The first thing he remembered was the sound of dripping water.
Then the pain returned.
Not the pain of flesh—no, that had ended when the blade pierced his heart. This was worse. It was emptiness, cold and endless, like sinking into a sea that never touched bottom.
Ren floated in darkness. Time lost meaning. Thought was the only thing left to him.
And memory.
He remembered Reika's calm voice reciting prayers. Arin's emotionless eyes watching him train. Gorim's booming laughter echoing through war camps. Kaido cleaning his bow. Mira humming after each spell.
He had trusted them.
He had fought for them.
He had died for them.
And none of them had stayed.
His thoughts, once soft and full of confusion, hardened into glass. Sharp. Cutting. Unforgiving.
Far above, buried deep in the Demon Lord's shattered throne room, an artifact pulsed.
It had been carved from obsidian, etched with red veins that glowed like magma. The Demon Lord had forged it to ensure his own return—his soul bound to it in secret.
But as fate would twist it, the Demon Lord's body had turned to ash.
And Ren's blood, spilled on the stone floor as he collapsed, had seeped into the artifact's core.
Something ancient stirred.
The magic had waited.
Not for Ren.
But for blood.
For vengeance.
For rebirth.
Thirteen years later, the seal cracked.
The chamber trembled as cold light erupted from beneath the ruined citadel. Bones dissolved. The altar of the dead fractured.
From the black stone sarcophagus, a figure emerged—naked, pale, eyes dim but burning from within.
He coughed, his lungs unused to air. His hands trembled. His legs buckled.
But he stood.
Ren Takasumi was alive.
No—something else was.
He stumbled to the edge of the chamber, breathing hard. His reflection on the obsidian floor was unfamiliar: long black hair, streaked with silver. Eyes once brown, now glowing faint gold. His veins pulsed faintly with magic, crawling like ink beneath his skin.
He wasn't human anymore.
Days passed.
Ren wandered the wilds, wrapped in torn robes scavenged from the ruins.
He didn't hunger. He didn't tire. But he remembered. Everything.
His powers had changed. His healing was no longer gentle—it forced flesh back together, as if time obeyed his will. His energy swelled like a living thing, and he felt... cold fire running through his chest.
The mark of the Demon Lord's artifact now lived inside him.
It didn't speak. But he felt it whisper in his dreams. Not in words.
In feelings.
Pain. Rage. Purpose.
He reached a border town after weeks. Covered in a hood, he listened to the chatter of merchants, knights, and priests.
"Reika the Saint now leads the Grand Temple."
"Sir Kaido saved the southern tribes from plague."
"Lady Arin advises the Elf King."
Not a single soul spoke his name.
No record. No statue. No monument.
It was as if he'd never existed.
Only his party remained in the legends.
Only them.
Ren sat by a ruined shrine one night, staring at the cracked statue of a forgotten god. Moss had devoured the stone. Vines choked its form.
He pulled a shard of obsidian from his cloak—the last piece of the resurrection artifact. His blood still stained it.
He carved words into the base of the shrine.
"I saved your world. You erased me. I return not as your hero... but your shadow."
He turned, rain beginning to fall as he stepped into the night.
He no longer cared if they remembered him.
But they would never forget what was coming.