'Why is it so dark?' Eri thought as she floated in a seemingly endless void of perpetual darkness.
The nothingness stretched in every direction, a vast emptiness that swallowed all light. No up, no down. Just... absence.
Her mangled and bloody body drifted through the void, weightless. The pain that should have been overwhelming was strangely distant, like an echo of something once felt. All that remained were her thoughts, crystal clear in the silence.
'The last thing I remember is fighting that stupid dog, and then...' She mentally recoiled as the memory resurfaced—the gleaming sword, the triumphant snarl on his face, the sickening sensation as cold steel drove through her stomach.
She tried to gag, but couldn't. Her body refused to respond. No churning stomach. No rising bile. Nothing.
"That mutt," she hissed, her voice somehow audible in the void yet swallowed by it at the same time.
Then another thought crept into her mind, spreading like ice through her consciousness.
'Wait, am I dead right now?!' She practically screamed in her head, panic rising like a tidal wave.
She had died once before. The situation she found herself in now felt oddly similar—the darkness, the weightlessness, the detachment from her physical form. But something was different this time.
Eri forced herself to think logically. It seemed hard to imagine there were four more gods out there drafting soldiers for yet another cosmic war. The thought was too absurd, even for her strange existence. She quickly dismissed the idea of being dead.
Instead, her mind drifted to more pressing concerns.
'I wonder how Gindu is doing right now.' The last she had seen of him on the battlefield, he was locked in a battle of his own, blue scales gleaming with sweat as he fought back-to-back with another dragonkin. His spear had been a blur of motion.
'I hope he's okay,' she thought worriedly, a strange ache forming where her heart should be.
Memories of her first death surfaced unbidden. Eri, in her old world, had died of starvation. She had been abandoned by her parents and left to care for her younger siblings in a small, crumbling apartment on the outskirts of the city.
Instead of feeding herself, she had often given her food to them, pushing her plate across the table with a smile that hid her hunger pangs. She left herself with nothing but the satisfaction of seeing their bellies full.
Until one day, she hadn't woken up. Her body, too weak to continue, had shut down in the night. She died, leaving them behind, her last thoughts filled with worry about who would care for them now.
Then she got drafted into Seraphine's ranks. A second chance, they called it. A duty, she knew it to be.
Eri had always been nervous in life, worried about making ends meet, and concerned that her siblings weren't getting enough to eat. And now, drifting in this void, she found herself nervous for Gindu.
He was the first person to talk to her at the palace. When she had arrived, disoriented and furious at her new existence, he was the only person more nervous than her. His scales had rippled with anxiety, his tail curling and uncurling as he stammered an introduction.
The memory made her laugh, the sound strangely hollow in the void as she drifted further into nothingness.
She had grown quite fond of the blue-scaled dragonkin over time. He was always there for her, especially when that stupid human got close. Gindu would position himself between them, his usual nervousness replaced by protective vigilance.
The thought of Lucy made her skin crawl—or would have, if she could feel her skin at all in this strange place. His smug human face, his ignorance of their world, and the way Seraphine seemed to favor him despite his uselessness.
'Humans.' Even thinking the word filled her with bitterness.
Not only was he human, but his pale eyes also seemed to follow her. Those eyes, like frozen lakes, tracked her movements across rooms, lingered on her when he thought she wasn't looking. She couldn't shake the feeling that something hungry lurked behind that gaze.
Creep! She mentally spat, trying to rid herself of the thought of that human. Even in this void between life and death, he managed to infect her thoughts.
Then she felt something in the darkness—something... different.
The darkness had been oddly cold until now, a lifeless expanse that seemed to leech warmth from her very essence. But suddenly, she felt a strange heat blooming around her, as if a distant star had been born in this empty place.
A warmth began to flow into her, gentle at first, then growing stronger. It reminded her of sunlight on her skin after a long winter.
Then she could see it—a blue beaming light in front of her. It wasn't there, and then it was, erupting out of the darkness like water bursting through a dam. The radiance expanded outward, illuminating the void with azure brilliance, pushing back the emptiness.
She reached her hand out instinctively, fingers stretching toward the glow.
The moment she touched it, a familiar sensation tingled through her fingertips, up her arm, and into her chest, like greeting an old friend.
'Why does it feel familiar?' she wondered, mesmerized by the pulsing blue light that seemed to breathe in time with her thoughts.
Then, as she pressed her palm fully against it, recognition dawned. The energy responded to her touch, curling around her fingers like an affectionate cat.
'My mana?'
It was a beautiful sight. She had never seen her mana in a physical form before, had only felt it coursing through her veins during battle. But here it was in front of her—a swirling pool of liquid sapphire light, inviting her to take a swim in its depths.
Without hesitation, she moved her whole body into it. The sensation was immediate and overwhelming, like plunging into a hot spring after being lost in a blizzard.
She felt her wounds healing at a rapid pace. Bones that had been shattered reformed. Torn flesh knit itself back together. Her mangled body was slowly becoming whole again, cell by cell, fiber by fiber.
The warmth inside of her grew more intense, spreading from her core to her limbs, until she felt like her entire body was on fire—not a painful burning, but a cleansing heat that scoured away damage and pain.
Light pulsed through her veins. Power surged with each heartbeat. For the first time since awakening in this void, she felt truly alive.
However, as quickly as it came, it went. The sapphire pool thinned and dissipated, her mana flowing back into her body where it belonged—rivers returning to the sea. The darkness around her began to fade, replaced by something else entirely.
Light slowly crept into her eyes—first as pinpricks, then as blinding flashes. She squinted against the assault. Flashing lights of fire, water, and other elemental magic painted the world in chaotic strokes of color. The sound of metal clashing against metal banged in her ears, loud enough to jolt her fully awake.
Her eyes snapped open, reality crashing back.
Looking around, she realized she was lying on the battlefield, soaked in her own blood. The obsidian ground beneath her was slick with it, still warm. Her armor was torn open at the chest, but the fatal wound had vanished.
Then, glancing to her left, she saw a horrific sight: the head of the beastkin that had tried to kill her. His eyes were frozen in shock, muzzle still twisted in that final snarl. His severed neck ended in a ragged mess of flesh and fur, congealing blood pooling beneath it.
The sight nearly made her retch, but the impulse faded when she realized this was just one of many heads surrounding her. For some reason, there were ten in total, arranged in a grotesque circle around her body like macabre guardians.
'This is war,' she thought, her face twisting with sorrow. Not disgust or fear—just a profound, aching sadness for what they had all become in this endless conflict.
She grabbed her sword off the obsidian ground, fingers wrapping around the familiar hilt. With a grunt of effort, she pushed herself up to stand, ready to face her next enemy. Her muscles protested, remembering the trauma they had so recently endured.
However, as soon as she stood upright, she caught movement from the corner of her eye—an archer, taking aim. She turned just in time to see the arrow already flying toward her chest, its deadly tip gleaming in the chaotic light.
She didn't have time to dodge.
'Crap,' was the only thought that flashed through her mind as she braced for impact.
But it never came.
In a blur, barely recognizable to her still-adjusting eyes, something—someone—moved between her and certain death. A blade flashed, splitting the arrow into two perfect halves that whistled past either side of her.
Then the figure dashed forward with inhuman speed, nothing but a streak of silver and black across the battlefield. Before the elven archer could nock another arrow, the figure was upon him. A single stroke of steel, and the elf's head toppled from his shoulders.
When the figure finally stood still, she could make him out clearly in the flickering light of battle.
He stood around six feet tall, clad in bright silver armor now splattered with crimson. His messy black hair was matted with sweat and blood, framing a face set with grim determination. And those eyes-those pale, unmistakable eyes—were fixed on her with an intensity that made her breath catch.
'The human?' she thought, bewildered. 'Did he do all of this?'
She looked again at the littered corpses surrounding her body—the ten severed heads, the trail of bodies leading to where Lucy now stood. The devastation that had been wrought in what must have been mere moments while she drifted in darkness.
For the first time since meeting him, Eri found herself at a loss for words.