Rebirth System: Blood and Ash

The cold, creeping numbness began to ebb, replaced by something unfamiliar—a pulse, a surge of warmth, but also chaos.

It was as though the world around him shifted and buckled. His senses sharpened, but not with clarity, but with something far more profound—something wrong.

The spear that had impaled him began to hiss, its structure trembling under an unseen force, and then, to Aszer's astonishment, it disintegrated into nothing but dust, falling away from Aric's broken body—but the king swiftly materialized another in his hands.

Aric's eyes snapped open.

The battlefield around him felt off, as if it existed as a memory alone.

His body, though torn and bloodied, flowed with what should have been an impossible energy—mana and ki, blending, swirling, converging in ways that defied all natural order.

He stood, power raging, bending with intensity.

Aszer recoiled, momentarily caught off guard, his eyes narrowing in confusion. "What... is this?" he mumbled, his voice less certain than before.

Aric didn't answer. He didn't need to.

With a slow, deliberate breath, he extended his hands, palms facing out toward Aszer.

The air between them roared violently, as though it were a storm about to break, and then in an instant, a sphere of energy formed around them, trapping both Aric and the king inside.

The world outside the sphere seemed to flicker and slow.

The crackle of flames, the panic of krigers—everything dulled, as though they had stepped into a separate reality. Inside this isolated pocket, time no longer flowed as it should. It twisted and bent.

Aric could see them—threads of light, hundreds, no, thousands of them. They flickered, danced, and intertwined around Aszer.

Each thread represented a possibility, a future, a potential movement or strike Aszer might take. The threads pulsed in and out of focus, but Aric, with each breath, began to see them more clearly.

Aszer, meanwhile, sensed the shift.

His instincts flared, but he could not understand the sudden change, nor the subtle, disorienting flickers that now appeared at the edges of his vision. Every time he moved, an afterimage of himself seemed to linger behind, like a shadow of the action he hadn't yet taken.

With a savage growl, he launched himself forward, spear outstretched in a deadly thrust aimed at Aric's heart.

But Aric already saw it.

He saw not one thrust, but many—each a different variation of how Aszer could strike. A simple adjustment, a nudge of a thread, and Aszer's spear veered slightly off-course, just enough for Aric to sidestep.

Aszer's eyes widened as his strike missed, the spear driving into the ground where Aric had been moments before.

Aric's lips curled into a faint smile, though the exertion of holding the sphere together was starting to weigh on him. The chaotic fusion of ki and mana wasn't stable—he could feel his entire being be ripped apart, surged, desperate to break free of his control—but it was only though that this power was made possible.

[Ki is dangerously low.]

[Mana is dangerously low.]

[Hp is dangerously low]

He couldn't stop now. Not yet.

Aszer spun around with inhuman speed, launching another series of brutal attacks—sweeps of his spear, lunges, slashes. But each time, Aric was already moving. He saw every potential strike, every angle, every choice Aszer might make before it happened.

He was no longer reacting; he was anticipating, influencing, pushing the battle in his favor.

But even in this, Aszer's raw power was undeniable. The force of his strikes caused the ground beneath them to shatter, and each time Aric dodged, he felt the sphere tremble, the instability growing. For every moment Aric manipulated fate, reality pushed back.

Aszer let out a roar of frustration, his eyes glowing with fury as he poured his strength into a massive overhead strike, his spear glowing with murderous intent. The very air around it screamed as it descended, a blow that would have obliterated anything in its path.

Aric felt the pull of the future threads, saw the inevitable outcome—a direct hit, his body broken under the weight of Aszer's power.

No.

With a surge of desperate energy, Aric altered the thread, twisting fate just enough to shift the spear's trajectory. Aszer's strike missed by mere inches, crashing into the ground with an explosion of debris and energy.

But the act of altering that future came at a cost.

The sphere flickered, the energy within it spiraling out of control. The ground beneath them rippled, fiery distortions warping the air as the ki and mana began to destabilize. Aric staggered, his vision blurring from the effort of holding it together.

He could feel the backlash of the chaotic energies—pushing, pulling at him, threatening to tear him apart.

"Argh!" Aric gritted his teeth, his muscles screaming under the strain.

Aszer, despite his confusion at Aric's strange ability, was not a man to be underestimated. He was a Martial King, and his experience ran deep. He recognized the signs of strain in Aric, and though his frustration simmered beneath the surface, he saw an opportunity.

"You're playing with powers beyond your reach," Aszer spat, his spear twirling in his grip as he prepared another assault. "You can't control it. It's going to kill you before you kill me."

Aric's breath came in ragged gasps, his body trembling from the immense toll. But even as his energy waned, even as the chaotic fusion threatened to consume him, he held onto one thing: the threads. The futures. He could see them, even now.

With one final push, Aric concentrated on the flickering afterimages around Aszer. He didn't need to fully control them—just enough to create an opening.

As Aszer charged, Aric altered a single thread.

The Martial King's foot caught an invisible snag in the earth, just enough to throw off his momentum. His spear faltered, the strike losing its deadly precision for just a heartbeat.

And in that heartbeat, Aric struck.

His sword, forgotten until now, flashed forward with blinding speed. It wasn't a powerful strike—it didn't need to be. The tip of the blade found its mark, slipping through the tiniest gap in Aszer's defenses, stabbing into his arm.

In that moment, aric poured the chaotic mix of energy into Aszer.