Screams of fear and confusion echoed through the air, carried on the wind like mournful chants. Dust rose with each frantic hoofbeat as the herd thrashed in panic.
One among them stood out, a massive bull with a powerful frame, long black horns curving like fate itself, and four sturdy legs that now trembled with helplessness. His dark eyes burned with unwillingness, yet resignation clung to them like a shadow. He was yanked forward by the horns, dragged toward a waiting truck. His cries, deep, guttural, and broken, rang through the field, haunting and melodic in their sorrow.
Around him, the others grew quiet, their despair a silent prayer.
The truck rumbled to life, its cold metal frame swallowing him whole as it drove toward the abattoir. The road was short, but every second stretched like eternity.
Within the steel walls of that final place, he stood trembling. Then, in a moment of eerie stillness, his eyes flickered with a pale blue glow—a glimmer of something ancient, something that remembered.
A final cry tore from his throat, filled with centuries of pain, before his head fell.
He was dead.
For the fortieth time.
…
"Please! Have mercy!" The frail girl cried out, her voice raw and breaking in the suffocating gloom of the ancient chamber. The hulking man, her uncle, cursed by blood and madness, dragged her mercilessly across the rough-hewn stone floor, her simple dress catching on jagged splinters of wood from the overturned table she'd knocked over in her panic. She was 20 now, an adult in this fleeting life, but her body betrayed her once more, as fragile and powerless as in every incarnation before. Weak, always weak, no matter the form her soul took, peasant, warrior, scholar. The cycle mocked her, trapping her in vulnerability.
The air was thick with the metallic tang of old blood and incense, the flickering torchlight casting grotesque shadows on the walls etched with forbidden runes. Cobwebs draped like funeral shrouds over forgotten idols, and the distant drip of water from some unseen crack echoed like a countdown to doom. She clawed at the floor, nails breaking against the stone, but his grip was iron, unyielding.
He paused for a moment, looming over her like a beast from nightmares, and licked his fat, pig-like lips, his eyes glowing with a fanatic zeal that burned hotter than the flames. Beads of sweat glistened on his bald scalp, mixing with the grime of his ritual preparations. "Girl, thank the gods you're the chosen one," he rasped, his voice a booming thunder that reverberated off the walls. "This will bring us eternal power, immortality for the faithful, and dominion over the realms. Your sacrifice is a gift, you see? A holy unraveling."
"No, oh please! Uncle, have mercy!" She screamed, the words tearing from her throat as hot tears streamed down her pale cheeks, soaking the cold stone beneath her. Her sobs echoed in the dim chamber, a haunting chorus amid the shattered relics, porcelain vases smashed in her earlier thrash, scrolls of arcane knowledge trampled underfoot, a silver chalice dented and spilling dark liquid that stained the ground like accusations. Why him? Why always a betrayer in her family line? In one life, he'd been a brother poisoning her wine; in another, a father selling her to slavers. But this... this ritual was new depths of cruelty.
The bulge of a hidden dagger glinted ominously under his belt, its hilt wrapped in leather stained with who-knows-how-many victims' essences. But it was his words that cut deepest, sharper than any blade, twisting in her soul. "Yes! Cry... cry more! Your suffering purifies the ritual! The gods feed on despair, child; they crave the breaking of the spirit. Let it flow, let it cleanse us!"
"No! No..." Her voice cracked as despair flooded her, a tidal wave drowning out hope. She twisted in his grasp, kicking futilely, her bare feet scraping against the debris. Flashes of past lives assaulted her mind: the sting of arrows in a battlefield, the slow choke of drowning in a frozen river, the burn of flames at a heretic's stake. Ninety reincarnations, each ending in pain, each teaching her nothing but futility. Why? Was it punishment for some ancient sin her soul couldn't remember? Or a cruel game of indifferent gods?
Seemingly oblivious to her inner torment, her uncle hoisted her up with effortless strength, slamming her onto the cold altar at the room's center. The ancient runes carved into its surface began to glow with an eerie, pulsating light, crimson veins snaking across the stone like living blood vessels. Broken furniture lay scattered around them, remnants of her desperate fight: the chair she'd swung at him, splintering against his arm; the candelabrum toppled in her scramble to escape. The chamber smelled of decay now, her fear amplifying every foul odor.
He circled her slowly, chanting in a guttural tongue long forgotten by the world, his hands tracing symbols in the air that left trails of shimmering ether. The dagger emerged from its sheath with a sinister whisper, its blade etched with symbols that seemed to writhe in the torchlight. He raised it high, his face contorted in ecstatic fervor, spittle flying from his lips as he invoked the dark powers.
"Nnn… NO!" She screamed one last time, arching against the restraints he'd bound her with, rough ropes biting into her wrists and ankles. The blade descended in a swift arc, piercing her chest with a sickening thud, pain exploding like shattered glass through her body. Blood pooled around her, warm and sticky, seeping into the runes that drank it greedily, glowing brighter as her life force fed the spell.
But this pig of a man was lost in his delirium, chanting louder, his eyes rolling back in rapture as the chamber trembled with unnatural energy. He didn't see her final defiance, the silent curse in her gaze.
'Even after 90 reincarnations, I'm still weak and pathetic,' she thought, the words a whirlwind in her fading mind. 'Why are you doing this to me? In one life, I was a queen betrayed by kin; in another, a beggar starved in the streets. Each time, the pain builds, the lessons evaporate. I'm tired of this endless wheel… please, let it stop. Please… grant me oblivion, or strength, or anything but this.'
Her vision blurred, the world tilting into shadows. The chants faded to a distant hum, the pain receding like a tide. She had died… again. But in the void between lives, a faint spark flickered. Perhaps this time, the cycle would crack.
…
BOOM! BANG!
"Ugh!" A boy, no older than fifteen, bald with piercing green eyes, cried out in agony as a punch slammed into his ribs, shattering them like brittle glass.
Before he could even gasp, something hard, cold, almost metallic, crashed against the side of his head. A white-hot pain unlike anything he had ever felt before exploded in his skull. Flesh tore. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed. Brain matter oozed.
He slumped, barely conscious, barely alive.
But not dead.
Not yet.
"You filthy little thief! Thought you could just take and walk away, huh?!" The voice that spat down at him was cruel, rage-laced, yes, but dancing with a disturbing glee.
"I… I didn't…" he rasped, though the words barely escaped his blood-filled throat.
BANG! CRACK!
A savage kick smashed into his shoulder, splintering it. The pain was excruciating, tearing a scream from deep within him, so raw, so primal it shredded his vocal cords. Silence followed, but not peace.
Then came a sharper pain. Deeper. Colder.
He turned his head just in time to see a blur of red arc through the air, his leg, severed at the thigh.
Unbelievable. Inhumane.
Why?
Why was cruelty the constant?
He had been through this before. Too many times.
This was his hundredth reincarnation… and still, pain welcomed him into every new life like an old friend. But this, this was worse than all the others.
His thoughts screamed even if his lips could not.
Why? Why me? What did I do to deserve this? I just want peace. Just a moment of rest. Please…
Leave me alone!
His mind roared in one final burst of defiance.
And then, schlick.
A clean cut.
His head hit the ground. Eyes wide open. Lips parted.
His hundredth life… ended in blood, sorrow, and silence.
…
[Calculating.....]
[Reincarnation Data: x100]
[Requirements Met!]
[Path of Pain: Completed!]
[Path of Anger: Completed!]
[Path of Wrath: Completed!]
[Path of Death: Completed!]
[Reincarnation: Unlimited]
[Soul Strength: ???error!!!]
You've met the requirements to become the most powerful being and save your parents in ######.
You will start over.
I apologize for everything, but it was a necessary action.
You will understand everything in due time.
Until then, meet you on the other side.
This was the last thing he saw before he finally died!