Blood painted the valley red.
Kai stood among the corpses of his entire unit, forty men who'd been alive and complaining about rations just minutes ago. Now they were decorating the grass in pieces.
"If we work together," Kai said, gripping his sword with his one remaining hand, "we might be able to hold him off until reinforcements arrive."
General Zhou, the man Kai had bootlicked for three years to earn his captaincy, was already on his knees, clutching his ceremonial blade like it meant something. The ornate weapon, more decoration than tool, trembled in his grip.
The Demonic Cult warrior didn't respond. He didn't need to. His black robes didn't even have blood on them. That was how outmatched they were.
The warrior moved.
Kai barely saw it. One moment the demonic warrior stood ten paces away, the next his blade was cutting through General Zhou's sword like it was made of paper. The general's prized weapon, the one he'd bragged about for months, after recently being awarded the sword by the Murim Highlord himself was just shattered into pieces. Zhou collapsed backward with a strangled cry.
The warrior's blade continued its arc toward the general's throat.
Kai's body moved on instinct. Thirty-five years of battle experience did not make up for his barely six years' worth of pathetic internal energy that surged through his meridians as he threw himself forward. His sword met the demonic blade.
The impact nearly tore his arm from its socket. He knew no techniques
But he held. For one beautiful, desperate second, he held.
I did it, Kai thought wildly. "I actually stopped..."
The warrior's second strike came before Kai could finish the thought.
This one would take Zhou's head clean off. Kai tried to pivot, tried to redirect, the strike but was too slow. General Zhou was going to die at this rate.
Hands slammed into his back.
General Zhou, the man he'd scraped and bowed to, the man whose boots he'd both metaphorically and literally licked for three years, pulled Kai directly into the path of the demonic blade.
The world went sharp and cold.
Kai looked down. The sword had entered below his ribs and emerged through his back. The warrior looked mildly annoyed, like he'd stepped in something unpleasant.
Behind Kai, he heard footsteps running away. The general was fleeing, leaving him skewered like meat on a stick.
Of course, Kai thought distantly as his knees gave out. Of course he did.
The warrior withdrew his blade. Kai collapsed.
Darkness.
Then images, flickering like a broken lantern:
His brother's face, all those years ago, becoming a powerful warrior with his stolen internal energy, as elders praised him as a genius.
The duel. Public. Humiliating. Kai on his knees while his younger brother was declared heir.
Four years in his room. Four years of staring at walls.
Her face Min-Ji, his wife. The woman who'd motivated him to try again. The woman who'd left him the day after he lost his arm in battle. "I'm sorry, Kai. I'm marrying into the Wudang Sect. Senior Brother Chen is…."
His captain's uniform. The one he'd earned by agreeing to clean the general's quarters. By laughing at jokes that weren't funny. By swallowing his pride so many times he'd forgotten what it tasted like.
The battlefield where his arm was taken. The scream. The useless stump. The pitying looks.
General Zhou's hands on his back, shoving him forward to his end.
The darkness pressed in, suffocating and cold.
Kai's final thought crystallized with perfect, crystalline hatred:
If there's any deity listening, any god, any demon, anyone, if I could get me another chance. Just one. And I swear on everything that I am, I'll fuck them up. All of them. Every single one.
Then nothing.
Kai gasped awake.
His chest heaved. No pain. No sword through his organs. No cold. He was lying on something soft. A bed?
His heart hammered. This wasn't right. He should be dead.
Kai looked down at his hands.
Both hands.
Two arms. Two hands. No scar tissue. No stump. His left arm was there, complete and whole and responding to his commands like it had never left.
"What the hell," Kai whispered.
The room was small. Simple. A single window showed morning light. The walls were bare except for a small scroll with a motivational phrase he'd always hated: Perseverance Conquers All.
He knew this room.
It took Kai sometime to gather all his memories in place. He sat on his bed wondering why he is at his room from his house almost twenty years ago. Then he chalked it up to him having a hyper realistic flashback before his death.
"Wow. So this is how it feels before you die. Damn... Its almost like..."
"Wait.... Is this before or after Woo-Jin took my twenty years worth of internal energy."
A young woman in simple servant's robes entered carrying a tray of rice porridge. She had kind eyes and graying hair pulled back in a bun.
"Young Master Kai," she said softly, setting the tray down. "You should eat. You haven't left your room in three days."
Kai stared at her. He knew her face. Aunt Mae. His mother's servant, the only one who'd stayed with him after he'd been moved to this isolated courtyard. She'd died years ago. Fifteen years ago.
"Aunt Mae?" His voice cracked. Tears forming at the corner of his eyes. He thought to himself for a moment that "If this is truly my life flashing before my eyes. Then I hope I never die."
"Yes, Young Master?" She smiled gently, the way she always had when he was wallowing. It snapped him back to reality. Or wherever this was.
"What..." Kai's throat closed. "What date is it?"
"It's the fifteenth day of the seventh month, Young Master."
He was about to ask the year when. A translucent blue window materialized in the air between them. The window showed the date as:
15th July 1411.
"What are these strange figures in my field if vision? What is this thing" He reached out and tried to touch it but his hand passed through it.
He was somehow back in time.
Mae looked troubled as Kai began reaching into the air trying to wave the translucent window out of his field of vision.
"Young Master are you okay?" She said while reaching for his forehead.
This was impossible he thought. He'd lived to thirty-five. He'd died in a some valley with sword through his chest.
Unless...
"Are you alright, Young Master?" Aunt Mae stepped closer, concerned.
"I'm..." Kai started to say fine, but the word died in his throat.
The translucent blue window materialized in the air between them.
Aunt Mae didn't react. She couldn't see it he now realised.
The text glowed softly:
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED]
[Welcome, User Kai. Or should I say: You're welcome?]
[What, no thank you?]
[Tsk. Humans these days]
Kai's mouth fell open.
Another window appeared:
[Oh good, you can see me! I was worried the soul transference would fry your brain too Thank goodness. ♡]
"What the fuck?" Kai said again.
Aunt Mae frowned. "Young Master, please watch your language."
"I need a minute," Kai interrupted, still staring at the floating text. "Please. Just... give me a minute."
Aunt Mae hesitated, then bowed and left, sliding the door closed behind her.
The moment she was gone, Kai focused on the windows. They pulsed with faint light, almost playful.
[That's better. Now we can talk properly!]
[Congratulations on not being dead! Your dramatic last prayer answered, by the way. I was bored so I decided to take a peak into the mortal realm and I see some grown ass man swearing to be a menace if given the chance. I decided to have some fun with you]
"Who are you?" Kai asked completely unaware of how to feel about this situation.
[Think of us as a chance to escape that horrible end that awaits you, since you begged so nicely for another chance, here you are! Back in your teenage body, most of your memories preserved!]
[Quest Available: Stop Wallowing Like a Sad Puppy][Reward: +1 to all stats, System Shop unlocked][Failure: You waste this second chance being pathetic again ♡]
Kai read the messages twice. Three times. His hands, both of them, curled into fists.
He was sixteen again. Everyone who'd wronged him was alive. His brother still had his stolen all his internal energy. The general who'd used him as a human shield was probably drinking tea in the capital. His future ex-wife was probably at some village somewhere.
And he had a system. With quests.
A smile slowly spread across Kai's face. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of a man who'd died pathetic and angry and had just been handed a second chance wrapped in infinite potential.
"Alright," Kai said to the floating text. "Let's fuck them up."
[QUEST ACCEPTED!]
[You. Yes you behind the screen. I see you. And before you ask "Is this a fourth wall break?" It is not. I installed a window in the fourth wall so I don't have to keep breaking it to talk to you guys. I just wanted to say that you're in for one hell of a ride so don't half ass the book and quit halfway. Writing it takes a lot of effort you know. :)]