Eren Smith had been born with a heart too weak to carry the weight of a lifetime. His earliest memories were not of laughter, playgrounds, or sunlight, but of antiseptic walls, the slow drip of an IV, and the sterile scent of a hospital ward. The room that confined him was more prison than refuge—four walls painted white, clean only in appearance, but silent in a way that gnawed at the soul.
Most days passed in dull repetition: medicine at fixed hours, visits from nurses wearing gentle smiles and rehearsed sympathy, and the occasional change of bed linens. Time did not flow for him. It stagnated.
His only escape came through a screen—the gateway to stories he would never live. Animation, fantasy, and comics became his only companions. He watched with quiet hunger as fictional heroes soared where he could not walk, conquered where he could not struggle, and stood tall where he could barely sit.
Among the many tales he consumed, one became an obsession—not by choice, but by constant suggestion from the nurses and the endless voices of social media.
Douluo Dalu.
He watched the first part with reluctant interest, gradually drawn in by the world of spirit rings, martial souls, and cultivation. There was fairness in the struggle then, a logic to the hardship. But as the narrative advanced—particularly into its second arc—something inside him began to fracture.
The protagonist, Tang San, had once seemed noble. But Eren saw what others ignored. He saw hypocrisy masked as righteousness. A man who claimed virtue while subjugating an entire continent. A father who spoke of love while robbing his daughter of her future. A so-called hero who judged others yet acted without consequence.
Eren's heart—fragile from birth—could not bear the weight of such contradictions. His pulse raced with every episode. Bitterness bloomed into anger. That anger curdled into hatred.
And then, in the stillness of one quiet afternoon, surrounded by machines that hummed indifferently, his heart failed him for the final time.
He died.
That was the end of Eren Smith's story.
Or so it should have been.
He awoke to birdsong and sunlight—alien sounds and sensations to a boy who had only known the sterile silence of hospital walls. His first breath came sharp and clear, the scent of soil and morning dew filling his lungs.
He sat up slowly, the worn blanket falling from his shoulders. The bed beneath him was wooden. The walls around him were made of clay and timber. Through the open window, light spilled across a simple room. And from beyond the fields, the sharp crowing of a rooster rang out, announcing the day.
For a moment, he remained still, unsure of what he was. Then the memories came—not his own, but the remnants of a life once lived by another.
The boy's name had been Xiao Eren Smith, a villager in Holy Spirit Village. His parents, simple farmers, had died only a month prior, slain in the forest by wolves while returning from a trip to the nearby town. Since then, the boy had lived alone, surviving on the village's meager charity.
And today was the day of his martial soul awakening.
Eren rose to his feet, his expression unreadable. He walked to the window and looked outside, where children were gathering, excitement in their voices. Among them, he spotted a familiar figure.
Tang San.
He was younger now—no longer the self-righteous deity of the story, but a boy no different than the others. Yet Eren's heart stirred with remembered loathing.
Eren turned away from the window, his voice low, almost a whisper.
"I suppose I should be grateful for this second life," he said to himself, his voice measured. "But if my martial soul turns out to be that pitiful grass… or worse, a rusted sickle like my father's… then I am already doomed."
There was no desperation in his words—only cold recognition. In this world, power was not given.but it was awakened,or not at all.
And if one had no soul level, they might as well be soil under someone else's feet.
As he turned back to the bed, something unusual caught his attention.
A pen.
Jet-black with golden light over it, resting on the pillow beside where his head had lain. He had not seen it the night before. It did not belong to the previous boy. It was foreign to the room, to the village, to the world itself.
He picked it up.
The moment his fingers closed around it, a new knowledge entered his mind—silent, perfect, and absolute.
[Whatever you write with this pen shall become real. The world shall obey your words. Reality shall bend to your ink.]
There was no voice, no divine figure, no glowing inscription. The truth simply was. It etched itself into his awareness like a memory he had always possessed.
He stared at the pen for a long moment, his breath steady, his grip unmoving.
He did not marvel, nor shout, nor fall to his knees in praise.
Instead, he closed his eyes and exhaled once through his nose—calm, deliberate.
"If this is my cheat… then I am not merely alive," he murmured. "I am inevitable."