I am going to die.


    The cool night breeze brushed against my skin, but it wasn''t the wind that chilled me—it was the bitter taste of betrayal, of a plan gone terribly wrong. Around me, the dead bodies of those I had once called comrades littered the ground. Baek Ji—the traitor—lay at my feet, a cold, lifeless body. Park Soah—once my trusted ally—was sprawled out, an arrow lodged in her chest, her face frozen in shock.


    Kim Jaehyun... his lifeless eyes stared up at the sky. Each body was a reminder of the betrayal I hadn''t seen coming, the deceit that had shattered the fragile world I had fought so hard to protect. I hadn''t expected them to attack—not like this. These were the people I trusted. The people I thought would fight by my side. But no, they had all conspired against me, alongside the sects, bringing in Grandmasters to kill me.


    They used me.


    I staggered to my feet, barely able to keep my balance. Blood poured from the gash across my side. The pain was unimaginable, but there was something far more suffocating than physical injury: the realization that I had been played. Betrayed. And now, I was going to die here in the wilderness, like an animal in the cold.


    "I''ll drag myself out of hell if I have to," I muttered, my voice raspy and filled with venom. "I will make them all pay for this."


    The pain in my chest flared, and I coughed up blood, but the anger was stronger. My vision blurred, but the image of the elders'' smug faces danced before me. They had ordered my death. Their precious son couldn''t have someone like me becoming a martial monster and overshadowing him.


    "Damn bastards… all of them…" I gritted my teeth.


    But then, reality hit me again. My body was failing. The blood loss. The poison. I was dying.


    "Get it together, Jin Se-young," I scolded myself, trying to force some clarity into my foggy thoughts. "You''re literally dying here. And you''re talking like some damn avenger. What the hell''s wrong with you?"


    A bitter chuckle escaped my lips, despite the fact that I could barely hold myself upright. "You know what? This is ridiculous. I''m in such a pitiful state, and I''m thinking I''ll just drag myself out of hell and kill them all. What a joke."


    I let out a dry laugh, my vision flickering as the first light of dawn started to break through the horizon. The Great Wilderness, the vast land I had spent my entire life in, stretched before me—endless, unforgiving, and now, the final place I would see.


    But in my dying moments, I couldn''t help but wonder. What''s past this damn wilderness? Is there something better beyond it? Flowers? Pretty women? Better money?


    I had spent my entire life trapped in this shitty world, where all the pretty women were taken by the greasy, smelly higher-ups. Those arrogant nobles who didn''t deserve them. God, why was I born into this hellhole?


    My vision swam as I tried to focus on the distant mountains. Was there something better out there? Something I never got to see? I had spent my whole life training, fighting, surviving, and all I had to show for it was this cold, empty death.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    "Dammit," I cursed under my breath. "Is there even a chance I''ll get a family in the next life? Maybe a woman who won''t get stolen away by some disgusting noble or elder."


    I closed my eyes, a sigh slipping from my lips. "Yeah, who am I kidding? I''m dying, and I''m talking about some idealized future life. Great. Real great, Se-young. You''re finally getting your chance to be a ''prodigy,'' and you waste it on regrets about women."


    As the sun began to rise, a part of me knew that I wouldn''t survive this. The Grandmaster was long gone, fleeing like the coward he was. He''d left me to die, knowing I was too weak to stop him. It didn''t matter. The elders had won.


    I lay back, my body finally succumbing to the damage. A peaceful stillness started to settle over me, but as my vision faded, I took one last glance at the horizon.


    I wonder what''s beyond this damn wilderness...


    <b>Maybe in my next life, I''ll get a better shot at all the things I never got to have.</b>


    Suddenly, there was light.


    Not the pale light of dawn, but a warm, golden glow. It wasn''t like anything I had ever seen before. My body, broken and bleeding, began to feel lighter, as though I was floating away from the earth. A soft, soothing warmth enveloped me. It was almost… peaceful.


    A voice whispered through the light, soft and gentle.


    <b>"Do you wish for a second chance?"</b>


    The words hung in the air, reverberating in my mind. The last thing I remembered, I had been dying. I had been betrayed. And now, a voice was offering me… a second chance?


    "What?" I murmured aloud, unsure whether I was even speaking or just thinking.


    <b>"A second chance."</b>


    Before I could respond, the light became blinding, overwhelming. Then darkness.


    I felt something soft beneath me. Not the cold, rocky earth of the Great Wilderness, but something warm and comfortable. My eyes opened slowly, adjusting to a sight I couldn''t comprehend: an ornate ceiling adorned with golden carvings and intricate designs.


    Something felt wrong. When I tried to move my arm, a small, pudgy hand came into view instead of my calloused warrior''s fingers. My entire body felt strange, confined.


    "What..." I tried to speak, but only a gurgle came out.


    "Sunshine! Look here!"


    A beautiful woman with golden hair and warm red eyes appeared above me, holding something that made jingling sounds. She shook it with enthusiasm, and to my horror, I found my infant mind captivated by the simple movement.


    "That''s right, look at mommy!" she cooed, her smile radiant.


    Mommy? The word echoed strangely in my mind. I had never known my mother in my previous life. Previous life... The thought struck me like lightning. Was this reincarnation? But why did I remember everything?


    The woman – my new mother – lifted me into her arms, holding me close to her chest. The warmth that enveloped me was unlike anything I''d ever experienced. Something inside me ached at the simple comfort of being held.


    "Let''s show you the morning view, Sunshine!" she said, carrying me to a massive window.


    The sight that greeted me made my infant heart stop.


    Below us stretched gardens more beautiful than anything I''d seen in my previous life, with fountains and flowers that seemed to pulse with some kind of energy. But it wasn''t qi – no, this was something fundamentally different. I could feel it even through my underdeveloped body, a power that flowed through everything like qi, but... wrong. Different. Foreign.


    Beyond the gardens, a city sprawled toward the horizon, its architecture both familiar and strange. Buildings of stone and wood rose into the sky, adorned with crystals that pulsed with that same foreign power. Not quite the ancient style of the sects, but not the legendary advanced technology of the ancient cultivators either.


    And there, in the distance, rising above everything else...


    My eyes widened. It couldn''t be.


    The Great Spire.


    The legendary tower that martial scholars believed marked the center of the wilderness, said to house a power different from qi. I had seen drawings of it in forbidden scrolls, listened to theories about its significance in secret gatherings.


    But I was seeing it from the wrong side.


    Unless...


    The ancient texts suddenly flooded back to me. Theories whispered in dark corners of the sect libraries. Legends of a land beyond the Great Wilderness, where people had developed a completely different power system. A continent that no one from the Murim world had ever reached.


    It couldn''t be that, could it?


    [End of Chapter 1]