Chapter 1: Zero Mana [The End of AJ]
AJ knew he was dying because the world stopped arguing with him.
No gunfire. No shouting. No ringing in his ears. Just silence, thick and cold, pressing down on his chest.
He lay on his back, staring at the Afghan sky. It looked too clean for a battlefield. Too blue.
So this is it.
His lungs burned, each breath a negotiation he was losing. He didn't feel fear. That surprised him. He felt… inventory. Like his mind was checking shelves before the lights went out.
I wasn't a bad man.
The thought came quietly. No desperation. No begging.
Just truth.
His mother's voice calling him in for dinner. His sisters screaming with laughter as he chased them around the yard. The sketchbook under his bed, pages full of half-finished charcoal drawings. Dragons. Soldiers. Faces he never showed anyone.
A girl with hazel eyes. The way she looked at him once, waiting. The way he never spoke.
Regret stung sharper than the shrapnel in his chest.
The sky dimmed.
Then vanished.
[Judgment Without Mercy]
There was no pain when he opened his eyes again.
No body either.
He floated in a pale nothingness that felt endless and intimate at the same time, like standing inside someone else's thoughts.
Several presences observed him.
They had no faces. No forms. But they carried weight. Pressure. Authority.
Judges.
"You endured," one said. Its voice sounded like ice splitting.
AJ didn't kneel. He didn't look away.
"Am I dead?"
"Yes."
A pause.
"You will not remain so."
That came too quickly.
AJ exhaled. "There's a cost."
"There is always a cost," another voice said, softer. Older.
"What kind?"
"Your strength will be sealed. Your path will be slow. Painful."
AJ nodded once. That made sense.
Nothing worth having ever came easy.
"I'll earn it."
The silence that followed felt… pleased.
Reality collapsed inward.
[The Defect]
Kaito Ren was born screaming.
Then he went silent.
The Royal Chamber froze.
The midwife pressed two fingers against the newborn's chest, searching for the familiar thrum of mana. Her hand lingered too long.
She tried again.
Nothing.
Her face drained of color.
Queen Linnea felt it instantly. A hollow where connection should have been. A cold absence that made her breath hitch.
Zero mana.
Completely empty.
From the shadows, the Elven Elders whispered like knives sliding from sheaths.
"A half-blood."
"A stain."
"A useless heir."
The High Priest stepped forward, his expression carved from stone. "The prophecy speaks of power unseen. This child has none."
Queen Linnea looked down at her son.
He wasn't crying.
His silver-gray eyes were open. Focused. Calm.
Not the gaze of an infant.
The gaze of someone measuring a world that had already decided to reject him.
I'm sorry, she thought, her fingers tightening around the edge of the cradle. I cannot protect you here.
She gave no orders. She made no speeches.
Before dawn, while thunder rolled across the silver spires, her firstborn vanished from history.
[A Life Without Magic]
The humans named him Kaito.
They were farmers. Border folk. People who cared more about harvests than bloodlines.
They loved him without questions.
That mattered.
But the world noticed.
Other children's candles flickered when they laughed. Sparks jumped when they argued. Accidental magic danced through their lives like a second breath.
Kaito's candle never lit.
Teachers sighed. Other children whispered.
"Broken."
He trained anyway.
Wooden sword. Splintered grip. Hands blistered raw.
Stopping felt worse than failing.
At night, the dreams came.
Explosions. Sand. Commands shouted in a language he didn't recognize but understood perfectly.
He woke shaking, heart racing.
Why do I feel like this isn't my first life?
[The Smiling Man]
The night his family died was quiet.
Too quiet.
The crickets sang. The moon hung full and bright.
Kaito woke to a sound that didn't belong in his home.
Fear.
He crept down the hall.
The door was shattered.
His parents lay on the floor, blood dark against the wood. His father's hand stretched toward his mother, fingers curled as if still trying to protect her.
They didn't move.
Kaito's mind refused to accept it.
Then a man stepped from the shadows.
Fine clothes. Clean boots.
A smile that enjoyed being seen.
Run.
His body obeyed before his thoughts caught up.
Glass exploded as he dove through the window. He ran until his lungs burned, until branches tore at his skin, until the night swallowed him whole.
[Seven Days to Die]
The forest didn't care.
Hunger came first. Then cold.
By the third day, his stomach cramped so badly he cried into his sleeve to keep quiet. By the fifth, he stopped crying.
Crying wasted water.
Wasted energy.
By the seventh night, frost coated the ground. Kaito curled beneath a tree root, shaking violently, vision tunneling.
Not like this.
Not again.
I want to live.
The thought cut through the dark like an order.
Something answered.
Not magic.
Something colder. Sharper.
Blue text burned across his vision.
[System Detected.][Host: Kaito Ren.][Condition: Critical.][Status: Unlocked.]
Kaito didn't understand the words.
But for the first time since the screams stopped, he didn't feel alone.
Far away, bound in chains older than the world, a Goddess smiled.
At last.
And the prophecy the elves had discarded exhaled its first breath.