Cold droplets of rain flicked against Julian's armour, seeping into the small gaps, washing his blood into the ruined streets of a city that died over ten years ago.
The once beautiful skyscrapers lay in heaps of broken steel, stone, and shattered glass. Fire flickered in the distance, and another destroyed outpost devoured the last hope. Smoke curled into the stormy sky, thick with the stench of defeat.
'How can humanity face these monsters…'
Scattered corpses and bones littered the ground, their twisted remains buried and eaten beneath the debris and vines.
The fallen became nourishment for the new world.
'Goddess Solaria, did you plan this from the start?'
The devil crushed them instantly, erasing anyone Julian cared about—a swift, merciless and brutal battle.
He barely kept a small amount of sanity as a shadow loomed over him.
A disfigured monster, over three metres tall and cloaked in a ghastly shadow.
Three meters tall, disfigured and cloaked in shadow.
'You… it's you!'
A walking nightmare of flesh and steel. Its sword, a massive slab of stone dripping with rain and blood, hovered just above Julian.
'He's the one who killed Sena—killed everyone!'
Julian struggled to breathe as a sweet fluid bubbled in the back of his throat, a throbbing pain spreading from his punctured lungs and sticky blood pooling in his throat.
'After all, why didn't I enter the game, given the chance?'
His armour?
Worthless.
Dented, cracked and leaking warmth from Julian's broken body.
His sword?
Worse.
Snapped in half, a useless remnant of a pathetic desire for revenge, a bitter yet worthless final stand.
Pitter-patter
Raindrops mixed with blood, staining the fracked pavement beneath him.
'Why didn't I take your hand?'
His mouth locked in place, and his vision blurred as time shattered. For a second, the world froze. His mind slipped, unwillingly dragging him back to the past.
'Sena…'
His beloved.
The beautiful sword master who fought for humanity and died in his arms.
Her chest was torn open, and her breath was shallow. She gazed at Julian with wide, terrified eyes, like a doe facing a wolf yet still searching for salvation.
'Her beautiful face made the world worth living.'
However, Julian did nothing when given the chance.
Her fingers clenched weakly at his sleeve, her lips parting to speak—shedding tears of frustration as no words followed.
Her party abandoned her, fleeing like cowards.
'My biggest regret is holding you back.'
The black shadow, the one he fought, the one that crushed his resolve, stood over them and laughed, a deep, grating noise that echoed within his skull.
A ferocious rage burned within. But it came too late, a worthless afterthought.
Crackle!
Thunder cracked, filling the sky with light.
His vision lurched back into the present.
Sena's body vanished, and the devil who stole her life gazed down at him with a twisted smile—the stench of sour meat and blood mixed into a disgusting cocktail.
The sword above his head fell.
It cut through the air like a guillotine as the red moon shone in Julian's misty eyes.
'I don't want to be reborn again…'
Crash!
'Please, let Sena be happy without me!'
Once again, he died!
Julian's mind became distant, and his memories and thoughts shattered like glass.
The goddess ignored and rejected his desperate plea, leaving him to suffer.
"Julian! Help me!"
"Julian, I love you~ let's go on a date today, hehe."
Sena's cries for help, her loving voice.
The screams of his dying comrades, the nameless women he shared a bed with, trying to forget the years after Sena died. His shame and regrets piled like a mountain as the monster's mocking voice echoed, the devil that stole everything from him.
[This is the path you chose!]
A judgemental voice lingered, rough and yet almost divine.
Suddenly, Julian gasped for air, catching his breath.
Rain blurred his vision, or maybe it was the throbbing pain clawing at his skull.
'I returned?'
It wasn't the first time he found himself in this world.
'If she follows me, she will die. Thus, I cannot let Sena repeat the past.'
Today, he awoke after death and found himself two weeks before everything started to change.
'She will survive this time, I will keep my promise.'
Kang Sena was Julian's lover and girlfriend in his past life, but this time… he wanted to save her life, and would push her away.
A storm raged with a howling wind that whistled through the ruins. The wind swept through the city, creating a solemn echo like a funeral hymn.
Sena's tear-streaked face burned into his mind.
"Don't leave me!"
Sena asked in a cracked, and hoarse voice filled with desperation as her trembling hands reached out to grab him.
However, Julian shook his head and let her hand slip away, his lips distorted into a twisted smile. His memories, love, and affection shattered when he died to the devil in his past life.
'Why did I lose only these emotions, if not for this reason.'
Yet, even though his memories of Sena became blurry and vague, he couldn't endure watching her shed tears. 'Please don't cry like that…' A sharp pain gouged at his chest. Her trembling legs stumbled as she staggered towards the darkness.
'Is this the right way?'
The rain swallowed her sobs as she climbed into the waiting taxi. Headlights flickered through the storm before fading into the dark fog, leaving Julian alone beneath the obsidian sky.
'Couldn't I have stopped her, saved her, without this?'
Doubts, confusion, and a sense of loss formed a dull, painful emptiness in his chest, yet he knew Sena might never return.
Thunder rolled.
"SENA—!" Julian screamed as he dropped to his knees.
Lightning split the sky. His fingers dug into the mud, his body shaking. The weight of everything he had lost crushed him.
He bit down hard on his lip, tasting blood.
"I never wanted this."
[Hypocrite]
The world pulsed around him, crushing his soul.
The past, present, ghosts of his mistakes and failures all pressed down at once.
'Shut up!'
Despite his anger, and the raging fire in his stomach, the enemy wasn't anyone but himself. The voice was just a distorted reflection of his thoughts.
Then—silence.
Only the steady rhythm of the rain and the distant echoes of thunder.
'I shouldn't have hurt her.'
A regret formed, as Julian exhaled while rain pelted his body. He sucked in the air to catch his breath, his body heavy and listless, as he shifted forward.
Step by step, he walked into the darkness.
No words.
No hesitation.
Only the gravity of what he just lost, weighing on his mind and as the storm raged on… Julian didn't bother to look back.
The moment he left, lightning split the sky with successive arcs of crackling thunder, a final roar as if judging his choice and failures.
"Reincarnation? Rebirth? Regression?" A hollow laugh slipped past his lips. "What bullshit."
And with that, he disappeared into the rain.