Yes, the Chaos Source Seed had flooded him with raw strength, but wielding it felt like swinging a sword while blindfolded.


    Across from him stood an ancient who forged the sword, named every angle, and knew exactly where to cut.


    A child, no matter how fine the weapon, could never outfight a seasoned warrior.


    He heard his own ragged breath echo inside the copsing sphere of his mind. This could not drag on. A hard glint burned behind his eyes—no retreat left. Fine. All in. His awareness plunged into the furnace hidden behind his navel.


    There, the Chaos Star whirled so violently that hair-line cracks raced across its molten surface.


    He forced it to cough up raw origin power, a forbidden draw the Primal Unity Refinement Tome warned him never to attempt at his current level.


    And then-


    "Enough. Your strength pleases me. You may yet earn the rank of my highest Reincarnation Envoy." The giant phantom withdrew its hand, and every crushing assault vanished with it.


    Relief did not feel like relief-just the shock of noticing he was still upright, if bleeding from ces he could not name.


    The Chaotic Domain recoiled into his body, leaving him swaying over a pool of his own red.


    "First, you will taste what true Reincarnation torment means," the Lord said, the warmth in his timbre freezing away.


    "Only after that will youprehend how foolish your defiance has been."


    The phantom hand stretched toward him, fingers sying wider than city gates.


    In its palm a gray-white whirlpool turned, slow, patient, and so ancient his soul flinched before thought could form.


    That has to be the naked source of the Reincarnationw, he realized, dread eating the edges of reason.


    "Endure the cycles. After one hundred lifetimes, when you have sampled every sorrow and forgotten who you were, I will fetch you back and clothe you in new purpose as my obedient servant."


    The whirlpool drifted from his palm and glided toward Jared like a ghostntern, silent and inexorable.


    Jared strained to step aside, to raise a finger, anything, but invisible shackles pinned every joint.


    Thest sparks of chaotic force were ashes; the wounds in his spirit pulsed open, refusing to answer his call.


    He could only watch as the gray-white spiral touched his forehead and seeped inward like winter water into cracked stone.


    Cold.


    Unending, marrow-deep cold.


    Then darkness.


    Total, swallowing darkness.


    His awareness fluttered like thest wick of a storm-beaten candle, wavered, and finally went out.


    "One century from now," the distant voice whispered through the void, "we meet again. By then you will understand what fate truly is."


    The final shard of light blinked out.


    He tumbled into a ck so total that even the idea of his own body slipped away, leaving only Jared''s small, startled breath echoing inside his chest.


    When the silence settled, it felt ancient, as though the Reincarnation Realm had closed a colossal door and was content never to open it again.


    A lone smear of gray-white light floated ahead; faces drifted inside it, surfacing then sinking, while a half-formed, trembling visage began to stitch itself together at the core.


    "Sandy... please... just open the door..." The plea seeped from Jared''s cracked lips and hung in the night air, thin as steam from cooling tea.


    He stood on the stoop outside her apartment, shoulders shaking every time he hammered the wood; his bruised knuckles throbbed in sync with his heartbeat, but he kept calling.


    The lock clicked; Be, Sandy''s mother, burst out and drove her heel into his shin.


    "You convict, vanish. My girl is marrying Leyton and nothing will stain her day."


    "No... it can''t be," Jared whispered, shaking his head so hard his vision blurred, as though reality might fall off like loose dust.


    Sandy stepped onto the porch in a white dress that felt to Jared like a funeral shroud.


    She flung several crumpled bills; they pped his face before falling to the concrete. "Leave. Of course I''m marrying Leyton."


    "Betray me and see what the Dragonyer Sword can do," Jared growled, fire skating across his eyes as he raised a trembling hand.


    He sliced the air, waiting for cold steel and roaring power. Nothing came. Only the embarrassed whisper of his own sleeve.


    Engines red; a ribbon of bridal cars rolled up, chrome glinting under early sunlight.


    The lead door swung open and Leyton strode out in a tailored suit, pointing at Jared. "Are you trying to ruin my wedding, you useless bastard?"


    Jared''s stare sharpened until Leyton flinched; venom coated every word. "Leyton, swear you''ll—"


    "I swear I don''t. Put him down." Leyton flicked his wrist, and the bodyguards closed


    in.


    The first fist drove into Jared''s ribs, then a boot caught his cheek; pain bloomed, wet and metallic, before he even hit the pavement.


    With a wounded grunt he swung back. "Holy Light Fist!"


    His knuckles crashed into a guard''s stomach, folding the man over with a startled wheeze.


    "You son of a- still fighting?"


    Rage red in the guard''s eyes; the next blows fell heavier, each one a gravelly thunder inside Jared''s bones.


    Minutes felt like hours before the kicks stopped; Jaredy staring at gray sky through one swollen eye, face a map of bruises.


    He watched, powerless, as Sandy stepped into the ribboned car and the convoy pulled away. Be leaned over him and spat; the saliva burned hotter than the asphalt.


    Shaking, he pushed to his feet. "Where''s my strength-my chaotic aura where did


    it go?"


    A long, high squeal of tires echoed down the street, as if the world itself wereughing at the question.


    He pushed against the bench, knees still unsteady from the bus ride, and felt gravel crunch under his soles.


    A horn screamed, metal shed, and


    something heavy mmed into his hip, flinging him onto the cktop


    before the


    the thought of danger could


    settle.


    Tires hissed to a stop beside him, and the driver''s door swung open.


    The woman who stepped out wore a powder-blue suit Jared would have recognized


    in any light-Josephine.


    Pain peeled through his ribs, yet excitement punched even harder.


    He lurched upright, gripping the fender for bnce, and blurted, "Josephine, I can''t


    believe it''s you! Are you okay? It''s been forever."


    She blinked once, expression nk, then curled her lip.


    "Who the hell are you? Get out of the way."


    Her palm hit his chest, cold and deliberate, shoving him aside before she slid back behind the whend


    sped off, taillights smearing ced across the dusk.


    "Josephine! Josephine!" he shouted, sprinting after the retreating car until his lungs


    burned and the asphalt blurred with his own blood.


    A childlike voice drifted from the sidewalk behind him.


    "Grandpa, look, that bloody guy tried to fake an ident and still got beaten."


    Jared turned; a delicate girl clung to an elderly man''s arm, their evening stroll briefly paused as they studied him like a stray dog.


    The old man shook his head.


    "Lizbeth, give him a hundred. Young people shouldn''t waste themselves on scams."


    His sigh sounded almost apologetic, yet his eyes never softened.


    The girl pinched a crisp bill between two manicured fingers and flicked it toward


    Jared; it fluttered to the gutter.


    "Grandpa says don''t y con man again."


    Hope leapt.


    He staggered forward, grin splitting the blood on his lips.


    "Lizbeth, thank God-it''s so good to see you."


    The girl''s face nched.


    "I don''t know you, creep. I work for the Department of Justice-I could have you


    arrested."


    She yanked her grandfather away, their footsteps quickening until they vanished around the corner.


    Jared stood alone, the bill wilting near his shoe, the words spinning: Nobody remembers me.


    How could that be?


    Night found him limping back to the rented apartment, each stair jellying beneath


    bruised legs.


    In the dim hallway he heard his mother''s tremoring voice and male chatter thick


    with threat.


    He reached the doorway in time to see her clouded eyes searching the air, hands


    shaking around a stack of bills.


    Rage sted through the ache.


    He stormed inside.


    "Stop! Apologize to my mother right now, you bastards."


    The bald one snorted. "Fresh out of lockup and already mouthing off?"


    His fist shot forward, cracking against Jared''s cheekbone, hot-white pain detaching sound from sight.


    "Teach him," he barked, stepping back with a grin.


    The pack descended-boots, fists, brokenughter-until the floor rushed up to


    meet Jared''s face.


    Somewhere beyond the blows, his mother knelt, begging, pressing the money into their hands as though it might buy his safety.


    The streemp''s glow retreated with the thugs; theirughter bled into the alley until even echoes gave up.


    Jaredy on the damp pavement, eyes staring at nothing, limbs refusing every


    Something inside him had simply shut off, the way a switch flips when a building is condemned.


    How had his life copsed into this?


    He waited for the dark to seal him over, almost grateful for the numbness.


    Then a voice threaded through the ringing in his ears, low and familiar, jerking him


    back toward breath.


    "Jared, time to wake..."