Reborn in the Ash
Chapter 1: The Ashes Whisper My Name
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The sky was dark, but not because it was night.
Ash rained down from the heavens like gray snow, falling silently over a world that no longer breathed. The once-proud capital—crimson banners, shining towers, and laughter—was now nothing but soot and ruin. Blackened stone walls, scorched trees, and the bitter smell of burnt dreams.
In the middle of the destruction, a boy stood alone.
"…Am I the only one left?"
His voice cracked—barely a whisper, barely a breath. His name was Reivan Aldren, once the son of a noble knight. Now… a ghost among the wreckage.
His knees buckled. The blood on his hands—not his own—was dry now, crusted and cold. His father… his mother… his sister… gone. All turned to ash when the flames of the Black Purge swallowed the kingdom in a single night.
But Reivan hadn't died.
No. Something far stranger had happened.
> I should've died… that dragon's fire burned everything. I felt my body melt… my screams... I was supposed to disappear too.
Yet here he stood—unharmed. Or so it seemed.
He touched his chest. No heartbeat. No breath. And yet he was conscious, alive—or something close to it.
Suddenly, a pulse echoed through the ground. Soft, like a heartbeat in the dirt. He turned.
There, among the rubble, a strange sigil glowed on a piece of shattered stone. A glyph of fire, ancient and otherworldly. As he stepped closer, the air around it shimmered like heat haze. His instincts screamed to run, but something deep in his soul pulled him in.
And then—
"You who died in flame… rise, reborn in the ash."
The voice was not human.
It echoed inside his skull like thunder, yet no one was there. The glyph surged with red-hot light, and a wave of pain slammed into Reivan's chest. He collapsed to the ground, clutching his sides, eyes wide in terror.
But instead of death…
Memories—not his own—flooded in.
A world beyond the veil. Black fire that consumes immortals. The name of a forgotten god. And the image of a phoenix—its wings wide, rising from flame.
Then, silence.
Reivan gasped, finally able to breathe. His chest rose and fell. A heartbeat—his heartbeat—was back.
But so was something else.
His hand, now glowing faintly red, trembled as power coursed through his veins. It wasn't magic. It wasn't human. It was something older… primal.
"...What am I now?"
Behind him, the ruins still smoldered. Before him, the world stretched in every direction—hostile, vast, and unknown.
Reivan clenched his fist.
The boy who once cried in the shadow of fire… had been reborn in it.
> If this power is the will of the ash… then I'll use it. I'll burn through fate itself if I must.
The wind shifted, carrying the scent of cinders and something distant—hope? Or danger?
Only time would tell.
But one thing was certain.
Reivan Aldren was dead.
And something far more dangerous had taken his place.
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To be continued… and this was chapter1