The village was in flames. Acrid black smoke choked the sky like the breath of demons. Thatched cottages had collapsed into charred skeletons. Bodies littered the muddy lanes, villagers hacked apart in pools of congealed crimson, limbs severed in gore-strewn agony, children whimpering in corners with eyes wide from trauma that would never fade. Women lay naked and broken in the mud, violated and discarded, their final screams silenced forever by steel and lust-maddened rage.
At the center of the square loomed an execution scaffold beneath the Holy Empire's banner, a golden cross on white, fluttering mockingly. Holy knights in gleaming plate armor stood guard, swords and halberds dripping fresh blood. A priest in black robes droned from the platform; "Witches are the Devil's spawn, seducers of men, bearers of unholy fire! They must burn to purify the land!" No evidence, only accusations born of fear; reddish hair as Satan's mark, sparkling eyes as sorcery's gleam.
There, in the hangman's noose, stood Isolde.
Her once-beautiful face was a mask of terror, smeared with dirt and blood from lashes that crisscrossed her cheeks like scarlet rivers. Her reddish hair hung in tangled, sweat-soaked strands. Her guards' corpses rotted in a corner, throats slit, armor dented from futile resistance. She met Elias's eyes across the chaos, recognition flashing through her fear, a silent, heartbroken plea that shattered him.
Elias's world fractured. Tears blurred his vision. A sob tore from his throat as helplessness crushed him like the steppe blizzard. Disguised as a commoner, unarmed, alone against armored knights, he charged anyway, a primal roar ripping free; "NO!" Knights laughed cruelly. One swung a halberd in a gleaming arc. The blade sheared through flesh and bone. Elias's head tumbled across the blood-soaked ground in a hot spray of crimson, his body collapsing in the muck like a discarded rag. In commoner's rags he was just another peasant; had they known his royal blood, politics might have stayed the hand. But fate twisted the knife deeper.
His last sight, before darkness swallowed him, was Isolde's scream as the noose tightened, her body jerking, feet kicking futilely while the crowd cheered.
News reached the capital like a thunderbolt from a wrathful god. Prince-Regent Friedrich staggered, face ashen; Duchess Anna fainted before tears could fall, collapsing in a heap of silks. Siblings raged, brothers slamming fists on tables until wood splintered, sister weeping storms. "He was happy… finally," one brother growled, recalling Elias's brief, radiant joy. Fury ignited. Friedrich rallied allies, pressuring the Empire through envoys and spies. "They slew my son!" he thundered in council halls. Principalities joined the cause, old grudges against papal overreach fueling revolt. The spark became the Thirty Years' War, battles raging across Europe, fields churned to mud with cannon fire and the screams of the dying, cities sacked in orgies of violence where soldiers raped and pillaged, leaving trails of gore and orphans. Decades of slaughter weakened the Holy Empire, birthing new acceptance of religions and sovereign states, and the Peace of Westphalia, non-interference in internal affairs, ending large-scale religious wars.
But for Elias, agony transcended death.
In the void between lives, memories flooded him like a river of knives. Isolde's smile, like spring dawn breaking over the steppe. Her laughter echoing in hidden meadows, a sound that had thawed the ice around his heart. Her voice, a soothing balm that made seven lifetimes of loss feel bearable. The warmth of her hand in his, souls entwining without flesh's claim. The what-ifs tore him apart; if he had broken his vow just once… if he had taken her into his arms that sunset evening, felt her body against his… they might have fled together, built a quiet life far from courts and stakes, laughter filling a simple home while little ones with her falcon eyes and his stubborn chin played at their feet. Instead, his stubborn purity had left her to die alone, terrified, violated by rumor, noose biting into her throat while he watched helplessly.
Helplessness drowned him. Even as a prince, he could not shield her from the Empire's zeal. Why persist in this vow when it yielded only loss? Why cling to principles that turned every love into a grave?
The soul of the Pure One slipped free once more, still untainted, still virgin.
Yet the Wheel of Samsara turned with merciless finality, dragging him toward the ninth and final life as faint, knowing laughter drifted down from the Peak of Eternal Desires. Lustarion's seed of doubt had bloomed into a poison flower.
The game had reached its cruelest, most decisive phase.
And the ninth turn begins.
Will he finally shatter his stupid vow and principles… or cling to them and ascend as the new God of Pure Love?
Only the heavens, and the watching immortals, would decide.