Agony.
It was as if every particle of his soul had been cast into a forge, to be endlessly burned, torn asunder, and forcibly fused back together by the formless fires of chaos. This was the last sensation Kaelos perceived before his consciousness dissolved. He, codenamed "Wither" , the strongest of the Calamity Knights under the Eternal Night Demon Lord , the executioner of death who had conquered ninety percent of the continent—his end had come at the hands of the very monarch he'd sworn fealty to and the colleague he trusted most, who together had shoved him into this final resting place of souls: the Crucible of Chaos .
"Why…"
His defiant will roared within the intangible flames. He had once been a true believer in the Demon Lord's grand vision: "to end the eternal strife with absolute order." For this ideal, he had razed kingdoms and slaughtered gods, his hands stained with the blood of an entire era. Yet, at the final ritual, as the very foundations of the world groaned in torment, he discovered with horror that the so-called "New Order" was nothing but a sacrificial rite to feed every living being to the world itself, transforming the entire plane into the Demon Lord's private well of power.
His attempt to stop it, his belated awakening, had earned him only the most absolute betrayal.
"Kaelos, your naivete... it's your only weakness." The Demon Lord's glacial voice still seemed to echo in his ears, devoid of any emotion, holding only the cold indifference one would have for a useful, but ultimately disposable, tool.
Knight "Wither"… what a supreme irony. He who had made all things wither away had finally turned to dust himself.
Hate and regret intertwined, the most potent of fuels, causing his soul to erupt in a final, brilliant flash within the crucible. He hated the Demon Lord for his deception, hated the "Trickster" Knight for the fatal dagger in his back, but most of all, he hated himself… hated the utter fool who had only seen the truth at the very last second.
If… If only I could do it all again…
In that ultimate collision between his searing resentment and the world's fundamental laws, a near-imperceptible fissure silently tore open in the river of time.
"Cough… hack-cough!"
Icy, biting air flooded his lungs, bringing not the joy of rebirth, but a pain like a razor's slice. Kaelos snapped his eyes open. He was met not with burning chaos, but a low ceiling of rough-hewn black stone and moldy wooden planks.
He was lying on a rock-hard "bed," the mattress a thin layer of straw that reeked of sweat and mildew. A damp chill seeped into him from below, as if he were lying in a tomb. The wind howled through cracks in the stone walls, piercing his thin prisoner's rags like a thousand needles, stealing the last vestiges of warmth from his body. All around him lay dozens of other figures, emaciated and clothed in rags, curled up and groaning in their pained sleep like livestock awaiting slaughter.
Where is this?
Kaelos tried to push himself up, only to be struck by a tidal wave of weakness that sent him crashing back into the straw. He looked down and saw a pair of hands that were utterly alien to him—frail, covered in bluish-purple chilblains and thick calluses, the nails caked with black grime. This feeble body was wracked not just with weakness, but with a hunger and exhaustion so deep it felt etched into his very bones, as if every cell was screaming in protest.
Fragments of memory, sharp as broken glass, lanced through his consciousness.
The Frostiron Mines … a forgotten death cage in the frozen extremity of the North. And he… he was slave number "734," a boy beaten half to death by an overseer for stealing a piece of moldy black bread.
He… was back?
With immense effort, Kaelos turned his head. Through a small, filth-caked window, he saw the perpetually gray sky and the swirling snow outside. The familiar, despairing sight made his heart stop.
This was twenty years ago.
He had not yet become the dreaded Knight "Wither." The Eternal Night Demon Lord had not yet launched his continent-sweeping war. Countless kingdoms and heroes had not yet fallen. Everything had yet to begin.
He was reborn.
Reborn at the most humiliating, most insignificant starting point of his life, armed with twenty years of future memories and an ocean of hatred for those who had betrayed him.
The Crucible of Chaos had not destroyed his soul; it had sent him back. For a moment, a hurricane of emotions—ecstasy, fury, venom, murderous intent—raged within his chest, nearly bursting this fragile vessel. But in the end, he suppressed it all, his gaze returning to the stillness of a bottomless abyss.
In his past life, he had clawed his way up from a slave to the head of the Demon Lord's knights in ten years, relying on unparalleled intellect and ruthless execution. Now, he possessed something far more valuable than all of that—the "future."
"Demon Lord… 'Trickster'..." he whispered, his voice audible only to himself. Each word was like a shard of ice ground between his teeth, laced with the taste of blood. "This time, the roles of hunter and prey shall be reversed. I will become your… eternal nightmare."
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
A piercing bell shattered the grey dawn of the mines. Like cattle prodded by an unseen whip, the slaves numbly crawled from their cold straw beds. Herded by the shouts and lashes of the overseers, they lined up to receive their daily "sustenance": a bowl of watery gruel so thin you could see your reflection in it, and a piece of rye bread as hard as a rock, capable of breaking teeth.
Kaelos moved silently with the queue, enduring the spasming cramps of his starved stomach while coolly observing his surroundings. The long whips coiled at the overseers' waists, the crossbowmen barely visible on the distant watchtowers, and the heavy, pure frost-iron gate at the mine's entrance—it was all part of a seamless, suffocating cage of despair.
Just then, a commotion broke out at the front of the line. A hulking figure, flanked by a retinue of overseers, lumbered onto a makeshift platform like a walking mountain of flesh.
His name was Grak , the chief overseer of the Frostiron Mines. He was bare-chested despite the biting wind, his bronze skin steaming faintly. His body was a roadmap of hideous scars and barbaric tattoos, each one a testament to his cruelty. His gaze, like that of a starving wolf, swept across the numb and fearful faces below, as if surveying his chattel.
"Scum!" Grak's voice boomed like thunder, shaking the very air. "Listen up, all of you! The Winter God's fury is upon us! To appease his wrath, and to make sure you worthless curs have something to eat next year, in three days we will hold the annual 'Blood Sacrifice' !"
The words "Blood Sacrifice" sent a wave of uncontrollable panic through the silent crowd. The stench of despair spread like a plague. Everyone knew this was no damned ritual; it was an excuse to dispose of the old, the weak, and the sick—any slave who could no longer generate enough value.
Grak savored the effect. A cruel grin split his face, revealing teeth stained yellow from tobacco. "The offerings will be chosen from among the laziest and weakest of you filth! If you don't want to end up as feed for the mountain spirits, you'll dig for me until your fingers bleed! Understood?!"
"Un… understood…" The scattered replies were choked with terror and hopelessness.
A glint of icy light flashed in Kaelos's eyes. Grak… That name stirred a bloody memory in the depths of his mind. The future "Bloodthirsty General" , one of the Demon Lord's commanders famed for his sadism and brutality. His career had been launched right here, in this very mine.
Fragments of his past life's memories surfaced: it was after this year's "Blood Sacrifice" that Grak, through a supposed "accident," discovered a vein of high-purity ore. This earned him the favor of the local lord, marking the start of his meteoric rise. And that so-called rich vein had been found by forcing over a hundred slaves to their deaths, digging out an abandoned, unstable tunnel.
So that's how it was… The very beginning of it all is right here.
As Kaelos pondered, a frail figure in the line swayed from weakness and collapsed, their precious black bread tumbling into the filthy snow. An overseer immediately raised his whip with a sadistic grin.
CRACK!
The sharp report of the whip was followed by a pained grunt. The figure on the ground curled up, trembling. It was a young girl. Her face was grimy, but her defiant eyes were now filled with tears. Ignoring the pain, her first instinct was to snatch back the bread, now caked in mud and snow.
Kaelos's heart jolted.
Liliana !
The future "Poison Empress," the most brilliant alchemist on the continent, and one of his most capable subordinates in his past life. A lonely avenger whose family had been framed as heretics and annihilated by the Church of Holy Light. He remembered now—she was captured during her escape and sold as a slave to this mine, only to be chosen for her first and last "Blood Sacrifice," dying as insignificantly as an ant.
Watching the girl who, even under the lash, desperately protected a piece of soiled bread, a faint ripple spread across Kaelos's long-frozen heart. He had once lamented her tragic past, powerless to change it. But now… things were different.
This time, he thought, I will not allow a brilliant pearl like you to be lost to the dust. Your talents, enough to overturn the world, will be for my use, and mine alone.