Ren exhaled sharply, his breath visible in the cold air, thick with the acrid stench of blood and decay. The battlefield was quiet now, the chaos reduced to groans of the wounded and the crackling embers of a once-thriving camp. The abyssal creature lay in a heap of dark, fragmented flesh, its core ruptured and its unholy essence dissolving into the void. Ren clenched his fist, feeling the raw surge of essence flow into his Mandate, the accumulation pushing him ever closer to the threshold of true awakening.

  Yet, something was wrong.

  The moment his blade had pierced the abyssal’s heart, something deep within his Mandate had stirred—not just with power, but with recognition. His body stiffened as an unnatural cold rushed through his veins, sinking deep into his bones. His vision blurred, and suddenly, he was no longer standing on the blood-soaked battlefield.

  He was somewhere else.

  A memory—no, a vision—unfolded before him, dragging him into a world that was both familiar and terrifyingly foreign.

  The sky burned a deep crimson, swirling with inky black clouds that seemed alive, shifting and writhing like unseen horrors pressing against a fragile barrier. Beneath this unnatural sky stretched an endless field of devastation—shattered ruins, splintered trees, and grotesque creatures that bore a disturbing resemblance to the abyssal he had just slain.

  The war had already been lost.

  He could feel it in the air—the weight of impending extinction, the futility of resistance. The people here… they had fought, but their efforts had been swallowed by the void, leaving behind only a wasteland riddled with the husks of the fallen.

  And yet, in the center of this desolation, a figure stood untouched.

  Ren’s breath caught in his throat as his eyes landed on himself.

  Or at least, someone who looked like him—the same sharp eyes, the same presence—but older, weathered by time and war. This version of him wore armor unlike anything Ren had seen before, adorned with ancient symbols pulsing with a cold, silver light. The most unsettling thing, however, was not his attire or his eerie stillness—

  It was his eyes.

  There was no fear in them. No rage. No desperation. Only certainty.

  This was not the look of a man fighting to survive.

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  This was the look of a man who had already accepted his fate.

  “You finally see it.”

  The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once, resonating deep within Ren’s mind. His older self did not move, yet Ren could feel the weight of his words pressing down on him like an undeniable truth.

  “You have always been bound to this battle. It is not chance. It is not misfortune. This is your Mandate.”

  Ren gritted his teeth. “Who are you? What does this have to do with me?”

  His older self finally turned, eyes locking onto his younger counterpart. And in that moment, Ren felt something shatter inside him.

  Because he remembered.

  Not all of it. Not clearly. But in that instant, fragmented memories flooded into his mind—flashes of war long before this life, long before this world. He saw battlefields swallowed in shadow, his own hands wielding the same power he had now, cutting through abyssal horrors with the same desperate fury. The same war, repeating endlessly.

  And at the center of it all—his Mandate.

  The truth struck him like a blade to the gut.

  The reason his Mandate had chosen this trial. The reason it had pitted him against the abyssals, demanding that he endure, adapt, and conquer.

  Because it was not the first time he had fought them.

  It was not the first time he had stood on the precipice of annihilation.

  His Mandate had not been testing his strength.

  It had been preparing him.

  For the war that had never ended.

  Ren gasped as his vision snapped back to reality, his body drenched in sweat despite the frigid air. His heart pounded in his chest like a war drum, his muscles trembling—not from exhaustion, but from understanding.

  He knew now.

  This wasn’t about passing a trial.

  This wasn’t about proving his worth.

  This was something much bigger than himself.

  His Mandate had chosen him because he had already fought this battle before.

  And somehow…

  Somehow, he had lost.

  The realization sent a violent shudder through his core. Had he died in that war? Had he failed? Had the abyssals won? The answers were buried deep, locked away within the layers of his soul—secrets his Mandate was only beginning to reveal.

  But one thing was clear.

  The abyssals were not just mindless beasts, not just obstacles in his journey.

  They were enemies he had faced before.

  And if his Mandate was guiding him back into this war, if it had chosen to awaken him here and now—

  It meant that history was repeating itself.

  And this time, he could not afford to lose.

  Ren slowly straightened, his grip on his sword tightening. His comrades watched him in silence, sensing the shift in his aura. He had changed in the span of mere moments—his eyes sharper, his stance heavier, like a man who had glimpsed a truth too vast to comprehend.

  Isamu stepped forward, his expression unreadable. “Ren…? What happened?”

  Ren didn’t answer right away. He exhaled, feeling the steady pulse of his Mandate within him. It no longer felt like a simple system guiding his growth.

  It felt like something ancient. Something alive.

  Something that had been waiting for him to remember.

  “…Nothing,” Ren finally said, his voice calm, but edged with something new. A certainty that hadn’t been there before. “Just another step forward.”

  He turned his gaze toward the horizon, where the battlefield had quieted, but the war still loomed.

  This wasn’t over.

  Not by a long shot.