Aashish_Kookna

“If you could relive your life—not to chase fame or fortune, but to right your deepest regrets—would you dare face your own past?”

Yun Fei was an ordinary man in his thirties, living a life soaked in the bitter wine of missed opportunities and mistakes. A failed business, a broken family, friendships turned sour, and the loss of the only girl who truly loved him—his world was a long list of what-ifs and if-onlys. He wasn’t evil, but he had been weak. Not cruel, but often silent when he should have spoken. His was a life not ruined by one catastrophic event—but by a thousand small regrets that, over time, swallowed him whole.

And then he died.

Not in glory, not in battle, not even in some poetic tragedy.

Just… alone. Forgotten.

But death wasn’t the end

Born Again with My Future Regrets

Yun Xi's hands trembled as he stared at the shimmering shard in his palm—the Echo Core Fragment.

It pulsed like a heartbeat, not of the present, but of something older… and somehow still to come.

The system's interface flickered in front of his eyes, glitching slightly—something it had never done before.

You have obtained a Class A Echo Core Fragment from a Harvester.

This fragment contains restricted temporal sequences.

Proceed with extreme caution. Parsing incomplete memory…

The Echo Core began to drift upward on its own, rotating slowly in the air. Then—without warning—it disassembled into light.

Images flared in rapid succession:

A woman weeping over a golden hourglass.

Himself—older, colder—reaching toward a shattered world, his eyes devoid of humanity.

Then, a phrase spoken by a voice he didn't recognize, but felt carved into his soul:

"The cost of defying fate is not death—it's erasure."

Yun Xi fell to his knees, gasping. That last vision… that version of himself—it wasn't an Echo. It was real. A potential future.

The Echo beside him—still holding the form of the soldier—knelt too, visibly shaken.

"That fragment… It wasn't supposed to exist anymore," the Echo whispered. "Harvesters don't leave pieces. When they vanish, they take everything with them."

Yun Xi stood slowly, brushing the dust off his coat.

He opened his status panel. A new trait had appeared:

> [Temporal Defiance: Rank F → ???]

You are no longer bound strictly to linear causality. Certain events will now shift based on your thoughts, choices… and regrets.

Warning: Entities beyond time are now aware of you.

He laughed bitterly. "Of course they are."

And then, as if summoned by his growing unease, his communicator buzzed. Not the system one. His actual, physical device—connected to the few friends still alive in his fractured world.

The caller ID sent a chill down his spine.

He hadn't seen or heard from her in this life yet.

In the last timeline, she was the girl who once followed him everywhere—bright-eyed, talented, unshakably loyal. She vanished after the third collapse. Everyone assumed she'd died.

"Yun Xi," her voice came through ragged, breathless. "They've found me. I don't know how but—they're not just Harvesters anymore. Something else is coming."

"Sector Twelve. South edge. I tried hiding in the echo zone but—"

The same silence the Harvester brought.

Without hesitating, Yun Xi turned.

"Let's go," he said to the Echo. "If she's still alive, I'll reach her. If not… I'll tear apart whatever left that fragment."

For the first time, the Echo didn't protest.

And somewhere in the void between timelines, something stirred.

Chapter 23: The Fragment