They say in this world, every soul is reborn—again and again.
Memories of past lives return like seasonal winds. Some awaken remembering battles from a thousand years ago. Others recall spells lost to time, ancient romances, or even the moment they died in a life long forgotten.
The past doesn't just live here—it rules.
Your worth is measured by what came before.
By who you were.
And me?
I was born empty.
No memories.
No talents.
Just a cursed mark on my wrist—faint and flickering like a dying ember. The symbol of reincarnation... and failure.
The others woke screaming.
Their eyes glowed with soul-light as lifetimes surged into them—visions of empires, wars, gods.
Me? I woke to silence.
They called me The Blank.
In the hallowed halls of the Celestial Accord Academy, where children quoted their past-life glories like sacred texts, I was a living insult. A mistake. A ghost in a world built on legend.
A world that worshipped legacy—
—and had no place for someone like me.
But still…
I dreamed.
Every year, on the Day of Awakening, I stood at the edge of the crowd just to catch a glimpse of him.
Vael'tharion, the Eternal Flame.
The man who remembered nine past lives.
A legend reborn, again and again.
Storms parted at his presence.
His voice could mend shattered bones.
Even the air bent around him, afraid to touch a soul so saturated with power.
I watched the way his crimson cloak flowed like molten fire.
The calm in his eyes—like he had lived a thousand wars and learned patience from every one of them.
I studied him. Memorized him.
Because I wanted to be like him.
Worthy.
Strong.
Unbroken.
But I was none of those things.
My family's mansion in Capital Sector 3 was a tower of polished marble and quiet envy.
Chandeliers spilled golden light onto obsidian floors. Servants cleaned surfaces they dared not look at.
They never met my eyes.
No one did.
We had wealth—absurd, generational wealth.
But in this world, wealth meant nothing.
Not when my skin—dark as the void between stars—made nobles clutch their pearls.
Not when my tutors mysteriously "forgot" our lessons.
Not when I wasn't just The Blank—but the shame of the Arcanis bloodline.
"Such a shame," they would whisper.
Their gazes scuttled over me like roaches avoiding light.
"The Arcanis bloodline... diluted by—well. You know."
My parents smiled in public, but it grew thinner each year.
The invitations stopped.
The letters stopped.
I ate alone in a dining hall that could seat fifty.
And yet, I still dreamed.
One day.
It came wrapped in black-edged parchment, its surface crackling faintly with static, and the smell—
Ozone. And false promises.
"Special Awakening Trial for Late Bloomers."
That's what the letter said.
I should've known it was a trap.
The coliseum was a crumbling jaw of stone, hidden beneath the glittering skin of the capital.
The kind of place that shouldn't exist—but always did.
The audience wore silver masks. Their laughter echoed like blades.
And around my wrists—mana-cuffs, pulsing with suppression runes.
"Let's see if the Blank can bleed memories!"
Fists.
Lightning.
A rib cracked like porcelain.
I curled into the pain, blood choking my throat—
—and then the world fractured.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: SOUL SYNCHRONIZATION AT 12%]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: SOUL SYNCHRONIZATION AT 67%]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: SOUL SYNCHRONIZATION AT 99%]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: SOUL SYNCHRONIZATION AT 100%]
A voice—ancient, weightless, infinite—unspooled itself in my mind:
PAST LIFE MATCHED: [Rimuru Tempest – Chaos Incarnate]
AUTHORITY LEVEL: ABSOLUTE
My blood reversed course.
My skin stitched itself together—threaded with glowing veins of sapphire light.
My hair darkened, then burst into flowing strands of liquid blue, pouring down past my waist.
The mark on my wrist burned—black now. Absolute.
I had Awakened.
The crowd's jeers—
—turned to whimpers.
Then came a sound that wasn't a sound.
Like the universe tearing at the seams.
Air didn't explode. It vanished.
Reality peeled back like rotting skin, and from the bleeding darkness—
He descended.
Diablo.
His obsidian wings didn't stir the air.
His flames didn't crackle.
Even his footsteps made no sound as they touched the blood-slicked sand.
And yet—his presence crushed the world flat.
His crimson eyes found me.
And in that instant, the Primordial Demon, the being who laughed as empires crumbled, trembled.
Not in rage.
But in terror.
"My master…"
His voice cracked like a blade shattering mid-swing.
"Master… this isn't how it should be."
I tried to lift a hand.
Fingers dissolved into blue-black mist.
Edges frayed.
Like my very soul was breaking apart.
Diablo saw it.
He understood.
The System had Awakened me wrong. Too much power. Too fast. Too broken.
And for the first time in eternity—
Diablo looked afraid.
Not for himself.
He dropped to his knees.
Tears of liquid shadow slipped down his face, hissing where they touched stone—
eroding it.
"Do not vanish," he whispered.
"Please."
The word hung in the air—
—then snapped.
Diablo rose.
No roar.
No threat.
No vow of vengeance.
Just... silence.
Then—
The first noble didn't scream.
He didn't even fall.
He simply ceased.
Not died—ceased.
His body unraveled, particles scattering like sand caught in a sudden, divine wind.
The next tried to scream.
She reached for her throat—
—but her fingers passed through it.
Her form came undone mid-breath.
The walls weren't shattered.
They were... forgotten.
Their atoms gave up trying to hold form and sighed out of existence.
Blood froze in mid-air—crimson droplets suspended like dying stars.
Diablo did not raise a hand.
Did not speak.
He simply allowed the universe to correct itself.
And in that correction—
They were erased.
When it was over, the coliseum wasn't broken.
It was simply...
Empty.
A perfect circle of nothing.
The floor, polished smooth as glass by the force of Diablo's will, gleamed under the dim, guttering light of his flames.
Silence.
But the silence after such slaughter wasn't peaceful.
It wasn't still.
It was alive.
A breathing, pulsing thing.
Thick with the absence of screams.
I stared at my hands.
The skin was whole again—but wrong.
Too smooth. Too blue.
Like a doll made in the shape of a god.
A sound bubbled up from my throat—not a laugh, not a sob.
Just air escaping from a corpse.
And then...
I walked.
No destination. No purpose.
Just one foot in front of the other.
My bare feet left faint indentations in the glass-smooth crater Diablo had made of the coliseum floor.
Behind me, fabric rustled.
Diablo bent.
Not in a bow—
But like a tree in a storm, his entire body curving to follow my every step.
He did not speak.
He did not dare.
His shadow stretched long before me, a black carpet unfurling in my path, as if even the darkness itself knew to make way.
I didn't look back.
But I knew he followed.