"Rebirth of the Forgotten"

A foggy light flickered on the periphery of his vision as awareness came back. His senses were slow, his mind knotted in a tangle too thick to untangle.

He remained motionless for a long moment, befuddlement bearing down on him.

"Where… the hell am I?"

His body was off. Smaller. Weaker. The strong frame upon which he had depended all these years was gone, replaced by something brittle and alien. His hands, calloused from all these years of fighting, were now small, soft useless.

A shiver ran along his spine as fear nibbled at the periphery of his mind.

Before he could even comprehend what was occurring, voices filtered through the air.

"Look, hon, our boy is just precious. He is the loveliest creature on this planet," a rich but soft voice whispered, full of endearment.

"Yes, sweetheart," a woman echoed, her voice with the same tenderness. "He is just like you. I just hope he turns out as tough as you."

There was a gentle laugh afterward.

"Naturally. For he's born with the Stoneheart blood in him. Power runs through his bones."

The surname hit him like a thunderbolt.

Stoneheart.

A rustle came deep inside his recollections, revealing scraps of a forgotten past.

"Stoneheart. The mythic lineage of spearmen during my day?"

An epiphany washed over him, spinning his mind dazed.

"Wait. am I their son?"

It was all happening too quickly. The voices, his new body, the inescapable fact of reincarnation his mind couldn't keep up with.

Before he could even wrap his head around any of it, the soft voices had vanished. His parents were gone, the room back to silence once more.

He breathed out, making himself think rationally.

"Reincarnation. That's the only thing that makes sense. I died… but instead of going on, I was reborn."

The utter absurdity of it was eating away at him, but to deny it wouldn't alter the facts.

"But why the Stoneheart family?"

The Stonehearts were warriors beyond reckoning, but they were also a pillar of history itself. Legends, myths, and scores of tales circled around their name. He had too many questions and none.

Information for now was what he needed.

His initial thought was to look for a library, but the moment he attempted to move, reality struck him like a sledgehammer. His body was too undernourished. Even crawling would be difficult. And even if he could, there were servants, knights, and maids everywhere.

"Tch. Useless body."

Frustrated, he gave up and waited.

But fate, it seemed, had other plans.

Every evening, the nanny who had put him to bed would read him stories stories of the empire, its heroes, and the great houses that had formed its history.

It was through these stories that he constructed the world he now found himself in.

The empire had been established 500 years ago, born out of the ashes of war. It had grown through conquest and diplomacy, enduring a thousand wars yet never wavering. Time had altered its rulers, its lands, its politics…

But one thing never changed.

Power dominated everything.

Among the great houses, the Stonehearts were one of the oldest and most hallowed. Their name had rung for centuries as the finest spearmen ever known. They were fighter, protector, and commander, bending the empire to their will through brute martial strength.

And now, he was among them.

He drank in every word, every snippet.

A couple of hundred years had gone by since his death. The world had altered—its politics, its rulers, its wars. Still, strength was supreme.

Alone in the dark room, he breathed deep.

"At least I now understand the world in which I am born."

Now there was something else he had to verify.

With his eyes closed, he turned his attention inward.

A heat awakened within him deep, raw, and wild. Mana. It flowed through his veins, bold and strong. Untrained, but full of potential.

His lips twisted into a smirk.

"This body is perfect."

Before he could scheme further, the door groaned open.

A tall figure walked in.

His hair was black as jet, his golden eyes keen, his razor-sharp features almost flawless. Handsome, noble, strong.

But more than anything, what caught his attention was his presence.

Commanding, but warm.

The man went to him and picked him up with ease in his arms, a fleeting smile on his lips.

"As soon as I got free from my work, I came to see you, my son. You're just too adorable to be true."

He took him through the sprawling halls of the mansion, pausing in front of a gigantic chamber the patriarch's room.

His eyes drifted over the walls, examining the portraits of former Stoneheart patriarchs. Warriors, leaders, legends.

And then his breath caught up.

A known face looked back at him in one of the portraits.

Darius Stoneheart.

His heart racing.

"Even he is remembered in history…?"

His eyes moved on to another portrait this one a new one, the head of the family nowadays.

His father.

Reginald Stoneheart.

It all made sense.

This was the reason why his body was better than his previous self. He wasn't merely a Stoneheart. He was the son of Reginald Stoneheart the head of the empire's most renowned warrior clan.

Subconsciously, a smile played on his lips.

Reginald let out a low guffaw.

"Oh? My little boy is smiling for his father, eh?"

If only he could know what was going through his son's mind.

That evening, in his darkened room, he sat quietly.

His thoughts honed, planning his next moves.

"I must be cautious. If I show too much too early, suspicion will be raised."

These noble houses tended to have Awakening Ceremonies, gauging their heirs' potential at the appropriate moment. If he showed power prior to that… it might bring on unwanted danger.

He had to wait. To become stronger in the background.

But then

A burst of mana coursed through his frame.

His eyes flew open.

"What was that?"

It was strange. Alien. Not anything he had ever experienced before.

And then

A whisper.

Soft. Ominous. Almost. pleading.

His breath caught. His eyes flick