CHAPTER 1 — The Boy Who Outran Fate
Leon Ashcroft was always the kind of student teachers whispered about.
Not for troublemaking.
Not for scoring perfect marks.
But for the way he saw things.
A single glance at a puzzle, and he'd solve it.
A single look at a person, and he'd read them like a book.
People called him a genius—
Leon called it survival.
Because his life wasn't easy.
He grew up alone with asthma strong enough to send him to the hospital every other year.
His inhaler was always in his pocket—
his "second pair of lungs," as he called it.
School was his safe zone.
Home was not.
His father left long ago.
His mother worked night after night.
And Leon… kept himself alive using a mixture of intelligence and instinct.
Still, he smiled.
Still, he moved forward.
Still, he believed that one day things would change.
---
The Day Everything Ended
It should've been an ordinary evening.
Leon walked home from the library, headphones on, listening to his favorite playlist.
The streetlights flickered, throwing pale light across the empty road.
He pressed a button on his inhaler—
pfft
A long breath.
Relief.
He didn't notice the truck speeding down the crossroad.
Not until the headlights blasted across him like a second sun.
His brain reacted faster than his body.
Jump left?
Dive right?
Can I survive this angle? No—
MOVE NOW.
But even his god-tier IQ couldn't beat physics.
The brakes screamed.
The world tilted.
But the impact never came.
Instead—
The sky cracked.
A tear ripped across the air like someone had drawn a glowing wound through reality.
Wind surged.
Light swallowed Leon whole—
And suddenly…
---
The Next Breath
His eyes snapped open.
The ground beneath him wasn't asphalt—
it was blood-soaked dirt.
The sky wasn't calm—
it was burning red.
Screams.
War cries.
Explosions.
Humans and demons clashed around him in a massive battlefield.
Leon, a human boy with only an inhaler and a fast brain, had spawned exactly in the one place no one should:
Between Hell and Heaven.
In the middle of a war.
He ducked instinctively as a demon's blade slashed past him.
He rolled.
Ran.
Dodged.
Not because he was strong—
but because he was terrified.
His chest tightened.
His lungs burned.
He pulled out his inhaler with shaking hands—
pfft
One dose.
Relief… for now.
Then—
his headphones crackled.
The playlist glitched.
Static.
And the song that played right before his death began playing again.
The cursed line slid into his ears:
"Your time is up…"
Leon froze.
No. Not here. Not now. Not AGAIN—
BOOOOOM.
A massive explosion erupted nearby, sending shockwaves across the battlefield.
Leon dove behind a fallen chunk of stone—
his only cover.
Dust settled.
His heart pounded.
And for the first time…
Leon realized—
He wasn't dead.
He had been reborn into a war he didn't understand.
He stared at the inhaler in his hands.
One full can.
His lifeline.
But how long would that last in hell?
---