Darkness.
Not the peaceful kind… the suffocating kind that feels like it wants to swallow you whole.
That's the last thing I remembered before my first life ended.
People say that when you die, you see your entire life flash before your eyes.
I didn't.
In fact, I didn't feel anything—no regret, no fear, no pain.
Just… nothing.
I thought that was it.
My story, finished before it even became interesting.
But fate—cruel, twisted, unpredictable fate—had no intention of letting me rest.
A faint sound echoed through the emptiness.
Thump.
…Thump.
...Thump.
A heartbeat.
My heartbeat.
I opened my eyes with a violent gasp, air flooding my lungs like I had been drowning for centuries. I wasn't surrounded by darkness anymore. Instead, I was lying on cracked stone, a strange glowing symbol underneath me slowly fading like dying embers.
Cold wind brushed against my skin. The sky above me was split open with swirling black clouds, streaks of deep crimson lightning tearing them apart.
I shouldn't have been alive.
Yet here I was—returned.
Slowly, painfully, I pushed myself up, my hands trembling. My fingers were longer, sharper, coated in faint black dust that shimmered like ash. My body felt different, stronger, heavier… but not in a human way.
"What… am I?"
My voice sounded deeper, threaded with a strange echo—as if another voice spoke along with mine.
Then it hit me.
Memories.
Not mine.
Not human.
Flashes of burning wings, shadows twisting into feathers, a creature rising from dark flames—neither bird nor beast, but something born from destruction itself.
A Shadow Phoenix.
Not the phoenix of legends that rose from fire.
No—mine was reborn from darkness, from silent nightfire that devoured everything but left me untouched.
And now that creature was inside me… or maybe I was inside it.
Lightning cracked as if answering my thoughts. The ground shook beneath me, and only then did I notice the forest surrounding the stone platform. Tall, pale trees with black leaves rustled under the storm's fury. Strange blue mist curled around the roots like living serpents.
"Where the hell am I…?"
Another memory surfaced—not mine—showing monstrous beasts roaming lands, mages bending storms to their will, ancient clans fighting for dominance, and gods watching from above.
This world was a battlefield.
And I had just been thrown into the center of it.
A low growl snapped me out of my thoughts. My muscles tensed as something moved in the shadows between the trees.
Eyes—dozens of glowing yellow eyes—opened at once.
Great.
Just what I needed.
A welcoming party.
A creature stepped out first, its body like a wolf but twice the size, covered in dark scales instead of fur. Its fangs dripped with green fluid that hissed whenever it touched the ground. More creatures followed, forming a tight circle around me.
The old me would've panicked, screamed, or begged the universe for mercy.
The new me… didn't.
A strange calm washed over me. My heartbeat slowed. My senses sharpened. I felt heat gathering beneath my skin—no, not heat… shadow.
It curled around my arms, coiling like dark smoke.
The lead beast lunged, jaws wide, aiming straight for my throat.
My body moved before I even thought.
I raised my hand and a burst of black flames erupted from my palm. The creature was hit mid-air, its body disintegrating into ashes before it even touched the ground.
Silence.
Then chaos.
The pack lunged together, a storm of claws and fangs.
But the shadow-fire obeyed me like it had been waiting centuries for this moment.
I stepped forward, sweeping my arm in a wide arc.
A crescent of dark flames shot out, slicing through the monsters like a blade of smoke and night.
One by one, the creatures fell, evaporating into dust.
In seconds, the forest grew silent again.
Not even birds dared to breathe.
I stared at my hands—hands that were once human. Now they hummed with raw power, shadow weaving around my fingers as if greeting an old friend.
"What the hell have I become…?"
The answer came not from within, but from behind me—an ancient voice, deep as the abyss.
"You are reborn, child of dusk."
I spun around.
A towering figure stood at the edge of the stone platform. Draped in a cloak of shifting black feathers, face hidden behind a mask shaped like a beak, eyes glowing with ghostly silver light—he looked like a walking nightmare.
Instinct warned me:
This was not someone I could fight.
"Who are you?" I forced out.
"The one who brought you here," the figure replied. "The last surviving High Phoenix of the Shadow Court."
Shadow Court?
The name alone felt ominous.
"You died in your previous world," he continued, voice echoing like distant thunder. "Your soul was strong. Unbroken. It carried a spark powerful enough to be reborn."
He pointed a clawed finger toward my chest.
"And now, that spark belongs to us."
"To… us?" I repeated.
"You are the new vessel," he said. "The new Shadow Phoenix. A being meant to rise in darkness… to challenge gods… or to be consumed by them."
A chill ran down my spine.
"You will be hunted," he warned. "By beasts, by clans, by kings—by everything that fears the night. Your power will draw them all."
Great.
Just what I needed—a world full of things that wanted me dead.
Again.
"But," the masked figure added, "if you survive… you will become something this world hasn't seen in a thousand years."
He stepped closer, shadows bending around him like they were alive.
"This is not a gift," he said. "It is a burden. A curse. A destiny."
"And if I refuse?" I asked quietly.
His masked face tilted slightly.
"You cannot. The moment you opened your eyes, the world changed."
The wind intensified. The stone beneath my feet pulsed. The storm above roared louder.
"The path of your second life," he whispered, "has already begun."
And then—without any warning—the figure dissolved into black feathers that vanished into the night.
I stood alone in the clearing.
No answers.
No allies.
No idea how to survive.
But one thing was clear:
I wasn't human anymore.
I wasn't weak.
I wasn't powerless.
I was reborn in shadows.
And this world…
Was about to learn that I wasn't going to die a second time.