Kien's eyelids felt like lead, but as they fluttered open, the world was no longer ash and shadow. Instead, he was met by the radiant face of a young woman leaning over him. She was breathtakingly beautiful, yet her features were otherworldly; two elegant, dark horns curved from her brow, and her eyes held vertical-slit pupils that shimmered with a predatory warmth. "My son," she whispered, her smile so tender it felt like a physical embrace.
Beside her stood a man of imposing stature, his presence radiating a quiet, mountain-crushing power. Like the woman, he bore dark horns and those same piercing, reptilian eyes. He looked down at Kien with an expressionless face—not out of coldness, but with the calculated gaze of a powerful being assessing a legacy. In that moment, the stillness of the room was shattered as Kien's mind fractured, a violent torrent of memories rushing back like a dam breaking.
He wasn't just this infant; he was Kien, a man of twenty-nine who had died in a world of misery. The flash of his past life hit him with agonizing clarity: the desperate scramble through the dirt, the cold dread of the slave traders' pursuit, and the searing, white-hot bite of an arrow finding its mark in his belly. He felt the dizzying, weightless plunge from the cliff's edge, a final descent for a man who had lived as a "nobody"—an errand boy with no magic, no family, and no future.
The memory shifted to the fractured earth of that alien realm where he had landed. He saw the mosaic of jagged dark rock and parched soil under a sky of charcoal clouds. Dominating the horizon was that colossal, blood-red ring, pulsing with an unholy light and cradled by gnarled, skeletal trees. It was a gateway to an abyss that had pulled him in, a terrifying beauty that offered the only escape from his pathetic end.
He recalled the vertical ascent through smoky shadows and menacing crimson light, stepping onto an unending staircase flanked by towering, torii-like gates. Each step had been illuminated by radiant red cubes, casting a foreboding glow through the mist. It was a realm where the veil between worlds was paper-thin, charged with a supernatural energy that suggested he was either ascending toward a sanctuary or descending into a magnificent horror.
Kien remembered the physical agony of his old body, pressing a bloodied hand to his tunic as he navigated the depths. The air had grown heavy and cold, filled with the whispers of unseen things that promised trials far beyond the reach of mortal men. Every step had been a deliberate act of will, a fight against the throbbing pain that threatened to buckle his knees as he was urged deeper into the enigmatic expanse.
Then came the transition to the liquid ground. He remembered standing in a shallow stream where the water swirled in concentric rings of fiery red and orange. It had felt like a pool of solidified embers, pulsing with a slow, infernal rhythm. He stood at the heart of a cosmic wound, the source of an ancient power that flowed into the darkness, drawing him further into its hypnotic, fiery embrace.
The memory of the chill followed—the moment he realized he was being hunted. He had turned to see the entity: a monstrous, draconic head wreathed in thorny vines and shadows. Its face was a nightmare of sharp angles and glowing green eyes, crowned by a single, mountain-like horn. This being was the landscape itself, a god of the shadowed woods whose presence carried a weight that could crush a man's soul.
"You are a lucky lad," the entity's voice had rumbled like a storm of gravel. Kien remembered his own defiance, shouting back at the monster, "Don't play with others' lives just because you have power!" He recalled the creature's sudden curiosity—why was a dying man so desperate to live? His own answer echoed in his soul: "Because I haven't lived my life as I wanted." That simple truth had moved the dying god to mountain-shaking laughter.
The bargain was struck in the echoes of that laughter. "I can grant your wish," the being had stated, "but there is a price. You must erase the members of Ember and all their believers." Kien hadn't hesitated. The promise of power and the chance to no longer be a weakling was worth any soul-debt. He had accepted the mission to destroy the "gods" of the cult that had likely fueled the very world that discarded him.
As the pact was sealed, a magical circle of golden light had erupted beneath him. He remembered the searing heat near his heart as a complex, sun-like mark—the seal of the expiring entity—burned into his skin. The dragon-god had begun to dissolve into shadow and light, its essence pouring into Kien's soul. It was a painful, exhilarating torrent of divine, draconian power that consumed his old, broken body.
Before the light had fully taken him, the entity's final words whispered through his consciousness: "I will give you a new life, infused with my power... you will enter one of the most powerful races." The dragon added a final clue: "When you find my remains in the Ancient Water Temple on the Demon Continent, you will find a key to my power. It is essential to kill the Ember Lord, the one they worship as a god."
The flash of light had intensified, scorching the landscape of his memory until everything went white, erasing the twenty-nine years of failure and replacing it with the weight of a divine mission. The transition was complete. The "nobody" was gone, replaced by a child born of a race that looked like the very demons of legend, carrying the seal of a dying god within his tiny chest.
The sheer volume of the memories—the pain of the arrow, the heat of the embers, and the crushing weight of the dragon's soul—was too much for a newborn's mind to process. Kien's tiny lungs expanded as he let out a sharp, piercing cry, his body shaking with the exhaustion of a soul that had traveled across worlds. As the beautiful woman rushed to cradle him, Kien drifted back into a deep, dreamless sleep, the mark near his heart glowing faintly under his skin.