Dying sucks.
But apparently, it doesn't stick.
Halfdan Skarsgård opened his eyes to find himself staring at a patchwork of sunlight and leaves. The sky peeked between swaying branches, blue and endless, and the ground beneath him was soft grass damp with morning dew. The world hummed — birds chirped somewhere distant, wind rustled the branches, the scent of wild grass and damp earth wrapped around him like a living thing.
For a long, stunned moment, he just lay there, eyes tracing the dancing light between leaves.
He blinked, slow and disbelieving.
I'm alive.
The thought didn't feel real. It echoed in his mind, reverberating against disbelief. He took a deep breath — expecting the usual stabbing pain, the tightness in his chest, the burning in his lungs. Nothing. The air flowed easily, clean and warm.
He blinked, sat up slowly, and waited for the dizziness to hit. It didn't. His hands — steady. His pulse — calm. He pressed a palm against his chest and felt his heart beating, strong and steady, not the erratic flutter it used to be.
It hit him like sunlight breaking through clouds — no pain.
No aching joints.
No trembling fingers.
No heavy exhaustion sinking into his bones.
For the first time in sixteen years, he felt nothing.
No illness. No pain. No weakness.
Just life.
Halfdan exhaled shakily, a small, disbelieving laugh escaping him. He ran both hands over his face, half-afraid this would vanish like a fever dream. But it didn't. His skin was warm. His body answered every movement without complaint.
"No coughing. No pain. No toxic mana…" His voice sounded hoarse, but not weak, strange yet oddly familiar. "Is this what normal people feel like every day?" He couldn't remember the last time he had truly been able to breathe—really breathe. It felt like an eternity ago, back when he was still Halfdan in his first life.
He laughed again — breathless, shaky, disoriented — but it was laughter nonetheless. The first pain-free laugh in sixteen years.
He lay back down, staring up through the leaves, letting the warmth of the sun spill across his face. For the first time in a very, very long time, he wasn't fighting to breathe, wasn't waiting for the pain to start again.
For the first time in forever, he was simply alive.
And gods, it felt good
The sunlight felt warm on his face. For a few stolen seconds, he just stayed there, eyes closed, letting it soak into him.
And then he noticed the weight.
Something cold pressed against his left arm.
Halfdan sat up, blinking away the haze of sunlight, and that's when he saw it — the thing wrapped around his arm. A gauntlet, though no blacksmith on Earth or any world he knew could have forged such a thing.
The fabric was black, not metal, but some soft, almost supple material that flexed with his movement like leather yet gleamed faintly under the sun. Over it, plates of golden metal curved seamlessly around his arm, jointed with delicate precision. It wasn't like any piece of armor he'd ever seen—too intricate, too deliberate. Over the plates and leather-like material, faint, almost unnoticeable runes pulsed ever so slightly — alive, breathing mana. It felt… divine. Ancient and new all at once.
He turned his wrist. The inner forearm bore a perfectly rectangular indentation, just the right size for a playing card. The outer side was stranger still — narrow metallic slits forming what looked absurdly like a deck holder.
"Okay," he murmured, squinting. "That's not exactly standard-issue afterlife wear."
He angled his arm, and the polished gold caught the light — and for a heartbeat, he saw a reflection staring back. Not the olive-skinned yet sickly pale, dark-haired Alexander Di Luca he'd grown used to seeing in the mirror these past sixteen years.
This was someone else.
Someone familiar.
A boy — no, a young man, maybe fourteen or fifteen. Pale skin kissed by sunlight, hair the color of wheat in summer, and eyes so blue they almost hurt to look at.
His breath hitched.
That's me.
Halfdan Skarsgård. Not the sickly heir of a damn noble house. Not the broken man crushed under a truck. Just… himself. But younger. His features were softer now, his jaw less defined—but it was him. The face that had stared back at him in the mirror for twenty-five years, the one he'd ached for sixteen long years, was finally there again, gazing back at him.
Memories came crashing in, jagged and fast — the blinding headlights, the truck's horn, the cracking of bones. That damn stench of fish. Then another death — colder, quieter. The night's shadows, stone floors, the executioner's axe, the Duchess's voice reading his sentence. The dull fear, the betrayal carved into his parents' faces, their silence as he was dragged away.
Giuliano's golden hair and blue eyes flickered across his mind — the same colors now looking back at him in the reflection.
Rage flared, molten and sharp.
"They killed me for him," he said quietly. His voice trembled, but not from weakness. "My parents killed me."
The words hung there, heavy and obscene.
He had been born to die for Giuliano.
A decoy son. A lamb raised for slaughter.
He clenched his jaw, the metal of the gauntlet creaking faintly.
"And the Duchess?" he spat. "A self-righteous hag playing God. Justice? No — revenge dressed up as righteousness. Her sons were killed? So let's fucking slaughter innocent children who weren't even born when it happened, and call it justice."
He could still hear her voice, the mockery behind every word. A mother who lost her sons, killing other children to make herself feel whole again.
"Damn you, Rhea," he muttered, anger flickering in his voice. "And damn my parents — and every noble who played along with her sick game." He laughed, but it had no humor. "So much for noble honor."
He remembered the whispers that followed the noble families — heirs dying mysteriously on their sixteenth birthdays, strange illnesses, sudden accidents. The rumors of curses, rituals, divine punishment.
Now he knew the truth. All lies. All cover-ups.
The nobility, preaching honor and virtue while feeding their children to the axe of revenge.
He almost laughed — bitter, humorless. "Divine punishment, my ass."
The sound of the forest swallowed his words.
For a long while, Halfdan just stood there, eyes distant, letting the fury burn itself down to embers. Finally, he took a deep breath and turned his gaze back to the gauntlet.
It gleamed innocently in the sunlight.
"…and what the hell are you?"
The golden veins along the gauntlet pulsed faintly, like something alive was sleeping beneath the metal. Halfdan tilted his arm, watching how the light chased across the runes. Curiosity itched at the back of his mind. Whatever this thing was, it felt important—divine, even.
He brushed a thumb over the deck-like slot on the outer forearm.
The reaction was immediate.
A faint chime echoed through the air, and a translucent panel of light bloomed above his wrist, shimmering with runes that morphed into words he could read. Halfdan blinked, then leaned closer as glowing lines arranged themselves into neat columns of text.
GAUNTLET OF EIDOLON
Status: Active
Type: Divine Artefact
Creator: [Data Unavailable]
Functions:
• Include Card — Gain partial access to the power of a legend. (Cost: 5 MP/min)
• Install Card — Temporarily merge with the legend's essence. (Cost: 20 MP/min)
Deck Capacity: 47 Cards (All Empty)
Summoning Ritual: Imprint a legend's essence onto a blank card.
Cost: 50,000 MP
Success Rate: 20%
He stared for a moment, blinking slowly. "...Huh."
A pause. Then: "So basically… a divine gacha."
He snorted, incredulous laughter bubbling up. "Great. Died twice. First time, hit by a truck and reborn as a crippled decoy heir. Second time, killed over political bullshit. And now? I wake up with a damn gacha-based power. As if gacha games hadn't already ruined my credit score enough in my first life…"
The menu shifted again, listing parameters and production stats. Halfdan scrolled through it with growing amusement.
Mana Generation: 240 MP/day
— 50% automatically stored for Ritual charging
— 50% available for user functions
Environmental Absorption: Active
— MP intake increases proportionally to ambient mana concentration
Current Ritual Charge: 100%
"Okay," he muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "So I'm basically a magic battery hooked to a cosmic gacha machine. Perfect."
He did the math in his head.
Fifty thousand MP per summon. A year and some change per charge if he relied only on his own mana generation. That was bullshit—an entire year for a twenty-percent chance at a power. Even if environmental absorption cut that in half, it'd still take six months.
Well, if video game logic applied, he was basically a level-one character, and leveling up should boost his mana generation dramatically, cutting that time down. But that was all hypothetical. And it would take time—a hell of a lot of time.
Except… his gauntlet was already full.
He stared at the glowing 100% indicator for a long moment, the implications sinking in.
"So… it's ready to roll right now?"
A low hum rippled through the metal, almost as if the gauntlet was agreeing.
He exhaled a shaky laugh. "Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be? Sure, universe, let's roll for divine trading cards right after resurrection. Sounds totally reasonable."
The holographic text pulsed once more, awaiting input, patient as a god.
Halfdan grinned despite himself. "Well… what's the worst that could happen?" he said under his breath. "Third life's the charm. Alright, let's see what kind of nonsense you're packing."
He lifted his arm, finger hovering over the glowing option labeled Summoning Ritual – Initiate.
And tapped it.
The holographic menu shimmered, and the forest around him dimmed as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Halfdan hesitated only a second before muttering, "Screw it," and tapped Summon Ritual – Initiate.
The deck on his gauntlet clicked. One of the empty cards slid free and floated above his wrist, spinning slowly in the air. The runes along the gauntlet blazed to life, lines of gold snaking up his arm like molten rivers.
A hum—deep, resonant, ancient—filled the clearing.
The card began to rotate faster, the air trembling with invisible pressure. Tiny points of light winked into being around it, dozens, then hundreds, forming shifting constellations that orbited the card like stars in a miniature cosmos.
Halfdan's mouth fell open. "Holy—"