Here's the thing.
When a person dies, the world is supposed to go quiet. Even if it's only for a moment. A breath. A final pause before everything slips out of focus.
But for Voren, the silence didn't come.
Not even close.
Instead, the darkness around him pulsed. Like it was breathing.
He didn't see the arena anymore. Couldn't feel the sword buried in his gut. Couldn't hear the crowd whispering or Aiden's arrogant voice. All of that faded at the same time, pulled away like someone wiping chalk off a board.
What came next was sharp, cold, and strangely clear.
[Death Detected!]
A single notification drifted through the darkness. Not loud. Not rushed. Just matter-of-fact, like someone making a note on a clipboard.
[Re-Awakening condition met!]
[Re-Awakening…]
The darkness rippled. A soft vibration washed over him, and for a moment, he felt as though he had a body again. Fingers twitching, breath forming, heartbeat trying to restart. But none of it stuck.
He was suspended there, weightless, like a thought floating in a place that didn't belong to the living.
[Skill Obtained: Steal By Death (Unranked)]
[Description: Obtain the skill of the entity currently ending your life.]
The words glowed in front of him. They weren't just text. They felt alive, like something pressing against the inside of his skull.
Then another line appeared.
[Stealing Aiden's Skill…]
A shadow passed through him. It didn't hurt, but it felt wrong, as if someone had dipped a hand in his chest to pull something out. Something heavy. Something he never knew he was carrying.
Another notification chimed.
[Skill Obtained: Skill Weaver (SSS)]
[Description: Create any skill by describing it.]
If he still had lungs, he would've gasped.
If he still had a face, he would've widened his eyes.
A skill like that shouldn't exist.
Not for him.
Not for anyone.
It felt absurd. Out of place. All-powerful in a way that made even the darkness around him shudder. Yet the system didn't pause.
Almost as if it wanted him to use it.
Voren didn't have time to think deeply. He didn't have space to consider long-term plans. He barely had the luxury of processing the fact that he was dead. His mind wasn't calm or wise or collected. It was frantic. Dizzy. Teetering on panic.
But even in that state, one instinct cut through everything:
I need to go back.
Not later.
Not someday.
Now.
Back to before Aiden's sword tore him apart.
Back to the moment he could still breathe.
Back to a time he could change something.
The idea latched onto him. It overwhelmed everything else.
So he reached for the power the system had dropped into his hands.
He didn't think about elegance. Or technical details. Or consequences.
He just described the first thing his desperate mind could form.
A skill.
A single, reckless skill.
"I want to return to the past," he thought. "A skill that lets me regress. That sends me back before I died. Take me to a time I can still escape this. Give me another chance."
The darkness trembled, as a faint pulse coursed through him.
[Processing skill description…]
[Logically analyzing request…]
[Result: Accepted]
A moment of stillness. Then,
[Skill Created: Temporal Regression]
[Rank: SSS]
[Description: Allows the user to rewind personal time to an earlier point in life. Activation triggered immediately after death when no other survival path remains or by user command. Manual activation consumes significant mana.]
The words hit him like a wave—cold, fast, all-consuming.
He didn't have time to celebrate. Didn't even have time to brace himself.
Everything broke.
The darkness snapped apart. Light carved through the void, harsh and blinding. A rush of wind hit him, even though he didn't have a body to feel it. The world twisted, folding in on itself, bending the way water bends when someone drops a stone in it.
Shapes flickered by him—faces, places, moments he lived through but never expected to see again.
His first day in the Kaleid house.
His mother's tired smile.
His little sister tugging at his sleeve, giggling for no reason.
The first time he held a mana orb.
The awkward excitement of Awakening Day.
The early morning sun the day of the Oakhaven exam.
Aiden's mocking smirk before the duel started.
The sword gleaming in the air.
The blood.
The pain.
The helplessness.
The moment he realized he was dying.
It all flashed past him, too fast to focus on but too vivid to ignore.
He floated through it all, pulled backward like a leaf caught in a violent current.
And the more the memories blurred, the more something stirred inside him.
Hatred.
It grew slowly. Then faster. Sharper. Hotter.
He didn't choose it.
It just arrived.
Natural. Heavy. Honest.
Aiden Hartwright.
The boy who stabbed him.
The heir who smiled while killing him.
The noble who would never face consequences for taking a life.
Voren didn't scream his name. He didn't curse.
He didn't need to.
The emotion settled into him like a vow etched into stone.
He would kill Aiden.
Not now.
Not recklessly.
But someday.
When the world least expected it.
Regret turned into resolve.
Resolve turned into steel.
And the void around him brightened.
The rushing light intensified. The world spun faster. He felt his consciousness tilt, then flip, then slam downward like something dropping from a great height.
Voices faded in.
Warm ones.
Close ones.
The smell of food drifted into the air. A wooden chair creaked under weight. Someone was humming. Plates clinked against the table. There was a faint breeze from a nearby open window.
Then—
Tap.
A soft poke touched his cheek.
Tap.
Another one.
"Voren," a small voice whispered. "Your spoon… it's falling."
His eyes opened.
And he wasn't in the abyss anymore.
He wasn't lying in a pool of blood.
He wasn't kneeling in an arena.
He wasn't choking on a blade.
He was at the dining table in the Kaleid home.
A bowl in front of him.
A spoon slowly slipping from his fingers.
His little sister standing beside him, looking at him with wide confused eyes.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Reality settled over him like a blanket.
He'd gone back.
He was alive.
He had a second chance.