"Time. Rewind."
The words escaped Rynan's lips like a prayer to forces beyond mortal comprehension.
"Is the motion sickness finally kicking in, son?"
―Ah, there it is again.
It was a familiar phrase, one that had echoed through his consciousness like a broken record. Rynan had heard it before—no, he had lived it before. Time had been rewound at his command, the very fabric of reality bending to his desperate will. The sensation was rather similar to plunging his head beneath icy water, only to surface gasping in a world that had reset itself.
And it was at this precise moment that Rynan realized something had fundamentally changed within him. This time, he would finally cross that line he had never dared approach in his previous life.
This time, he would kill.
Rynan stood up slowly, his movements deliberate as he gazed up at the plain wagon-bonnet overhead. The familiar sight should have brought comfort, but instead it filled him with grim determination. His internal clock had started ticking—one minute. That's all the time he had before the transformation would consume him entirely.
"R-Rynan..." Forle's voice carried a tremor of confusion as he watched his son—no, was this still his son?—undergo something that defied all logic.
―Holy shit, it's happening again.
This appearance, this transformation, Rynan had experienced it once before in fleeting glimpses through fragmented memories. His eyes blazed like twin suns had taken residence in his skull, and within those golden orbs, the silhouette of a dragon danced across his irises with serpentine grace. His hair, once the unremarkable black of childhood, now shimmered with a vivid, almost ethereal yellow that seemed to capture and reflect light that wasn't there.
The most striking change, however, was the mark that had manifested on his hands—a blue dragon, its long, serpentine body wrapping around his arms like living tattoos that pulsed with otherworldly energy.
"D-dad..." The word left Rynan's lips, but it wasn't the voice Forle remembered. Gone was the childish timbre he had grown accustomed to, replaced instead by something unnaturally calm and peaceful—a voice that carried the weight of someone who had seen too much, lived too long, and lost too many times.
"This time... I will save you all."
―Even if it means becoming a monster myself.
"Ryn, what are you saying—" Forle's words died in his throat as his son simply vanished, leaving behind only the faint scent of ozone and the lingering impression of golden light.
"STOP THE WAGON!" Forle's voice cracked as panic seized him, his hands frantically searching the space where his son had been just moments before.
"W-What?" The coachman turned in his seat, startled by the sudden outburst, only to find Forle on his knees in the wagon bed, his face a mask of terror and confusion.
"PLEASE, STOP THE WAGON!" The desperation in Forle's voice was raw, primal—the cry of a father whose world had just shifted beneath his feet.
Without a moment's hesitation, the wagon lurched to a complete stop. The coachman scrambled down from his perch, his boots hitting the dirt road with urgent thuds as he rushed to check on his passenger.
"Darling... what's wro—" Linia had been roused by the commotion, her voice thick with sleep, but the words froze on her lips as she took in the scene before her. The space where their son should have been was empty, save for the lingering warmth that suggested he had been there mere seconds ago.
"W-where's Ryn?!" The question tore from Linia's throat as a scream of pure maternal horror, her hands reaching out desperately as if she could somehow pull her child back from wherever he had disappeared to.
―One minute. Fifty-nine seconds. Fifty-eight...
Somewhere in the distance, unseen by his frantic parents, Rynan moved through the world with purpose that burned in his transformed eyes. The countdown in his mind was relentless, and with each passing second, he felt more of his humanity slip away.
But this time, he would make it count.
_____𖤍_____
The figure was there, walking with casual indifference across the barren landscape. Just kilometers away from the wagon, close enough that Rynan could make out the distinctive silhouette that had been burned into his memory like a brand. The very same figure that had slaughtered his family in cold blood.
―Nine kilometers away from the wagon... he covered that distance in such little time in the past timeline... well, no point worrying about a man who's already dead.
The thought wasn't merely a consideration—it was a command, logic itself bending to accommodate his will as he fine-tuned reality to better suit this second chance at life.
"GAAGH—" The figure's cry of shock cut through the air before his head simply ceased to exist, exploding into a grotesque shower of tiny fragments. Chunks of brain matter scattered across the ground like macabre confetti, accompanied by the overwhelming stench of rot and decay that made the air itself seem to recoil.
"Tsk." Rynan clicked his tongue in genuine annoyance, the sound sharp and dismissive.
―What a mess. And here I thought this would be satisfying.
"I still have fifty-seven seconds, you know?" Rynan's voice carried the casual disappointment of someone whose entertainment had fallen short of expectations as he brought his foot down on the headless corpse with deliberate force, his expression twisted in disgust.
"I feel like this isn't the first time I've met thou."
―Hm? He's alive?
Rynan's golden eyes flicked downward, then snapped back up in mild surprise. The figure that had been nothing more than a mangled corpse beneath his boot was now standing upright once again, completely restored and seemingly unperturbed by his recent decapitation.
"I knew you wouldn't die that easily!" Rynan wiped imaginary dust from his clothing with theatrical flair, then graced the resurrected figure with a smile that was equal parts charming and absolutely terrifying.
―At least now this might actually be interesting.
"FOOLISH MORTAL! I AM A VESSEL OF THY LOR—" The grandiose declaration was cut brutally short as Rynan casually obliterated the figure's head once again, this time with even less ceremony than before.
―If you want to fight, then at least come at me without the dramatic monologue. Tsk. Amateur.
"I guess my time here is done." Rynan turned his back to the twice-lifeless body with the air of someone who had just finished an incredibly boring chore, his attention already wandering to more pressing matters.
"ARROGANT BASTARD!"
The voice that erupted from behind him carried a fury that seemed to make the very air vibrate with rage. Rather fitting for a mere slave of some petty deity, Rynan mused.
"Don't... you... DARE TOUCH ME, FILTHY RAT!" The words left Rynan's lips like venom as he spun around, his expression contorting into something genuinely revolting as he delivered a backhand that carried the force of divine wrath.
―How dare this insect lay hands on me.
"GWAUGH!" The figure was launched through the air at speeds that would make sound itself jealous, his body carving a destructive path through every single tree unfortunate enough to be in his trajectory. The forest became his unwilling accomplice in a symphony of splintering wood and anguished screams.
A thunderous crash echoed across the landscape as the figure's broken form finally came to rest against a massive boulder, the impact leaving a crater in the ancient stone.
"KAH!" Blood erupted from the figure's mouth as he clutched at his face, his earlier bravado replaced by very real, very human pain. "Alexus... DanFransci... He's far more powerful... than our intelligence suggested."
―Oh, so that's the name they're using for me in this world. How quaint.
"Xhan. Report the details immediately." A voice materialized directly in the figure's mind, the telepathic communication carrying an authority that made even Rynan pause with interest.
"M-my All-powerful Lord..." Xhan's response was pathetic, his voice weak and croaking like that of a dying frog gasping for its final breath. "This otherworlder... his power exceeds all our calculations..."
"Hmm?" A familiar voice spoke from Xhan's right side, casual and almost conversational.
"DANFRANSCI!" Terror seized Xhan as he whipped his head around, and there sat Rynan, somehow having materialized a portable chair from thin air. The sight was simultaneously absurd and absolutely menacing.
Rynan rested his chin on his right hand with studied arrogance, the gesture of someone who held all the cards and knew it. "So tell me, Xhan—who exactly are you having this little chat with?"
"FOOL! I WON'T ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS THAT EASILY...!" Despite the brave words, Xhan's body had already begun the humiliating process of trying to crawl away from his tormentor.
―WHAT...? W-WHY ARE MY LEGS MOVING ON THEIR OWN...?
The confusion that flooded Xhan's mind was delicious. His own instincts, honed through countless battles, were screaming at him to flee from this golden-eyed monster.
―NO... IT COULDN'T BE. MY SURVIVAL INSTINCTS ARE BETRAYING ME...?
"You should probably listen to your body, Xhan." Rynan's voice held the patient tone of a teacher instructing a particularly slow student, even as he remained comfortably seated in his impossible chair.
"H-HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME...!?"
―Tsk. This guy is getting even more annoying by the second.
―Omniscience, 0.00000000001% Power.
The moment those words formed in his mind, reality itself seemed to bend. Every question that had ever existed in Rynan's consciousness was answered within the span of a single heartbeat—flawlessly, effortlessly, and with absolute certainty.
―Ah, so that's how this all connects. How wonderfully simple.
"I don't need you anymore." Rynan's eyebrows furrowed in genuine disgust as he looked upon this pathetic creature who had dared to threaten his family. "Begone."
"Understood, master!" The response came not from Xhan, but from the boulder itself—no, the thing that had been masquerading as a boulder. What Rynan had initially mistaken for stone now revealed itself as something far more interesting: a creature with a million eyes that blinked in nauseating synchronization, and two gaping maws that split open in what could generously be called a smile.
"ThAnK yOu FoR tHe FoOd!" The monster's voice was a symphony of grinding stone and wet flesh as one of its mouths opened wide, rivers of acidic saliva dripping to the ground where they hissed and bubbled.
And then—a sickening crunch echoed through the forest, final and absolute.
―Ten seconds remaining. Perfectly managed my time.
Just when Rynan stood up—he felt a light touch from his shoulders.
—Shit! He's still alive!?