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The Empire of Zenix was ruled by the tyrant Cassandra for decades. She ruled her subjects with an iron fist, without mercy, even for the slightest mistakes. War spread like the fire it brought and threatened to swallow everything up. Tired of the oppression, people began to rise and fight back. At the front leading the rebellion was a young man who wielded a sword made of ether.
Aegis lived in Saroth with his little sister for his whole life. This little village was spared from all the chaos of the Capital for many years because it was located near the mountains that surrounded the north of the empire and presented as a border. But... the war finally caught up to them. The village was ransacked. Aegis tried to flee with his little sister, but she was killed by a stray bullet to the head. He stood on the ruins of his home in despair, with nothing left.
A group of traveling refugees found him and took him with them. All the injustice and death caused him to step up and lead them to fight back. He asked all who were lost like he was to join him. On his journey, he found trusted companions and a reliable extension of himself. At long last, they finally arrived at the Capital City.
During the battle, he was killed by a slash to the neck. He woke up, only to find himself in his old village. Excited for a new chance, he tried to prepare for everything earlier this time. He wanted his sister to be able to live this time around. He trained harder than ever and honed the skills that he had learned later in his life. He thought he still had some time. But fate is not kind. His village was once more destroyed. Even though he had already killed her killer, his sister was killed by a falling building.
The group of refugees, his family, found him again. He trained harder and harder. He made an alliance with his past allies. He retraced his step. And finally, the time for the final battle of his past life arrived again. This time, he avoided the slash, but he couldn't dodge the stab through the back. He woke up again.
This happened again and again. A little sister that couldn't be saved. A found family. And deaths. Oh so many deaths. A bullet through the head. Limbs cut off. Flesh burning. He died too many times to be counted now.
Along the way, everything he knew before changed. It was small at first, but it rippled out like water and stone. He found out that all this time, he didn't go back in time upon his death. Instead, his soul was transported by a mysterious power to worlds similar to his own. Close enough to be unnoticeable, but many little things are different.
Anger blazed like the fire he now knew for most of his life and death. All his efforts, his deaths, had no meaning if it meant that all his loved ones stayed dead. His family that he knew before was not the same one as the one who lived now. There was no second chance. It was but a curse where he continued to love and got his heart broken all over again. So he pushed them away.
He lived and he died. He continued to push and push himself to kill the tyrant that started all this. The reason his loved ones died and his journey first began. Slowly, very slowly, there was progress, only at the cost of his sanity that chipped away piece by piece. At last, he arrived at the throne room after massacring his way through.
He couldn't believe what he saw. The "Queen" sat on the throne, trapped by cables and other devices all tangled and connected to her. Flashing lights and visions came out from the monitors that surrounded the room. He saw his past lives, past deaths, his past failures. He saw what he had been through and what could have been. He saw possibilities. He saw utopia. A world that was nothing like the one he now lived in, one where everyone he cared for was alive, was shown from one of the screens. Finally, after what seemed like lifetimes, the queen opened her mouth.
"The world is doomed from the start." her hoarse voice echoed like she hadn't spoken in a long time. " Too many people and too few resources caused too many wars."
"But now you brought war to all! You have shown no mercy and trampled everything on your way and continue to do so even now!" the warrior shouted.
"They need to be united," she said slowly, similar to how one talks to a child. "There has to be 'The Big Bad' that causes them to work together."
"But that's still not good enough. Once the villain is gone, everyone will go back at each other's throats," it was said in a cutting tone.
"They need an absolute leader. I saw millions of possibilities and saw you being that. You lead them to prosperity after you kill me." Then she said blankly, "But I see that that is not the fate of this world. You are too tired, too broken, too jaded."
The warrior couldn't accept this. After everything, this was the conclusion?! "Then what is this all for?! What's the use of all these sufferings then?!"
"I guess it means nothing."
Grief and hopelessness had caught up to him at that moment. He walked closer to the queen and saw her as the puppet she was. Puppet to the visions she saw. To the tragedies that had happened and would likely happen. He raised his sword and stabbed her through her heart that long since stopped beating.
After she lay there, lifeless, he pulled his sword and aimed it at his own, hoping to end it all using his longtime companion. But fate was a cruel mistress and would not release her hold on him. He was cursed to live like a ghost, never truly living, because death had no more meaning now.