The world didn't fade; it snapped.
One moment, Reine Vangalf was a severed head watching his own headless torso collapse into the mud—the next, he was standing in the sweltering midday sun, his iron practice sword mid-swing. The air smelled of dry grass and old sweat, not iron and gore.
A high-pitched, discordant shriek—a sound like a violin string snapping in a void—echoed in his skull. Reine's knees buckled. He collapsed into the dirt, gasping for air that didn't taste like smoke.
"Wha... what? What just happened?" he whispered, his fingers clawing at the grass. "Was that a dream? It was too vivid... I could feel the cold steel."
He looked up, and his "hunter eyes" had changed. They weren't just sharp anymore; they were the eyes of a man who had seen the bottom of a grave. Cold. Empty. Haunted.
"I actually feel bad for the kid," a voice drifted over from the supply wagons.
Reine froze. It was the same soldier. The same pity. Then came the veteran's gravelly retort, mocking his dead parents and his "lucky" escape from the Aethelgard Sword Conservatory. It was word-for-word. A script written in blood.
"This happened before," Reine mumbled, a manic realization dawning on him. "I regressed... a second chance. God gave me a second chance!" He almost laughed, a jagged, frantic sound.
But he slapped himself hard, the sting grounding him. He didn't have time for joy. That knight—the monster who moved like a shadow—was a threat beyond anything he understood. Even the Army Commander, a seasoned War-Stallion, would be nothing but a distraction to a man of that caliber.
Reine closed his eyes and focused. He remembered the feeling in his gut from the moment of his death. He reached for that warmth, and this time, the Mana Core didn't struggle. It ignited. He felt the fluid energy of a Core-Breaker flood his limbs. He stood up, a grim grin stretching across his face.
"ON GUARD!" Reine roared, sprinting toward the center of the camp. "THE PAEKL ARMY IS COMING! TO ARMS!"
Soldiers tumbled out of tents, blinking in the harsh sun, hands fumbling for hilts. "Where? What direction?" the Platoon Leader screamed, his face red with confusion.
"East, sir! They're flanking us from the east!"
The Platoon Leader signaled the alarm. Within minutes, Reine had managed the impossible: he had brought the entire platoon, the other units, and even the Army Commander—a man of War-Stallion rank—to the eastern ridge. They stood ready. Steel was drawn. Shields were locked.
Five minutes passed. The wind whistled over the plains. Ten minutes. Nothing but dust.
The tension turned into irritation. The soldiers began to murmur. The Army Commander stepped forward, his eyes narrowing at Reine. "Soldier," he barked, his voice vibrating with the power of an Advanced-rank fighter. "How do you know they are coming? Our scouts reported nothing."
Reine looked down. He couldn't say the truth. He couldn't say he had felt his own head leave his shoulders. "I just know, sir. I... I felt the mana in the air."
"You felt it?" The Commander's face twisted in fury. "You disrupted an entire border operation because of a 'feeling'?"
"I told you!" the veteran shouted from the ranks. "He's just a pathetic brat looking for attention! He wants to feel like a noble again, ordering us around!"
Disgust rippled through the crowd. Reine felt the weight of pure despair. Was it a dream? he wondered, his heart sinking. Did I go mad from the training?
The Commander pointed a finger at Reine's chest. "Go to my office. We will discuss your court-martial for false alarm when the men are back in their tents. Everyone else—stand down. Retreat!"
As the men turned their backs, grumbling and cursing Reine's name, the sky turned black.
Swoosh.
The arrows didn't just fall; they feasted. Because the men were crowded together and retreating with their backs turned, the slaughter was twice as bad as the first time. Reine slammed his shield up just in time, the impact of an arrow rattling his teeth.
"AMBUSH!" the Commander screamed, but it was too late for many.
The battle began in a chaotic blur of mud and screams. Reine moved like a ghost. He was no longer a clumsy Initiate; he was a Core-Breaker. He cut through three Paekl novices in three precise, mana-infused slices. The veteran, watching from a distance, looked paralyzed with shock at Reine's sudden, inhuman growth.
Then, the chilling aura returned. The dark knight stepped onto the field.
"THE KNIGHT!" Reine screamed. He didn't run this time. He knew he couldn't. He rallied the Commander and the surviving Intermediates. "Formation! Now! Protect the center!"
The Knight spotted them and blurred forward. The Army Commander, confident in his War-Stallion strength, lunged to meet him. It lasted two moves. The Knight's blade moved in a trajectory that defied physics. The Commander's head hit the mud before his body knew it was dead.
The Intermediates broke. They fled in blind terror, but Reine stood his ground, his sword trembling in his hand. God gave me this power for a reason, he thought, his breath coming in shallow gasps. I won't lose.
The Knight rushed him. Reine knew the target: the neck. He raised his blade in a perfect parry, but the Knight didn't hit the sword. Using speed that made the world look like it was standing still, the Knight flickered to Reine's blind spot.
A cold sensation. A wet snap.
The sinister, snapping sound played again.
Reine Vangalf was back on the training grounds, swinging his sword into the empty, sun-drenched air. He stopped. He didn't fall this time. He just stood there, staring at his hands, as the veteran's voice began to rise in the distance once again.