The mountain didn't just rise—it ruled. Tall and jagged like a blade left behind by some forgotten beings, it stood alone at the edge of the world. Its peak tore into the sky, sharp and proud, untouched by seasons or storms. It had watched time pass without blinking. While clans were born and buried, this mountain remained.
No trees grew on its slopes. No animals climbed its paths. The earth here was hard, cracked, and silent. Even the air felt heavy, like it carried the weight of ages. The world held its breath around this place, as if waiting—for something, or someone.
Above this peak, two moons hung in the sky. One was silver—calm and quiet. Its light wasn't warm, but soft, like a memory that refused to fade. It spilled across the mountain in slow, gentle waves, touching stone that hadn't felt warmth in a thousand years. The other was black. A shadow in the shape of a moon. It didn't shine. It didn't reflect. It simply consumed everything near it—light, energy, even time. It was a wound in the sky. Together, they painted the mountain in two colors: silver and shadow. Hope and silence. A forgotten harmony, frozen in time.
The silence here was strange. It wasn't just quiet—it was deep. Thick. Unmoving. Even time itself seemed to slow. There were no breezes. No rustling of leaves. No sound of shifting rocks. Only the low hum of stillness, like the world itself had been paused.
Near the peak stood a house. It was small, plain, and nearly swallowed by the scale of the mountain. But it didn't look weak. Its walls were made of dark, aged wood—so ancient it looked like stone. Its roof was steep, layered with smooth black tiles that caught the moons' glow but gave nothing back. There was no smoke rising. No wind brushing its sides. No animals nearby. Yet the house didn't feel abandoned. It felt... present. Not alive. Not warm. But aware. Like it had been waiting.
Inside was only a single room. No windows. No decorations. Just a chair, sitting perfectly still in the center of the room. And on that chair sat a man. He didn't move. Not even to blink. His body was so still, it barely seemed real—like he had become part of the silence itself. His skin was pale, smooth like cold jade. His face was sharp, balanced, and flawless. Not handsome in a human way—but too perfect, like something shaped by time, not born from it. His lips were set in a flat line. His eyes were closed. He didn't look dead, but he didn't look alive either. His long black hair fell around him, motionless except for the softest ripple, as if touched by an invisible memory. It reflected the silver moonlight and drank in the black moon's shadow—like it belonged to both. His hands rested on the arms of the chair. Not clenched. Not relaxed. Just... placed. Like they had always been there.
He had been sitting there for a very long time. Not hours. Not days. Centuries. Even the air inside the room seemed to move around him more slowly—as if it didn't dare disturb his stillness. His eyes were shut, but he could see. Not through sight—but through something far deeper. He had watched the world. Not as it was—but as it would be. And as it could never be.
Then, slowly, his eyes opened. They were dark. Not just in color—but in feeling. Deep like still water. Silent like the end of a dream. They held no emotion. No reflection. Just understanding. He stared at the floor, but he wasn't looking at it. He was looking through it—through the mountain, through the sky, through time itself. And then he breathed. Just once. A long, soft exhale that seemed to break the silence without making a sound. A breath that felt like the closing of a chapter.
"...Death."
The word was spoken quietly. But in that room, in that moment, it was absolute. He didn't say anything more. He didn't need to. Because he had seen everything. Not with hope. Not with fear. With the All-Seeing Eyes Rune—a power that allowed him to look into every possibility, every future, every path that the world could take.
And in every one of them, he died. Sometimes he was destroyed in battle. Sometimes he was erased by fate. Sometimes he simply faded, forgotten by time and memory. His name was never spoken. His legacy never written. No matter what he did. No matter how hard he tried. The end was always the same. There was no escape. Not by force, not by law, not by will.
He did not feel pain. He did not cry. He simply accepted it.
"Weakness."
He whispered the word like a truth. Not angry. Not ashamed. Just honest. He had reached the limit of what his current path allowed. His soul, his power, his very Law—all of it was at its peak. And still, it wasn't enough. He could go no further in this path, as the going future leads to death.
There was no emotion on his face. Only thought.
Silence returned, wrapping around him like a heavy coat.
But just as silence returned to claim his mind, something trembled.
A crack—not in the world, but in the pattern.
One future. One moment. One possibility.
Different.
It was not grand.
It was not clear.
But it existed.
In that single path, he did not see battle.
He did not see death.
He did not see shadow.
He saw…
A Rune.
No place.
No context.
Just light—soft, shifting, undefined.
It didn't reveal itself fully. It flickered—changing shape every time it was observed.
But it pulsed like a heartbeat, like thought, like something alive.
And the moment he recognized it, it shimmered deeper—acknowledging him.
Not with words.
But with certainty.
He had always carried this Rune.
Dormant. Silent. Forgotten.
Waiting not for power—but for the right condition.
He breathed again.
This time, softer than before.
Almost… reverent.
"One path. One light. That is enough."
"If I cannot move forward on this road … then I must create a new road for myself."
He wouldn't fight fate by force. He would simply move where the chance of possibility exists. He would not survive the coming age. He would be reborn into it.
The mountain remained still. The house didn't move. But something in the world trembled—so soft it almost wasn't real.
And then, slowly, something changed.
A faint glow appeared in his right hand. It wasn't hot. It wasn't bright. It didn't burn or crackle. It pulsed softly—like a heartbeat. A Rune floated above his palm. Not a weapon. Not a command. Not a symbol of destruction. Its shape was round, small, and strange. It looked like a curled body. Like a child before birth.
A Reincarnation Rune.
It gave off no light that touched the walls. But it gave off something deeper. A sense of beginning. It didn't hum. It didn't whisper. But the air around it bent just slightly, as if space itself leaned closer to listen. Time itself seemed to pause.
The Rune shape was unclear. One moment it looked solid, the next, fluid—like it hadn't fully decided what form it wanted to take. Yet the man didn't flinch. He simply stared at it. As if this Rune had always been waiting. And now, it had answered.
The room remained quiet. But something new had entered the silence. Not sound. Not movement. Just… beginning.
This was the first step, the single act that would set his desperate plan in motion.
But as his fingers, pale as carved jade, neared the glowing rune, an invisible pressure descended. It was subtle at first, like a distant thought, then sharpened, piercing the deep stillness of the room. It wasn't physical force, no wind or tremor, but a profound, ancient awareness.
He felt it settle, not on his skin, but directly on his very being—a cold, malicious gaze that had watched the unraveling of countless worlds.
The Realm Will.
It had noticed.
The Rune, once vibrant, began to falter. Its gentle pulse wavered, the soft glow dimming as if forcibly erased from reality. The edges blurred, its form becoming indistinct, threatening to dissolve entirely. He didn't snatch his hand back; his movements remained impossibly calm. Yet, the message was clear, burned into his mind with a chilling certainty before the Rune could vanish completely:
"This path must be taken in silence."
He stopped, his hand hovering in the empty space where the Rune had been. There was no flicker of panic in his dark eyes, no trace of fear. Only a cold, absolute calculation.
He knew the Realm Will was watching him now, its vast, indifferent awareness fixed upon his intent. He knew that fate can allow it, since the possibility exists—but the Realm Will would not, as reincarnation is forbidden in the Realm because it brings chaos.
The flaw in his initial thought was obvious now. His previous attempts to alter his future had always been within the boundaries of known laws, visible to the grand tapestry of destiny. Reincarnation, in its simplest form, was merely removal of all cause and effect.
But he knew—once he reincarnated, the Realm would send people for him.
No, his reincarnation had to occur in a way that Realm Will itself couldn't see until he became strong.
His mind, sharp as a honed blade, began to work. If he couldn't hide his intent, he would hide his existence.
The planning began, not with hurried scribbles or feverish motions, but with the quiet, deliberate unfurling of ancient knowledge within his mind.
He began to visualize the intricate sequences, the forgotten formation, the impossible bargains that would be required.
He would begin by drawing a hidden formation on the floor. Not with ink, but with pure Will, etched into the very fabric of the silent room. This wouldn't be a protection spell, but a sacrificial seal, a pattern designed to cut him off from the eye of Will and hide him from Will for a certain time.
It would make his very life untrackable, a phantom existence, even to divine systems that governed causality.
Next, he would erase his own imprint from the River of Time. Every act, every memory, every potential future connected to his current identity would be severed. No future path could "call him back" to this doomed existence, no echo would remain for the Realm Will to latch onto. He would become nameless, unremembered by history.
To complete the illusion of his demise, he would weave a powerful illusion. It wouldn't merely hide his presence; it would paint a false picture for the world, making the world believe he had died, utterly vanished, leaving nothing behind. A definitive, irreversible end to his current existence—a final chapter that was a lie.
This was the core of his plan, the point of no return.
A complex, ancient array, its geometry defying normal understanding, would form around him. Within this circle, he would sacrifice everything about his current self: his accumulated karma, his body, and his cultivation.
All would be offered, not to some deity, but to the very void, in exchange for a hidden birth—a new beginning outside the gaze of the Realm Will.
As the plan solidified, so did his actions.
He slowly lowered his hands, no longer attempting to grasp the elusive Rune. Instead, his fingers, still and precise, began to trace invisible lines on the dark, aged wood of the floor. There was no sound, no scratch of chalk or brush, yet a faint, shimmering light began to appear, growing with each deliberate stroke. It was a circle of symbols, ancient and profound, each one pulsing with an inner luminescence.
Blood-like light flowed through the runes as they took shape, a deep crimson that pulsed steadily, yet he never bled. The air in the room grew colder—not with a chill of frost, but with a profound, unnatural emptiness that seemed to drain warmth and vibrancy from the very space. Space itself seemed to fold unnaturally, subtly warping, hinting at dimensions beyond human comprehension.
Each formation he drew looked more complex than the other.
One rune, a swirling vortex of silver light, began to subtly block the flow of time around him, creating a pocket of stillness outside the reach of the Realm Will's temporal sight.
Another, a stark, obsidian symbol, worked to erase his current presence from the awareness of the world, rendering him a ghost before he even departed.
A third, intricate and complex, sought to collapse his current identity, scattering the echoes of who he was so thoroughly that they could never be reassembled.
And finally, at the very center, a crystalline, almost imperceptible Rune began to gently store his soul—a tiny ember of his true self, ready to be carried across the threshold of rebirth.
The circle of light pulsed around him, a silent vortex of power and sacrifice.
He was ready.
He stared into the shimmering heart of the sacrificial array, his dark eyes reflecting the complex dance of ancient light.
There was no hope in that gaze, for hope implied a future he hadn't seen.
There was no fear, for fear was an emotion long since abandoned in the face of inevitable truth.
He simply spoke, his voice a whisper that seemed to echo only within the profound stillness of the room, a final, cold declaration to a world that sought to deny him:
"This time, no one will know me. No will shall stop me. I will be born... where even Realm Will cannot look."
The light of the array intensified, a silent roar of power contained within the small house.
The very fabric of reality seemed to stretch and thin around him, preparing for the impossible.
The two moons outside, silver and shadow, cast their dual light upon the silent mountain, oblivious to the momentous act unfolding within.
"The man on the chair remained perfectly still—a silent sacrifice, ready to Start a new life."