The inky darkness pressed in from all sides.
For several long breaths, the soul drifting through that void felt itself dissolving—becoming as numb and hollow as it had secretly desired for years. No pain. No duty. No voices calling their name with expectations sharper than blades.
Just silence.
Just peace.
For a moment, Sairael wanted to remain like that—to forget everything, to let centuries of torment and obedience wash away. To finally stop being anything at all.
But fate had always been inconveniently stubborn with him.
A spear of blinding white tore through the darkness. It pierced the drifting soul, forcing awareness back into fragile limbs and a breathing form. Sairael’s eyes flew open to a sky of pale winter light seeping through cracked windowpanes.
Cold air bit at his skin—real, unmistakable, merciless.
A faint, hoarse cough pushed itself from his small frame. He struggled upright, blinking at a room he had not seen in a lifetime. Dust clung to ghostly beams, and old velvet curtains hung stiff with cold. The space was refined in shape but worn thin beneath its pretended luxury, like a noble household trying desperately to hide its rot.
A place he knew.
A place he had buried deep.
Sairael’s breath trembled. His limbs ached—not with the divine exhaustion of a Saint, but with the raw, neglected soreness of childhood. A pain he had not felt since before leaving his household for the temple.
His gaze dropped.
And froze.
The body he now sat within was small. Too small. Thin arms. Diminished stature. The size of a child of five or six. His lips cracked as a sigh slipped out, vapor curling faintly in the frigid air.
Two truths unveiled themselves:
First: His final step into the Abyss had not ended him.
Second: He had been thrown backward—into a time he never wished to tread again.
Before he could gather his scattered thoughts, a faint shimmer flickered before his eyes. Something like transparent parchment unfolded from the air itself, edged with ancient script long forgotten by most living souls.
The letters twisted and reshaped, forming meaning in Sairael’s mind:
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“The Heavens, upon losing their chosen Saint, nearly destroyed the world you left behind.
To halt ruin, the higher powers of Fate and Law have reversed time…
to a pivotal point before your death.”
His breath stilled.
The script continued:
“This rewinding consumed the divine faith accumulated by Heaven’s Laws.
To preserve billions of lives and appease Heaven’s wrath, a single chance was chosen.
Two paths stand before you.”
Two paths.
Yet only one was truly gilded.
Another line bloomed, dim compared to the rest—almost shy, almost hidden:
“If the first path is taken—if you walk the same road again—
a small gift shall be granted.
A means to reveal truth at the final moment.”
No such promise appeared under the second path.
Sairael stared blankly at the parchment. Truth? His truth? Proof of innocence? It sounded almost like pity from the heavens—something absurdly small in the face of everything he had endured. And yet…
His life had never belonged to him.
Not when he obeyed the suffocating demands of his household.
Not when he hid beneath the strict rules of the academy.
Not when the Royal Family named him the second prince’s betrothed—
a position given less for affection and more for political convenience.
And certainly not when the Temple forced him into the role of the Saint.
They had all shaped him, grasped him, wielded him.
They had even reshaped what he was.
The world did not care that he was Ger—a truth he had been forced to hide so deeply that even his own name had almost forgotten it. In their lands, a Ger was a contradiction, a sin to some, a treasure to others. A male capable of bearing life—something many viewed as disrupting the divine order. A man, yet not fully a “man” in the eyes of a society that worshiped masculine strength. A being that caused whispers, unrest, and political storms simply by existing.
His father had hidden it.
His mother had enforced it.
The temple had erased it.
And the world had decided that his male self was shameful, while his false female self was holy.
He had endured, silently, because that was all he was allowed to do.
Even when the betrothed assigned to him—
Sairael’s gaze darkened. A shadow of memory brushed at the edge of thought. A figure. Beautiful in face. Gentle in public. Cold as winter stone when the doors closed. And ever-hovering behind him now sat another shadow—the sweet-faced “victim,” the one the world had wept for.
He pushed the memories aside.
He had not come here to bleed again.
The parchment dimmed as his turmoil stirred the air.
Sairael inhaled slowly.
Then—finally—made his choice.
His small fingers lifted, trembling not from fear but from the weight of inevitability, and touched the first path.
The same path.
The same ending.
But this time… with truth.
If all failed, the Abyss would take him again.
And perhaps, on the second descent, the void would not be halted.
Perhaps he would finally be swallowed entirely, without light to drag him back.
The thought was almost comforting.
The parchment dissolved into shimmering dust.
Sairael lowered his hand.
Lowered his gaze.
Lowered his expectations.
And whispered to the empty room:
“Very well… I will walk it again.”
The cold swallowed his breath.
The dawn crept slowly over the horizon.
And the child who would become the Holy Saint closed his eyes—
just long enough to hide the first quiet tear he had allowed himself in many lifetimes.
