The rain had not stopped for hours.
It felt silently over the ruined battlefield, washing away the traces of a fight that had already ended. Broken weapons lay scattered across the ground. The smell of smoke still lingered in the cold night air.
Among the bodies, one man slowly opened his eyes.
"…Where… am I?"
His voice sounded hoarse, like someone who had not spoken in years.
For a moment, he simply stared at the gray sky above him. Rain touched his face, cold and real.
That alone confused him.
The last thing he remembered was death.
A faint headache spread through his mind as fragments of memories began to return. A blade. A mission. A silent room painted red. The feeling of life leaving his body.
Then darkness.
Yet now… he was breathing again.
The man slowly pushed himself up from the ground. His body felt unfamiliar, lighter than before. When he looked down at his hands, they were younger.
Not the hands of a veteran killer.
The hands of a boy.
"…What kind of joke is this?"
His eyes scanned the surroundings carefully. Instinctively. Like someone who had spent his entire life watching for danger.
Even if his body had changed, his instincts had not.
The battlefield around him looked strange. The armor scattered on the ground was different from anything he had seen before. The swords were wider. The metal darker.
This was not the world he remembered.
A cold realization crept into his mind.
"I… came back."
Or perhaps…
"I was reborn."
The thought felt absurd, yet every part of reality around him supported it.
A sudden voice echoed in his head.
[System Initialization Complete]
The man froze.
For a moment, the rain seemed to stop.
A faint blue light appeared in front of his eyes, forming words that only he could see.
[Welcome, User.]
[Second Life Protocol Activated.]
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"…So even death wasn't the end."
Instead of panic, a faint smile slowly appeared on his face.
It was the smile of someone who had survived countless impossible situations.
Someone who knew how to adapt.
Someone who had once been feared in the shadows.
If fate had truly given him another life…
Then this time—
He would not live like a weapon.
But deep inside, buried beneath layers of cold memories, a darker thought quietly surfaced.
Even if the world changed…
A blade would always remain a blade.
The rain continued to fall.
And somewhere far away, destiny had already begun to move.