Asterion's eyes flew open. His consciousness slammed back into existence, not with a gentle fade, but like a thunderclap. He was floating in a vast, star-dusted void, moving at a speed that defied physics. His first thought was of the Being, the curse, and the endless white plain. His second was the sudden, shocking realization that he could still breathe—or at least, he had no need to.
This continued for what felt like an eternity. He was a disembodied mind, a passenger on a cosmic current. The perfect, agonizing memories of his family—of Mishel, of the fire and the pain—were his only companions. They were sharp, crystal-clear, and they kept him sane. They were his anchor in this nothingness.
Then, the void changed. He felt a pull—not a suggestion, but a colossal, gravitational summons. He was suddenly yanked downward, accelerating toward a planet teeming with greenery. Then, everything faded to black.
When he regained consciousness, the universe had collapsed. The cosmic void was gone. His vision was blurry, his senses muted, his limbs heavy and unresponsive. He was... small.
He found himself in a basket, wrapped in a rough-spun, damp cloth. He was in the middle of a forest, with nobody around. Panic, cold and sharp, surged through him. It was a tide of primal dread that threatened to swallow him whole.
His 22-year-old mind, the mind of a Nobel laureate, was trapped inside a skull that could barely support its own weight.
He tried to scramble to a defensive position, a reflex ingrained by his final moments in the farmhouse. But his body betrayed him. His spinal cord hadn't yet learned to command his muscles. Instead of moving, he merely twitched, his heavy head rolling uselessly to the side, pressing his face into the rough wool. He was a mind of iron trapped in a vessel of soft clay.
He looked around, wide-eyed, his new pupils struggling to focus. Towering trees loomed like ancient, indifferent giants, their canopy a dense ceiling that dappled the forest floor in shadow. The shadows themselves seemed to stretch ominously, twisting into shapes his panicked mind interpreted as predators.
What is this? he thought, his mind screaming. But the thought had nowhere to go. Am I going to die as soon as I started my second life? Is this some kind of punishment? To starve or be eaten alive?
The weight of uncertainty pressed down on him, heavy and suffocating. His tiny heart raced, a frantic, rabbit-fast drumbeat echoing in the stillness. He squirmed in the basket, acutely aware of his profound vulnerability.
He tried to take a deep, calming breath, the kind his father, Wilhelm, had taught him for stressful exams. Instead, his infant lungs managed only a shallow, hitched gasp. The damp, earthy scent of moss, wet bark, and decay filled his lungs. The forest was alive with sounds—the incessant rustle of unseen leaves and the shrill chirp of insects—yet it felt eerily, terrifyingly empty.
Focus, he told himself, commanding his mind to overcome the panic. He tried to speak. All that escaped was a wet, gurgling sound. Foreign baby babbles came from his mouth, a mouth he could barely control. The disconnect was maddening. You can't give up. Not after... not after them.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of thumping. It wasn't just a sound; it was a vibration through the ground, through the basket, a rhythmic thud... thud... thud... growing closer. And with it came a surge of new, painful memories. This body's memories.
He remembered a man and a woman, their faces gaunt, their bodies malnourished. Yet, they always managed to feed him. He remembered the taste of thin, watery broth. This cycle went on for days, weeks, until the food eventually ran out.
The memory-vision focused. The woman looked at him, her expression a terrible mixture of despair and fierce, animalistic determination. Then one day, only his mother returned. She had a weird, empty look on her face, yet she carried with her a heavy sack that dripped.
She cooked a thick, dark soup. The rich, iron-heavy aroma awakened a deep, ravenous hunger within him. His adult mind screamed Don't!—recognizing the thumping sound for what it was—but his baby body cried out. She fed him. It was the first real sustenance he'd had in weeks.
Guilt, hot and familiar, coiled in his gut. First Mishel and his parents. Now these two strangers who had starved so he could eat. Was he a curse? Did everyone who touched him end up as meat for the monsters?
When he awoke from the memory, the thumping sound was back in reality. He looked up. His mother looked panicked. Two men, starved and holding crude clubs, moved toward them.
She grabbed a sharpened rock. She leaned down, kissed him on the head with cracked, dry lips, and whispered, "Stay here."
She moved away, placing herself between the basket and the men. Asterion watched her go, feeling a mix of dread and a terrible, familiar helplessness. For the second time, he was forced to watch. Powerless.
Soon, he heard screams echoing through the forest. Her scream, first. Then, the wet, tearing sounds of a struggle. And then, silence.
He was left alone. His adult mind wanted to analyze, to mourn, to rage. But his body reacted badly. The pressure was too much. It let out a high-pitched, piercing cry that echoed through the stillness.
The sound attracted riders. Heavily armored knights on horses.
One of them found the gruesome scene—his mother's half-eaten corpse. "A baby. Left for dead," the knight grunted, showing no emotion.
But a priest was with them. He knelt by the body, then approached the basket. As he chanted, Asterion felt a deep pain rise within him, a sharp sensation as if a tuning fork had been struck inside his soul. The priest lifted him and handed him to a massive knight.
"Hold him, Sir Garrick. Gently."
The journey continued until they reached a village shrouded in black smoke. The acrid scent of burning wood mixed with something far more sinister—an oily, coppery, sour smell.
The knight, Sir Garrick, handed Asterion to a porter in simple leather armor. "Protect the child."
The knights donned their helms. Asterion watched, stunned, as the priest, Father Gregor, slammed a mace into the ground, erupting with golden light. Faith.
Then, the porter hugged Asterion tightly, turning his body to shield the child from view. Asterion was plunged into total darkness, pressed against the hardened leather of the man's chest.
He wanted to see. He needed to analyze this new power, to understand the threat. But he was trapped in the dark, swaddled in cloth and leather.
Then came the horrifying screeches. The thunderous sound of hundreds of feet impacting the earth.
The battle began.
Asterion's world shrank to the sounds of violence and the terrifying vibrations of the porter's body.
Thump-thump-thump. The porter's heart hammered a frantic, erratic rhythm against Asterion's cheek, beating so hard it felt like it might bruise him. The man's chest heaved with shallow, panicked breaths, his muscles tensing rigid as stone.
CLANG.
The first impact was deafening. It wasn't the ring of a duel; it was the ugly, flat noise of heavy steel smashing into bone and armor. Asterion flinched, his tiny body jerking in the porter's grip.
Then came the wet sounds. He heard a distinct, sickening tearing noise, like wet canvas being ripped apart, followed by a gurgling screech that didn't sound human. Was that a monster dying? Or a man? His analytical mind scrambled to categorize the sounds, but the chaos was overwhelming.
A sharp, violent hiss sizzled through the air, like a high-voltage wire snapping in a storm. The temperature around them spiked instantly. Asterion could smell the sudden, sharp scent of ozone mixing with the copper tang of blood. The priest. It had to be the priest.
The porter stumbled back, his boots scuffing heavily in the dirt, clutching Asterion tighter. The man let out a small, involuntary whimper of fear, a sound that terrified Asterion more than the screams. If the protector was this afraid, what was happening out there?
CRUNCH.
A heavy, sickening thud vibrated through the ground and up through the porter's legs. Something massive had just hit the earth.
The air grew thick with the smell of sulfur and burning meat. The screams became sporadic, then wet and gurgling, until finally, they stopped.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the panting of the surviving knights and the crackle of burning timber.
The porter's grip loosened. Light flooded back into Asterion's vision as he was turned around.
The knights were regrouping. One was badly mutilated, his arm corroded and weeping black ichor. Asterion watched, his eyes wide, as the priest approached with a glowing knife. He cut the arm off.
Then, the miracle happened.
The priest placed his hand on the stump and chanted. Golden light blinded Asterion. When it faded, the arm had grown back.
Asterion's 22-year-old, scientific mind reeled. He tried to apply physics, biology, anything to explain it. Conservation of mass? Energy transfer? Cellular mitosis?
His mind fired off terms, trying to box the phenomenon into rules he understood. But there was no source for that mass. The bone didn't knit; it manifested. It defied entropy.
It wasn't science. It was a cheat code for reality.
The priest stumbled back, exhausted. The knights began to burn the village and the twisted bodies of the monsters.
As the fire crackled, mixing with the foul smell of burning Tainted flesh, Asterion stopped trying to analyze the physics. He realized something far more important.
This power—this "Faith"—was the only thing that mattered. If he could learn it, if he could master this cheat code, he would never be helpless again. He would never have to watch from a basket, blind and terrified, while someone died for him.
He stared at the fire, and for the first time since the farmhouse, he didn't feel just fear. He felt a cold, calculating hunger. He would learn this dance.