'Farewell Ragna….'
These were the last words he heard before the air left his lungs, and the first words that reverberated in his head after waking up.
'Huh, where am I?'
A single thought surfaced in his mind, as he tried to move what would have been his limbs, but failed as there was no sensation to it.
'But I have fulfilled my duty to the emperor?'
'Shouldn't death be my rest?'
A few more thoughts came to him, as he tried to again to move and understand where he was, however, the only thing he could feel were the eerie silence and the sensation of being unable to move his limbs.
'Is this what death feels like? Seems that even death couldn't give me rest. Well, at least I was able to fulfill my duty to the end.'
These were the thoughts in his head, making his confounded mind settle a bit. At the same time, a warm feeling from the environment kept his body cozy as if telling him he had truly achieved death.
'At least with this, I am finally free from my duty and from the blood and agony I had caused. Maybe death isn't so bad, I should be able to live without regret.'
He thought to himself, as he rested in this space thought to be the afterlife, and as the memories of his previous life surfaced in his mind. Ragna, this was his name, the name of the strongest blood knight of the chapel.
As a blood knight, he lived a fierce and cruel life, and after fulfilling everything in life to preserve the emperor and the continent, he peacefully accepted his death. He couldn't help but consider what would have happened if he had fought back.
'The chapel would not make much trouble for me, since I had sworn my oath and given them my keepsake in case I became an abomination. But the royal family surely would have been against it. No one who has seen the terror of an abomination does not fear the thought of a blood knight losing themselves, maybe I would have become one too.'
As he thought about these things, he remembered the carnage blood knight had unleashed on the continent when they lost themselves and became abominations.
He remembered the dreadful expressions, and the amount of blood that flowed, and he found their life he had taken to be pitiful, a life where their sole duty was anything else but fighting and this made them isolated.
Such life was filled with constant questions, regret and doubts, as everyone only feared the day these blood knights would become abominations.
'I guess a big part of why some of us turned into an abomination was because we were no longer seen as human, even though we looked like one. After all, we had powers unimaginable to the ordinary. Nothing good would have come out with us trying to live amongst normal humans.'
'Well, it was not like we could change what had happened to us or that we wanted to live that way, there weren't many options to preserve the human race while keeping it at peace.'
The first time he had died, and then woke up was when he realized that something was not entirely right with him. He could see himself growing powerful every day. Yet, just like a vampire he could not age and had an unimaginable physique.
As for his human self, he saw it fade away and be forced in order to accommodate his new self.
'We were no different than those blood suckers in the eyes of ordinary men.'
Time gradually passed as he reminisced on his past, while not noticing that the place was becoming even more silent and quiet.
'In the end we were tools meant to be used and disposed of. What a pitiful way of living, with a guise of being protectors of humanity, while you live solely to fight and obey rules. I wonder if death would grant me and my fallen brothers true peace and freedom.'
He spent an unknown amount of time, as he would think to himself from time to time. In this way, time passed indefinitely.
'Maybe I should try to explore this place, if maybe there's something else that awaits me in this endless darkness.'
With time moving indefinitely, so was the darkness surrounding him; the only thing unaffected was the warm feeling that surrounded him. And then after a while, the world of darkness seemed to be gradually enveloped in light.