Pov: Ryuk
Red warning runes flickered around my spiritual sight as the timer on Par-Kaya Pravesh ticked down.
"SCANNING SURROUNDING LIFE-FORMS AND COMPATIBLE VESSELS FOR TRANSMIGRATION..."
"1. DYING RANK 1 SHADOW WOLF." "2. SHATTERED SKELETON OF ROBY." "3. UNKNOWN VESSEL (DISTANT SIGNAL DETECTED)."
I looked at the three options displayed in front of my soul.
Honestly, I didn't even need to think twice. Becoming a wolf meant living like a beast in the woods, and becoming a broken skeleton was even worse. Even though the third option was completely labeled as "Unknown," it was my only real choice if I didn't want to spend my life as a monster or a pile of dry bones.
"System, I choose the third option!" I shouted inside my consciousness.
The moment I made my choice, it felt as if my soul was hit head-on by a speeding truck!
BOOM!
An unimaginable pulling force grabbed my disembodied spirit and yanked me upward. The dark ravine, the weeping Yuki, and the whole Dark Mist Mountain range turned into a blurry smear beneath me.
My soul flew out at a terrifying speed, shooting straight into the depths of the wilderness. I passed over endless mountain ranges, crossed vast rivers, and flew far beyond the borders of the federation—straight into the uncharted lands away from known human history.
I don't know how many thousands of kilometers my soul traveled, as my consciousness soon went blank from the sheer speed of the transit.
...
Slowly, a strange sensation pulled me back from the darkness.
I woke up, my eyes fluttering open.
The first thing I realized was that I could breathe again. I had lungs, a beating heart, and warm blood flowing through my veins.
The second thing I noticed was that my feet were not touching the ground. I—or rather, my new body—was suspended in mid-air.
Trying to assess my situation, I looked down at my hands.
For a second, my brain completely froze.
I didn't just have two hands. There were too many!
I had four arms—two on my left side and two on my right side. All four of these arms were human-like in shape, yet packed with explosive, chiseled muscles, and at the tips of my fingers were sharp, dark nails that looked like tempered blades.
Looking down further, the rest of my body was mostly human: two strong legs, a broad chest, and a single head. But with four arms extending from my torso, I looked just like that famous drawing of the Vitruvian Man from my past life on Earth!
"What the hell is this body?!" I muttered, surprised by the deep, resonant sound of my new voice.
Trying to regain control over these unfamiliar limbs, I flexed my muscles and pulled hard against whatever was holding me.
Snap!
A web of glowing blue magical threads that was suspending me in the air shattered like glass. I dropped down, landing heavily on my two feet with a loud thud that cracked the stone floor beneath me.
Balancing myself, I finally looked around at my surroundings.
I was inside a massive underground chamber that looked like a bizarre laboratory—a place where some mad genius had blended ancient magic with advanced science. Along the stone walls were rows of glass cylinders filled with glowing liquids, strange metallic instruments, surgical tables, and intricate magical arrays carved directly into the floor with silver ink.
At the side of the room, sitting slumped on a high-backed iron chair, was a skeleton wearing decayed black robes.
Curious and cautious, I walked over to the skeleton. Next to the chair was a wide metal desk covered in thick leather-bound journals and parchment notes.
Picking up the final journal on the desk, I flipped through the pages. Surprisingly, the Beacon of Truth in my mind translated the archaic script automatically, allowing me to piece together where I was and who this person used to be.
According to these notes, I was currently in a place called the Fallen Heartlands—a forbidden, uncharted region deep inside an ancient forest that I had never even heard of in Ashborn City.
And this laboratory was the secret hideout of a man named Morven, who proclaimed himself the King of Dark Wizards.
Reading through his personal diary, I learned the tragic story of his life. Originally, Morven was just a humble boy whose greatest lifelong dream was to become a top martial artist. He admired the way martial artists could shatter mountains with their bare fists.
However, heaven was cruel to him. He was born with zero talent for martial arts—his meridians were blocked and fragile, worse than even an average mortal. Refusing to accept his fate, he went astray. To gain strength, he turned to forbidden paths, making dark deals with otherworldly beings. From necromancy to blood alchemy and dark magic, he practiced everything.
Eventually, he stood at the absolute peak of the world, a terrifying Dark Wizard King whom even top martial powerhouses feared.
Yet, even at the end of his long life, he never forgot his childhood dream of walking the pure martial path. So, spending centuries of his accumulated wealth, scientific research, and forbidden magic, he created a masterpiece—a "Perfect Martial Body" designed to surpass all mortal limits and possess unmatched physical combat potential.
Four arms to execute dual martial techniques simultaneously, mutated muscle fibers, and a flawless foundation.
Everything was ready. Today was supposed to be the day Morven transferred his soul into this masterpiece body to start his second life as the strongest martial artist.
...Then what went wrong?
I looked at the scorched, black claw marks burned into the magical array around the iron chair, and read the final, frantic lines scribbled at the bottom of the diary:
"They lied to me... the outer entities were waiting for the moment my soul left my old shell... they are dragging me into the void... my dream... my body..."
The diary ended there.
Just when Morven detached his soul to enter this new body, the otherworldly entities and corruption he had made deals with over the centuries took advantage of his vulnerability and claimed his soul, dragging him into the outer death world.
And because this supreme, empty vessel was left sitting inside an active soul-attraction array right at that exact moment, my Par-Kaya Pravesh technique locked onto its signal from across the continent and pulled my soul straight into it!
I stood in silence for a long time, holding the diary in one of my four hands while looking down at the lonely skeleton sitting in the chair.
I wasn't disgusted by him. Even though the world called him an evil dark wizard, I felt a strange sense of sympathy and respect for him. Just like me, he was someone pushed into a corner by fate and circumstances, forced to touch taboo powers just to survive and chase his dream.
Without meaning to, I had stolen his entire life's work—the vessel he poured his blood, sweat, and soul into creating.
Slowly, I walked in front of Morven's skeleton. I put my four hands together and bowed deeply, praying before his remains.
"Senior Morven," I said softly, my voice echoing in the quiet laboratory. "I did not mean to steal the fruit of your lifelong hard work, but because of you, I have been given a second chance at life."
I looked up at his empty eye sockets, making a solemn vow from the bottom of my heart.
"I promise you, Senior. In the future, when I am strong enough to tear open the void and face those outer-world entities, I will go and take your soul back from them so you can rest in peace. And until then... I will use this body you created to reach the absolute top of the martial path, fulfilling the dream you couldn't finish."
As soon as I finished speaking my vow, a gentle breeze seemed to blow through the sealed underground lab. The decayed robes on the skeleton rustled softly, as if the lingering obsession of the old wizard had finally heard my words and felt comforted.
At the same time, my system screen flashed in front of my eyes, showing the changes to my new existence.