The first sound Kael heard in his new life was crying. Not his own — someone else's. A woman.
He wasn't sure where he was. For a moment, there was only the warmth of cloth around his tiny body, the dampness of air hitting fresh skin, and a pounding sensation in his head that wasn't pain — just pressure. Like something enormous had been crammed into something impossibly small.
Then the memories started bleeding in.
Not flashes. Not dreams. Real, full memories. Names. Places. The weight of a sword in his hand. The smell of blood in the snow. The sound a god made when it died.
He was alive. Again.
No, he realized. Reborn.
Everything was too bright, too loud. He tried to breathe, but his lungs were new — unused — and they protested with a tiny, squeaking gasp.
Someone laughed. A deep, warm voice.
"He's not even crying. Just staring."
A second voice, softer. Shaky with emotion. "He's... beautiful. Look at those eyes."
Kael blinked. Slowly. His vision adjusted enough to make out vague shapes. A face hovered above him — pale skin, long dark hair clinging to a sweat-soaked forehead. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, but her smile was full of something Kael had never seen directed at him before.
Unfiltered love.
She touched his cheek with one trembling finger. "My little Kaelan."
Kaelan?
A name. Not his. But it would do.
The man's face appeared next. Strong jaw, wide smile, eyes full of pride. "He's going to be sharp, this one. Look at him. Doesn't even look confused."
Kael looked up at them. These people — his new parents, it seemed — had no idea what had just happened. No idea what he really was. They saw a baby. A son. A blank slate.
But inside, Kael was anything but.
He was a memory of war stuffed into a newborn shell. A soul that had killed gods now bound inside a helpless body that couldn't even lift its head.
His thoughts were slow. Fuzzy. He couldn't fully focus — the instincts of infancy and the sheer overload of senses kept pulling him back toward sleep. But he knew this much:
He wasn't in the same world anymore.
The mana in the air — the way it felt — was different. The silence of the gods here was louder than any battlefield he'd ever stood on. And there was no divine pressure in the distance, no subtle tension of power watching from the clouds. Wherever this was, it was untouched. Peaceful. Quiet.
For now.
This world doesn't know war yet, he thought. Let's keep it that way.
---
The days that followed were strange.
Being helpless again was a kind of torture. His body wouldn't respond the way his mind expected. He tried moving fingers that hadn't fully developed motor control, tried sensing mana flows that barely tickled his skin.
And worst of all: he couldn't speak.
Every time he tried to form a word, his throat let out a whimper or a burble. It was humiliating. But he was patient. If he had survived being torn apart by divinity, he could survive diapers and lullabies.
His parents were kind. Ridiculously kind. His mother — Lira, he learned — sang to him at night. Not songs of war or loss, just soft lullabies about stars and rivers and growing strong. His father — Dren — carried him like he was made of gold, always speaking to him like he was listening.
And he was.
Kael listened to everything.
He listened to the way they talked about their village. About the nearby forest, the river to the west, the small chapel that hadn't seen a priest in years. There was no mention of gods. No mention of war, or monsters, or realmwalkers.
It was a quiet world. A small one.
It would not stay that way.
Because Kael remembered something else — something the god had said before it died:
"You think you're the last? You've only delayed the end."
There would be others. Maybe not now. Maybe not for years.
But they would come.
And when they did, he wouldn't be helpless.
Not this time.