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Chapter 623 - Reincarnation Disc

Deadman came to the Origin Core Shrine while the world was still bleeding.Lucien noticed him immediately.

But noticing was not the same as turning.

The map demanded too much.

Lucien’s Parallel Thoughts moved.

Orders went out.

The commands passed through communication devices and the Grace System.

The map shifted.

Some lights steadied. Some dimmed. Some went out.

Deadman watched the dimming lights.

His face changed each time.

His eyes moved differently whenever a marker vanished.

At first, Lucien thought he was watching the war.

Then another report came.

A small faction in the Middle Continent had ignored a warning and charged into a Keeper trap.

The formation collapsed.

Five markers dimmed. Then twelve. Then the whole cluster went dark.

Deadman closed his eyes.

Lucien finally split one thought toward him.

"What happened?"

Deadman opened his eyes.

For a moment, he did not answer.

Then he looked at the map again.

"The souls of the dead are multiplying across the five continents."

Lucien’s next command paused for half a breath.

Deadman continued quietly.

"They are condensing."

The shrine became colder.

Deadman had watched death for longer than most civilizations had existed.

If he came personally, then this was not simple.

Lucien’s gaze shifted from the map to the depths of his own Divine Energy Core.

There, something ancient rested.

The Reincarnation Disc.

Lucien had not forgotten it.

He had avoided it.

That was different.

Deadman saw his expression and nodded faintly.

The map continued to move above them.

The world continued to die in places.

Lucien asked, "Can the Reincarnation Disc revive the dead instantly?"

Deadman shook his head.

"No."

The answer was immediate.

"The Reincarnation Disc is not a free resurrection tool. You do not revive them. You guide them."

Lucien fell silent.

In a strange way, that answer made him easier.

And heavier.

"How?"

"Take it out," Deadman said. "The souls will be drawn to it naturally."

Lucien looked at him.

"And if I do not?"

Deadman smiled.

"Then the lucky ones dissipate."

Lucien’s eyes sharpened.

"The lucky ones?"

"The unlucky ones become fuel. Materials. Ghosts. Abominations. Bound remnants. Screaming things trapped in old formations. Loose souls are valuable to the wrong hands, especially in a war where the enemy already knows how to use bodies before they are ready."

Lucien’s gaze returned to the map.

The Keepers were spending everything. Even death would become a resource if no one stopped them.

Lucien’s hand remained still.

Deadman did not rush him.

Lucien finally spoke, his voice lower.

"I did not test it. I was not sure I should."

Deadman looked at him.

Lucien’s eyes reflected the map.

"The moment someone holds reincarnation, something changes. I knew that much. I did not want to start thinking of death as a process I could manage. I did not want to become the kind of person who watches people die and thinks, ’It is fine. They can go around again.’"

Deadman was quiet.

Lucien continued.

"I am already standing in a shrine, moving armies across five continents. I already have too much authority. I do not want to start feeling like a god."

For the first time since arriving, Deadman’s expression softened.

"The Reincarnation Disc will not make you take death less seriously."

Lucien looked at him.

Deadman’s voice became quieter.

"It will make you understand death more."

The words entered the shrine like a blade sliding into water.

Deadman continued, "It will make you understand people. Not as casualties. But as endings. As last breaths. As regrets that did not have time to become words."

Lucien did not answer.

Deadman smiled faintly.

"It gives better judgment."

Lucien stared at him.

"That sounds enticing."

"It is."

Deadman turned his gaze toward the map.

"Helping souls with good fate is not a small matter. Sending them onward cleanly matters. Look at me. Look at us. Do you think we became monsters only because we survived?"

Lucien followed his gaze.

Deadman had lived through too much.

Returned too many times.

There were depths in him that did not belong to one life.

Lucien said softly, "I hope there are others like us, then."

Deadman looked back at him.

For once, his smile was almost real.

"So do I."

Lucien closed his eyes.

Inside his Divine Energy Core, the Reincarnation Disc stirred before he touched it.

As though it had been waiting.

Lucien opened his hand.

The Disc emerged.

•••

The Reincarnation Disc floated above the floor of the Origin Core Shrine.

It turned slowly. Its surface was marked by rings that seemed to move in different directions without ever separating.

For a single breath, every sound in the shrine became distant.

Lucien watched the Disc float before him.

It accepted him. Like a burden recognizing the hand that had finally stopped pretending it was light.

Then the Disc turned.

The world changed.

There was no wind.

Yet Lucien felt a pull stretching across the five continents.

Far away, souls that had begun to scatter paused.

Some turned like sparks in a storm.

Some came quickly, as if they had been afraid of being left behind.

Some came slowly, still clinging to places where their bodies had fallen.

They were drawn toward the Disc.

...

The first soul entered the Disc.

Lucien felt lightning pass through his bones.

He did not scream.

He almost did.

A spear through the ribs.

Mud in the mouth.

A hand reaching for a banner.

The terror of realizing that the line had broken.

The relief that the disciples behind him had escaped.

Then darkness.

Another soul entered.

A collapsing wall.

The weight of stone on both legs.

He died before knowing whether anyone found them.

Another.

Then another.

Then more.

The Disc turned harder.

Lucien’s fingers curled.

He saw death from the inside of the last breath, only the final imprint.

The shape of fear. The heat of regret. The pull of love. The bitterness of betrayal. The small absurd thoughts that came before the end.

Lucien stood still.

The Reincarnation Disc turned.

Souls entered one after another.

The Disc did not ask him to command the dead.

It asked him to witness them.

•••

Deadman watched Lucien’s eyes change.

He had seen that look before.

Lucien’s bearing shifted slowly.

He did not collapse beneath the grief.

Instead, the grief found somewhere to sit inside him.

A throne no one wanted.

The Origin Core Shrine remained silent.

The Disc continued to turn.

Lucien understood then why Deadman had become Deadman.

Because he had carried the end of too many people and still remained himself.

Perhaps not whole.

But present.

Lucien had thought the Reincarnation Disc might make death smaller.

It did the opposite.

It made distance impossible.

A commander could call them casualties.

A map could call them dimmed markers.

A report could call them losses.

The Reincarnation Disc called them by the shape of their final breath.

Lucien inhaled slowly.

His heart was in turmoil.

His mind was clear.

That contradiction almost made him laugh.

He did not.

Deadman stepped beside him.

"The souls inside are not reincarnated yet."

Lucien’s gaze remained on the Disc.

"They are being stored."

"Held," Deadman corrected. "Not owned."

Lucien accepted the correction immediately.

Deadman continued, "They still need to be guided into the process. The Disc gives them a road, but the road must be opened properly. Later, you will need to learn that part."

Lucien nodded.

"And if I fail?"

"Some will wait. Some will fade. Some will be taken if the enemy reaches them. So do not fail forever."

That was Deadman’s version of comfort.

Lucien almost smiled.

Deadman looked at the map.

"You feared it would make you careless. How about now?"

Lucien looked at the souls moving through the Disc.

"I was wrong."

Deadman’s smile returned, faint and tired.

"That happens."

For a moment, the shrine remembered that both of them were still alive.

Then another soul entered the Disc, and the moment passed.

Deadman turned.

"You know what it gives you now."

"Empathy?"

"Judgment," Deadman said. "Empathy without judgment can drown a ruler. Judgment without empathy makes a tyrant. You are standing between both. Try not to fall."

Lucien did not answer quickly.

Deadman walked toward the edge of the shrine.

Before leaving, he said one last thing.

"Do not try to save lives because death frightens you. Save them because life matters."

Then he vanished.

•••

Lucien remained before the Disc for a long time.

The war did not stop.

The dead did not stop arriving.

The map did not stop changing.

But something in him had shifted.

Before, he had watched the five continents like a commander watching a board.

Now, the board looked back.

Every dimming marker had a last breath behind it.

Every risky order had faces he might never know but might still feel.

Every victory carried a weight that could not be written in reports.

Lucien did not become gentle. Gentleness alone would kill more people in this war.

He became more precise.

The first new command came after a western report.

A local force wanted to storm a collaborator estate before the Keepers inside finished evacuating.

Before, Lucien might have calculated acceptable losses and allowed pressure to continue.

Now, the Reincarnation Disc turned once.

He saw a possible pattern.

Lucien spoke.

"Do not storm the estate. Seal exits. Smoke them out from the lower road. Leave the north gate open."

A voice answered, careful.

"Open?"

"Open."

"May I ask why we are leaving the enemy an exit?"

"To make them use it."

A pause.

Then the voice understood.

"Ambush route."

"Evacuation route," Lucien corrected. "Civilians first. Ambush after separation."

The command went out.

Minutes later, collaborators fled through the north gate with civilians dragged as shields.

The open route separated them from the inner Keeper group.

Shadows cut the civilians free.

The ambush struck only after the hostages were clear.

The estate fell.

Fewer souls came to the Disc than Lucien had feared.

That was victory too.

•••

The soul stream continued.

Lucien learned quickly that the Disc did not show him everything.

That would have destroyed even him.

It showed enough.

Enough to make careless commands impossible.

Enough to remind him that every life preserved was not an abstract number but a road that continued.

The souls gathered within the Disc like dim stars behind mist.