It came without warning.
Just as a semblance of control began to settle over the fragile body, a spike of pure agony lanced through his head. It wasn't a clean pain. It was a chaotic invasion, a psychic schism, as if another soul's entire lifetime was being hammered into his consciousness.
Memories—not his own—crashed against the fortress of his mind. He felt them with a terrifying, intimate clarity. The warmth of a mother's hug, a sensation so alien it almost burned. The sound of a father's booming laugh. The pure, simple joy of a small boy who had believed the world to be a safe and wonderful place.
Then, the warmth shattered into shards of ice.
Terror. Cold and absolute. Shouting in a dusty town square. The glint of cheap steel under a pitiless sun. The bright splash of blood. He saw the faces in the crowd—merchants, neighbors, people who had shared smiles and tea—and he saw them, one by one, turn their backs.
When the storm in his head finally subsided, the alley seemed quieter, darker. The child's raw emotions, the rage and sorrow, were a faint echo that he instinctively snuffed out. Such feelings were useless.
"So, the kid's name was Li Xuan," he muttered, the name feeling strange on a tongue that was not yet his.
The analysis was swift. The story was simple, pathetic, and infuriatingly common. A happy family of merchants. A father who provoked the wrong person. A public execution. And a town full of cowards who stood by and let it happen.
'This is the world I've been thrown into. This is humanity,' he thought, an ancient and familiar contempt rising within him. To get angry at them for their nature would be like getting angry at a rock for being heavy. You don't get angry. You simply acknowledge the fact and act accordingly.
Still… a debt had been incurred. A transaction had taken place. He had taken this body, and there was a price for that. Call it rent.
He spoke the words aloud to the silent, grimy walls, his voice a quiet rasp that held more weight than a king's decree. "I will kill them," Li Xuan vowed. "Every last one of the bastards who held the swords. And if by some chance they are already dead, I will get strong enough to drag their souls back from whatever hell they're in, give them flesh again, and then kill them so horribly they'll wish they were never born."
The air grew cold, as if the world itself felt the weight of the promise. It was not a vow made in anger, but a contract being signed.
'That is my promise to you, Li Xuan,' he thought, speaking to the memory of the boy. 'Now rest in peace. Your debt is paid.'
With the oath settled, a grim purpose took hold. The being known as Atrex was a memory. In this world, he was Li Xuan.
Fueled by this new resolve, he commanded the body to rise.
It barely twitched. This shell, this prison of flesh, remained limp on the ground. The sheer disconnect between his absolute will and the body's pathetic inability to obey was a fucking insult.
'Alright, enough of this,' he thought, the frustration a sharp spike in his mind. 'Time to see what kind of junk I'm really working with.'
With a grunt that took more effort than it should have, he forced the frail limbs to fold into a sitting position. His divine powers were gone, but his knowledge, his very consciousness, was absolute. A quick look inside a mortal body was nothing.
He closed the blurry eyes and plunged his awareness inward.
It was worse than he'd thought.
'Gods above, this kid's guts are a sewer,' was his first, unfiltered thought. The channels in the body, the meridians, were choked with black, sticky filth. His organs were swimming with germs and rot from a diet of garbage and gutter water. It was a miracle the body hadn't just dissolved from the inside out weeks ago. The boy's will to live must have been monstrous.
Beneath the filth, there was just emptiness. Withered muscles, brittle bones. The body hadn't just starved; it had consumed itself.
A cold, hard reality slammed into him.
'Forget the blurry eyes. That's a luxury problem right now.'
This entire body wasn't just weak; it was actively shutting down, a house already in the process of collapsing.
The thought was a shard of ice in his mind. 'If I don't fix this mess, and fix it now, I'll be dead again in less than a week.'