Kael Arctyros woke up to the sound of breathing.
Not his own.
For a moment, his mind refused to accept it. The world should have been silent. It always was at the end. No wind, no insects, no heartbeat but his own echoing in a dead sky.
Yet here it was—soft, rhythmic, human.
His eyes snapped open.
White ceiling. Wooden beams. Sunlight spilling through thin curtains, warm against his face.
Alive.
Kael didn't move. He didn't sit up. He didn't even blink.
He stared.
The bed beneath him was familiar. Too familiar. The mattress dipped slightly on the right, just like it used to. The scent in the room—linen and old paper—hit him next, dragging a memory from somewhere he had buried on purpose.
The Academy dormitory.
His chest tightened.
> [Regression Successful]
A translucent blue message bloomed into existence above the foot of the bed.
> [Welcome back, Player]
[Timeline: 7 — Reset Complete]
More messages followed, stacking neatly in the air.
> [Your potential has been recalibrated]
[Hidden talents unlocked]
[Divine Blessing Pending]
Kael finally moved.
He sat up slowly and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The wooden floor was cold beneath his bare feet. Real. Solid. Annoyingly real.
He looked down at his hands.
Young hands. No scars. No burns. No missing fingers. His skin was smooth, unbroken by the hundreds of battles it had once endured.
He flexed his fingers once.
Then laughed.
It came out quiet. Dry. Almost hoarse, like he hadn't used his voice in a long time.
"Again," he murmured.
Outside, bells rang.
The Academy bells.
Bright, cheerful, oblivious.
Kael closed his eyes and breathed in slowly.
Seventh reset.
Six times before, the world had ended the same way. Monsters pouring out of the Rift. Kingdoms collapsing. Heroes rising and dying in the wrong order. Gods watching from above, adjusting variables like bored players balancing a game.
Each time, when humanity failed, the gods reset everything.
Each time, Kael had gone back.
Each time, he had tried something different.
Save a city earlier. Kill a future tyrant. Trust someone new. Abandon someone old.
Each time, it still ended.
On the seventh failure, Kael had made a different choice.
He refused to go back.
He remembered the moment clearly.
The sky had cracked like glass, divine light pouring down to erase what remained. Everyone else vanished in an instant—pulled backward through time like puppets on strings.
Kael stayed.
The light touched him… and passed through.
Confused.
Unable to execute its command.
He had stood alone in a frozen world and laughed until his throat bled.
And then he killed a god.
Kael opened his eyes.
The system messages were still hovering in front of him.
He stared straight through them.
They didn't react.
Didn't flicker.
Didn't acknowledge his gaze.
Slowly, deliberately, Kael raised his hand and waved it through the messages.
Nothing happened.
No confirmation. No error notice. No response.
His smile widened just a little.
"So you still don't see me," he whispered.
A knock sounded at the door.
Kael froze.
The knock came again—sharp, impatient.
"Kael! Are you awake?" a familiar voice called. "The orientation ceremony starts in ten minutes!"
His heart skipped.
That voice.
He hadn't heard it in centuries.
Kael stood up and crossed the room in three long steps. He opened the door.
A boy stood in the hallway, brown-haired, broad-shouldered, wearing the Academy's gray uniform slightly crooked. He looked exactly as Kael remembered—alive, loud, and annoyingly energetic.
Markus Vale.
Still breathing.
Still smiling.
Still unaware of how many times he had already died.
"You look like shit," Markus said bluntly, then grinned. "Nervous?"
Kael stared at him.
Markus shifted. "Uh… you okay?"
For a split second, Kael almost said his name wrong. Almost called him by the title he would earn in the third reset. Almost warned him about the blade through his spine that would kill him in the fifth.
He swallowed.
"I'm fine," Kael said.
His voice sounded strange to his own ears. Younger. Lighter. Untouched by centuries of grief.
Markus raised an eyebrow. "That's new. You're usually panicking by now."
Kael stepped past him into the hallway.
Students streamed through the corridors, laughing, talking, comparing system screens floating in front of their faces. Some looked excited. Some looked terrified. Some pretended not to care.
All of them glowing faintly with divine recognition.
Chosen.
Kael wasn't.
As he walked, system messages flickered around him—other people's notifications overlapping his vision.
> [Class Candidate: Warrior]
[Class Candidate: Mage]
[Rare Talent Detected]
None of them addressed him.
Not a single message bore his name.
Markus jogged beside him. "Hey, did your system glitch? You've been weird since you woke up."
Kael glanced sideways.
"Something like that."
They descended the stone steps and emerged into the Academy courtyard.
It was exactly the same.
White spires rising toward the sky. Floating runes circling the central obelisk. Professors standing in neat lines at the front, faces carefully neutral as they evaluated the next generation of pawns.
And at the center—
Her.
Eryndra Vale stood near the fountain, pale hair catching the morning light like silver thread. She wore the standard uniform, but it didn't quite hide the quiet grace in the way she held herself.
Her eyes lifted.
They met Kael's.
She frowned.
Just slightly.
Not recognition.
Not memory.
But something close enough to hurt.
Kael looked away first.
Good. She didn't remember him. Not yet. She didn't remember dying in his arms at the edge of a broken world, whispering apologies for things neither of them had done wrong.
This was better.
Safer.
A booming voice echoed across the courtyard.
"Welcome, candidates!"
The Headmaster stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back, smiling like a benevolent god.
"You stand at the beginning of a new era. Today, you will receive your classes, your paths, and your blessings."
Cheers erupted.
Kael stood still.
The Headmaster raised a hand, and the obelisk flared with light.
"Let the system begin evaluation!"
Divine energy surged outward.
Students gasped as symbols appeared above their heads—swords, tomes, sigils, crowns.
Power chose its favorites.
The wave of light washed over Kael.
Passed through him.
And kept going.
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
"What—?"
"Did you see that?"
"Why didn't it—?"
The Headmaster's smile faltered for the first time.
Kael felt it then.
A pressure.
Not from the system.
From above.
Something had noticed.
Far beyond the sky, beyond the false heaven the gods called their realm, attention shifted.
Kael lifted his gaze.
He smiled—not wide, not cruel, just tired and certain.
"Found me," he thought.
Somewhere very far away, a god hesitated.
And for the first time since the resets began—
The game didn't respond the way it was supposed to.