Rain fell like cold needles, soaking into the earth of the battle-scarred wasteland. Charred bodies, broken blades, and cracked armor lay scattered, a grotesque tapestry of violence and finality. The sky overhead was gray, swollen with mourning clouds that had long since forgotten the warmth of the sun.
At the center of the ruined field, a young man lay sprawled across bloodstained soil, his chest barely rising.
He was no more than twenty, his features striking beneath the grime — strong jaw, high cheekbones, long black hair matted with sweat and dust. His robes, once noble and proud, were shredded and burnt. His right arm was bent unnaturally; his sword shattered beside him.
But his eyes… his eyes still held fire.
Even as death hovered over him, Jinhyuk refused to let go.
Memories flooded his mind — sharp and merciless. The betrayal of the martial sects, the slaughter of his comrades, the moment his master's body crumbled in his arms. He had fought until his blade broke, until his bones cracked, until there was nothing left but raw, stubborn defiance.
And still, it wasn't enough.
"I failed them…" he whispered, blood bubbling at his lips.
A tear slipped down his cheek, lost in the rain.
Above him, the sky split open.
Not with thunder, but something quieter. Older. A whisper that seemed to crawl into the marrow of his bones.
«You have suffered. Yet you remain. Do you seek vengeance?»
The voice was neither male nor female. It was ancient — timeless — echoing from somewhere deep, far beyond mortal comprehension.
Jinhyuk didn't flinch. He couldn't even move. But his soul, fractured as it was, screamed a single answer.
"Yes."
A pause.
«Then rise again, warrior. The heavens are not finished with you.»
And then…
Everything went black.
The pain disappeared. The weight of failure, the ache of crushed dreams, the bitter taste of regret — all of it vanished into silence.
When Jinhyuk opened his eyes again, he was no longer on the battlefield.
Instead, he was in a small room lit by paper lanterns. Wooden floors, ink scrolls, the scent of lotus blossoms in the air.
He sat up, startled. His body felt light — too light. There was no pain. No wounds. No scars.
Panicked, he looked into the polished mirror hanging on the wall.
The face that stared back wasn't his.
It was younger. Maybe sixteen. The features were similar — but softer, untouched by war. The body he inhabited was lean, not yet hardened by years of training.
"What the…?" he muttered.
Then it hit him — not a slow realization, but a crashing wave of memory.
This wasn't a dream.
He had been reborn.
Not reincarnated into a new world.
But thrust back into his own past.
Into the body of his younger self.
His heart pounded. He touched his face again, trembling. This had to be real. The air smelled the same as it did over a decade ago. He could hear sparring outside — the clang of steel, the shouted commands of instructors.
He ran to the window.
There it was.
The Eastern Mountain Martial Sect — his former home. Unburned. Alive. Before the betrayals. Before the war.
He staggered backward.
A second chance?
No — a miracle.
Jinhyuk dropped to his knees.
He hadn't just been granted life. He had been given time.
Time to change everything.
Time to stop the deaths before they began.
Time to destroy those who had betrayed him — not in blind rage, but with cold, calculated resolve.
He clenched his fists.
This time, he wouldn't be a pawn.
This time, he would become the storm.
And this world — the same world that once buried him — would remember his name.
The first thing Jinhyuk did was breathe.
Not just out of instinct — but intentionally. Deep, slow, steady. He needed to feel it. The pulse of this younger body. The rhythm of lungs that hadn't yet screamed through war. The absence of scars that had once etched stories into his skin.
It was real.
The familiar scent of sandalwood oil and polished bamboo mats grounded him.
He wasn't hallucinating. This wasn't a fever dream on the brink of death.
It was a reset.
But his heart didn't race with excitement — not yet. Instead, it ached. Grief lingered like an unwelcome guest in the corners of his soul. Faces rose unbidden in his mind. His brothers-in-arms. His master. The loyal disciples whose laughter once echoed through the sect grounds, now long silenced by treachery.
And now... they were alive again.
Somewhere beyond this room, they were laughing, training, living without the shadow of doom that loomed years ahead.
Jinhyuk pressed his palm against the floor, grounding himself.
He had to be smart.
Power alone hadn't saved him last time. His raw talent, his ceaseless training — none of it had prevented the betrayal. If anything, it had invited it. He had been too trusting, too straightforward.
This time, he would be different.
Strategic. Patient. Unforgiving.
His sharp eyes scanned the room, noting every detail. It was his old quarters, alright. Humble, tucked away on the eastern wing of the sect's outer court. The room assigned to mid-tier disciples still not fully acknowledged by the elders.
He remembered now — this was shortly after he'd first gained inner energy.
Which meant…
He still had time.
Years before the coalition of sects turned on each other. Before the Western Alliance invaded. Before the tragic night when blood ran through the valley like a river.
A knock interrupted his thoughts.
Tok tok.
"Jinhyuk, are you up yet? You're going to be late for morning drills!" a young voice called.
Jinhyuk froze. That voice — it clawed at a memory deep inside him. Playful, loyal, always at his side.
"…Sojun?"
"Duh, who else? You good? You sound weird."
His breath hitched.
Sojun.
His childhood friend. His first sworn brother. The one who died on the battlefield clutching Jinhyuk's broken arm — torn open by a spear, smiling with blood on his teeth.
"Yeah," Jinhyuk said quietly. "I'm coming."
His voice wavered.
He stood slowly, legs trembling slightly. The room suddenly felt too small, his emotions pressing against the walls. He pulled on his training robe, noticing the looseness. He wasn't used to being this light again — young again.
As he stepped out, the morning sun greeted him with warmth he hadn't felt in years.
And standing in the courtyard, grinning like a fool with his hands behind his head, was Sojun.
He was shorter than Jinhyuk remembered — or maybe it was just that he had gotten used to towering over corpses. But the boy's presence was exactly the same.
Bright. Naïve. Honest to a fault.
"Finally! Did you stay up late cultivating again? You look like you saw a ghost," Sojun said, slapping him on the shoulder.
Jinhyuk swallowed the lump in his throat and smiled weakly. "Something like that."
Sojun chuckled. "Well, Master Jun's going to flay us if we're late again. Come on!"
Jinhyuk followed, his steps slow.
Every part of this felt surreal — like stepping back into an old dream. He took in everything: the trees lining the path, the sound of wooden swords clacking in the distance, the rustle of robes in the wind. These things had vanished in his previous life, devoured by flames and steel.
Now, they lived again.
It almost broke him.
But he didn't have the luxury of breaking.
This is a second life, he reminded himself. Not a second chance to grieve.
"Hey," Sojun said, glancing over. "You okay?"
Jinhyuk nodded. "I'm just… thinking."
"About what?"
"Everything."
Sojun tilted his head, confused, but didn't press.
And for that, Jinhyuk was grateful.
They reached the courtyard where disciples had already begun assembling. The atmosphere was cheerful, full of youthful bravado and competition.
No one had any idea what was coming.
Jinhyuk scanned the crowd, eyes sharp. Names, faces — he knew them all. Some would die too soon. Others would turn traitor. A few would rise alongside him.
He'd memorize every pattern again. Map the future not to survive it… but to bend it.
His second life wouldn't be wasted.
Not on regret. Not on mercy.
He would become stronger — not just in body, but in mind. In will.
He would build an empire within the sect, one brick at a time. He'd dismantle the network of corruption hiding behind elder robes and polite bows. He'd watch every move his enemies made before they even knew they were playing a game.
And when the time came…
He'd burn them all to ash.
The morning drills began like any other day from his past — but this time, Jinhyuk watched with new eyes.
Every movement around him was painfully familiar. The way Senior Disciple Hwa barked orders like a mad dog, how the lazier disciples groaned in half-hearted protest, and how Sojun always stood one step behind him, waiting for a cue. It all played out like a memory come to life.
But this time, he didn't move on instinct.
He analyzed.
He watched.
In his last life, he had trained diligently. Focused on cultivating the strongest techniques, aiming to rise through talent and hard work. But that had been his weakness — too straightforward, too visible.
Now, as he fell into the horse stance, feeling the burn in his thighs, he didn't just execute the movements — he studied them. Not just his own, but everyone else's. The postures of the strongest, the slack of the careless, the arrogance of those born from rich sect families who knew nothing of real war.
He wasn't just here to improve himself.
He was here to catalog them all.
To prepare.
"Jinhyuk," barked the instructor. "Your stance is too wide."
He gave a small nod. "Apologies, Senior."
The old him would've tried to argue, or correct it immediately. The new him simply accepted it, filed the instructor's preferences away, and adjusted with just enough clumsiness to seem ordinary.
Blend in, he reminded himself. Don't stand out yet.
Sojun elbowed him playfully as they walked back to the dorms after training. "Man, I thought you were supposed to be the 'quiet genius.' What happened to you today?"
Jinhyuk smirked. "Maybe I'm just getting rusty."
Sojun snorted. "Rusty? You live in the training halls. I bet you even cultivate in your dreams."
If only he knew.
They crossed the garden path back toward their wing of the outer court, the sunlight casting golden hues on the tiled roofs. Jinhyuk slowed his pace, letting Sojun walk ahead for a moment as he glanced up at the sky.
It looked the same as the day before his world collapsed.
It stirred something in his chest — a quiet, uneasy rhythm.
He closed his eyes.
This time, I will not fail.
That evening, as the sun dipped below the mountain ridge, casting long shadows over the sect, Jinhyuk sat cross-legged in his room, the candlelight flickering softly. He held a small jade pendant in his hand — one he remembered finding during a mundane patrol in his past life.
He had discarded it then. A trinket, he had thought.
But now, with everything he had learned, he knew better.
This was a fragment of something far more significant. A piece of an ancient artifact long buried beneath history's dust, one that eventually played a major role in the rise of the Northern Blood Sect — the very sect that burned his home to ashes.
Back then, he hadn't understood the symbols carved into its sides. But now?
Now, they whispered to him like forgotten voices.
He would not throw it away this time.
A knock on his door startled him.
"Come in," he said.
Sojun peeked in, holding a bowl of noodles.
"Brought dinner. Figured you'd be too busy brooding again."
Jinhyuk chuckled, setting the pendant aside. "You know me well."
"I really don't," Sojun replied with a grin. "You've been acting weird lately. You sure you didn't hit your head or something?"
Jinhyuk accepted the bowl and paused.
"I guess… I just realized I've taken too much for granted."
Sojun blinked. "You're getting philosophical on me now?"
"Maybe. Just… stay close to me, alright? No matter what happens."
Sojun raised an eyebrow. "That's oddly dramatic. Did you eat some weird pills?"
"Just promise."
"…Alright, alright," Sojun said, raising his hand like a pledge. "Sworn brother until the end."
Jinhyuk smiled — not the kind that came easy, but the kind that came with pain.
"Good."
After Sojun left, Jinhyuk stared at the jade fragment again.
There were so many things to do.
He needed to re-cultivate faster than before — refine the flaws in his former path. He needed to plant the seeds of influence among the disciples. Study the elders more closely. Map out the network of alliances, the silent enmities, the hidden greed that festered under robes of tradition and loyalty.
But most importantly… he needed to gather the fragments.
In his past life, they had been scattered and useless.
Now, he knew better.
If he could obtain all five, he could unlock the Bloodroot Formation, the forbidden array that could alter fate itself — the very one that tore open the border between realms.
He wouldn't use it as a weapon.
He would use it as a shield. As a contingency.
Because no matter how hard he fought, how well he planned… fate always struck hardest when you were confident.
He wouldn't be caught off guard again.
His path wouldn't be forged by ambition anymore — it would be carved from survival, loss, and cold, merciless foresight.
Jinhyuk inhaled slowly, his hands settling over his dantian.
And as his inner energy stirred, the first stage of his cultivation reigniting with sharp precision, a calm smile spread across his face.
He was no longer the naive disciple who thought talent was enough.
He was the man who had watched the world burn — and now had a second chance to stop it.
Let the world believe he was ordinary.
By the time they realized otherwise…
It would already be too late.