Chapter 1: The Gilded Lie

To Argus von Hess, the world was a perfectly constructed lie. From his earliest memories in this new life, he was an anomaly. While other children of the ducal court played with wooden swords and dreamed of glory, Argus would sit for hours, deconstructing the physics of the magic that flowed through the very air.

He was a prodigy. By age twelve, his understanding was unparalleled. His tutors called it a divine gift. Argus knew it was something else. He saw not "fire magic," but the rapid excitation of molecules. He saw not "alchemy," but the restructuring of matter.

He was the third son of a powerful Duke, raised in a world of serene tranquility, kindness, and prosperity. And a deep, abiding disgust for it all coiled in the pit of his soul. This peace was unnatural. A system this perfect had to be running on a power source it shouldn't have.

He found the truth on a cold, moonless night. A subtle hum deep within the castle's foundations led him to a hidden passage, a tunnel of polished obsidian. He followed it down into the cold, sterile dark.

The tunnel opened into a vast cavern. What he saw there did not surprise him; it validated him.

Hundreds of crystal cylinders, filled with amber fluid. Hundreds of floating human bodies, wired like machinery. The batteries that powered the kingdom's lie.

The sight, the sterile air, the clinical hum of the technology—it was all sickeningly familiar. It struck a dissonant chord deep in his mind, and the walls of his reality shattered. The memories of his past life, the world of steel and glass, the meaningless death, all came back in a torrent of agony. He was not Argus, the prodigy. He was a reincarnated soul. He had been a pathologist in his first life, and his second life had placed him in a new hospital, with the exact same disease.

He glared at the grotesque panorama, his eyes cold, no longer a child's, but those of an ancient, weary judge. He saw the tattered armor of legendary heroes on floating corpses. He saw children. He saw twisted, inhuman creatures, the failed experiments.

Then, one of them saw him.

In a darkened cylinder, an emaciated, half-dead thing turned its head. Its clouded grey eyes locked directly onto him, seeing through the complex camouflage spell that had hidden him from archmages.

A thin, sharp smirk touched Argus’s lips. An unexpected variable.

He vanished back into the darkness.