The memories came in fragments at first, like shattered glass catching sunlight.
Duvan Excy was five years old when he first remembered dying. Not the scary monster-under-the-bed kind of memory, but the real deal—the sterile hospital smell, the irregular beeping of machines, the crushing weight on his chest as his twenty-four-year-old heart gave its final, pathetic flutter. Lucas Smith, Virtual Assistant extraordinaire, master of spreadsheets and calendar management, died alone in a Manila hospital room with nothing but an outdated laptop and unfulfilled dreams for company.
Pretty depressing stuff for a five-year-old to process, honestly.
The thing about reincarnation that nobody talks about—probably because most people don't get the privilege of remembering their past lives—is how utterly weird it makes you as a kid. While other children in the orphanage were playing with wooden swords and pretending to be adventurers, little Duvan was having existential crises about mortality and wondering if he'd ever see decent Wi-Fi again.
Spoiler alert: This world didn't even have electricity yet, let alone Wi-Fi.
By the time he turned seven, the fog had lifted completely. Lucas—no, Duvan now—had full access to both sets of memories, like having two different Netflix accounts running simultaneously in his brain. And with that clarity came a sobering realization: he'd traded one dying world for another.
Just his luck, really.
The world he'd been reborn into had a name—Aetherion—though most people just called it "the Last Stand" with the kind of gallows humor that comes from living on borrowed time.
Here's the thing about Aetherion: it wasn't supposed to have magic. According to the fragmented histories kept in the orphanage's dusty library, magic hadn't existed until about three thousand years ago. Then something happened—something nobody could quite explain, because everyone who knew the full story was either dead or had become something worse than dead.
The Emergence, they called it.
One day, reality just... cracked. Monsters poured through from somewhere else—somewhere wrong. Not your garden-variety fantasy beasts, mind you. These things defied description, defied natural law, defied everything except the fundamental drive to unmake existence itself. They weren't hungry. They weren't evil. They simply wanted everything to stop being.
Terrifying stuff, that.
Humanity would have been wiped out in the first year if the universe hadn't decided to throw them a bone. Magic manifested in response to the threat, like an immune system kicking into overdrive. But here's where it gets really wild—angels descended from heaven. Demons rose from hell. Natural enemies who'd been playing their eternal game of cosmic chess suddenly found themselves on the same side of the board.
Because when you're faced with complete annihilation, old grudges start to seem pretty petty.
Three thousand years later, the war was still going. Humanity, angels, demons, and every other sentient species had been pushed back into a tiny corner of the world—roughly one percent of the total landmass, protected by massive magical barriers that required constant maintenance. The other ninety-nine percent?
That was the Deep.
Nobody knew what was out there anymore. Oh, sure, there were expeditions—brave (or suicidal, depending on your perspective) souls who ventured beyond the barriers to map territories, recover lost artifacts, or occasionally find pockets of survivors who'd somehow managed to hold out. But the Deep was called that for a reason. It was vast, unknown, and hungry.
Most expeditions never came back.
Duvan Ascended when he was eight years old.
He'd been helping Sister Margret in the orphanage garden—mostly because she made the best apple pie in the settlement and he was shamelessly bribing his way into her good graces—when it happened. One moment he was pulling weeds, the next, the world stopped.
Not slowed. Not paused. Stopped.
Every bird frozen mid-flight. Every leaf suspended in its fall. Sister Margret's hand caught in an eternal gesture, her mouth open to say something he'd never hear. And standing in the center of this crystallized moment was Duvan, age eight, former Virtual Assistant, current orphan, and newly minted Ascender.
He could feel it—threads of time spreading out around him like spider silk, each one connected to every living thing in his vicinity. With barely a thought, he could tug on them, twist them, unravel them. The power was intoxicating and absolutely terrifying in equal measure.
Five seconds, he managed that first time. Five seconds of stopped time before the world crashed back into motion and he collapsed in the turnip patch, bleeding from his nose and eyes.
Sister Margret screamed.
The Guild came three hours later.
Now, here's something Lucas had learned from his previous life: if you've got a game-breaking ability, you don't advertise it. You smile, you nod, you keep your cards close to your chest, and you definitely don't tell people you can manipulate the fundamental fabric of reality.
So when the Guild's assessor asked about his Ascender ability, Duvan looked him dead in the eye and said, "I call it Chrono. I can make things go fast or slow."
Technically not a lie. Technically.
The assessor seemed satisfied with that. After all, speed and perception manipulation were rare but not unheard of. Nobody needed to know about the time-stopping, the rewinding, the fact that Duvan could potentially do a lot more once he figured out the full extent of his power.
He registered as an adventurer the same day. Youngest Ascender in recent history, they said. Prodigy, they whispered. The Guild was practically salivating at the potential.
Duvan just wanted to not die and maybe—maybe—make this world a little less terrible than the one he'd left behind.
The next ten years were a blur. Not because Duvan was manipulating time (though he was, constantly, in small ways nobody noticed), but because he threw himself into becoming the best damn adventurer the Guild had ever seen. He trained with anyone who'd teach him—swordmasters, mages, Rangers who'd survived expeditions into the Deep. He took contracts, cleared monster nests, protected caravans, and slowly, methodically, built a reputation.
But more importantly, he learned.
See, Lucas might have been just a Virtual Assistant, but he'd been a damn good one. He understood systems, logistics, efficiency. And watching Aetherion struggle with medieval-level technology while possessing literal magic was like watching someone try to write a novel with a chisel and stone tablet when they had a perfectly good laptop right there.
So Duvan started inventing things.
Small stuff at first—better lanterns using contained magic, improved water purification systems, more efficient farming tools. He'd sketch designs, find craftsmen willing to experiment, and slowly introduce concepts that his past life had taken for granted. He was careful never to outpace the world's ability to accept change, but he pushed boundaries wherever he could.
By the time he was fifteen, he'd founded Future Tech, and humanity's quality of life had improved more in three years than it had in the previous century.
By seventeen, he was being called a visionary.
By eighteen, he'd become a legend.
The attack came on a Tuesday.
Duvan had always thought that if the world was going to end, it should at least have the decency to do it on a Monday—get the week off to a properly terrible start. But no, the forces of the Deep had no sense of narrative timing.
The Levywood Barrier, one of the critical defense points protecting the eastern settlements, was failing. Not gradually, not with warning, but catastrophically. Something massive was pushing through—a Void Colossus, the scouts reported before their communication crystals went dead. The kind of monster that typically required an army to bring down.
The Guild was mobilizing, but mobilization took time. Time the refugees fleeing Levywood didn't have.
Time the children in Brighthollow Orphanage didn't have.
Duvan looked at the emergency beacon, looked at his maps, and did some quick math. The Guild would arrive in maybe two hours. The Colossus would reach Levywood—and the orphanage just beyond it—in forty-five minutes.
Sister Margret was still there. The kids who'd shared his room, who'd made his reincarnation bearable with their laughter and games and innocent belief that tomorrow would come. They were all still there.
"Well," Duvan said to nobody in particular, strapping on his equipment. "Guess we're doing this the hard way."
He grabbed every adventurer who wasn't actively dying or drunk—twenty-three in total, ranging from C-rank to A-rank, none of them ready for what was coming. He looked at their nervous faces and made a decision.
"Here's the deal," he said, his voice cutting through the panic. "I'm going to Levywood. I'm going to hold that Colossus and whatever's coming with it. I'm going to hold until the Guild arrives. You don't have to come with me. This is probably a suicide run. But if you do come, I promise you this—I will get you home. Every single one of you."
Twenty-three adventurers looked at the eighteen-year-old kid who'd taken the Guild by storm.
Twenty-three adventurers picked up their weapons.
"You're crazy, Excy," said Mira, a B-rank ranger with a scar across her nose. "But that's the best damn speech I've ever heard. Let's go save some kids."
What happened at Levywood became the stuff of legends.
A Void Colossus wasn't just big—it was wrong. Twenty meters of writhing darkness that made reality weep where it touched. Behind it came Lesser Voidlings, each one capable of killing trained soldiers. The horde numbered in the hundreds.
They had twenty-three adventurers and one Ascender who'd been lying about his abilities for a decade.
The battle should have lasted five minutes.
It lasted three hours.
Duvan stopped time so often he could taste copper permanently in the back of his throat. He rewound fatal wounds, accelerated his allies' reactions to superhuman levels, slowed the Colossus until it moved through the world like molasses. He was everywhere and nowhere, a ghost on the battlefield, and every time an adventurer was about to die, time would hiccup, stutter, and suddenly they'd be somewhere else, the fatal blow missing by inches.
Magic had costs, though. Reality didn't like being twisted, and it pushed back.
By the time the Guild reinforcements arrived, Duvan was standing alone in front of the orphanage, every inch of him covered in blood—most of it his own. Behind him, twenty-two adventurers were battered but alive. One had died anyway—a rookie named Thomas who'd taken a Voidling's claw through the chest in the first five minutes, before Duvan had been desperate enough to reveal the full extent of his power.
In front of him, the Void Colossus was frozen mid-strike, locked in a moment that Duvan was holding through sheer force of will, his nose bleeding freely, his vision tunneling.
The Guild Master—Gawain himself—appeared in a flash of teleportation magic, took one look at the scene, and whistled low.
"Well," Gawain said, watching as Duvan finally released his hold and the Colossus crashed to the ground, dead from the thousand cuts they'd inflicted during its time-locked prison. "That's impressive."
Duvan spat blood. "The kids?"
"Safe. Your barrier held." Gawain studied him with new interest. "You're not just a speed enhancer, are you?"
Duvan wiped his mouth, tasted copper and truth. "No."
"What are you?"
For the first time in ten years, Duvan answered honestly.
"I manipulate time," he said simply. "Some aspects of it."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then Gawain started laughing—a big, booming sound that echoed across the blood-soaked battlefield. "Time manipulation! Of course! And here we all thought you were just fast!" He clapped Duvan on the shoulder hard enough to nearly knock him over. "Kid, you're wasted as a regular adventurer. How do you feel about a promotion?"
That's how Duvan Excy became the fifth Grand Protector at age eighteen—the youngest by two decades—with the title "Time Prince" and a seat at the table where humanity's survival was planned.
The other Grand Protectors were... an interesting bunch.
Gawain, the Guild Master, could teleport anywhere he'd been before, making him the world's best escape artist and battlefield coordinator. Built like a bear, fought like a lion, drank like a fish. Duvan liked him immediately.
Silvia, the Omniscient Priestess, was an elf who could see fragments of possible futures. She spoke in riddles half the time and smirked like she knew everyone's secrets—because she probably did. She made Duvan nervous in a way nothing else could.
Celeste, the Heavenly Angel, was exactly what her title suggested—an actual angel who'd descended during the Emergence and decided humanity was worth saving. Her light magic could heal entire battlefields or incinerate armies. She was kind, patient, and utterly terrifying when angered.
Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, was a demon who controlled shadows and dark magic with artistic precision. Despite the ominous title and appearance, he was possibly the most reasonable of the group, with a dry wit that reminded Duvan of his old IT department friends.
And now Duvan—human, reincarnated, time manipulator, and accidental genius—joined their ranks.
"Welcome to the circus," Gawain had said during his initiation. "Try not to die. It looks bad on our record."
With his position as Grand Protector secured, Duvan poured resources into Future Tech. What had started as a small workshop became a corporation that revolutionized Aetherion.
He introduced the printing press—because seriously, hand-copying books was ridiculous. Then came improved metallurgy, better construction techniques, and agricultural innovations that increased crop yields by forty percent. He couldn't introduce anything too advanced without causing cultural shock, but he pushed the boundaries constantly.
The running joke in his company was that Duvan had ideas that were "five years ahead of their time."
If only they knew.
Other Ascenders came to study at Future Tech. Researchers, inventors, mages who wanted to blend magic with engineering. The company became a beacon of innovation, and its profits funded better defenses, better weapons, and most importantly, better living conditions for everyone crammed into humanity's last one percent of the world.
Duvan was rich, powerful, respected, and exactly where Lucas had never imagined he'd be—making a real difference in the world.
He should have been happy.
He was, mostly.
But there was something missing—someone to share it with, someone who understood the weight of responsibility that came with power, someone who saw him rather than the Time Prince.
That's when the Magism Unos came calling.
Magism Unos was one of the major religious organizations in Aetherion, working closely with the Adventurer's Guild to provide healing, blessings, and spiritual support to those fighting the Deep. They were powerful, politically connected, and—Duvan had learned—not above using their influence to secure advantages.
The proposal was straightforward: a marriage alliance between Duvan and their Saintess, Hera Machival.
Duvan's first reaction was to laugh them out of his office. Political marriages were medieval nonsense, and he'd left one world behind partly to escape—
Then he saw her portrait.
Oh.
Oh no.
Hera Machival was beautiful in the way that made poets write terrible sonnets and warriors do stupid things. Dark hair that cascaded like a waterfall, eyes that seemed to hold infinite gentleness, and a smile that could probably stop wars if deployed strategically.
But it wasn't just her looks. Her resume was impressive—she'd been part of the Hero's Party, venturing into the Deep, providing support that had saved countless lives. She was accomplished, brave, and by all accounts, genuinely kind.
Duvan tried to be rational. He really did. This was political manipulation, pure and simple. Magism Unos wanted access to his influence and resources. Marrying their Saintess to a Grand Protector would elevate their status significantly.
But then he met her in person, and rational thought went out the window.
"Lord Excy," Hera said, her voice soft and melodious, bowing with perfect grace. "It's an honor to meet you."
Duvan Excy, Time Prince, Grand Protector, genius inventor, and master of time manipulation, forgot how to speak for a solid five seconds.
"The honor is mine," he finally managed, sounding like an idiot to his own ears.
She smiled, and Duvan was pretty sure his heart stopped.
He consulted with Silvia afterward, because the elf had a way of knowing things others didn't.
"Should I agree to this?" he asked, pacing in her meditation chambers. "It's obviously political. They're using her. I'd be an idiot to fall for it."
Silvia watched him with those knowing eyes, a small smile playing on her lips. "You've already decided, haven't you?"
"That's not—I need advice, not observations."
"Then here's my advice: this marriage serves both political and personal interests." Her smile widened. "The political aspect should concern you. The personal aspect... well, that will concern you later."
"That's ominously cryptic, even for you."
"I do try." She waved a hand dismissively. "The marriage is necessary, Duvan. For reasons that will become clear. Whether you accept or not, this is a thread that must be woven."
"You're seeing something in the future, aren't you?"
"Many somethings. Some good, some terrible, all necessary."
Duvan hated when she got like this. "Can you at least tell me if I'll regret it?"
Silvia's expression softened, becoming almost sad. "Oh, my dear Time Prince. You'll regret it terribly. But you'll do it anyway, because you're already in love with her."
She was right. Damn her.
Duvan agreed to the marriage.
The wedding was a grand affair—too grand, in Duvan's opinion, but Magism Unos insisted on the ceremony being a public celebration. Half the settlement showed up, and Duvan stood at the altar in formal attire that felt like a straightjacket, watching Hera walk down the aisle in white robes that seemed to glow with inner light.
She was breathtaking.
She was also completely unreadable.
The ceremony went perfectly. They exchanged vows, were blessed by high priests, and Duvan kissed his new wife for exactly three seconds before she pulled back with a polite smile.
It was at the private reception afterward that Hera laid out her terms.
"I've agreed to this marriage," she said, her voice still gentle but with an edge of steel beneath it. "But I must insist on certain conditions to maintain spiritual purity."
Duvan, who'd been expecting a normal marriage with actual partnership, felt the first stirrings of concern. "Conditions?"
"First: marital relations are permitted only once every two months, in accordance with the sacred cycle."
Duvan blinked. "Every... two months?"
"Second: we will maintain separate bedrooms. Physical proximity outside of sanctioned times could tempt impurity."
"Separate—wait, we're married. Don't married couples usually—"
"Third," Hera continued, as if he hadn't spoken, "during our sanctioned intimate times, we must maintain ritual purity. Any deviation ends the encounter immediately."
Duvan was starting to feel like he'd signed a contract without reading the fine print. "Define 'deviation.'"
"Anything beyond the basic act for procreation. The body is a temple, Lord Excy. We mustn't defile it with base desires."
"I—okay, sure, but—"
"Fourth and finally: you may not touch me without explicit permission outside of our sanctioned times. Physical contact must be minimized to maintain spiritual integrity."
Silence fell over the reception room.
Duvan looked at his new wife—beautiful, untouchable, and apparently operating under religious rules that would make a monastery seem permissive.
Every rational part of his brain was screaming that this was wrong, that these weren't the terms of a marriage but of a business arrangement with occasional clinical reproduction scheduled like dental cleanings.
But Hera was looking at him with those gentle eyes, and Duvan was already too far gone.
"If that's what you need," he heard himself say, "I accept your terms."
Hera smiled—relieved, he thought, or maybe satisfied—and placed a brief hand on his arm. "Thank you for understanding. Purity is paramount in these dark times. Our union must be blessed, not tainted by worldly desires."
That night, Duvan slept alone in his own mansion, in a bedroom separated from his wife's by an entire hallway, and wondered what the hell he'd just agreed to.
Six years.
Six years of marriage that felt more like polite cohabitation with a particularly distant roommate.
Duvan threw himself into his work, because what else could he do? Future Tech continued to innovate. His duties as a Grand Protector kept him busy with expeditions, council meetings, and crisis management. The world kept turning, kept fighting, kept surviving by its fingernails.
And every two months, like clockwork, Hera would inform him that it was time for their "sacred union."
It was... clinical. Perfunctory. She would lie still, eyes closed, murmuring prayers while Duvan tried desperately to feel something other than hollow. No passion, no connection, just biological mechanics aimed at a procreation that never seemed to happen.
Afterward, she would immediately retreat to her bathing chambers for "purification," and Duvan would lie in the darkness wondering if this was really all there was.
They never talked, not really. Hera spent her days in prayer and charity work. She was kind to everyone—gracious, helpful, the perfect image of saintly devotion. But to Duvan, her husband, she remained an elegant stranger who lived in his house and tolerated his presence.
He tried, at first. Tried to break through whatever wall she'd built.
"Would you like to have dinner together?" he'd ask.
"I have evening prayers, but thank you for the offer."
"I've been working on something new at Future Tech. Would you like to see?"
"That's wonderful, but I'm meeting with the charity committee this afternoon."
"Hera, can we just... talk? About anything?"
"Of course, Lord Excy. What would you like to discuss?"
And she'd look at him with those beautiful, empty eyes, and Duvan would realize she was already gone even while standing right in front of him.
The other Grand Protectors noticed.
"You look like hell," Gawain said bluntly during a council meeting. "Marriage not agreeing with you?"
"It's fine," Duvan lied.
Lucifer raised an eyebrow. "For someone who can manipulate time, you're remarkably bad at recognizing when you're wasting it."
"Your wife is very devout," Celeste offered diplomatically. "Perhaps too much so?"
Even Silvia, who usually enjoyed being cryptic, seemed almost sympathetic. "Some threads are more tangled than others," she said quietly. "Some knots must tighten before they can be cut."
Duvan didn't want to hear it. He'd made his choice. He'd married Hera because he loved her—still loved her, despite everything. Surely it would get better. Surely she'd warm to him eventually. These things took time, right?
Time was the one thing he had plenty of.
Except he didn't, not really.
Because on a Tuesday afternoon—because apparently Tuesdays were cursed—Duvan left a council meeting early.
There was an issue at Future Tech that needed his immediate attention—something about a failed magical containment system that could potentially explode and take out half a city block. The kind of thing that required the boss to show up personally.
Duvan teleported to the company's main building via Gawain's network of anchors, handled the crisis (a miscalibrated ward that needed thirty seconds of rewound time to fix before the cascade failure), and decided to head home.
It was early afternoon. Hera would likely be out doing her charity work or praying or whatever it was that kept her busy and away from him. But maybe—just maybe—he could surprise her. Maybe they could have an actual conversation. Maybe after six years, they could start acting like people who'd chosen to be together.
Hope, apparently, was a hard habit to break.
Duvan started walking home, taking the scenic route through the market district because he had time and the weather was nice. He was mentally composing what he'd say—something casual, not desperate, just a husband wanting to spend time with his wife—
That's when he saw her.
Hera.
Standing outside a small café in the lower district, far from her usual haunts.
She was laughing.
Duvan stopped dead in his tracks, because in six years of marriage, he'd never heard Hera laugh. Not once. He'd seen her smile politely, seen her look serene, seen her embody perfect saintly grace.
But laugh? Never.
She was talking to a man. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing simple craftsman's clothes. He said something, and Hera laughed again, touching his arm in a way that was casual, familiar, intimate.
Duvan's blood turned to ice.
A child ran up to them—a little girl, maybe five years old, with dark hair. The man picked her up effortlessly, and the girl wrapped her arms around his neck. Hera reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind the girl's ear with such tender familiarity that it made Duvan's chest hurt.
They looked like a family.
No.
They were a family.
Time slowed around Duvan—not because he was using his power, but because his brain was trying to process what he was seeing, trying to find any interpretation that didn't match the obvious conclusion screaming in his head.
Hera leaned in and kissed the man. Not a polite peck. Not a religious blessing. A real kiss, full of warmth and genuine affection.
The kind of kiss she'd never given Duvan in six years of marriage.
The little girl giggled and covered her eyes, and the man laughed, and Hera looked so genuinely happy that Duvan barely recognized her.
This was the real Hera. Not the Saintess. Not the devout wife maintaining purity. Just... Hera. A woman who loved someone who wasn't her husband. A mother to a child who wasn't Duvan's.
The world crystallized into perfect, horrible clarity.
Six years of cold distance. Six years of "maintaining purity." Six years of separate bedrooms and rules designed to keep him at arm's length.
Not because of religion.
Not because of devotion.
Because she'd never been his at all.
Duvan stood there, the Time Prince, one of the five Grand Protectors, the genius who'd revolutionized civilization, watching his wife live her real life with her real family.
And for the second time in two lifetimes, Duvan Excy felt his heart break.