2025-12-10 18:33:36Night pressed against the city like a living thing, heavy, cold, watching. George moved quickly through the alley, shoulders tense, senses sharp.
He had dealt with killers, thieves, gang lords, and drug demons in his past lives… but nothing unnerved him like the strange boy who kept appearing. Five visits in three years. Five warnings.
And tonight, George felt the sixth presence even before he saw him. A soft scrape echoed behind him.
George spun, knife in hand. “Come out,”
he growled. A child, no older than fourteen, stepped from the shadows. He wore a simple white shirt, barefoot, unfazed by the cold. His eyes were wrong for a child: ancient, calm, knowing.
“George,”
the boy whispered, “you’re running out of time.”
George’s jaw clenched. “Not tonight. I’m not in the mood.”
“You must listen.”
The boy’s voice was soft, but the darkness seemed to quiet around it. “You’re living your last reincarnation.”
George took a step back before he realized it. Fear, that rare, unfamiliar sensation, clawed up his spine. He masked it with anger.
“You’ve told me that already,”
George snapped. “Five times. Why keep coming?”
“Because you refused to change.”
George’s throat tightened. He had spent seven lives chasing power, fame, women, money, fear, dominance… but cease? The word hit like a blade. “What do you want from me?”
he asked quietly. The boy stepped closer, placing something cold and metallic into George’s hand. A key.
“Tonight,” the boy said, “someone is going to try to kill you. Again. This time, you cannot escape it with violence or brute strength. You must choose a new path, or your cycle ends forever.”
A chill swept the alley. George stared at the key, old, rusted, carved with symbols he had never seen in any lifetime. “What is this?”
“A door,”
the boy said. “A door to your only chance.” “Where does it lead?”
But the boy didn’t answer. He lifted his head as if listening to something only he could hear. Then his expression darkened. “They’re coming.”
George reached for his knife instinctively. “Who?”
The boy pointed behind him.
George turned, and saw them. Three figures in long coats, faces hidden, moving in perfect sync. Silent. Coordinated. Predatory. Not gang members. Not enemies from the streets. Not men he had wronged in his past lives.
Something else. George’s pulse hammered. “You know them?”
“They are servants of the cycle,”
the boy whispered. “They come for souls whose threads are about to snap.”
George’s chest tightened. “You mean they’re here to kill me?”
“Yes. Unless you take the door.”
“Where is it?”
“You’ll see it when you run.”
The ground trembled. One of the cloaked figures raised a hand, dark energy rippled through the alley like waves of black fire. George staggered back. “What, what are they?”
“Collectors.”
The boy stepped in front of him, eyes glowing faint gold. “Run, George.”
George clenched his fists. “I’m not running from anyone.
“You cannot fight them!” the boy snapped, losing his calm for the first time. “You’ve fought humans. You’ve fought monsters. But these? They don’t bleed.”
George looked again.
The three Collectors glided instead of walked, their shadows stretching unnaturally long on the concrete. Okay. Maybe this was not the night to test his ego. He shoved the key into his pocket and bolted down the alley.
The Collectors moved instantly, silent, swift, inhuman.
The boy’s voice echoed behind him: “Find the red door!”
George sprinted through the night, heart racing, breath sharp, the city blurring around him. He didn’t know where he was going, only that death was just steps behind him.
He turned a corner, and froze. A door stood in the middle of an abandoned lot.
Footsteps, no, not footsteps, something like the whisper of death grinding forward, closed behind him. George slammed the key into the lock. The red door clicked open. A blinding white light exploded outward. “George,”
a calm voice spoke from within, “step through.”
He hesitated, one breath, one heartbeat. Then a cold hand brushed his shoulder. He jumped into the light. The door slammed shut behind him. And everything went silent.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 14 — WHAT REMAINS AFTER BECOMING
George woke up screaming. Not because of pain. Because of silence. No heartbeat thundered in his ears. No breath burned his lungs. No weight pressed his body into the ground. He opened his eyes.And realized he was floating. Not falling. Not rising. Suspended in a vast, dim expanse that looked like the inside of a forgotten cathedral, pillars of shadow stretching infinitely upward, symbols drifting through the air like ash.George tried to inhale. The instinct was there. The response was not Panic surged. “I can’t breathe,” he said. His voice echoed… then folded back into itself, as if the space had considered his words before allowing them to exist.A second later, realization hit harder than fear. He didn’t need to breathe. George looked down at himself. He still had a body, arms, legs, hands, but they shimmered faintly, like heat rising off asphalt.Veins glowed beneath his skin, pulsing with a deep blue light that wasn’t blood.Memories flickered at the edges of his mind. Not his.
CHAPTER 13 — THE PLACE THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
George did not land. He kept falling. There was no ground. No sky. No sense of direction. Only motion.It felt like being dragged through the inside of a thought that hadn’t been finished yet, half-formed ideas scraping against his skin, whispers brushing past his ears without words.His scream never made a sound. Then, Pain. White-hot and sudden. George slammed into something solid and rolled hard, the impact knocking the air from his lungs. He gasped, clawing at nothing, vision swimming.For a terrifying second, he thought he’d gone blind. Then the world snapped into focus. He lay on cracked stone, etched with symbols that shifted when he tried to look directly at them.Above him stretched a sky that wasn’t a sky at all, a swirling expanse of fractured color, like reality had shattered and someone forgot to clean it up. Asher groaned nearby.George pushed himself up, muscles screaming.“You alive?” George rasped.Asher coughed. “Define alive.George staggered to him, helping him si
CHAPTER 12 — THE ONES WHO KILL GODS
The sky split open. Not with thunder. Not with lightning. It peeled apart, as if reality itself had grown tired of pretending it was whole. George felt it before he saw it. The fragment inside his chest screamed.He staggered backward, breath hitching, as pressure crushed down on him from above. The air thickened, vibrating with an unnatural frequency that rattled his teeth Asher grabbed his arm. “Don’t move.”George laughed weakly. “You say that like I can.”Above them, the clouds spiraled faster, symbols burning brighter, ancient runes spinning like gears in a cosmic machine. Then the first Execution Warden descended.It didn’t fall. It lowered, suspended by invisible force, its massive armored body forged from obsidian-black metal etched with glowing sigils. Its eyes burned a cold, surgical white. No rage. No emotion. Just purpose.George’s pulse thundered. “So those are the Wardens,”he muttered. “They look… friendly.”Asher didn’t smile. “They were created to erase anomalies,”h
CHAPTER 11 — THE DOOR THAT SHOULD NOT OPEN
The candle went out. Not flickered. Not dimmed. It vanished, snuffed by something that hated light. Darkness swallowed the room. George’s instincts screamed. “MOVE!”he shouted. The black wooden door exploded inward. Not with force, but with absence. Space itself tore open, folding inward as shadows poured through like liquid night.The temperature plummeted so fast George’s breath crystallized in his lungs. Asher slammed a hand against George’s chest. “Don’t look directly at it!”Asher barked. Too late. George saw the Sovereign. It did not fully enter the room. It couldn’t. Instead, its presence bled through the doorway, an immense silhouette made of overlapping voids and burning fractures of light.Faces writhed within its form, mouths opening in silent screams. The floor cracked. Walls groaned. The air bent toward it. George dropped to one knee, pain exploding behind his eyes. The fragment inside him reacted.Blue fire flared beneath his skin. “No,”George hissed, clutching his che
CHAPTER TEN THE FINAL LIFE BEGINS
George hit the ground HARD.Air slammed out of his lungs, dust exploding upward as his body skidded across cracked pavement. The world around him spun, blinding light, blaring horns, shouting voices. He lay on his back, staring up at a gray morning sky. Rain clouds choked the horizon. Car tires screeched somewhere nearby.A woman shouted, “HEY! YOU ALMOST HIT HIM!”George groaned, pushing himself up. His bones felt… new. Softer. Younger. The familiar heaviness of a seasoned fighter was gone. His joints didn’t ache. His muscles were lean, not hardened by violence.He wasn’t broken. He wasn’t dying. He wasn’t bleeding. He was alive. And human again. A teenager, maybe seventeen. A crowd gathered around him.“Kid, you alright?”“Should we call someone?”“Is he hurt?”George blinked. Final life… this is my final life. The boy’s last warning echoed like thunder in his skull: “If Asher hesitates even once, RUN.”George staggered to his feet, ignoring the hands reaching to help him. He didn’
CHAPTER NINE THE AWAKENING THAT SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN
George slammed back into existence with a violent jolt, landing on hard stone. His breath ripped from his lungs as a shock of pain shot through his ribs. Darkness surrounded him. Cold. Heavy. Wrong.He coughed, pushing himself upright. The chamber he was in felt ancient, pillars carved with shifting spirals, walls breathing faint silver mist. The air tasted like metal and forgotten prayers. He wasn’t alone.A massive shadow formed behind him. George froze, every muscle locking. “Seventh Soul…”The voice was everywhere. Inside his ears. Inside his skull. Inside his bones. The Sovereign had followed him. “No,”George whispered, backing away. “You shouldn’t be here. The First Soul said”“The First Soul is gone,”the Sovereign rumbled. “The White Layer has broken. You cannot hide anymore.”The temperature dropped so fast George’s breath turned to frost. He forced himself to stand straighter.“You said they built me to end everything,” George spat. “Why me? Why not someone stronger? Smarte
You may also like
Ice Monarch
RidiculousRobinn69.9K viewsDragon Covenant
Camellia18.5K viewsSoul Avatar
Japhel14.9K viewsAgainst Heaven'S Destiny
Djisamsoe 29.5K viewsReturn of the Moyong Clan's Prodigal Master
Scribe of Heaven29 viewsThe Price of Resurrection
Wise-Ink248 viewsUNKILLABLE IN ISEKAI: Volume 2
Richard880 viewsNexus: New World
Little LYTA2.2K views