CHAPTER 1: THE SECOND DEATH

I died twice.

The first time, I was the weakest hunter. E-rank. Everyone called me the world's weakest. I entered a double dungeon and died.

Then I got the System. Level up. I became the Shadow Monarch. I killed gods. I saved the world. I married Cha Hae-In. I had a son. I thought my story ended.

I was wrong.

I opened my eyes and I was not in my bed. I was in a rotting corpse pit.

The smell of blood and mud hit me. My hands... they were not my hands. Small, thin, human hands of a 16-year-old boy. No power. No shadows. No System.

[You have transmigrated]

A blue window appeared, but it was not my old System. It was cracked, glitching.

[Name: Jin Kael - Age: 16 - World: Aetheria - Status: Slave]

Slave?

I tried to call my shadows. "Arise."

Nothing.

For the first time in ten years, I felt fear. My shadows were gone. Igris, Tusk, Beru, all gone. I was E-rank again.

A whip cracked on my back. I screamed - real pain.

"Get up, you trash! The mine doesn't wait!" A fat man with a red beard shouted. A slave trader.

I looked around. Hundreds of boys like me, thin, chained, carrying black stones from a deep mine. Above us, two moons glowed red and blue. This was not Earth.

I remembered. Before I died the second time, I heard a voice in my sleep. The Architect.

"Monarch, your world is safe, but another world is collapsing. It needs a Monarch. Will you go?"

I thought it was a dream. I said yes.

Now I am here.

I tried to lift the stone basket. My new body was too weak. I fell.

The trader kicked me. "Useless!"

Then I saw it. On the basket, a small black ant, dead. An insect from this world.

Instinct. I touched it without thinking.

[Skill Activated: Shadow Extraction - Failed - Mana 0/10]

Mana? I have mana again? Just 0?

Wait.

If this world has mana, then I can level up again. From zero.

I closed my eyes and focused, like in the old days in the weakest dungeon.

I breathed.

A tiny spark of dark mana moved in my chest. 1/10.

The dead ant twitched.

"ARISE," I whispered.

A tiny shadow ant rose from the dead ant's body. Smaller than my finger. It stood on my hand.

No one saw it. The weakest shadow ever. But it was my shadow.

I smiled for the first time since transmigrating. Blood from my lip from the trader's kick.

"So this is my second tutorial," I whispered to my tiny ant. "E-rank again, huh?"

The glitched System window changed:

[Quest: Survive 7 days in the Black Mana Mine - Reward: 10 Mana - Unlock: Shadow Storage]

7 days.

In 7 days, I will not be a slave anymore.

In 7 days, this world will know what a Monarch is.

I stood up, carrying the basket, with my tiny shadow ant hidden in my pocket.

My second life as the Shadow King starts now.

TO BE CONTINUED CHAPTER 2...