Darkness.
It felt as though the void itself had swallowed him whole.
He couldn’t see anything.
He couldn’t feel his body.
Time seemed nonexistent—he had no way of knowing how long he had been drifting through this endless nothingness.
Darren remained there, unable to move, unable to comprehend his surroundings, unable even to think properly.
His thoughts felt shattered, scattered beyond repair.
Then, slowly, it all began to return.
His life.
His battles.
His supposed family.
The betrayal.
His death.
Yes.
He remembered now.
He had been betrayed by those he cherished most and died by their hands.
Once again, he felt pain.
The pain of the heart.
The pain of betrayal.
It was all he could feel—everything his mind and soul allowed him to feel.
It was as though he had been cast into hell.
A hell that used the darkest moment of his life as its chosen form of torture.
His own mind had become his enemy.
His emotions had become the blade lodged in his heart.
Within the endless, timeless, directionless void, only his soul remained as he relived his life over and over again.
His thoughts were sluggish.
But they moved.
Then, suddenly, the sensation of floating vanished.
Instead, it felt as though he were submerged in water—completely immersed, yet somehow alive.
He could feel his body again.
But feeling it did not mean controlling it.
His body floated within a warm fluid.
He couldn’t breathe, yet he lived.
Slowly, his senses began to return.
First came the faint sound of a heartbeat.
His heartbeat.
Then came touch—soft, enclosing walls pressing gently against him.
Soon after, muffled sounds reached his ears, distant and indistinct.
It felt as though he were trapped inside some kind of living container filled with fluid, powerless to act.
Then something changed.
The space around him began to shrink.
The walls closed in.
For the first time, he realized he wasn’t alone.
Other bodies surrounded him.
The pressure continued to build.
The outcome seemed inevitable.
The container would either crush them…
Or tear apart.
And tear apart it did.
One of the bodies beside him began moving.
Whether it was upward or downward, he couldn’t tell.
Direction meant nothing here.
One by one, the others were pushed out.
Then it was his turn.
An overwhelming force pushed him through a narrow passage as pressure squeezed him from all sides.
Then he heard it.
Crying.
Screaming.
Suddenly, he could move.
Though his limbs felt weak and completely uncoordinated, they responded to his will.
With immense effort, he opened his eyes.
His vision was blurry.
The first thing he saw was a face.
Green.
Wrinkled.
With a long nose and elongated ears.
A goblin.
But that made no sense.
How could a goblin be so large?
Then the goblin moved him.
A rough hand lifted his tiny body before placing him gently upon a patch of moss.
As his vision gradually sharpened, he looked around.
He was inside a cave.
Seven goblins surrounded him.
Judging by their features, they were all female.
Looking farther into the cave, he noticed figures belonging to other races.
Females.
The closest one immediately caught his attention.
An elf.
And that was when it finally struck him.
Somehow…
He had been reborn as a goblin.
A goblin born from an elf, no less.
The irony was impossible to ignore.
An elf had ended his previous life.
And now an elf had given him a new one.
If he had better control of his body, he would have laughed.
Looking around, he understood one thing with absolute certainty.
He could never return to the life he once lived.
Darren Silvermoon was dead.
That life had ended.
But this new life would not be wasted.
This was not a second chance.
It was a new beginning.
Not a new page.
Not a new chapter.
An entirely new book.
A new existence.
He had been reborn as a monster.
And this time, he would show the world the truth about monster races.
There was only one question left.
How was this possible?
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