The dissonant, harmonizing chime echoed through the void of Reine's mind, pulling him back from the cold gray of death into the blinding, dusty heat of the Herlem plains.
He didn't stand this time. He sat, his breath hitching, his jaw so tight it felt like his teeth might crack.
"I'm a fool," he hissed, the disappointment dripping from his voice. "I thought this was a storybook. I thought a miracle meant I was suddenly a hero."
The Physics of a Suicide Sprint
Reine blocked out the veteran's insults. He closed his eyes, replaying the Knight's movement like a flickering film reel.
It wasn't a spell, Reine realized. It was a mechanical explosion. He's using his Mana Core as a combustion engine.
"If he can do it, I can do it," he whispered.
He focused the mana into his glutes, quads, and calves. He didn't distribute it; he packed it in like gunpowder. He triggered the discharge.
For a fraction of a second, the world smeared. The wind didn't hit his face; it punched him. But a human body is not a projectile.
Without a "Reinforced Vessel," Reine's 100% output was a death sentence.
His tendons snapped with the sound of wet violin strings.
Capillaries in his eyes ruptured, spraying hot blood onto his lips.
G-Loc hit him, a black cloud of unconsciousness as the blood was forced out of his brain.
He collapsed forty feet away—a heap of broken meat and shattered ambition.
The Cage of 30 Minutes
The 5th Loop. The 8th. The 12th.
Reine tried to run North. A Paekl scout carved through his muscle and left him to bleed out for twenty minutes while ants crawled into the wound.
He tried to run South. A "Mana Net" wrapped around him, searing his skin as he was dragged behind a horse until his back was raw, white bone.
By the 13th Loop, Reine didn't move.
He sat in the trench, staring at nothing. His hands shook so violently he couldn't hold a sword. The "Second Chance" wasn't a gift.
It was a torture chamber.
The Breaking Point
Reine was wedged behind a heavy oak grain barrel, his knees pulled to his chest. Through the gaps in the wood, he didn't see soldiers—he saw meat being harvested.
Suddenly, a wet, heavy object thudded into the dirt. It was the veteran's head. The man's eyes were still open, frozen in indignant shock.
Reine broke.
He let out a hollow, rhythmic keening—a guttural wail of a boy who had watched his own death so many times his soul was leaking out. He rocked with such violence that he bruised his forehead against his knees.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Heavy, metallic footsteps silenced the world. Reine scrambled back, hitting the barrel. The wood gave way, spilling grain like sand in an hourglass.
Reine collapsed onto his back, staring up.
The Manifestation of Shame
The sky didn't look like a sunset; it looked like a bruised, purple wound. The Knight stood over him, but his form was warping. His limbs became impossibly long, his armor pulsing like a living insect. This was the Regression itself manifesting—using Reine's fear to flay his mind.
The Knight leaned down. His visor was a void of shifting shadows.
"Look at you," the creature hissed. "A worm trying to play God with time. Do you smell the smoke, Reine? That's the scent of your home burning. Every spark is a result of your cowardice."
A clawed talon reached out.
"Your parents didn't die for a hero. They died for a mistake. Can you hear your filthy sister screaming your name in the slave markets? She thinks you're coming. She doesn't know her brother is a ghost who lacks the spine to even hold a blade."
The creature grew until it blotted out the sun. The sky turned into a vortex of screaming faces.
"Die again, Reine Vangalf," the monster whispered. "Die until the pain is the only thing left of your soul."
The creature's boot descended—not onto Reine's chest, but onto his face.
CRACK.
The mysterious, harmonizing chime played one last time, but it sounded like a glass cathedral shattering into a billion pieces.