“Lily Caldwell! Are you even human?!”
Ethan Caldwell’s eyes snapped open.
Veins bulged across his forehead. Shock, rage, and a freezing kind of disappointment churned in his eyes.
Pain.
Too damn much pain.
Not even in his worst dreams had he thought the little sister he had raised with his own hands would do something like that to him.
“I thought you were just chasing idols. Thought you were in a rebellious phase. But in the end…”
The memory of what had just happened came back like a rusty blade sawing through bone, and Ethan’s heart went cold.
No one knew he was a transmigrator.
The moment he crossed over, he had become an orphan. Not long after, a kind couple took him in and raised him as their son.
When he was five, they had a daughter of their own and named her Lily Caldwell.
Still, the couple never favored the younger child. They treated both of them the same.
So Ethan had always looked after Lily more than anyone else.
Especially after he turned eighteen, when their adoptive parents died in a car crash.
From that day on, he carried everything alone—survival, the household, and the burden of raising his sister.
Then the change came.
It happened the year Lily had just entered university.
The game Godforsaken descended upon the world.
People could enter the game, kill monsters, and gain lifespan. They could even burn that lifespan to extract in-game powers into reality.
Once a person grew strong enough, ripping apart planes and tanks with bare hands was no joke. Even enduring a nuclear blast with flesh and blood stopped sounding impossible.
After that, the whole world turned upside down.
Disaster spread everywhere.
When countless people could barely keep themselves alive, Ethan dragged Lily forward through blood, ruin, and one killing ground after another. Step by step, he fought his way up until he became one of the top hundred experts on the planet.
And in the end, inside an Ancient God ruin, he obtained a mysterious Ancient God eyeball.
Only then did he finally gain the right to climb toward the peak.
He never thought Lily Caldwell would be the one to make a move on him.
Ethan Caldwell had never guarded against his own sister. Not once.
She had mixed ‘Water of the Wandering Soul’ into his drink. The moment he swallowed it, all strength left his body. His limbs went dead. He could not move a finger.
Then Lily stood in front of him and spoke in a flat, cold voice.
“Ever since we were young, all you ever did was keep me on a leash. Watch me. Control me.”
“You wouldn’t allow this. You wouldn’t allow that.”
“Every day with you, I could barely breathe. Not for a single moment did I ever feel free.”
“I know you hate Tristan Ashvale. His fan gathering, his concerts—you never let me go. Because of you, do you even know how much I missed?”
Her eyes shone as she spoke, like she was finally saying words she had buried for years.
“But do you know what? Brother Tristan reached out to me today.”
“So it turns out he always knew I existed.”
“But because of you, he knew there was no chance for us. I waited until now—only now did I finally get my chance…”
“As long as I get your Ancient God eyeball, Brother Tristan will become stronger than you!”
“And then you won’t be able to stop us from being together!”
Ethan’s soul drifted outside his body, helpless, forced to watch every second of it.
His sister, Lily Caldwell, dressed in a white gown, stepped close—
and with her own hands, she dug out both his eyes.
Her pretty face was flushed with excitement, with joy so bright it looked almost cruel.
“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “Brother Tristan said he’ll find you a new pair of eyes. As long as you stop getting in the way of us being together…”
Once she got Ethan’s eyeballs, Lily left the room in high spirits, almost skipping with delight.
What she did not know was this—
the ‘Water of the Wandering Soul’ Tristan Ashvale had given her carried a deadly poison mixed inside.
Not long after she left, Ethan died on the spot.
...
When Ethan Caldwell opened his eyes again, he found himself lying in bed.
A small bedroom. Plain. Clean. Nothing fancy.
The curtain by the floor-to-ceiling window stirred under a soft breeze. Warm sunlight slipped through the cracks, falling across the blanket in thin golden strands...
“I came back... nine years?”
“I was reborn?”
Ethan pushed himself upright, still dazed, like his soul had not fully settled back into his body.
Then the memories of his last life rose up, one by one.
His face turned cold.
“Tristan Ashvale...”
That man was a celebrity in Great Xia.
Back when he was still just a trainee, Lily Caldwell had already been following him. Same as those crazed fangirls—obsessed, headstrong, deaf to reason.
Because of that, Ethan kept a tight hand on her.
“No staying out all night. No bars. No smoking.”
“And that was enough to make you feel suffocated?”
“When the era of the Godforsaken Game came, I didn’t let you party up with strangers. For your safety, I took you with me the whole way and leveled you myself...”
“And in your eyes, that meant I was taking away your freedom?”