'Nothing you see is real.'

'Nothing you see is real.'

'Nothing you see is real.'

A small boy with red hair and brown eyes twisted and turned in his sleep as he cried out the same phrase over and over again. A servant prepared cold towels to press against his forehead while a beautiful woman cried bitter tears while stroking his hair.

"What crimes did I commit to cause my son to suffer so," she cried out. "Please Heavens, punish this foolish one, not this innocent child."

The boy suddenly gasped for air as he opened his eyes. He leaped from the bed and threw his hands up in a defensive stance. He grimaced as his entire body prickled with pain and he inspected his surroundings. The woman stood up and joyfully wiped tears off of her face. "Seongho, my son you have finally awakened. Thank the Heavens."

The boy opened his eyes in horror as he recognized the faces around him. 'I could have sworn that I died, am I still trapped in these illusions?' He crumpled to the ground in defeat. 'Just kill me now, have I not suffered enough?'

"Seongho, are you still hurting?" The woman frantically grabbed a clean wet towel to press against her son's forehead.

"Mother," the boy croaked. "I love you, please know that I can't stop it."

"What do you mean my child? Just close your eyes and rest, you are still weak." She tenderly wrapped her arms around his tense body and wiped the tears off of his face.

Seongho had seen this scene countless times. He would gain consciousness during various points of his past and watch helplessly as his loved ones were mutilated and torn apart by his own two hands. Later on, he would learn from the scriptures that it was a forbidden technique created by the Council to break the minds of Blood Demon candidates. Yet unlike the others, his mind was never broken, and he was forced to endure these hallucinations repeatedly.

'They're just illusions,' he told himself in vain. 'Nothing you see is real. Nothing you see is real. Nothing you see is real.'

But while he braced himself and waited for the moment when he would lose control and the true nightmare would begin, that moment never came. Not that day, not the next, and not even after a full week. Seongho was perplexed.

'It's never been over an hour before, the skill is difficult to sustain over 10 minutes by even the best. This is truly strange.' He thought. And when another week passed he was convinced. This was no illusion. He had somehow been reborn back to his days as a child scarcely 8 years old.

Looking at his fierce but childish reflection in the mirror, he pressed a small but sharp knife against his neck. The only way to confirm that he was truly alive was to kill himself. If it was an illusion his attack would still be painful but he would survive. Small beads of blood collected at the edge. But after what felt like an eternity, Seongho put the knife back in its sheath. While he suspected it was simply an especially elaborate illusion, killing himself was too risky. In his past life Seongho would've gladly accepted death, but given a potential chance, he was greedy to protect it now. After all, dying would only be a hindrance to getting revenge.