Prologue

For you, what comes after death? No matter what belief you follow, this is a question that will always cross everyone's mind. After all, death is the end.

But what comes after the end? The heaven that many long for, or the hell that everyone fears? For Liam Mason, heaven is a tale left by old men to teach others the meaning of hope. And for someone raised to be the perfect soldier, hell has always been his reality.

Created to be the 'absolute man', he became one. But how could someone above everything and everyone die?

It was supposed to be just another mission to deal with invaders. But the sea separating the two empires became the stage for one of the bloodiest battles in the five hundred years of rivalry.

A blood moon bathed the sky, while the blood of soldiers bathed the ground. Liam didn't understand how, but he was lying on a rock with a hole in his body. The entrails were almost visible.

The 'end of life movie' took control of Liam's mind, even with his failing eyesight. The death of his mother, his entry into military school, his training and rise to become the greatest general in his empire.

It was nonsense to him. What would that do? To remind him that he should repent before leaving? It wouldn't work.

Even on his deathbed, there's only one question on Liam's mind now; he's become one of the strongest men in the world, but for what? Why accumulate so much power when in the end he gave in to death?

The answer was already clear. He is a human, and death will always be the end for this race. No matter how perfect they think they are, it's a cycle.

Selfishness and the question: why want everything?

Without realizing it, he condemned himself. He re"entered the cycle of life: birth, destiny and death.

In an equivalent exchange, for a baby who had already been born dead, he had received the soul without consciousness of someone who had not yet completed his destiny in this world.

Still unable to understand anything, unable to see and only able to cry, he was given a new name.

The opportunity to choose.

"Eínai agóri. Écheis skefteí to ónomá sou?" a woman asked, her robust and wrinkled appearance making her underestimated as a gentle woman, but never judge a book by its cover.

"Naí. Tha eínai o Theo!" replied Camille, a young woman with long golden hair, still holding her newborn son in her arms.

A tear trickled down her thin cheek, for only a few seconds ago, her son had shown no sign of life.

"Kalós írthes mikrí mou." These were Camille's first words to her youngest son.