The man wheezed, blood splattering into his trembling palm.
His vision blurred. His body shivered.
A soft wind seeped through the cracks of the broken wooden hut, brushing against his feverish skin like cold knives.
He stared at his bloodstained hand.
Born in the slums, he had nothing.
No name. No parents. No love.
All he ever wanted was a family.
Someone to care. Someone to stay.
But dreams didn’t feed the starving.
Day and night, under the scorching sun and freezing rain.
He bled. He endured. He rose.
At just eighteen, he stood at the top of the world.
They called him the Emperor.
The King who would rule for eternity.
A symbol of invincibility.
But at twenty, everything crumbled.
A sickness came—one that no healer could name, no medicine could cure.
It hollowed his strength.
And what followed was worse.
The comrades who once marched beside him.
The people who once cheered his name...
They turned on each other.
They didn’t fight for him.
They fought for his legacy. His wealth. His throne.
And when he could no longer stand—
No warmth. No farewell. No mercy.
They left him in this rotting shack to die slowly...
To feel the sting of betrayal.
To taste the bitterness of solitude.
To rot away like forgotten trash.
Another spasm wracked his body, and blood ran down his chin.
His heart raced. His breath hitched.
"If there is another life..."
"I will never trust again."
"I will never love again."
"I will rule—and burn the world if I must."
The Emperor—once hailed as the savior of millions—
died nameless, betrayed, forgotten...
"What...? What happened?"
His eyes fluttered open, stinging from the sudden light.
He blinked, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
Fingers trembled as they ran across his chest, his arms, his legs—
Not perfectly—but they responded.
The hatred that scorched his chest until his last breath.
His head snapped left, then right.
The room around him was strange—too clean, too foreign.
Smooth white walls. A giant transparent rectangle that looked like glass—but with moving images and sound inside. People were inside that thing.
"What kind of magic is this...?" he whispered.
Everything felt off. The air smelled... artificial. The faint humming of a machine played like a background tune he didn’t recognize.
Even his breath felt wrong—labored, shallow.
His limbs were weak. Fragile.
Not unlike the dying body he had in the end...
He sat in a chair. But it wasn’t like any throne or seat he knew.
This one had wheels—two large ones on either side.
Just then, a voice called out.
"Julian, I’m coming in."
The door creaked open. A woman entered.
She looked to be in her mid-thirties, with tired eyes and a warm smile.
"How are you, Julian?" she asked gently.
"You feeling okay? You gave me a scare yesterday."
Her voice... sounded like a mother’s.
Kind. Gentle. Concerned.
Julian... Julian Ashford...
The name echoed in his mind like a whisper from another life.
No... I’m not Julian.
He remembered the journey. The eighteen years of relentless training. The comrades, the betrayal.
But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember his old name.
And then, like a dam breaking—
Memories not his own rushed in.
This body belonged to Julian Ashford, the only child of a wealthy family.
Born with a rare disease that left his body frail and near-paralyzed.
Seen as a disgrace, he was cast aside—given a private estate in Los Angeles, California.
Assigned a caretaker.
Taught through home-schooling.
Just like the broken hut he once died in.
Was that why he’d been reborn in this body?
"Julian...? Juliannn!"
The woman’s voice pulled him from the whirlpool of thoughts.
She stepped closer, panic creeping into her features.
"You hit your head when you fell yesterday. Do you remember anything? Your name? Your home?"
Julian raised a trembling hand to his head.
His fingers brushed against something rough and tight—
Still fresh. Still damp with ointment.
He hesitated. Drew in a breath. Then forced a small, faint smile.
"Ah... I forgot everything."
"Oh no... We need to call the doctor."
She quickly picked up a small object from the table—rectangular, smooth, glowing with a strange light.
Julian stared as she spoke into it.
Speaking clearly... from the object.
What kind of artifact is this?
A crystal that sends voices through the air?
His mind reeled. This wasn’t magic. This was something else—far stranger.
Julian turned away and caught sight of a mirror—no, glass. Perfectly smooth, mounted on the wall.
He reached for the wheelchair’s wheels, pushing with shaky hands.
The effort drained him.
But the chair rolled forward.
It took all his strength, but he reached the mirror.
The boy staring back at him looked like a walking corpse.
Hair thin and messy, like it hadn’t been washed in weeks.
Like they belonged to someone who had already died once.
Is this really me now?
He raised a hand to his face.
"Okay, the doctor’s on the way," the woman said, placing the strange artifact back down.
She forced a smile, her voice laced with concern.
"Let’s get you something to eat, Julian. And maybe a little sun—you’re as pale as a ghost."
She stepped behind him and gently placed her hands on the wheelchair.
Julian didn’t resist.
He was too busy watching everything.
The light on the ceiling.
The smooth floor beneath them.
The quiet hums and beeps of machines around the room.
He was used to swords and scrolls.
This world? It felt like another kind of sorcery.