Death. Pain. Peace—maybe.
The mountain wind howled, a biting, relentless force that brushed against his dry, cracked skin, but he barely felt the sting anymore.
He stood at the jagged edge of a peak that felt like the end of the world, his boots worn thin from three decades of wandering.
Below him stretched the boundless Rift, an endless hole of shadows with no sliver of light. Yet he showed no fear; fear was a luxury for those who still had something to lose.
He let out a slow, steady breath. His life had never been about anything—at least, not worth belonging to this world.
The memory of the rank evaluation still burned, vivid in his mind. He remembered the heat of the hall, the neat lines of students, and the atmosphere filled with tension.
He remembered the large screen lighting up for the others—numbers rising, powerful skills appearing, and glorious futures being decided in seconds.
When it was his turn, the air shifted. The screen hesitated before it finally flickered.
Name: Tia Xu
Status: Awakened
Power trait: none
Rank:---
The instructors frowned.
Someone laughed, and gradually, it spread like a virus. From that moment on, his life became a nightmare come true.
He failed the written exams because of unsaid reasons and took last place in the practical one.
By graduation, no unit wanted a failure like him.
The only job he managed to find was cleaning—hallways, training rooms, places meant for people with futures.
spending years on his knees, scrubbing beneath posters of Heroes who promised safety from the monsters beyond the gates. No one ever noticed him, as invisible as the dust he swept.
Then, he heard the legend.
A rumor passed between drunk hunters and desperate failures.
A place said to exist nowhere beyond the world we live in. A lie, most said. A place said to grant every wish, even immortality.
A story for people with nothing, like him—but he listened anyway. It wasn't his first time hearing things like this.
Around that time, his mother suddenly disappeared.
No farewell. No body. No explanation. Just an empty room and the memories it held.
From then on, the legend became the only thing that gave his days shape.
He searched for years—through rejections, ridicule, and the slow decay of his body—until the search itself became his only reason to breathe, with the hope that he finds it.
The memory faded. The Fierce wind returned.
How many years has it been? Thirty?
He couldn't remember. He had stopped counting a long time ago.
Tia Xu took one final look at the sky, brighter than usual.
There was nothing left for him in this world of gates and measured powers. There was no place to return to. No one waiting. The legend was either below him—or it was nowhere at all.
He moved forward.
The ground vanished. There was no scream, no panic—only the terrifying, beautiful sensation of falling into something vast and indifferent, where gravity itself seemed absent, leaving him suspended in a space where his life felt like a weak glow fading away.
For Tia, the legend wasn't about glory; it was about worth, reason for existing, and the unsolved mystery of his missing parents.
Tia hovered in a space without direction, without ground, or trace of light.
His vision embraced the suffocating darkness. His body felt old, heavy, and cold—a crushing heaviness—in a sea of nothingness.
Finally, peace, he thought, as his breath hitched, waiting calmly for death to claim what was left of him.
But… nothing ended. Nothing came.
Only silence surrounded him.
Slowly, moments passed—minutes, hours, decades—becoming a soul with no purpose and no memory.
How did I get here?
"VRRRT!"
A large screen appeared out of nowhere, hovering above him.
[Processing Soul…]
The process stalled.
One second. Two. Three.
Too long. Longer than it should.
"Bzzk—k—k—"
The screen stuttered. The sound moved through the silence, loud and sharp. Red light flared across his vision, vanishing and returning like a broken signal.
[Error]
[Error]
[Error…]
A fleeting sensation ripped through him.
Pain followed, without origin.
Not sharp.
Not dull.
Each pulse felt like his body was splitting apart.
Then, silence.
The screen vanished. The pain faded into a numb ache.
As his consciousness began to slip away, through the darkness he heard it—a cold voice mechanical:
"Soul rejected."
"Return denied."
His vision went black.
With one final, flickering thought:
What does it mean to be denied death by death?