Reborn To Conquer The Malivic World

CHAPTER 5

Lein felt his consciousness drift between worlds, as if a giant hand had lifted him from reality itself. 

The golden sigil wrapped around him like threads of living fire, humming with impossible power. 

It pulled him through the collapsing cavern, through the Abyssal Hunter’s killing strike, through time itself, then dropped him. Hard.

Lein hit the ground with a painful thud, rolling across cold stone until his back slammed against something solid. 

He groaned, dizzy, the aftershock of teleportation still pulsing through his limbs. His vision adjusted slowly.

He wasn’t in the underground ruins anymore. He was in a chamber of carved obsidian walls, illuminated by floating white crystals that hovered silently in the air. 

Strange glyphs moved along the walls like flowing water, alive with magic. A sanctum. A hidden one.

One that didn’t exist in the early game. “It can’t be…” Lein whispered, pushing himself upright.

The air shifted. His breath caught. A figure stepped out from the center of the room as if emerging from light itself.

A woman. Tall. Graceful. Wrapped in armor made of liquid gold that shimmered like dawn. Her hair flowed like a silver flame.

Her eyes glowed with the same ancient sigil that saved him. She was breathtaking. She was terrifying. 

She was powerful, and she was staring directly at him. Lein swallowed, throat dry. “Who… who are you?”

The woman extended her hand over him, not in threat, but in quiet command. The sigil that saved him floated back into view, spinning behind her like a halo.

“I am Asera,” she said, voice smooth and echoing, as though speaking from multiple timelines at once. “Guardian of the Temporal Vault. Last sentinel of the Old Cycle.”

Lein blinked. “Temporal Vault?”

Asera nodded once. “This sanctuary exists outside the world’s timeline. Hidden from systems, watchers, and hunters.”

Lein stiffened. Hunters. “Abyssal Hunter,” he muttered, gripping his bruised ribs. “It almost killed me. Said I was an anomaly. What does that even mean?”

Asera’s expression darkened. “The fact that it appeared before you so early…” She stepped closer, examining him, eyes narrowing. “Troubling.”

Lein scoffed. “Troubling for who? I’m the one being hunted!”

Her gaze softened slightly. “For both of us.”

She circled around him, her presence both soothing and unnerving. “You carry something inside you,” she whispered. “Something no mortal should possess.”

A cold chill ran up Lein’s spine. “What do I ‘carry’?”

Asera raised a hand toward his chest. Her fingers hovered inches above his heart. “An external memory,” she murmured. “Knowledge of this world… from the outside. As if you have lived all this before.”

Lein’s breath froze. She knew. She knew he came from Earth. Knew he had played Malivic World as a game. Knew this wasn’t his first time seeing it.

“Your soul holds memories of a previous reality,” Asera said softly. “That… is why the world rejects you.”

Lein stared at her. “Rejects me? All I did was wake up here! That’s not my fault!”

Asera’s eyes glowed faintly. “No, but your presence alone disrupts the flow of fate. You know events that have yet to unfold. You know outcomes before they happen. You can alter destiny. For a world like this… you are a threat.”

Lein clenched his fists. “A threat? I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t even want to come back here!”

Asera’s response was simple. “Yet you did.”

Lein froze. Her tone wasn’t accusatory… only sad. “Tell me,” she whispered. “Do you truly believe your arrival was accidental?”

Lein opened his mouth, then slowly closed it. No. It didn’t feel accidental. The early boss appearing. The serpent attacking prematurely. The Abyssal Hunter spawning decades too early.

Someone, something, was interfering. Asera stepped closer. “You are being targeted. That is clear.”

Lein felt his chest tighten. “But by who?”

Asera shook her head. “I do not yet know.”

She turned away, silver flames of her hair dancing behind her. “But you must prepare, Lein Arcadion. Because the world will continue trying to erase you.”

Lein swallowed hard. “To erase me?”

Asera looked back. “Yes. Permanently.”

The weight of her words settled over him like a mountain. He wasn’t just unlucky. He wasn’t just misplaced. He was marked. Marked for deletion.

“But why me?” Lein whispered, voice cracking. “I’m not special. In my old world, I was nothing. Nobody. A burnout. A tool for rich brats to exploit. The game is the reason I died.”

Asera approached again, kneeling so her eyes aligned with his. “You died… because your old world treated you unjustly,” she said softly. “But here, you have a chance to rewrite the very patterns that crushed you.”

Lein flinched at her intensity. Asera wasn’t comforting him. She was telling him a truth he feared. “You are not worthless,” she said firmly. “You are dangerous.”

Lein stared at the floor. ‘Dangerous.’

Him. The man who couldn’t even defend himself in real life. Asera stood, turning toward a shimmering archway at the back of the sanctum.

“Your ability, Rewind Memory, has awakened only its first stage,” she explained. “But with training, it can become far more potent. You will need it.”

Lein blinked. “Because of the hunters?”

Asera nodded grimly. “Because they are not your only threat.”

She touched the archway. The crystals above the room flickered. A portal opened, swirling with silver-blue energy. Lein’s breath caught. “What is that?”

Asera spoke slowly. “The first place you must go. A chamber locked deep within time. Inside it lies the fragment of your lost power.”

“My… what?”

Asera turned, eyes brighter than stars. “You were not reborn here empty-handed, Lein Arcadion,” she said. “Part of your soul… arrived with you. Fractured, hidden, scattered.”

Lein stepped closer to the portal. Fragments of his soul? “Your memories, your pain, your potential, they are all pieces of something greater,” Asera continued. “If you reclaim them all, you may stand a chance.”

Lein’s pulse quickened. “And if I don’t?”

Asera held his gaze. “Then the hunters will kill you. But worse, your existence will be erased from every timeline. Even your death will be forgotten.”

Lein’s blood ran cold. Asera extended her hand toward the portal. “Enter. Face the fragment. Claim it. Without it… you will not survive what comes next.”

Lein stared at the swirling light. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back. But turning back meant death. Permanent death. Memory erased. Again.

No. Not this time. Not ever again. He clenched his fists. “I’ll go.”

Asera’s expression softened for the first time. “Good.”

He stepped toward the portal. The air around it crackled, warping slightly, as if it reacted to his presence.

But just as he reached for it,  a sharp alarm blared in the chamber. The floating crystals flickered violently. Asera’s eyes widened. “No,” she whispered. “Not now.”

Lein froze. “What’s happening?”

The sigil behind Asera flared, reacting to a surge of hostile energy, then a system message flashed in front of Lein’s eyes:

[WARNING]

[ABYSSAL SIGNATURE DETECTED]

[THE VAULT HAS BEEN BREACHED]

Lein’s stomach dropped. “Breached? How? You said this place was hidden!”

Asera stepped back, blades of temporal energy forming in her hands. “It was! No creature should detect us!”

The ground shook. Cracks split across the obsidian floor. Lein stumbled. A faint violet mist seeped into the chamber through the cracks, cold, toxic, pulsing with familiar energy.

A chilling voice echoed through the sanctum. “Anomaly.”

Lein’s blood froze. No. It couldn’t be. Not here. Not inside the Vault. But the voice continued: “I found you.”

A shard of the wall exploded inward. A dark figure stepped through the smoke. The Abyssal Hunter. Burned. Cracked. Damaged. But alive.

Asera’s face went pale. “Impossible.”

The Hunter lifted its blade, its visor glowing with murderous intent. “You cannot hide from deletion.”

Asera stepped in front of Lein, blades ready. “You will not touch him.”

But the Hunter wasn’t alone. More violet eyes flickered behind it. Four.  Eight. Ten. A squad.

A hunting unit. Lein’s heart raced. “Asera, what do we do!?”

She didn’t answer. Her blades trembled. Not from fear. But from fury. The sigil behind her expanded, filling the entire room with blinding light.

She shouted only one command: “LEIN, RUN INTO THE PORTAL!”

He hesitated,  “I said GO!”

The Abyssal Hunter lunged. Asera clashed with it, their weapons erupting in sparks that shook the chamber.  Lein turned to the portal, sprinting. 

But just as he leapt,  A second Hunter materialized behind him and swung its blade, the silver portal shattered like glass,  The world broke, Lein fell, into nothing,