The Thousandth Life
The man standing at the edge of the world’s final cliff spoke in a voice utterly devoid of emotion.
“Every time I saw you, my heart would race. Always. As if it were the first time.”
The Demon Lord’s seven long, slender eyes wrapped around him like a shroud.
His jagged, saw-toothed lips curled in a mocking scrape.
“Yeah.”
“Because I know I can’t escape.”
“Yeah.”
The man declared it like an unbreakable oath.
“In the next life, I will kill you.”
Together with the world, the man’s heart was torn apart.
Blacksmith’s workshop.
A place so old and shabby that no one ever used it.
A man sat crookedly atop an oak barrel.
Thump… thump…
The sound of his heartbeat was always what told him he had returned to the past.
Kang Yoonsoo slowly lifted his eyelids.
In his right hand was gripped a glossy sword hilt.
He glanced at the terminal on his wrist.
The current date and a description of his equipment were displayed.
TODAY: 468-P-3 (REORKAN)
◈ Cutting Power: 8
◈ Low chance to emit a flash of light when swung
Year 468 of the Leorkan Empire, third day of the Firebird Month.
The day Earthlings had suddenly been transported to this unfamiliar world.
He had returned twenty years into the past.
Again.
Kang Yoonsoo stared at the chipped blade of the longsword.
He gave it a light swing.
The sound of air being sliced rang out.
Whoosh—
Suddenly, memories of his first life surfaced.
He had been a blacksmith.
He had barely survived, living a wretched existence. Poor production-class Travelers were looked down on and ignored.
He had regretted choosing that class every single day. When the war with Pandemonium broke out, he ran around as a repair soldier. That was how he had encountered the Demon Lord.
An absolute being that sought to destroy the world.
He had been caught by the Demon Lord and killed.
Memories of his second life followed.
When he opened his eyes, he was once again in the old workshop. He realized he had regressed. After that, his miserable previous life had been completely overturned.
He gathered good equipment and recruited comrades, founding a powerful mercenary band. The mercenary class was full of dangerous battles, but it was far better than the life of a blacksmith.
Twenty years later, war with Pandemonium erupted. His mercenary company fought fiercely on the front lines.
And he was caught by the Demon Lord and killed.
Soon after, memories of his third life came back.
After regressing, Kang Yoonsoo reflected on his past mistakes. He eliminated threats that would hinder him later on in advance, and using knowledge from his previous lives, he raised his skills and levels at a terrifying pace.
He chose his class with extreme care and eventually advanced to Enhancer. Once he had strengthened swords and armor to the highest grade, no one could stand against him.
Except for one being. The Demon Lord.
Fourth life. He lived only for the sword.
Having died to the Demon Lord three times, a venomous hatred had filled him.
He took only a single blade and devoted himself to solitary training. Kang Yoonsoo wandered dangerous hunting grounds and ruins alone.
After grueling training, his swordsmanship reached the pinnacle. The number of colossal monsters that had died by his hand exceeded thirty.
Finally, he completed his advancement to the peerless Swordmaster class—one that appeared only once in ten thousand people.
The emperor appointed him as the First Knight Commander. As commander, he skillfully led the war against Pandemonium.
But against the Demon Lord, all strategy and armies were useless. He was caught by the Demon Lord and killed.
His fifth life had been brutal.
By then, regression had become familiar. He changed his mindset.
He decided not to care whether the world was destroyed or not.
He lived as quietly as possible. He avoided drawing attention and earned just enough income to get by.
The class he chose was Runner.
A common and ordinary type. When the war with Pandemonium broke out, he deserted instead of answering the draft and fled to a remote island.
But the Demon Lord came for him. Once again, he was caught and killed.
From the sixth life onward, he felt fear.
The moment he regressed, he threw himself into mana training. He memorized magic incantations and sensed the flow of mana.
After gritting his teeth and working desperately, he advanced to Sorcerer. He poured all his remaining time into stealth and infiltration magic.
When the war with Pandemonium began, he used every spell he knew to hide at the edge of the world with all his might.
Yet the Demon Lord still found him. And so he was caught and killed.
Seventh life. Combat wasn’t everything.
He trained his speech with vicious tenacity. He worked to speak more skillfully than others and to master logical eloquence.
After training for over ten years under a talented orator, he advanced to the Negotiator class.
He persuaded the emperor and made the empire surrender to Pandemonium.
Countless citizens were sacrificed and the continent was dyed in blood. In exchange, the imperial palace alone remained safe.
But the Demon Lord did not accept his submission. In the end, he was caught and killed.
After that, his memories grew hazy. The despair he had felt in his eighth and ninth lives had been too severe.
Tenth life.
By then he had been half-mad. The moment he regressed, he went around killing people indiscriminately.
He vented the rage that had built up to its limit through murder. It wasn’t difficult for someone who had mastered all the knowledge, speech, swordsmanship, magic, strategy, and enhancement techniques from his previous lives to become a mass murderer.
Before long, he had become the continent’s greatest slaughterer. After his three-thousandth kill, he gained the chance to advance to the hidden class Life Eater.
No one on the continent could withstand his perfectly honed assassination and dagger techniques.
When the war began and the Demon Lord appeared, he prostrated himself and trembled.
He begged pathetically—not to destroy the world, not to make him repeat his life. But the Demon Lord did not listen.
Just as always, he was caught by the Demon Lord and killed.
After that, every time he met the Demon Lord, he asked why it kept killing him and sending him back to the past.
The Demon Lord, who had never answered before, finally spoke in his ninety-eighth life.
The Demon Lord had been looking for an opponent who could stand against it. But even in the demon realm, it could not find a rival worthy of its overwhelming power.
So it had chosen one person and made their life repeat endlessly.
That person was Kang Yoonsoo.
Kang Yoonsoo realized the truth. He was nothing more than the Demon Lord’s toy, a way to kill time.
The only way to escape this loop was to kill the Demon Lord, but doing so was harder than shattering the heavens and earth.
After finishing its explanation, the Demon Lord killed him.
Two hundred and fourteenth life.
After grueling effort, he became a Grandmaster Puppeteer. He broke the greatest taboo of his class.
He remodeled his own body into the ultimate combat puppet.
A never-drying soul flowed through his cold heart, and even his weakest eyes were filled with deadly weapons.
Even fatal wounds could be repaired instantly.
But he was caught by the Demon Lord and turned to dust.
Two hundred and seventy-third life.
He broke into the hidden Hall of the Rogue Master, passed countless traps, and advanced to the Great Thief class.
He mastered every basic thief skill—lockpicking, poison, ambush, stealth.
From the Ruin Dragon’s Nest he stole the Cup of Infinity, the Bloodsword of Hemorrhage, and the Jade Seal of Ruin.
He thought the only things he could not steal were the sun, moon, and stars in the sky.
Yet he could not steal the Demon Lord’s life.
Three hundred and forty-seventh life.
He formed friendships with monsters. They were beings who did not share a language and possessed violent tempers.
But having perfectly mastered heteromorphic languages, tactics, strategy, and oratory, he became their successful leader.
He became the lord of all monsters—the Monster Lord—and conquered the continent.
But he was conquered by the Demon Lord.
Four hundred and fifty-fourth life.
He began as the Last Necromancer and finally manifested as an immortal Lich.
His flesh had rotted away, leaving only pure white bones. A being that toyed with all life, an immortal who could not die even if he wished—the Lich.
He could easily command top-tier undead such as the Neverdead Dragon and Death General.
He raised an immortal legion and waged all-out war against Pandemonium.
As always, the Demon Lord appeared. He eagerly tried to absorb the transcendent being’s life force.
But even as a Lich, the Demon Lord’s life force was too overwhelming. Unable to endure it, his entire body exploded instead.
Five hundred and twenty-second life.
He memorized the recipes for every potion and essence.
Having risen to the highest branch of the Alchemy Clan, he advanced to Grand Alchemist.
He consumed every kind of drug without discrimination, pushing his body to its limit, and synthesized lava golems with priest bombs to change the tide of war.
When the Demon Lord appeared, the tide changed once again. He had just consumed a petrification potion and turned into a statue no one could break, yet he was shattered to pieces in the Demon Lord’s grip.
Five hundred and ninety-second life.
He accepted that he could not win against the Demon Lord.
No matter how many ancient texts he scoured or ruins he explored, no matter what skills or classes he chose, he could not destroy Pandemonium.
Separate from killing the Demon Lord, he decided to research a way to return to reality. After advancing to the Scholar class, the amount of knowledge he could study doubled.
In the middle of that, war broke out, and he was caught by the Demon Lord and killed.
Six hundred and eighty-ninth life.
After more than a thousand years of research, he found a way to return to reality.
With that achievement, he even succeeded in advancing to the Scholar’s final class, World Connector.
He tore through dimensions and finally returned to the Seoul he had longed for. And in Gwanghwamun Square, he was caught by the Demon Lord and killed.
Seven hundred and nineteenth life.
As Imperial Admiral, he built a massive sailing ship and set out beyond the Igiris Strait.
After a long voyage, he discovered a new continent to the east. It was a land where people cooked rice, valued martial arts, and carried an Eastern flavor.
In recognition of discovering the new continent, he advanced to the highest adventurer class, Unknown Explorer.
He wanted to stay there, but only three days remained until the war with Pandemonium.
A friendly swordsman hid him, but he was still caught by the Demon Lord who flew all the way to the new continent and killed.
Seven hundred and forty-second life.
He realized that flipping the middle finger at the Demon Lord had no provocation effect.
The Demon Lord tore him and the world apart without showing any emotion.
Eight hundred and seventy-second life.
His emotions had dried up. He stopped talking. His personality became cold and dry.
Even seeing a smiling child brought him no joy. He no longer felt any aversion to murder. Even the moment he was caught and killed by the Demon Lord, he felt almost nothing.
Nine hundred and fifteenth life.
He had lived for more than eighteen thousand years. Even hidden class advancements and secret techniques had become boring. He had grown tired of everything—even the moment the Demon Lord killed him.
Nine hundred and ninetieth life.
He had given up on everything and lost all desire for the new. Kang Yoonsoo simply waited for death, carrying only a terrible emptiness.
Everyone except him died. The world was led to ruin.
His body was sliced apart by the Demon Lord’s overwhelming power. In a final, desperate grasp at straws, he launched one last attack.
It was a strike that obviously wouldn’t work. He hadn’t expected much.
But Kang Yoonsoo clearly saw it.
The Demon Lord’s face twisting violently.
The Demon Lord quickly returned to its usual calm expression. In truth, it hadn’t suffered any significant wounds.
Yet right before dying, Kang Yoonsoo let out a cold, dry laugh.
“Found it.”
Crack!
The tip of the swung longsword collided with a window frame and shattered.
Kang Yoonsoo rose with dry eyes.
Next to the cold furnace, he gently dragged the blade across the wall.
Scratch… scratch… scratch…
He drew two hundred small 正 characters. The final 正 ended after only four strokes.
Today, Kang Yoonsoo had regressed for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time.
His one-thousandth life had begun.