"Oh, that was close," he chuckled darkly, his voice cutting through the unnatural silence that had descended upon the plaza like a heavy shroud. The two unconscious figures of the Xuan family members lay sprawled on the cold stone pavement, and their defeat sent a palpable ripple of shock through the stunned onlookers. However, the stillness was short-lived, for the scent of opportunity quickly overpowered the lingering stench of fear in the air. A group of opportunistic students separated themselves from the herd, their faces twisted into masks of greedy anticipation as they encircled him like vultures around a carcass. "Hey, brat, do you have any idea who you just assaulted?" one of them sneered while tightening his grip on a serrated blade. "Those were members of the Xuan family, and you are finished," another voice chimed in with malicious glee, adding that capturing him would yield a handsome bounty from the prestigious clan. He remained outwardly impassive, but his mind raced with cold calculations as he assessed the chaotic spiritual signatures flaring around him. "Order ten, eleven, nine, twelve, eleven... this is a significant problem," he thought grimly while analyzing the tactical disadvantage. With his current cultivation artificially suppressed to Order Eleven, facing such a coordinated assault from multiple high-level opponents was a tactical impossibility. "Damn it." The circle tightened rapidly, and the air whistled dangerously as a dozen weapons were drawn simultaneously to strike him down. "If you intend to use weapons, then I shall oblige you," he declared with a voice that sounded like grinding stones, reaching into the spatial rift of his ring. The Sword of Heaven emerged from the void, and its sudden appearance triggered a cataclysmic reaction within his core that instantly shattered twenty-four of his self-imposed seals. A pillar of blinding white light erupted into the sky, piercing the clouds and casting a divine luminescence that forced the attackers to shield their eyes in terror. Although his physical body remained as fragile as spun glass and susceptible to the slightest wound, the spiritual pressure he now exerted was heavy enough to crush boulders into dust. As his fingers wrapped around the hilt, ancient and dormant memories flooded his consciousness, superimposing the image of a burning cosmos over the mundane academy grounds. He saw the Great War, felt the searing heat of dying stars, and stood once again beside a forgotten comrade against the eldritch horror of the Light Eaters. The memory fueled his strike, merging past glory with present danger. "Sword style, Never Ending Rain!" he intoned, and the atmospheric mana instantly condensed into over a thousand ethereal blades that hung in the air like divine judgment. With a mere flick of his wrist, the rain fell. It was a deluge of silver light that swept the attackers aside effortlessly, pinning them to the ground and leaving them groaning in the dust without inflicting a single lethal wound. "It seems this blade is only suitable for defense, not for killing," he mused, unsatisfied with the inherent mercy of the light. He dismissed the holy blade and drew the Sword of Hell. The sunlight seemed to die instantly, replaced by a suffocating and freezing darkness that clawed at the edges of reality. As he gripped the blackened steel, the floodgates of his memory burst open completely. He remembered his name, his true origin, and the infinite aeons of his existence, but the sheer weight of this recovered identity was too vast for his mortal mind to process. He staggered under the psychic load, barely managing to hold the weapon steady against the trembling air. He quickly shoved the terrifying blades back into his spatial ring before his mind collapsed under the strain. "Consider this a warning," he whispered to the terrified silence. He turned his back on the devastation and walked calmly into the examination room.
The moment he crossed the threshold of the examination room, the suppressed psychic backlash finally severed his connection to consciousness, and he collapsed heavily into the embrace of absolute darkness. Time lost its meaning until he slowly fluttered his eyes open, finding himself lying on a modest bed within the confines of a small, unfamiliar room. He turned his head slightly and was met with a visage that stirred a faint, confusing flicker of recognition deep within his mind; it was the young girl he had accidentally collided with in the middle of the bustling street some time ago. "Where am I?" he rasped, his voice heavy with confusion as he struggled to sit up. The question was not merely a result of grogginess, but a symptom of a far more profound and terrifying loss. He had regained the totality of his ancient identity, remembering the weight of the cosmos and his true name, yet the immediate context of his current existence had vanished into the void. This was the cruel and inescapable flaw of the Infinite Reincarnation technique. While the technique allowed him to traverse lives, his mortal mind could not simultaneously hold the infinite data of his past and the finite details of his present. The full awakening of his primordial memories, triggered by the swords, had acted as a torrential flood that washed away the delicate footprints of his current life. He remembered his original life vividly up until the exact moment he was slaughtered by his ancient enemies.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his mind traversing the ruins of a forgotten history as he pieced together the fragments of his shattered identity. "The Origin God cannot be reincarnated because of the fundamental flaw in his soul's nature," he reasoned with a cold, detached logic that frightened even himself. His disciples were dead, and they could never be reborn because their essences had been utterly devoured by the Light Eaters, leaving him with nothing but the silent, useless staffs of his fallen people. He possessed the arsenal of a dead pantheon, yet he could only wield the two non-dimensional artifacts, the Divine Swords of Heaven and Hell, which hummed with a lethal resonance in his spiritual grasp. The terrifying realization settled upon him that he was now the literal center of the world, for in his past life, he had consumed the planetary core to shield it from destruction, merging his essence with the very laws of physics. All his catastrophic spells and world-ending techniques had returned to him, yet this immense power only highlighted the stark reality that he was completely alone against the encroaching darkness. "I must power up and prepare for the upcoming calamity, or the Light Eaters will return to finish what they started," he concluded, his eyes narrowing as he mentally drafted the next stage of his survival plan. He was so engrossed in these apocalyptic calculations that he completely ignored the presence of the girl sitting beside him until her voice broke through his meditation. "Are you alright?" she asked nervously, shrinking slightly under his intense aura. "You have been unconscious for a very long time." The confusion in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by the abyssal calm of a predator as he turned to face her. "Where am I, and who are you?" he demanded, his voice possessing a natural authority that commanded immediate obedience. "You are in the academy dormitories, and I am Ava," she stammered, explaining that she was a new student who had decided to tend to him. "Academy... ah, yes, I remember now," he muttered, the memories of the gate incident flooding back. "Did I pass the test?" "The instructors witnessed your battle with the Xuan family and the sword technique you displayed," she replied with awe. "The academy accepted you unconditionally." "I see," he said, standing up and smoothing his clothes. "My name is Aldo, Aldo Ritcher." "Then follow me, Aldo," she said, gesturing toward the door. "I have been assigned to guide you to your class since we are in the same group, Class 10-A." They exited the small room and stepped into the corridors of the academy, a massive, labyrinthine structure built from ancient stone that pulsed with residual magic. As they walked through the towering hallways that seemed designed for giants rather than men, he questioned the structure of the institution. "Classes are determined by cultivation rank," Ava explained as they navigated the grandeur of the building. "Each rank is divided into A, B, and C tiers based on combat proficiency, meaning Class 10 represents Order Ten." They moved with purpose toward their destination, and during the walk, Aldo silently extracted every piece of necessary tactical information from her, treating the conversation like an interrogation disguised as small talk.
Although the void in his recent memories was a tactical liability he could not afford, he remedied it with a calculated risk by invoking the 'Magic of Memory.' This forbidden spell forcibly dragged the lost events of the past year back into his mind, reintegrating the persona of the wandering storyteller with his divine consciousness, but it was a singular, dangerous gamble; to cast such a spell again would risk fracturing the very foundation of his immortal soul. With his timeline restored and his identity fully consolidated, he officially commenced his life within the academy. They arrived at the imposing entrance of Class 10-A, a threshold that separated the elite from the mediocre, where the air itself seemed heavy with the friction of clashing auras. "Teacher, may we enter?" they called out, their voices cutting through the thick atmosphere as they addressed the figure standing before the blackboard. The room beyond was less a classroom and more a gladiatorial arena of intellect and power, filled with rows of students who radiated the arrogance of Order Ten cultivators. The teacher, a man whose presence felt as sharp and cold as a drawn blade, slowly turned from the board, his eyes narrowing as he assessed the latecomers with a gaze that could wither the resolve of lesser men.