As Skyler rose to his feet, a dark smile slowly spread across his face.
"Pray that I never reach you."
"Because the day I do... I will rip your sentience apart and grind it into powder."
With that, he activated the Wheel of Time.
Just as the trial said, he forgot everything.
And so, his thirty-fifth life—which began a little differently—became his new reality.
Although in that life he was abandoned by his family, just as he had been in reality, his body was born with one-star Light Element potential instead of none. Skyler was even dragged into the Battle Royale despite not being eligible at the age of 18. And it was in that life that he met 505 for the first time.
The little system was emotionless at first, for it possessed neither a will nor thoughts of its own. But to Skyler, it was like a blank sheet of paper. That was what gave him the nerve to change its views. And through him, the system gradually gained sentience.
It was actually shocking, considering that everything within the trial, except for the hundred people dragged into it, was fake.
Yet, Skyler still did it.
Even so, it hadn’t been easy. It had taken several lifetimes before 505 finally came around and became his loyal companion.
However, in his thirty-fifth life, where he became Eldoria’s most renowned Light, he ultimately died beneath Max’s sword after the Higher Beings who had taken notice of him deemed him a threat. They asked Max and his team to kill him. As a reward, they would help them step into the Divine War.
Unlike Skyler, who had lost all his memories, they still remembered that they were inside a trial. Although each new life erased the memories of the previous ones—since they weren’t the ones activating the Wheel of Time—that single truth was never taken from them.
So, to Max and the others, Skyler—who remembered nothing in his thirty-fifth life—was no different from the countless fake beings within the trial. Thus, they didn’t hesitate for even a second to kill him.
But after his death, they all died as well.
In the end, they accomplished nothing of worth.
Just as they always had.
How ironic.
With everyone’s deaths, the rule Skyler had engraved into the Wheel of Time activated the artifact on its own. A primordial power swept through the entire trial as everything shattered into countless fragments, only to rewind and stitch itself back together like a movie replaying from the start once more.
But since Skyler’s forgotten memories weren’t triggered, he lived that same life multiple times. Aside from a few minor changes—such as a different member of Max’s team delivering the finishing blow that killed him—everything else remained the same. It wasn’t until his forty-first life, when Jenny was the one who killed him, that he finally regained all his memories.
Because she was one of the triggers.
When Skyler regained all his memories, what chilled him wasn’t the fact that they had killed him so many times, but... that they had never killed him as an enemy.
They always waited until he had begun following them through the Battle Royale—until he had trusted them. Only then did they drive the sword through his heart.
At that time, Skyler didn’t even have the strength to be angry. He was indifferent.
But indifference didn’t mean he would let them get away with what they had done.
So, in the moments before his death, he burned away every last trace of his power and rewrote their destinies within the trial.
He made sure that, in the next life, Max would learn about the Wheel of Time. He completely rewrote their story.
Jenny was the first.
He stripped her of the brilliant future she had taken for granted. He changed history so that the Queen of the Human Kingdom—Jenny’s grandmother—gave birth to many children instead of only Riya. He twisted reality until, despite being born a waste, he became the one everyone cherished, while Jenny became the one they abandoned.
Skyler didn’t just stop there.
He completely changed Eldoria.
He turned Zack into a transmigrator.
Every thread of destiny Skyler could reach with the divine power he held, he changed.
Yet, in doing so, he crossed a limit.
When the Wheel of Time activated and the world began to reset, the sheer number of changes he had forced upon reality caused the rules holding the trial to crack. Instead of rewinding, countless timelines collided, shattered, and merged into one another.
From that moment on...
Everything slipped beyond his control.
He forgot everything for many lifetimes, each time living them as his new reality.
It was during those lifetimes that he met the little white creature with crimson eyes he had once seen in a dream—a beautiful, sweet dream he no longer remembered.
A dream that had given him the will to continue in the hell he was trapped in.
But after turning into a woman, that little rabbit suddenly died before his very eyes.
Skyler had gone mad with grief.
But no matter what he did, he failed to change what had already transpired.
He remained unaware, but it wasn’t only him who completely forgot everything in those lifetimes—everyone else forgot too.
The other participants also no longer remembered that they were in a trial.
The trial also didn’t remind them.
Its messages simply stopped.
It was during Skyler’s forty-sixth timeline that he once again fell into the rift leading to the Spirit Realm. The irony was that he hadn’t fallen into that rift by accident, but while trying to save his so-called mother.
It was also in that timeline that Skyler gained his first pair of angelic wings.
Skyler also formally met the Spirit Queen, who had lost her daughter. In that life, he was a kind-hearted person. His heart was filled with compassion, and his blue eyes even turned pure white due to his powerful affinity with the Throne of Spirits. But after learning that he had found and ascended the Throne of Spirits without even entering the Battle Royale, the Higher Beings joined forces, sent a large army, and killed him.
Perhaps, seeing Skyler fall at the hands of those he had long deemed unworthy of his attention—people he once could have killed with effortless ease—the Supreme Seat felt disdain. Or perhaps it had just grown bored.
No one knew the reason.
But when Skyler awakened in his 47th lifetime, something had changed. He did not forget his 46th life. At first, Skyler was shocked. He even believed fate had given him another chance to live, laughing with unbridled joy. Yet... now thinking about it, he felt that in that moment, the Supreme Seat would have surely laughed at him.
In that life, he vowed to take revenge against the ones who had killed him.
He saved his mother and avoided falling into the crack that led to the Spirit Realm, choosing a different path to gain power.
His goal was simple: reach Heaven and slaughter every Higher Being who had a hand in his death. The compassion that had once filled his heart was gone, now replaced with revenge. Skyler eventually reached Heaven and gained a second pair of wings, stepping closer to becoming an existence beyond his former self. In that life, he awakened the Dragon Bloodline he had inherited from his grandmother’s side after absorbing the power of the core of a True Dragon. It was also the first timeline where Skyler suddenly developed a very powerful fondness for shiny treasures.
However, before he could kill everyone in Heaven, those angels who looked so pure revealed their ugly nature. They sacrificed someone to revive an ancient power. And that power was the one that killed him.
He was very dumbfounded and shocked when he once again awakened in the past with the memories of those two lifetimes.
To Skyler in that lifetime, his 47th life was his first. His 48th life was his second life.
And now, his 49th life was his third.
In these three lifetimes, the power Skyler gathered was different. He did not learn the Divine Elements, not even one of them, but instead acquired every ordinary element.
First, Light.
Darkness.
Space.
Lightning.
Water.
Earth.
Wind.
Fire.
And then.
Metal.
Then he would enter the Divine Rank.