The Price of Rebirth

Rhine pondered the very essence of his being—what constituted ‘him,’ and what defined ‘his’ self. With his soul already departed, what purpose did his physical form now serve?

Was he simply musing aloud, conversing with his own mind, or perhaps even with his very soul?

Before his original body dissolved into starlight, becoming an insignificant speck of cosmic dust, he had cast a teleportation spell, flinging his ‘spirit’ into the magical array and sending it to a body prepared in the basement. It felt akin to purchasing a painful return ticket for his brief yet protracted life.

Aboard the spectral ‘train,’ he felt his spirit plummeting along the edge of the Babel Tower, stripped of physical sensation and left with only spiritual awareness.

He drifted, weightless and utterly at ease.

The descent was devoid of the panic associated with freefall; layers of clouds passed through his spirit, receding inch by inch, while the colossal forest below surged towards him with a whistling rush.

He found himself effortlessly comprehending every gnarled branch and every delicate vein on the leaves.

Suddenly, just as he was on the verge of returning to the earth, dust to dust, a cavernous black void extended from the tower’s base, swallowing his consciousness whole.

Scenes from his past flickered before his eyes, as if he had been transported back to the very moment of his birth.

His forty-plus years of life then rapidly replayed, like the turning pages of a dynamic comic book, before freezing on the final panel.

Ejected from the black hole, all clamor vanished into thin air, and every scene dissipated with the wind.

An ethereal, milky-white mist enveloped his vision, while pale blue starlight cleansed him of impurities.

At one point, he believed he had truly died, his spiritual awareness fading away into some unseen spatial crevice, carried by the wind.

Alas, fate would not grant him such freedom.

He was instead drawn towards a body, beautiful and exquisite as a work of art, upon which the inscribed soul spell activated of its own accord.

An enormous, invisible net ensnared him, forcibly dragging him into the newly formed, fragile shell.

His spirit bobbed and sank in an unfamiliar sea, until finally—

The young boy, clad in a thin white garment within the glass tank, opened his eyes for the first time.

He was met by the peculiar, wide-eyed stares of a group of armored figures.

“Silence. I can discern that he poses no threat to us.”

Divine Retribution Knight Ferren quelled the chatter among his men, approaching the glass tank filled with life-sustaining fluid.

He tapped it, his gaze fixed upon the beautiful young boy inside with complex intensity.

“If you can understand my words, blink once.”

The boy hesitated for a moment, then blinked.

“Good. I am now going to shatter this glass tank and release you. If you agree, blink once; if you disagree, blink twice.”

He blinked once again.

Thump! Crash… The glass tank abruptly shattered, and the liquid spilled forth.

Ferren, with his broad hands, caught the boy’s arms and gently placed him onto the smooth carpet.

“Examine the child.”

Ferren addressed the knights behind him.

One of the officers stepped forward and turned the boy onto his back, revealing a shocking sight: dense magical suture lines crisscrossing almost his entire small body.

“Your Excellency… I venture to guess that this child must have been a victim of human experimentation, captured by the Tower Wizard. Such dense magical suture marks… I cannot imagine him surviving more than three days outside the glass tank without immediate treatment.”

Ferren silently watched the boy, who was tightly curled in pain.

He recalled the Tower Wizard’s dying words atop the tower:

“If you’re interested, you might want to take a look around the basement at the tower’s base.”

‘Could this be a dying request?’ Ferren wondered.

Recalling the wizard’s final actions, he pondered if the wizard had used all his comrades as leverage to secure mercy for this child.

At that moment, Ferren made his decision:

“Take him back. Our mission is complete; the rest will be handled by the Duke. I will request that he provide this child with professional care and future arrangements. Since he has encountered us, we ought to justly restore his right to choose his own destiny.”

He gently cradled the boy, who trembled violently from pain, and stepped out into the sunlight outside.

According to Rhine’s original plan, once he had regained a new body, he would use this harmless appearance to set an ambush.

Then, he would swiftly send the intruding knight order to meet their demise, while savoring their desperate expressions upon realizing, after much arduous effort to defeat the ‘boss,’ that there was still a second phase.

In an unexpected turn of events, things had gone awry.

Even with Rhine’s profound magical attainments, this was his first direct encounter with death.

The immense agony stemming from the forced union of his spiritual wounds with an unfamiliar body rendered him immobile.

His body felt almost entirely alien to him, save for the searing pain.

An ineffable tearing sensation spilled from his chest, spreading throughout his entire being.

From the depths of his bones, a distinct, grating lamentation echoed.

His throat burned with a fiery pain, not from inflammation but from an unnatural dryness, preventing him from uttering even a single word.

He was held with the utmost care by the Divine Retribution Knight, like a fragile piece of jade.

The sensations of his ‘recovered’ body were something he utterly loathed.

Each subtle jolt from Ferren’s every step resonated with geometrically amplified waves of agony across his ravaged back.

Someone seemed to be dabbing the incessant cold sweat from his temples with gauze; even their gentlest touch felt like tearing at his skin.

While his gnosis still lingered in a hazy mist, a vivid scene was nonetheless etched into his clouded mind:

In the spring morning, a millionth fraction of sunlight filtered through the swaying tree canopy, reflecting in his dull, bloodshot black eyes.

The dark tower receded with every step, and with it, all the beautiful fantasies and romantic sentiments born from the splendid starry sky seemed ready to burst forth with the pain in his body.

‘What truly constituted Rhine Green?’

He suddenly understood.

If a demon were to demand the most precious price from his hollow heart as recompense, then it would undoubtedly be—

Gritting his teeth, he struggled and leaped from Ferren’s hands.

Thud! The instant his feet touched the ground, a powerful counterforce surged up through his soles, assaulting his internal organs.

His leg structure felt incapable of supporting him, compelling Rhine to kneel before fate.

“You—”

A worried Ferren reached out to him.

Slap! Without hesitation, even with a weak strike, the boy pushed away his helping hand and uttered his first complete sentence:

“I do not need your help.”

Ferren fell silent, while the officer who had examined his injuries stared, wide-eyed with astonishment.

“Your Excellency, he shouldn’t have been able to stand. We should quickly take him to the Duke…”

“No,” Ferren stated, standing solemnly.

He watched the stubborn boy, clad only in a thin white garment, take steps towards their return journey with heartbreaking determination.

“This is his choice. We need only wait.”

One step, two steps; each stride was like crossing an abyss, each a defiance against life itself.

In utter silence, the knights parted to make way for him.

A hundred or so knights watched, wordlessly, as this child—a stranger to them, fragile as a reed—stumbled from the front of the formation to the very end.

A narrow trail of blood, spilling from the corners of his mouth and ears, spattered with his every forward movement.

The boy defied everything, rejected everything.

No one knew his destination, nor understood his unwavering resolve.

And so, his body collapsed before his will, the last sight beneath his heavy eyelids being the perpetually silent Babel Tower.

“You’ve worked hard, Green.”

From some unknown height, a voice descended.

He let out a self-deprecating scoff, then severed the nexus of his consciousness.

Long ago, someone had told him: ‘Until fate grips you by the throat.’

He hadn’t understood it then, but now, he finally comprehended that feeling.

…

“Have you heard? His Excellency Ferren’s knight squad has returned from vanquishing the wicked wizard in the tower! Not a single man was lost, with the worst injury being a broken hand!”

“That’s preposterous, isn’t it? Wizards of that caliber are usually utterly heinous, leaving mountains of corpses in their wake! How could it have been so easy?”

“It’s absolutely true; go see for yourself if you don’t believe me. I hear they even rescued a boy from the tower!”

“Truly, His Excellency Ferren lives up to his name! Having such a noble protecting us brings us immense peace of mind…”

The Norman Empire, Auerthland, direct fiefdom of Duke Cavendish.

This region, nestled in the empire’s southeast, boasted a pleasant climate—peaches blooming in spring, cicadas chirping in summer, maples turning golden in autumn, and snow falling in winter—a veritable encyclopedia of the changing seasons.

The only drawback was its proximity to the Ancient Zhi Forest, merely ten li away.

In past springs, during the breeding season for magical beasts, it would routinely face significant beast tide attacks.

Consequently, the Norman Royal Family had bestowed this land upon the Cavendish family, whose legacy was rooted in knighthood.

This served a dual purpose: to honor their loyal and outstanding contributions, and to entrust them with the troublesome task of repelling beast incursions, thereby also subtly curbing their influence—a truly multifaceted strategy.

It wasn’t until an unknown, powerful wizard erected a sky-reaching tower in the forest that this place truly became a geomantic treasure.

While some rejoiced and others worried, the tower’s establishment wasn’t necessarily a boon.

The ‘Witch Hunts’ previously spearheaded by the Holy Church had firmly cemented the stereotype of wicked wizards, causing widespread panic.

However, as time passed, and aside from the mysterious growth of the dark tower, which inexplicably soared higher like a sprouting seedling, everyone remained undisturbed.

The locals eventually grew accustomed to its presence.

That was until two days prior, when the magical beasts fled the forest like mad, each looking as if they had seen the King of Hell himself.

This finally reminded the territory, which had not seen bloodshed in years, of the fear of being dominated by beast tides.

Of course, there is no need to dwell on such detailed historical accounts in a light novel.

A young girl, clad in a high-quality white gauze dress, her luxuriant gray hair cascading to her waist, exuded an inherent aura of ethereal mystery.

She stood on the high eaves of the Duke’s castle, her small feet, encased in white silk stockings, daintily tiptoed.

With delicate hands, she held a long monocular telescope, observing the returning knight procession from the distant street corner.

Her gaze briefly settled upon the unconscious, black-haired boy, and her deep blue eyes, like exquisite lapis lazuli, blinked with curiosity.

“It seems someone interesting has arrived.”

Pleased with her new discovery, the girl proudly placed her hands on her hips for a moment, allowing the spring breeze to playfully lift the lace-trimmed hem of her skirt.

“Young Miss, Young Miss Audrey—where have you run off to again?”

Beneath the castle eaves, the third-floor corridor buzzed with anxious maids.

The common folk all knew: the Duke’s family had a beautiful eldest daughter, as fair as a celestial being, yet with a willfulness that could wear anyone down.