The world wasn't just burning; it was falling apart.
Emperor Ryo's grand palace was burning. The beautiful silk curtains were now torn and burning. Even the throne was wrapped in flames, like a king crowned with fire.
The dead bodies of traitors killed by Ryo himself lay on the ground burning, their shapes fading away.
A man sat on the steps to the throne.
His black hair stuck to his face with blood and sweat. His tired eyes stared at the burning bodies. They held a cold, steady focus.
His bloodied sword leaned against his knee, the only thing keeping his broken body upright.
His body is falling apart. Cuts bled freely across his chest, but the pain was nothing compared to the poison. It spread through his veins, locking his muscles.
He gave a small, bitter smile.
Poison—the coward's weapon, slipped into his wine by someone he trusted like family.
His gaze stayed on his guards, their armor marked with his symbol, now burning in the flames.
His army. Men who swore their lives to Emperor Ryo.
A broken sound slipped from his lips. "I believed in them."
As a young third prince, he didn't have much support. Back then, he made a promise: he would rule by fear, by loyalty. His empire was built on that.
With a heavy effort, he raised his head. The hall was now filled with new soldiers, their shiny armor glowing.
"I believed in you."
A slow smile spread across Ryo's lips. "And yet, you chose betrayal."
"My friend Lucas."
His burning eyes found the man standing apart... Lucas. For a moment, Ryo saw not the betrayer but the young man who had shared his meager rations during the siege of Kal-Vith.
The friend who had stood back-to-back with him in battles.
"Why? Was the dream we built not enough? Was the peace we won through the blood of corrupt lords a sin to you?"
Lucas met his gaze, his face not pitying but mocking Ryo.
"The dream was always yours, my friend. You established peace, but you built it on fear. You call the nobles corrupt, and they were. But instead, you made a throne that answers to no one—not tradition, not the people, only you."
He stepped forward.
"The people don't want a savior who rules with fire. They want a king who serves, not a tyrant who destroys."
"You believe this chaos is service?" Ryo's voice turned cold. "You think giving power back to the jackals I took this land from is mercy?"
Then he stood up.
The seasoned soldiers who witnessed countless battles have faltered. They stepped back in raw fear.
Of course. This was Ryo. The strongest man alive, a master of weapons and magic.
"I was harsh to the nobles because their greed was poison," Ryo said. "I burned out the rot so something strong could grow. I thought strength could save this land." His fiery eyes locked on Lucas.
"But you... you were the crack in my plan. I watched for enemies in the shadows but missed the traitor by my side. You taught me the last lesson, Lucas. There's no loyalty, only power. And mine is absolute."
Lucas didn't waver. He was calm, a cool wave against Ryo's blazing fury.
"You misunderstand, as always," he said.
"This wasn't about loyalty. It was about legacy. Your strength is a fire that burns everything, leaving only ash. The greedy nobles you so despised offered me the unthinkable. The throne. This entire empire, in exchange for the tyrant's head."
He turned around and walked toward the grand doorway.
"Finish it," he ordered.
The air shattered with the battle cries of his soldiers charging at God. Lucas heard it all from the corridor. The sharp ring of steel, the gurgled cries, the wet thuds of bodies falling.
It was over in seconds.
A slow, victorious smile started on Lucas's face. It was done. The—
Then something flew past him, a blur of flesh and metal that smashed into the corridor wall. Blood sprayed the side of Lucas's face.
He turned around immediately and his eyes widened with pure fear.
The soldier wasn't just dead. They're a mess of broken armor and crushed bones.
In the center of the hall stood the one who caused it.
Ryo held the last of Lucas's men by the throat, the soldier's legs twitching in struggle. But Ryo's burning eyes weren't on the dying man; they were on Lucas.
Lucas's sharp and calculating mind fell apart. The poison was meant to kill any human in seconds. But Ryo's srill standing, like refusing to die.
Ryo slid his sword across the soldier's throat and let the body fall like a sack of meat hitting the ground.
Then he pointed his wet blade straight at Lucas's betrayal.
"Now," Ryo rasped. "The stage is clear. No audience but you and me only."
A shiver ran through Lucas's spine, a fear he hadn't felt since he was a boy. He's a corpse that hasn't fallen!
With a roar of fear and defiance, Lucas drew his elegant sword that was a gift from Ryo long ago, and he charged.
Ryo's movements were once perfect, deadly. But they're slow now, dulled by the poison.
For the first time, they were equals.
Lucas was a storm, pushing the Tyrant back, blocking blows that would've crushed him hours before. He spotted his chance—a stumble, a deadness in Ryo's left leg.
Lucas lunged, putting all his weight into the strike.
His blade sank into Ryo's chest, and triumph surged through him. It was over. He had won.
But as the thought formed, Ryo's left hand shot out fast and grabbed Lucas's hand. Blood poured from his mouth, but he didn't flinch.
With terrifying strength, he pulled Lucas close, face-to-face.
"I had contingencies for every viper in the court," Ryo choked, his breath hot and bloody against Lucas's face.
"I had plans for betrayal from my wives, my generals, my own blood... but you. I left my back unguarded for one man. And you planted the flag there."
Lucas fought, but it was like pushing a mountain. He was trapped, forced to face the fading light in the eyes of the only man he'd called brother.
"You think the jackals who bought you will rule?" Ryo's grin was bloody and twisted.
"You didn't make this country safe, Lucas. You broke the only lion who could protect it from the greedy jackals. You were my masterpiece... and my greatest folly."
In one brutal motion, Ryo swung his sword up. Lucas saw the deep, endless disappointment in those red eyes before his world went black.
Ryo stood a moment longer, Lucas's severed head dangling from his grip.
Then, his strength gone, his legs gave out.
He fell to his knees, then to his side, the fires of his reign closing around him like a cloak, his friend's face the last thing his dying eyes saw.
♢♢♢♢♢♢♢♢
Darkness. An endless void is only thing Ryo could see. He's floating in the nothingness, his consciousness adrift.
Is this the afterlife? he wondered.
Then, a sharp, strange light came into existence.
[ALERT.]
[SOUL TRANSFER COMPLETE.]
Cold blue symbols appeared in his mind.
Magic?
Before he could think, pain hit him.
It was not the noble, burning agony of a battlefield wound, but a sharp, vicious pain. His body felt like it had been systematically dismantled. Cuts, gashes, bruises. Each one screamed for attention.
He was frozen, trapped in a strange broken shell, his eyelids too heavy to open.
Then, memories came that were not his own.
Rough faces of cruel men in odd, coarse clothes. The cold sting of a pipe against his ribs. The small, careless cruelty of men who loved their work.
This body's last, terrified thought was a blade's icy touch at its throat.
The memory turned real. A burning pain slashed across his neck. He choked on his own blood, lungs begging for air that wouldn't come.
The panic wasn't his, yet he felt it.
[ALERT.]
[CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED: THROAT LACERATION.]
[INITIATING HEALING PROTOCOL…]
As it spoke, a strange miracle happened.
The horrible gash in his throat stitched itself, flesh and muscle knitting together under an unseen force.
A rough, desperate gasp escaped him, a new voice. Air filled his lungs.
His senses returned. The rough, oily concrete against his cheek. The sharp, metallic smell of his blood pooling beneath him.
[ALERT.]
[MULTIPLE LACERATIONS DETECTED.]
[INITIATING FULL BODY RECONSTRUCTION...]
The pain reversed with precise, mechanical care. His fingers, where nails had been ripped out, burned as they regrew.
His broken ribs grated and fused. Each healing brought a flash of someone else's pain like a stab in his side, a deep cut across his chest.
Finally, a memory of a loud crack and a burning hit in his gut. The face of their leader—he's wearing strange black glasses.
The physical pain faded, leaving only deep exhaustion. He was empty, too weak to move a finger.
[ALERT.]
[ENERGY LEVELS CRITICAL.]
[RELEASING EMERGENCY ADRENALINE SURGE...]
[HOST CAN USE ALL HIS PREVIOUS SKILLS FOR TEN MINUTES.]
Energy surged like lightning through dead wires.
His heart pounded like a drum. Muscles tightened like steel. Ryo's eyes snapped open. He didn't just move; he shot upright, a half-snarl ripping from his throat.
Grrr, grrr. A sound coming from behind.
His gaze fell to his hands. They were covered in drying blood, but they're slender, unscarred, the soft hands of a youth, not the rough hands of an emperor.
He was in a tight, dark space with dust and rot. Through a thin crack of light under a door, he sensed them. Someone out there.
Grrr, grrr. The sound again.
He looked beside him and found a smooth, black rectangle glowing on the floor with words on its surface: "Boss Calling."
A green icon, a red icon.
This body's instincts named it: a phone. A tool to communicate.
His hand, moving with his old grace, grabbed the device. Its cold, smooth surface felt strange.
He pressed the green icon like his body already knew.