In the middle of a hundred-meter-wide scorched crater, an old man in an extravagant blue robe sat on the ground, looking at the smoldering bodies surrounding him. The battlefield had gone quiet, signaling the end of a decade-long war.

Armored footsteps could be heard behind him, and soon, a warrior in blood-soaked armor appeared through the smoke, running toward the old man with an ecstatic grin.

"Archmage Nova, we won the battle! We finally won!"

"That's go—" the old man started, but he was interrupted by a sharp pain in his side. His calloused and wrinkly hand held the wound closed, but the pool of blood kept spreading despite all the healing spells. "That's good, my king…"

The king was stunned by the sight, staring in shock at the wounded state of the archmage. "Wha— What happened? Can't you heal it?"

Archmage Nova sighed heavily, shaking his head. "Healing spells require life force to work, and I am all but spent. All mages, no matter how great, must meet their end…"

"But you're…" the king started, struggling to find the words. "No one has ever reached your level… You won't even get to see the peace you've created? That you've fought for your entire life?"

"King Solvar… I am no longer needed here…" the old man whispered, sounding more at peace than the king thought possible. Nova raised a trembling hand, using his final moments to heal a small wound on the king's face. "Peace is never eternal, but now it's… your turn. Make it last."

The wizened old man stopped moving, only looking at the surroundings. "Get away from here… My mana will… explode, once I go."

"No! I won't leave you here! You're the reason we—"

A circle of light enveloped the king, suddenly shooting him away from the scorched crater. He no longer had any choice in the matter.

'Always so loyal… You must find your own way now, Little Prince…'

Archmage Nova, as he was called in this life, leaned back and stared at the reddened sky, letting the final breath leave his lungs. His eyes closed, along with a final prayer.

'Won't you let me rest in this next life? Give me a peaceful world blessed with all the kindness humans have to offer. Or even just a new life in this world, so I can live in the peace I've struggled for all these years…'

An infinite distance away, a goddess smiled apologetically in his direction. His destination was no longer hers to decide.

The familiar sensation of rebirth faded away, replaced by hunger and cold. Always hunger and cold.

Nova had experienced birth eight times before, but this was different. No loving parents waited to hold him—no warm blanket to shield him from the world. Just rough hands moving him from place to place, marking things in ledgers, measuring something he couldn't yet sense.

Nova sighed internally, a sigh that carried hundreds of years of experience and exhaustion. 'You've outdone yourself this time, fate. Never before has the joy of a new life been so callously discarded... Well, at least in my experience.'

First came the needles.

Above him, a voice spoke clinically in a language he couldn't understand. He couldn't move, couldn't speak, could only endure. This was going to be a long childhood.

By age two, he had counted thirty-seven children disappear.

"Where Tako?" little Millie had asked him one morning with her simple vocabulary. He could only hold her hand, knowing the truth would only bring her tears.

At three, he began to understand.

The pattern was always the same. Children who had reached their fifth year would vanish in the night. No explanations. No goodbyes. Just one less voice in their cold stone home.

Now, at four, he was ready.

He knew every crack in the walls of Chamber Seven, where he shared space with four other children. Three hundred and twelve stones made up the walls, each one a slightly different shade of gray in the dim light that filtered through the barred window.

They called it the Garden, though nothing grew here except children and despair. Nova had mapped every corner of their confined world: twenty identical chambers housing five children each, arranged along a narrow hallway that ended in a stone courtyard.

The courtyard itself was seventeen steps across, with more stone walls stretching up to a slice of sky that changed from steel gray to midnight blue and back again, marking the passing days.

Their only view of the outside world was the sky and the endless ocean visible through their bedroom windows, which all were pointed to the east where the sun rose. With only one direction to look in, it was impossible to tell if they were on an island or a coastline.

The occasional sailboat passing by was a spectacle, making everyone flock near the walls to have a look. It was the only entertainment they had besides each other and the occasional bird coming to steal some food.

Most children here could barely understand their own language, and their education was limited to basic commands: Eat. Sleep. Stand.'

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The only reason they could string basic sentences together were Nova's stories about the outside world. He had learned the language from the wetnurses and caretakers at a young age. But he could only tell them secretly, stopping whenever the caretakers poked their heads in.

He knew all ninety-seven current residents by the names they had chosen, often with suggestions from him. And he knew that one would be taken tonight. A quiet child, always willing to share his bread with the birds, named Carl.

Nova watched the torchlight passing by the room from his corner of the chamber, listening to the two large sets of footsteps interwoven with one small. They always took them late in the evening, locking the iron door behind them. None of the children ever returned.

'I need to figure out what they do to us. Judging by the lack of care here, I doubt we're being used for anything good.'

Nova got up from the thin bedroll, listening for any sounds indicating the guards were doing their jobs. They usually didn't, but the unpredictability made it harder to plan any stealthy missions.

"Nova, going somewhere?" Millie's sleepy voice asked through the darkness. She'd developed a sixth sense for his movements, probably from all the nights he'd comforted her after nightmares. "Did they taked someone?"

"I'm just going for a walk, Millie. Go back to sleep."

She yawned and closed her eyes, mumbling a silent "Okay, g'night..."

Nova moved silently across the worn stones, avoiding the loose one near the doorway that had tripped countless children over the years. The familiar smell of mold and salt air was lighter tonight, likely due to the cold wind.

Touching the two iron nails stuck in his hair, he planned his actions meticulously. 'Good thing they stopped locking the doors to the chambers at night. I only need to worry about the outer one. And getting seen, of course.'

In a world without mana, qi, or any other power system, Nova could only rely on his mind and experience. Luckily, though, he had plenty of both. But it was only now, at four years old, that his body was dexterous and strong enough to actually be able to do anything.

'I need to follow those bastards to see where they're taking Carl. Five years old isn't too late to start an education program, but why would they lock us down so hard? Why keep us so dumb and not teach anything? There has to be a less pleasant explanation.'

None of the kids knew of any parents, or even what parents were. They all simply lived, eating and sleeping in groups—almost like cattle, except they weren't fattened up at all.

He soon reached the door to their chamber, opening it with practiced ease and swiftly stepping through. Even if any of his roommates noticed, they would go back to sleep as long as nothing seemed out of place.

The narrow hallway to the iron door was almost as familiar as the chamber, so he crossed it soundlessly in seconds. The two nails hidden in his long hair were retrieved, but carefully, so he didn't make any sound. He also pushed a ball of hair into the lock to dampen the sound of its opening.

The instincts he had developed over the lifetime he had spent as an assassin had come in handy many times in the past, but he had never needed them this much. The lock was simple enough that he would have been fine without them, but the next step would require the stealthy techniques he had once honed.

A quiet click sounded through the inner hallway as the door opened, quietly enough that no one would wake. The door was heavy, but it was evenly balanced, letting him open and close it with minimal effort. And then he was out, in the outer hallway he hadn't seen since his first days in this world.

A glance down the long hallway, only lit by the moonlight from the barred windows, told him the guards were being lazy again, just as he expected. Hearing them pass by on colder nights like these was particularly rare.

'Step one complete. That ball of hair helped more than I thought. Now then…'

Putting his hands together over his head, he stretched his body in strange ways, moving down from his fingertips and ending in his legs. It was an old technique he had learned to avoid making any noise as he walked, preventing any popping of joints.

Then he lowered his center of gravity and started striding forward, stepping on the balls of his feet. 'Now I only need to figure out where they went past this hallway. There are no tracks to follow, but the burning smell of the torch should point me in the right direction.'

He moved slower than he would have liked, but there was no helping it with this tiny body. All he needed was to know the truth. He could keep waiting for his turn if it was nothing serious, but if the children truly disappeared for good… Well, then he could do more for them from the outside.

'I have tried for so long to figure out what use this place could have for a world without magic or other unnatural powers, but… nothing fits perfectly. Are we the bastards of a nobleman? Is this how they raise children in this world? Is it some kind of eugenics program where they test us at five years of age?'

His worst fears, of course, were some sort of ritualists who used children as religious sacrifices. Such a theory would fit the circumstances, but he hadn't noticed any fanatical behavior in the caretakers.

He sniffed his way past many doors, continuing to follow the unfamiliar hallway, listening for any sounds that could signal trouble. And after about one hundred meters, he heard voices behind a door, seeing light flicker through the cracks around it.

"...can't do this anymore, man… They're so young…" one female voice said, on the verge of tears. Nova took that to mean the worst scenario was true, but he still wanted to confirm it.

While he searched for a hiding spot for when they came back out, he heard another voice. "... no choice… only reason we can live in peace…"

'...Another goddamn world where people justify the most heinous acts for their own gain… What possible reason… Okay, I have to confirm it first.'

The only hiding place in the mostly empty hallway was a barrel of water. Hardly enough to keep him completely hidden, but with some planning, he could make it work.

Carefully pulling the cork from the top of the barrel, he positioned himself near the wall behind it, waiting for the caretakers to exit the room. He kept listening, but the discussion wasn't very lively. One piece of information caught his attention, though.

"... this one… control his soul essence a bit…"

'Soul essence? So there is a type of power here? Why haven't I been able to…'

Nova had never heard of any powers based on the soul before. There had been spells and cultivation techniques that had to do with the soul, of course, but it had never been the basic source of power.

He had also studied the caretakers' movements for a long time, looking for anything hinting at unnatural strength. But they all struggled with pushing carts and carrying children, no different from the humans from Earth.

'Is it the age? Does the complete soul form at five years of age?'

Shuffling sounds came from the door, signaling that they were coming out. It opened slowly, illuminating the dark hallway with torchlight.

Nova peered around the barrel, and for a moment, his centuries of experience meant nothing.

His mind refused to process what he saw. Carl's body hung lifelessly over the caretaker's shoulder, eyes half open, with a face still bearing traces of pain.

In every world Nova had lived in—as king, immortal, assassin, archmage, and even in his humble beginnings as the owner of a cat shelter—one rule had remained absolute in his wake. A line that even the darkest souls hesitated to cross, knowing who would come for them.

Never kill a child.

His soul burned with an ancient fury, and somewhere in that rage, something clicked into place.

[Your soul is completed. You now have access to the system.]

The notification hardly registered. Nova was already planning a slaughter.

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