The End of Ten Thousand Moments

"Don't forget." He awoke in an unfamiliar place with only those words remaining in his mind, and he was the weakest of all the Awakened. Others were born with profound engravings, able to wield rules, distort reality, and rewrite causality. He could maintain only three inscriptions, and their playback was blurry, like a video recording he couldn't see clearly. He had no talent, no backing, and no ability to fight head-on. His only asset was a perfectly calm, ruthlessly self-serving mind that stopped at nothing to achieve its goals. He used his inscriptions to gather information, plan, manipulate, and turn the tables. He used the strong, schemed against the weak, sacrificed those who trusted him, and betrayed those who didn't. Every move was precise to the point of cruelty. Reincarnation was no natural phenomenon, but a prison designed by someone. Its creator forcibly carved his own engravings into other people's souls, forming a network of shared inscriptions that covered the world. He had imprisoned the world, and himself along with it. The contest between Jiang Ke and the creator was a game of chess spanning countless cycles of reincarnation. Jiang Ke himself also held a secret even he did not know: the starting point he sought was not a place, but a person. Someone who looked exactly like him and had suffered in his place for thirteen thousand six hundred cycles. He was not moved. He felt no guilt. He did not hesitate.