Kai

He died. His soul had left his body. The last moments of his life were being replayed in his head over and over again until darkness absorbed them.

There was nothing but darkness.

The hero of the underground ring was stabbed to death by the one to whom he had entrusted his heart. He was capable of winning even the most difficult fights, but couldn't defend himself against his beloved.

He could no longer see, nor hear, nor feel.

He couldn't be.

For some reason, he was still aware of himself, his past, and even his personality.

The only thing he had forgotten was his name. It seemed to him that he had never had one, but his memories claimed otherwise.

He had no idea how much time he had spent in that darkness. Maybe an hour, maybe a day, a year, or perhaps even an eternity. It could've even been a single moment. Time didn't exist there. Gradually, something began to change, and he felt distinctly alive. Like a newborn, he became suddenly aware of his existence.

He opened his eyes. At least, he tried to open them. His left eye was swollen and it wouldn't move, but he managed to open his right one with a lot of effort.

At first, everything was blurry, but after a while, his vision became a little clearer.

The man saw endless, wide skies. Spread above him was a clean and calm ocean of blue. There wasn't a single cloud, only a majestic light.

His hearing came back right after his vision. It happened rather abruptly. The man heard a stream gurgling somewhere nearby, carrying muffled voices.

Next came the sense of smell — the pungent aroma of sewage and feces hung in the air. At the same moment, he tasted something bitter that reminded him of metal. There was blood in his mouth.

The last to recover was the sense of touch. The man finally felt his own body. Hands, legs, torso, head... It all seemed so unusual after his soul had spent some time in the darkness. A forgotten feeling...

He didn't want to move, and even if he had tried, the pain would've impaled him on the spot. Even lying motionless, the man felt his hands burning with pain, and blood oozing from the wound on his leg. Water mixed with shit and urine was touching his skin, making it sting and itch.

His breathing was weak and irregular and his chest hurt. The man had no desire to do anything.

Looking at the endless skies with one half-open eye, he reflected. He was thinking about why he was here. Why had life given him this chance? What for?

Pain... His soul couldn't find peace even after death. How sad…

Then his memories started coming back. Someone else's memories began to merge with his — memories of the previous owner of the body he had found himself in. He, too, had recently died, allowing him to be reborn.

His story was also a tragic one. He was only fourteen when he was mutilated, killed, and thrown into a ditch because of petty theft he had committed so as not to die of hunger.

His family had moved to this city not long before that event occurred. An epidemic broke out, the nature and origins of which remained unknown, annihilating almost a tenth of the local population. His parents had died a year earlier and left him a small shack and some money. He would've continued to live on, but he was unfortunate enough to have come across a member of one of the city's ruling families.

Broken hands and death were an unjust punishment.

Strange how the man wasn't at all bothered by that right now. There was no anger or hatred in him, only boundless apathy, and a drop of incomprehensible joy.

The man finally got a name. It wasn't his, however. No. It belonged to the previous owner.

But it was still a name.

His name was Kai.

Kai Arnhard.

For some reason, he was quite pleased with this.

Suddenly, a strange feeling appeared in Kai's body, and incomprehensible lines of text showed up before his eyes, surprising him.

Life and emotional activity discovered...

Canceling Uninstall System...

Restoring the structure...

Resuming work...

The system has been restored and is ready for use...

Test opening of the options menu to check the mind of the carrier...

Stats

Age: 14

Race: human

Status: mortal

Stage: none

Level: none

Characteristics

• Power: 0.24

• Speed: 0.49

• Endurance: 0.3

• Stamina: 0.5

• Mind: 2.1

• Energy: 0.67

Abilities

None

Paths

Unknown

What's this? a thought flashed through his shocked mind. Having regained focus, he managed to dig out the memories that might hold answers to his questions.

As it turned out, everyone in this world had such a System. Kai had no doubts that he was now a part of a completely different world, and that he was no longer on Earth. However, he wasn't sure how much martial arts masters like him were worth here.

The System appeared in people at the moment of their birth and remained there until they died. Apparently, having considered Kai dead, it began uninstalling itself, but the presence of another soul stopped it. Only one thing remained unclear: how and why did he enter the corpse and for what reason did the System start functioning again? What had stimulated it?

The past Kai knew little about it, as he lived in a poor and illiterate family. But the new Kai, who had lived on Earth for a long time, guessed that it was something like a neural interface — a computer placed in a person's brain that millions of people from his world could only dream about.

The little knowledge that the past Kai did have, he had gained from the general information window of the System, and rumors that he had heard from his parents. As the present Kai understood it, the System scanned the characteristics of the body at birth and displayed them in the brain in the form of numbers. It performed the same action whenever any stat changed. The System was constantly monitoring them.

They were calculated in relation to the average value of physical abilities of a twenty-year-old human, equivalent to one.

Kai's stats were extremely low right now, even for his age. The reason behind it was his crippled and beaten up body.

Present Kai re-read the information window, not wanting to rely only on past Kai's memories.

Power was responsible for all manifestations of physical strength, and speed for the speed of muscle contraction, transmission of neural signals throughout the body, and even thinking.

Endurance was self-explanatory and the System information only confirmed the present Kai's assumptions. The next characteristic — resistance — determined one's resistance to various injuries and the ability to recover from them. That is, to regenerate.

Surprisingly, mind, the characteristic, which, by logic, should've been pretty low — he never considered himself a smart guy — was almost twice higher...

Mind reflected all intellectual and mental abilities. Kai assumed that this characteristic had such a high value due to social reasons. Since there were no official educational institutions in this world, there weren't as many literate people here as there were on Earth. Therefore, in comparison to the local majority, he was highly developed in this regard despite being in the body of a fourteen-year-old boy.

At least he wasn't a complete loser...

The last characteristic displayed the amount of energy that could be used to perform various techniques. In this world, techniques were special abilities that allowed a person to use magic, called martial arts. It could be said that in this case, the word technique was a synonym for the word "spell."

Kai suddenly felt weak. He shouldn't have survived, but since he had, he shouldn't have remained conscious. The mysterious force that remained with him after his soul had moved into the new body woke him only for ten minutes.

Consciousness was slipping away from him and Kai found himself floating in the darkness once more.

***

In the meantime, in one of the alleys where people were rarely seen, some 300 feet away from a wounded man stood two figures.

A pretty girl of about eighteen was marching down the alley. Her thick, brown hair was tied into a tight ponytail, and her warm, amber eyes were sparkling. Her graceful figure was dressed in a rather plain dress. She was holding the wrinkled hand of a gray-haired, old man.

Despite his age, he kept his back straight and didn't lag behind his granddaughter. Time seemed to have had no power over him. Dressed in a long robe that only healers were allowed to wear, he calmly walked forward.

"Grandpa, I swear!" the girl said with concern. "You have to see it! The resemblance is uncanny..."

"So what?" he asked with a mature voice. "You must understand, Julie, that the past can't be changed!"

"I beg you, just take a look!" she cried with tears in her eyes.

The old man only sighed.

After a couple of minutes, they reached the ill-fated alley with a gutter. What the old man saw made him freeze.

Bitter sorrow filled his heart. Right there, amongst the garbage and sewage, lay a boy who was a spitting image of a person close to him. Of his grandson.

A grandson who had disappeared more than a year ago.

"It can't be," the old man whispered, not believing his eyes.

"I told you," Julie said, unable to hold back tears. "Could it be that he managed to return?"

The old man was silent. It was difficult for him, a wise old man, to believe in miracles.

"Do you remember the legends you told me when I was a child? About a merciful Heaven that can help mortals?"

"That's..." The old man fell silent.

Having gotten closer, Julie was finally able to examine the boy. Her heart sank when she saw his wounds and broken hands. Sobbing, she fell to her knees.

"Grandpa!"

Julie had no doubt that this was her younger brother. She refused to believe that the Heavens couldn't hear her and that she wouldn't be rewarded for months of suffering. She wanted to believe that her missing brother had been saved.

Having noticed the change in his granddaughter, the old man quickly leaned forward, and assessed the boy's injuries. A doctor's soul, as well as the hope that this truly was his grandson, didn't allow him to just stand idly and watch.

"Grab his shoulders. Careful," he began to instruct Julie. "We need to get him to our clinic as soon as possible. I don't know who has done this to him, but if we don't act quickly, he won't survive."

Julie, who had been helping her grandpa all her life, quickly did as she was told. Without disgust, she grabbed the boy under the armpits as carefully as possible.

The old man took the boy's legs, and they lifted him together. Having quickly and carefully brought him to the clinic, which was a part of their house, they laid him on the bed, removing and throwing away his dirty clothes.

Having washed the boy, the old man began treating him.

Interlude

A LONG DREAM

A light suddenly flashed.

Where am I? I remember... I remember dying. Have I been resurrected?

I remembered it being very painful. I had been beaten and torn to pieces. I had also seen some kind of a System, and then I began to lose consciousness.

Where am I now? I can't feel anything... Hold on! I can't feel my body at all! What the hell is going on here?!

I heard a buzzing sound, and it began to build up. Something was coming...

No, no... Nothing's coming... I'm falling. But how do I know that I'm falling if I can't feel my body? What the hell...?

The fall was over, and I found myself in pitch darkness yet again. After a few seconds, the light reappeared and various colors surrounded me.

Images began to appear.

I was dreaming.

I was in the body of a young man, pacing around a luxurious hotel room, drinking whiskey with ice. He was cheerful, even happy.

He was expecting something.

Glancing at the golden watch, the man nodded to himself.

I then noticed that his fists were badly injured. There was something familiar about them…

He put the glass on the table, laid his watch next to it, and then took off his expensive jacket and tie. Having carelessly thrown them into a corner, he went to the center of the room and sat down on the king-sized bed. Glancing at the front door and smiling with anticipation, he began to wait.

There isn't much time left...

What?! How do I know that?

Minutes flew by, and I began to notice some details of the interior. There was a huge lava lamp with a blue backlight, which, like a hypnotist, didn't let you take your eyes off it. A little to the side, right on the floor, was a very wide, snow-white carpet, on which I wanted to step barefoot.

The strange, pink lamp near the entrance was repulsive. It stood out against the background of the room, hurting my eyes. It didn't fit into the interior at all.

Why is this place so familiar to me?

Suddenly, the door opened, and a red-haired beauty in a tight, burgundy dress came in. Tall and slender, she looked stunning. She slowly walked over to the man.

Had I been able to feel my body, my heart would've probably skipped a beat, and there would've been a lump stuck in my throat. But even without a body, it seemed like something was burning inside of me...

Rage.

I finally remembered. It had taken me far too long to understand what I was seeing. How could I've forgotten the day of my own death?

My love had just entered the room... The one I was going to propose to...

Eva.

How absurd it was not to remember her immediately... After all, I was the one who had been waiting for her...

Once again, she slowly walked over to me. Once again, I got up from the bed and looked at my beloved with joy. And once again, something strange began to happen.

My hands and feet went numb and it became difficult to breathe. Some incomprehensible powerlessness overtook me. I could only stand and watch. To even wiggle a finger was an incredible ordeal.

Eva was approaching me, cold and arrogant, with hands hidden behind her back, but I already knew that one of them was holding a knife. Just like back then, there was an expression of misunderstanding and surprise on my face.

The redhead lowered her gaze slightly to make an inept, but critical blow. A sharp pain ran through my chest... At least that was how it seemed to me for a moment. This was all just a dream.

I fell to the floor. Blood was slowly spreading from underneath me, staining the carpet, and taking with it the last bits of my life. Before the darkness overtook me, I managed to hear her whisper: "I'm sorry."

The last thing I saw was Eva leaving. For some reason, her left hand attracted my attention. There was an unusually colorful tattoo on it, although she had never been a fan of them. On the back of her hand were five intertwined rings, each of them of a different color. They were reminiscent of eyes.

That was the last thing I remembered before the world started to fade away.

I was dying...

It was strange, but I no longer felt anger or spite. Something seemed to have suppressed these feelings. There was only sadness and a question: "Why?"

Why had she done that? I had never done anything bad to her...

No matter how much I tried, I couldn't find an answer. I had no choice but to accept my fate.

I was surrounded by darkness once again, but it didn't last long. A new dream began almost immediately.

This time, I found myself in a dark, unsettling place.

What's happening? I've never seen anything like this!

"Captain!" shouted a coarse male voice from somewhere outside. He spoke in a language unknown to me, but I somehow understood him. "It seems that we've managed to escape the damn beasts! But I still have no idea where we are."

The stirring sensation became weaker. Am I being carried in something? What the hell?! Could this be a memory of my new body? But why didn't I get this part together with the others? So many questions...

"Waylock, we still have time to figure it out. The most important thing is to survive and protect the child," answered another very close voice.

Soon, the rocking stopped. I then heard a soft knock, like someone had put something onto a hard surface, and the thing in which I was located came to a halt.

"How is he?" someone else asked. The roof over my head disappeared, and I finally saw the light. And a huge man looking down at me. Behind him was another dozen of such gigantic people. They were all carrying swords and were clad in yellow and red plate armor.

We seemed to be in an unusually bright cave. I could see many stalactites and stalagmites, some of which, merging with each other, even formed dripstones.

It immediately became clear to me that it wasn't that they were freakishly big, but that I was tiny. Am I a baby? How old am I. A couple of months?

Before me was a warrior in a helmet, whose eyes met mine. "He's calm," he said in surprise.

Suddenly another man without any headwear came up to me. I was shocked by what I saw.

On his left cheek was a tattoo like the one on Eva's hand: a five-eyed something. The only difference was that on his tattoo, the green eye stood out.

Before a million new questions could appear in my head, I heard a scream full of pain that made both warriors immediately turn around. The child through whom I was observing everything started crying.

"Those beasts managed to fin...us!" someone shouted, but I could hear only part of it since the screaming got in the way of my hearing.

"Waylock, take the child and run! We'll hold them off!" cried the second warrior and put on his helmet.

"But, captain," Waylock wanted to object, but he was interrupted.

"That's an order!"

"Y-Yes, sir!"

Waylock covered the basket, leaving only a small gap in it, and then rushed off. The sounds of battle, screams, and growls of something unfamiliar to me began to recede. The wild shaking didn't stop for a moment — Waylock was running as fast as his legs could carry him.

I heard the sound of water ahead.

Then came a loud and very close roar. Through the gap, I could see how something flashed behind Waylock, who then suddenly fell, dropping the basket and me with it.

There were strange sounds, and the basket fell into the water. Carried by the current, I saw a huge, blood-red lion tearing my friend apart. Before drawing his last breath, Waylock cast a last glance in my direction.

Before the dream ended, the gap became filled with a faint, yellow glow that enveloped the entire basket.

What does it all mean? Are the people that I've seen in past Kai's memories not his birth parents? Why was he with those warriors?

And what the hell is the deal with the tattoo?

Suddenly a light flashed. What, another dream?

Not this time... said a voice.

I found myself in the middle of vast, white space and inside my former body. Just like in my first vision.

"Where am I?" I finally managed to ask.

Having looked around, I saw nothing but empty infinity. Wait a minute... What's that in the distance?

Looking closely, I noticed something very, very bright. I decided to go check it out. However, the closer I got, the stronger the object shone and hotter the air became. At some point, even closing and covering my eyes didn't help.

"Take no chances," said a voice from behind me, startling me, and making me flinch.

Having abruptly turned around I saw... myself?!

Just like in my first dream, some fifteen feet away from me was my doppelganger.

"Why?"

"If you get too close, you can get burned," it replied coldly and without emotion.

"What is this thing? And where are we? Who are you?"

"It's a trophy. We're in the hidden depths of your soul. I'm a message."

It was speaking like a robot, which was a little annoying. And its answers... The first two made some sense, but I had no clue what the third one meant.

"What does that mean, a message?"

"I am the message, in the form of you."

"From whom?"

"From you."

That caught me by surprise. After all that I had seen, I didn't think I could be surprised anymore. I felt a strange coolness spread all over my body, blocking almost all of my feelings.

The surprise — I would even call it shock — turned out to be huge.

What does it mean "from me"?

"Come on, give me more details. Tell me everything there is to know!"

"That is impossible. I have very limited information. I can only convey the message."

Bummer.

"Well then... Speak."

Having finished examining me from head to toe, the doppelganger sighed heavily. For some reason, it seemed to me that there was considerable disappointment in that sigh.

"First: the five-eyed tattoo." It began, making me remember the warrior's cheek and Eva's hand. "Beware of the people who have it. Second: the answers to everything can be found in Noritum. However…"

"Wher...?" I wanted to ask, but it didn't listen to me, it just kept talking.

"Even though you have finally woken up, you are still very weak. Unfortunately, I will have to block your memory of this dream until you fulfill certain requirements. Otherwise, it could drive you crazy and destroy your soul. My mission is over. The message has been delivered."

"Hey, you! Wait!" I shouted, but the doppelganger had already disappeared into thin air.

I was immediately thrown back into the darkness. I thought that I had started to wake up.

Wait... What just happened? I can't remember...

Remember? What should I remember? What strange thoughts...