Ashen
I've died seven times.
No — eight, if you count what's about to happen.
I stand in a throne room built of bone and light. Its walls twist like living marble, engraved with the names of the fallen. Elira. Kain. Voss. Names I used to whisper in dreams. Names now crossed out in crimson fire. I'm the last one left, and even that was a lie I told myself to sleep better.
Across from me, the other finalist grins.
He looks like a boy. Fragile limbs. Empty eyes. Skin too smooth, like a doll that forgot to rot. But that thing inside him — he — he's not a child. We both remember. Or at least, we did… until the Game started erasing us.
"Any last words, Ashen?" he asks, drawing a blade from the air. It hums with Judgment — the kind that doesn't need gods anymore.
I taste iron in my mouth. That's fine. Pain reminds me I still exist.
My hand twitches, bloodied and broken. I can't win. Not like this. The rules are clear.
Two remain. One must die.
The victor claims eternity. The loser… nothing.
A fair game, if you believe gods understand fairness.
But I never believed that.
The Game chose me a hundred years ago — no, a thousand? Time frays at the edges in this place. One moment I was a boy stealing bread. The next, a voice spoke from the sky, and I was falling into a pit of stars.
"You have been chosen."
I remember the shock of it, the dozens of others summoned alongside me — killers, kings, slaves, monks, magicians. Ninety-nine participants. Ninety-nine deaths.
Every match, a twisted world of divine design. Some had magic. Others were cold machines. Sometimes I died quickly. Sometimes I killed faster. But in the end, only two of us made it here.
Me. And him.
He calls himself Vale. But I've seen what lies behind that name.
I step back. My body won't hold. My core is cracked, mana leaking like smoke. One more hit and I'll be scattered into the void. I can feel the game watching, hungry for an ending.
And that's when I whisper it.
"Samsara… awaken."
A curse. A sin. A final move.
The air splits.
Vale freezes, his blade mid-swing. "What did you say?"
I smile, though blood pours down my chin. "I refuse your ending."
Around me, the throne room fractures. A lotus blooms in the void, made of dying stars. The Nine Rings of Samsara — the forbidden reincarnation — shatter from my soul.
"No—" Vale steps back. "You can't. That curse was banned by the Architects—!"
"I don't care what the gods ban."
"Nine Samsara. Death is not the end.
Bind my soul to the cycle of worlds.
Let me kill across eternity."
The curse devours me.
I see fire. Oceans. Cities built on clouds. Dragons sleeping beneath data. A thousand versions of me screaming into silence.
My body dies — but my soul? My soul jumps.
System Message:
You have triggered the Nine Samsara Curse.
You are now bound to Nine Reincarnations.
Objective: Find and eliminate the Final Opponent (Vale) in each world.
Failure in any world results in permanent soul erasure.
Memories will fragment. Identities will shift.
Samsara World 1 loading...
Ashen — or whoever I am now
I awaken to snow.
It bites at my skin, but I do not shiver. My body is new. Stronger. Taller. Different.
I reach for a name.
Ashen.
Yes. That's… me.
Sort of.
A whisper in my head says I'm seventeen. A hunter's son. Living in a cursed village at the edge of the Blackwood.
But something scratches at the back of my mind. A mirror that won't reflect. Who am I really?
I stagger to my feet.
A status screen flickers across my vision.
[Samsara Interface]
Host: Ashen Valtor
Cycle: 1 / 9
World Type: High Fantasy (Mana Resonance)
Memory Integrity: 42%
Skill Bonus: Soulbound Slayer (Detects Vale's Aura)
Penalty: Memory Bleed (Occasional Identity Loss)
So it's begun.
I look around. The forest is quiet. Wrongly quiet. I catch a flicker of movement. A boy — or man? — watching me from behind the trees. His aura twists.
My heart spikes.
Vale?
Maybe. Maybe not. But I know this: I have to kill him before he remembers me.
The Death Game of Eternal Reincarnation was never fair.
Even in the final match, I was weaker. But this curse — this suicide of a spell — gave me one last path. Nine worlds. Nine chances. If I fail even once, I die for real. No respawns. No retries.
But if I succeed… if I kill Vale in every world… I can break the cycle.
Not just for me. For everyone.
Because the truth is, the Game was never about victory.
It was about who was willing to defy the gods' rules.
And I'm done playing fair.
Notes for You (Author/Editor):Sup, this is the project I'm working on, so yeah, I hope I can be consistent and at least write 100 chapters.