Dying has become a bit of an old hat for me. I was technically on my fourth life. I didn’t really want to count the third one.

  I hugged the cloud that showed the image of my family’s life after I had died. It was a mercy granted to me by the multi-dimensional being known as The Judge. What was he the judge of exactly? I couldn’t get an answer from him. But he existed behind me, representing himself as a pillar of orange light.

  My sister and her family are happy. That’s good. It was worth it.

  Seeing them move on, my sister having kids telling them stories of what I did—although heavily embellishing them—and seeing my mother spoil her grandchildren, my nieces and nephews that I’ll never get to meet, was a memory I cherished.

  The image and the cloud faded in my arms. I turned to The Judge. “Thank you for showing me that. But why am I here and not in the demon realm? Didn’t I become a demon?”

  I gave my sister the power and knowledge needed to kill me. I did it so they could have that life. If I had stayed as I was, a colossal demon wolf as the Sin of Wrath, they would never be safe. Lexia didn’t want to do it, but some part of her knew that it was the right thing to do.

  “Because of the exact circumstances of your death, your soul was not that of a complete demon, yet,” The Judge began. “The Broker paused your mental transformation into a demon until sunset, which you were not present to witness. Yet you still possess your demonic power. It’s a loophole he likely intended to exploit himself. Instead, I have taken your soul and brought it to me.”

  The first time I died as a boring human killed by a tornado and arrived unable to feel, talk, see, or anything involving a body. The entity that handled my soul didn’t give me one. But this time, after my life as a female wolf-human hybrid known as a beastkin, my soul saw itself as that beastkin woman, an anthropomorphic bipedal wolf from the world of Centari.

  The beastkin woman had been my second life. My third, which lasted less than a day, was as a massive demonic wolf, known as a sin of wrath. It’s a very long story ending with me killing a demon king. Because of that, when I died again, a final request of mine, I was doomed to serve a demon queen I had just helped put on the throne of a particular hell.

  I motioned to my bipedal wolf body. “Is that why I look like a beastkin again?”

  “No,” The Judge answered. “In this realm, you see yourself as your soul sees itself. It is unusual for a soul to define itself so intently and after so few reincarnations.”

  My silver fur fluttered in a nonexistent breeze and made my bright blue eyes pop all the more. But I don’t know how much longer I was going to stay like that. The Judge, the sentient orange light I was following, had offered up a deal of several lifetimes.

  Since I was in between lives, my fourth life hadn’t started yet; the only thing I could do was follow the pillar of orange light guiding me through a marble hallway. My pawed feet made no sound. It was surreal to have a body in the afterlife for once.

  I scratched my head carefully with my claws and kept my voice flat. “You offered to return the memories The Voice sealed away, but I don’t need them. And frankly, I don’t want any of you touching my memories again.”

  The Judge’s orange light dimmed for a second. “I understand and will respect that.”

  I looked around at the marble hallway. There were countless doorways and closed doors. Oddly, none of the doors had a single handle. More frustratingly, there were no other sounds nor smells for my enhanced sense to find.

  I took one last look to where the cloud that showed my family was. “I’m guessing you didn’t do that for charity. Like The Voice, you want something. What is it?”

  “I need you to kill The Broker,” The Judge said flatly.

  I blinked several times. “Seriously?” I shook my head and rubbed my temples. “Of course you’re serious. In exchange, I get what?”

  “First, you got your wish to see your family.” The Judge started moving to a wall, and a doorway opened up. “Second, I will protect everyone in your family from anyone who wishes to manipulate their soul. Third, I will spare you from your eternity as a demon.”

  This feels too good to be true. Why is he really offering me a way out? I guess in the end, I’ll keep protecting my family. But I’ll be honest, I don’t want to go back to serve under Lust, the new demon queen. Even though I put her on that throne, that doesn’t mean I want anything more to do with her. Mom, Lexia, and everyone would be happy if I could get away from that monster.

  A smile spread across my face. As short as it was, and even with everything that happened, I had a lot of fun. I have the family I’ll always treasure in my heart. All my responsibilities are fulfilled. My family moved on, so can I.

  “A new adventure?” I whispered to myself. With a bounce in my step, I followed him through the door. “Sounds good. Where do I start?”

  “This way.”

  A door on our left opened up and the Judge passed through.

  We were in a nearly-identical hallway, but this one the doors were further spread apart.

  “So, Judge, where are you taking me?” I asked. “Also, this ‘Broker’ guy, why do you want him dead? Can’t you do it yourself?”

  “No,” The Judge answered in a booming voice that shook my existence slightly. He was holding back because I knew he could put more force into his voice. “There are rules that must be followed. He has not broken any rules, therefore I can’t be directly involved.”

  “Uh, huh.” I nodded like that made any sense to me. “So using me makes you indirectly involved. And I’m guessing even though he hasn’t broken a rule—whatever your rules are—he’s either bending them or abusing loopholes that you feel are just as bad as breaking them. Am I right?”

  The light representing The Judge stopped. “He’s been absent for a long time and suddenly very active, collecting on old deals and making dangerous new ones. His actions feel rushed. He’s planning something or working for someone.”

  I stopped a few steps behind the light. I looked up at the top of the light that just seemed to phase through the ceiling. Where do I even look? “I fail to see what you’re getting at. It sounds like he’s working to me. That doesn’t sound bad.”

  The Judge moved to stand next to a door. “The Broker has always been an opportunist. For a very long time he has been quietly waiting for calamities to happen naturally and watch them, waiting to make a deal with the desperate. Now, he’s engineering situations for powerful individuals to become indebted to him. When an opportunist like him becomes an activist, reality is in danger.”

  “And you’ve done exactly what he would’ve done,” I snipped as I flicked my tail back and forth while flattening my ears.

  “He would’ve done the same to you with worse terms.” The Judge’s calm voice made me believe him. “We’ve arrived.”

  We were at a dead end. How did I notice it earlier?

  “To what?”

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  The door in front of us swung open and revealed a quaint little waiting room with a desk on the far side of the room. Wide plush chairs lined the walls. There was even a slot for my tail to slip through if I sat in it. But I wasn’t going to sit in one.

  The desk was solid mahogany, with no embellishments or engravings. It went all the way to the floor as if it was part of the floor. Behind the desk was a squarish man. He had slicked black hair and large glasses with white lenses that I couldn’t see past. His dark grey suit with sharp shoulders was almost as angular as he was. The paper on his desk, the pen in his hand, and the way he didn’t even look up as I walked in screamed one thing: bureaucrat.

  “Fraxxas will handle your reincarnation from this point,” The Judge said before closing the door behind me.

  I turned. “And if I had more questions?”

  “Then you direct them to me.” A tired voice stereotypical of a bureaucrat came from the man behind the desk. “Please approach.”

  I did. “So, how is this going to work this time?”

  Fraxxas scribbled something on the page in front of him in a script I had never seen before. “I was instructed to send you to a world so that you can begin your Ascension trials.”

  That sounds ominous. “These trials are how I’m going to figure out how to kill The Broker?”

  “I know nothing about that, nor do I care to,” he said curtly. “It says here that you are permitted to keep your memories and that you are to be sent to Palaidra. And you are to be given a system?”

  He didn’t sound like he was expecting to read that last part. “A system?” I crossed my arms and tapped my toe claws on the marble floor. “Is that some kind of big deal?”

  “One moment.” He pulled out a box from his drawer. “I need to read the instructions.”

  I’m feeling less confident about this situation by the second.

  Fraxxas opened the box and took out a small piece of paper with nothing on it. “Let’s see… you’re to be given a system… as a part of that system you will need a new body… no memory alterations…”

  His voice trailed off.

  I was left just standing to wait for him to finish. New body. I kinda should’ve seen that coming. “Do I get any say in what body I’ll get?”

  He hummed. “It doesn’t say not to. The only restriction is that it must be one that would naturally occur in the world. You have options. Is there anything in particular you wish to request?”

  “Is beastkin on the list?”

  He shook his head. “No, next choice?”

  I grimaced. “Well, uh, human?”

  “Rejected.”

  I flattened my ears. “Well, if those aren’t options, can I see a list?”

  He waved his hand and a scroll longer than I was tall. There were almost a thousand different names, with no description of them. Most of them were mythological creatures with some kind of variation. I could rule most of those out.

  I pointed to a one I couldn’t recognize, deep craglin. “Can you tell me what any of these are?”

  Though I couldn’t see it, I could feel him roll his eyes as he said, “I’d rather not. We’d be here for far longer than I want. It’s also not part of the instructions. Just pick one.”

  A subtle growl rumbled in the back of my throat. “At least give me a way to narrow down this list to something similar to what I was before. Can you at least do that?”

  He drummed his fingers on the desk for a few seconds. Then he snapped his fingers. The list was reduced to one name: fenris.

  “That’s the closest on the list. Happy?”

  “It’s a start,” I growl. “That doesn’t tell me anything about what a fenris is or what they look like.”

  “That’s not part of the instructions.” He placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “Take it or I will pick something other than that at random. I have other things to be doing other than entertaining your relentless inquiries and stalling.”

  Strong arming me? ”Fine. I’ll be a fenris—whatever that is. Anything else I can decide? Is there anything about the world I need to know about? Can you tell me more about this system?”

  “No, no, and no.” He took the list from me and rolled it up. “You’re going to have a tutorial during your reincarnation to explain the status sheet. As for the world, figure it out. Now I’ve got work to do.” Then he reached in the box and pulled out a small stone disc. “In you go.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “What?”

  Then a pulling sensation originated from the stone. Nothing else in the room moved, but I could feel myself being yanked towards the strange stone. Instinctively, I grabbed the desk.

  He’s seriously not thinking about putting me in there, is he?

  Fraxxas looked at me like I was stupid. With a single tug, he pulled me free from the desk and into the stone. The sensation of my body being slurped through a straw feeling was as unnerving as it gets.

  My limbs—or the sense of them—were the first to go. They twisted, blurred, and compressed into geometric nonsense. Paw, hand, tail, spine, snout, ears, all stretched like taffy. My senses scrambled: scents became sounds, I started feeling colors, and my last thought before everything turned inside-out was simply:

  This is so much worse than last time!

  And then there was nothing. Followed by lots of blue boxes and strangely floating text that I wasn’t actually seeing but existed in my mind’s eye.

  System initialization complete.

  Please get acquainted with your status.

  — — —

  Name: Lucia Silverbreeze

  Species: Fenris (Dire Wolf/???) [Ice Subtype]

  Level 1 [0%]

  Power: 250

  Agility: 170

  Speed: 200

  Arcane: 120

  Toughness: 80

  Resilience: 80

  — — —

  Traits:

  Clawed

  Fanged

  Wrath Demon Ancestry

  Ice-born

  — — —

  Special Attacks:

  Ice Shard

  — — —

  At least I’m still strong and fast. And I kept my name too!

  Power: This value represents your raw offensive might—melee attacks, grapples, and destructive feats of strength all scale with Power.

  Agility: Agility measures your reflexes and balance. It governs dodging, precise movement, terrain adaptability, and complex maneuvers.

  Speed: This measures pure, linear velocity; how fast you can move, sprint, dash, or leap.

  Arcane: This stat governs spell casting potential and magical power. Certain species traits, elemental abilities, and special attacks may scale with this.

  Toughness: Toughness affects your physical durability. Increasing it reduces the damage from physical attacks and how much raw punishment you can take.

  Resilience: This is the measure of resistance to status effects, magical damage, and mental attacks. It also lessens the effects of harsh environments.

  Trait descriptions:

  Clawed: Claw-based attacks receive a minor increase in damage and a minor bleed chance.

  Fanged: Biting attacks deal minor increased critical damage when aimed at weak points.

  Wrath Demon Ancestry: Power and Arcane stats receive a bonus when increased. Toughness and Resilience receive a penalty when increased.

  Ice-born: Ice damage received is majorly reduced. Fire damage received is majorly increased.

  Special attack descriptions:

  Ice shard: Power-E, Bonus Critical Damage-D, Range-E

  Almost all of the information was pretty self-explanatory and made perfect sense. The whole concept of a system with levels, traits, and stats was entirely alien. Although seeing the bit about demon ancestry left a sour taste in my non-existent mouth. The letters attached to the one special attack I had also needed clarification, but I wasn’t getting it.

  Or looks like the demon power I had corrupted my soul more than I realized. That's going to haunt me forever, isn't it.

  The memories of my twin sister, mother, and close friends would’ve brought a smile to my lips and a tear to my eye if I had either. Because of the deal I made with The Judge, nobody will touch their souls. Even now I still try to keep them safe.

  I snapped myself out of reminiscing and back to considering the present.

  If I had to guess, if I increase my level, I’d be able to get more stats. But it feels so weird and wrong to quantify my strength, speed, and magical ability.

  Gain experience by defeating other monsters. Once certain experience thresholds are reached, your level will increase. Increasing your level will permit you to receive new traits and special attacks or upgrade previously selected ones. Training will increase stats based on difficulty.

  Did that message say other monsters?

  A bright white light enveloped me and it felt like I was expanding and the air around me got really cold. It was nice to be feeling the air again even if I was on all fours.

  Fours?

  I looked down to see that I was standing on a stone dais that looked very similar to the stone the strange bureaucrat sucked me into. But that wasn’t my concern.

  I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Where are my thumbs?”