The sky screamed.
Karh's colossal body loomed above Harbor, coils vanishing beyond the curve of the world. Storm clouds spiraled around him like worshippers circling a throne.
He looked down at the trembling land.
Then he used it.
A skill he hadn't activated in centuries.
Predatory Merciless
Life 9,812's innate authority.
A simple rule.
Anyone within one kilometer who feared him—
Died.
No flames.
No lightning.
No spectacle.
Just cessation.
The effect spread silently.
Below him, cultists who had been chanting moments ago stiffened mid-praise. Eyes wide. Hearts stopped. Bodies collapsed like puppets with cut strings.
In the nearby forest, animals that sensed him too clearly dropped lifeless among the trees.
In Eastport's outskirts, soldiers who looked toward the sky in terror fell to their knees—then to the ground.
Karh felt the skill ripple outward.
Cold.
Efficient.
Merciless.
Then—
DING.
A translucent window flashed violently before his eyes.
---
Interruption of Mission!
Additional Interruption Detected:
– Usage of Manifested Past
– Usage of Infinite Aura
Consequences Initiating…
---
Karh's golden pupils narrowed.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
Pain lanced through his colossal body.
Not physical.
Systemic.
As if reality itself objected.
He roared.
The sound shattered clouds across continents.
All of Banikawa's aura erupted at once—unchecked.
The land split open in jagged scars stretching miles long. Coastlines fractured. Mountains trembled.
The sky darkened further, sunlight swallowed by spiraling black clouds.
Heaven and earth bent.
Mana currents across Harbor surged wildly—then snapped.
Every mage.
Every knight.
Every monster.
Every being who possessed mana felt it.
Their connection—
Severed.
Like a thread cut clean.
Spells fizzled mid-cast. Enchanted artifacts dulled. Magical beasts howled in confusion as their internal energies collapsed into silence.
For a single, terrifying moment—
Banikawa ruled absolutely.
Then the consequences struck.
His scales cracked.
His coils shrank.
The infinite horizon of his body contracted violently, folding inward like a collapsing star.
The sky brightened in fractured streaks.
The land stopped splitting.
The authority over heaven and earth faded as if forcibly revoked.
Karh's enormous form condensed, shrinking rapidly—cloud-piercing coils retracting, scales dissolving into skin.
From serpent.
To something smaller.
Smaller.
Smaller—
Until a sixteen-year-old boy fell from the sky.
He hit the ground hard.
And everything went black.
---
He awoke to unfamiliar wooden beams above him.
Not his house.
Not the cavern.
A different scent—lavender and ink.
A quiet room.
Clean.
His chest ached faintly where the scythe had pierced him, though there was no wound now.
He sat up slowly.
"…How long?"
His mana sense felt… muted.
Not gone.
But suppressed.
Footsteps approached.
Before he could fully assess his condition, the door burst open.
Karh stiffened.
A hooded figure entered swiftly.
The same one.
The devotee.
The man who had stabbed him.
Karh instinctively reached inward for power—but held back.
The hooded man stopped in front of the bed.
Then bowed deeply.
"It is such an honor," he said, voice steady yet reverent, "to meet the vessel of Banikawa."
Karh blinked.
Vessel?
The man straightened.
"My name is Danko."
He removed his hood.
Underneath was not a crazed fanatic—but a strikingly beautiful young man. Sharp features. Silver-threaded black hair cascading neatly to his shoulders. Calm amber eyes that held both devotion and intelligence.
Karh stared.
A strange flicker of familiarity tugged at him.
Not from this life.
Older.
Much older.
He activated another skill.
Eternal Memories.
A deep dive—allowing him to recall every detail from a selected past life.
He focused on 9,812.
Memories unfolded with crystalline clarity.
Coiling oceans.
Crushing fleets.
Burning cities.
And—
A battlefield in the west.
The Demon King of the West, cloaked in abyssal flames.
A small child trapped beneath collapsing ruins.
Golden eyes descending from the sky.
Banikawa had intervened—not out of mercy, but irritation. The Demon King's flames had disturbed the tides.
He remembered flicking the demon aside like an insect.
He remembered lifting the child carefully with the tip of his tail and placing him miles away from destruction.
The boy had stared up at him in awe.
Not fear.
Awe.
"…You," Karh murmured softly in the present.
Danko's eyes brightened.
"You remember."
Karh exhaled.
"You were the child from the western battlefield."
Danko nodded, stepping closer.
"You saved me from the Demon King of the West. From that day forward, I devoted my life to understanding you… to bringing you back."
Karh closed his eyes briefly.
Of course.
He hadn't known.
To him, it had been a minor moment in a long life of becoming a myth.
To a child—
It had been salvation.
He opened his eyes again, studying Danko carefully.
"You grew up," Karh said flatly.
A faint smile curved Danko's lips.
"I did."
Silence settled between them.
Outside the window, Harbor was unnaturally quiet.
No ambient hum of mana in the air.
No faint magical currents drifting through the world.
Karh felt it clearly now.
His outburst had not been without cost.
The system's warning echoed faintly in his mind.
Consequences initiating.
He looked back at Danko.
"You realize," Karh said calmly, "I was trying to live peacefully."
Danko tilted his head slightly, confused.
"Peacefully?"
Karh sighed.
"…Never mind."
He glanced at his faintly flickering system window in the corner of his vision.
10,231st Life Mission: Live a peaceful life.
Now heavily cracked.
He muttered under his breath—
"This is already going terribly."