sharpness.
This wasn't power.
It was endurance.
The battlefield waited.
Again.
Eiden exhaled slowly.
"Right," he muttered.
And walked toward the front line.
Again.