"Once you're sent back, every being in this timeline will vanish. Everything will reset—except me. My soul won't survive the transition. There can only be one Ashen Crimson, and the world has already suffered through mine."
Those were the last words the broken god spoke, his voice a haunting echo that lingered long after the golden void began to shatter. My spectral form flickered violently, the weight of his declaration settling upon me like a shroud. He wanted me to rewrite a story he had already burned to ash, to salvage a life he had twisted into a monument of sin and regret. The problem was, I wasn't a hero. I was just Kai, a man whose own story had ended in a quiet, pathetic whimper. I wasn't sure I even had a life worth saving, let alone the strength to redeem a monster's.
"And just so you know," he had continued, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather, "we don't even know which timeline you'll land in. Fate's funny like that. But wherever you go, there'll be time—enough time to change everything."
My head was pounding, a phantom ache in a body I no longer possessed. A thousand questions screamed for release, a frantic barrage against the walls of my crumbling consciousness. Why me? What happens if I fail? How do I survive in a world I don't know, in a body that isn't mine? Will I still be me?
But all I had managed to say was a single, desperate question. "So... basically, you're going to control my actions, right?"
He had smiled then. Not with the cold cruelty of a god, nor the warmth of a savior. It was just a tired, weary smile, etched with the sorrow of a billion lifetimes. "Kind of. The life will be your own. I've embedded my familiar into your soul. Think of it as a system. It'll guide you, assign you missions to protect people important to this timeline. But the rest? It's yours to shape. Be a hero. Be a tyrant. Be a weirdo in a treehouse if that's what you want. I won't stop you."
I scowled at the memory. Great. A talking quest log in my head and a dead guy's emotional trauma as luggage. The perfect start to a new life.
"Alright," I had muttered, a sense of grim resignation washing over me. "Let's get this over with."
Ashen didn't respond. He simply looked up toward the fracturing golden sky, his crimson eyes reflecting the dying light, and whispered a single word.
"Begin."
The moment the word left his mouth, it felt like a star had exploded in my chest. My spectral form arched as a searing, agonizing sensation—like molten fire mixed with liquid ice—surged through my very essence. Pain, pure and absolute, stabbed through every inch of my being. I couldn't scream. I couldn't even breathe. Then, the real nightmare began.
His memories.
They weren't just images; they were a torrent, a tidal wave of sensory overload that crashed into my soul. I saw faces I didn't recognize, their features twisted in love, hate, and terror. I heard voices I'd never known, whispering promises and screaming curses. I felt the sting of betrayal, the heady rush of triumph, the cold, creeping tendrils of madness. Blood. Fire. Laughter. Screams. Ashen's life, his sins, his regrets, his meteoric rise and cataclysmic fall, all flashed before my eyes like a movie on fast forward with the volume set to maximum.
And then—darkness. A deep, silent, and mercifully empty abyss.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on sheets so soft they felt like spun moonlight. The air was warm and smelled faintly of lavender and old, expensive wood. I was in a room so lavish it made a five-star hotel suite look like a gutter. Golden trim, intricate and delicate, lined the high ceiling. Heavy velvet curtains, the color of midnight, shimmered in the soft light filtering through the windows. A chandelier, a crystalline monstrosity bigger than my old apartment, hung overhead, its enchanted crystals casting a gentle, warm glow.
At that moment, as the last echoes of the void faded, I understood.
I wasn't Kai anymore.
I was Ashen Crimson—heir to the Crimson family, one of the ten strongest noble houses in the world of Zerawell, and historically, one of the three ruling powers in the capital city of Nowa.
And unfortunately, a total, unadulterated piece of shit.
The memories of this body, the one I now inhabited, surfaced in horrifying, vivid detail. As a child, Ashen had been adored by his family—worshipped, even. His mother, the beautiful and terrifyingly devoted Lady Serena, saw him as her precious jewel. His father, the formidable Marquess Regus, saw him as a future king. And his sister, the brilliant and fierce Lucielle, would have challenged the gods themselves for his sake. Their love was a suffocating, all-consuming force. When he did terrible things—like maiming a servant for spilling wine on his new tunic—they would simply sweep it under the rug, their smiles never wavering.
There was even a time when a noble boy, jealous of Ashen's favor, had pushed him during playtime. A minor squabble, a childish spat. Ashen had come home with a single bruise on his arm. In retaliation, his mother had systematically wiped out the boy's entire family. Every. Last. One. For a bruise.
That was love in the Crimson household—violent, obsessive, and dangerously absolute.
But that wasn't what had destroyed him. The real fracture, the one that had shattered his soul long before I arrived, came later.
Ashen had been born with the potential for shadow magic—one of the rarest and most feared elemental affinities in Zerawell. But for reasons no one could understand, he couldn't wield it. His mana core, though vast, refused to resonate with the shadows. And when the great Tournament of Noble Houses came around, an event where the heirs of the great families showcased their power, he was humiliated. Beaten. Not once, not twice—but three times in front of thousands of jeering spectators, while his younger sister, Lucielle, rose through the ranks like a blazing star.
Suddenly, the perfect, adored son became the family shame.
His father—the man who once praised his every breath—began to sneer at his failures. His once-proud eyes now held nothing but cold disappointment. The golden pedestal upon which Ashen had been placed his entire life crumbled beneath his feet, sending him crashing into a reality he was completely unprepared for.
The fall broke something deep inside him.
He started lashing out, his wounded pride twisting into a cruel, tyrannical arrogance. He abused the maids, attacked those weaker than himself, and demanded reverence like it was his birthright. The charming noble boy became a monster in the making.
His mother, desperate to save what was left of her beloved son, tried a last, desperate gamble. She reached out to her oldest and most powerful friend—none other than the Queen of Nowa—and arranged a marriage proposal. Her daughter, the beautiful and revered imperial princess herself, was offered as a bride to Ashen, in the desperate hope that love would somehow "fix" him.
Spoiler alert: it didn't.
And now, that was my life to live. His sins to correct. His destiny to rewrite.
I sat up slowly, my new body feeling both alien and intimately familiar. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my head pounding as the last fragments of his memories settled like ash in my mind.
"This is gonna suck," I muttered, running a hand through the silky, jet-black hair that now fell across my forehead. "Why couldn't I get reincarnated as the hero? Or the plucky farm boy? Or even a freaking cabbage merchant? At least cabbage merchants don't have this much baggage."
From the corner of the room, a small, golden mote of light flickered to life, hovering in the air like a curious firefly. A soft voice, smooth and infused with a faint, otherworldly echo, resonated directly in my head.
[Welcome to Zerawell, Host. I am the System, a fragment of my former master's consciousness, now bound to your soul. Please refrain from causing any mass genocides before breakfast.]
I stared at the glowing speck, my jaw slack.
'You have jokes.'
[You'll need them.]