Chapter 613: Grave of the Fallen [1]

There was once an ordinary boy who met an extraordinary girl.

The boy possessed blue eyes that reflected the deep waves of an ocean, while the girl had striking eyes that looked as though they were painted in fresh blood.

And he fell in love with her… madly and completely.

Yet he was entirely inadequate in his own mind, so much so that he felt completely unworthy even to approach her. He did not dare dream of touching her hand or speaking aloud the words of how much her mere existence meant to his world.

It was a terrible, one-sided love that slowly consumed him from within.

He foolishly believed that he would forget about those overwhelming feelings with the natural passage of time. He convinced himself that his affection would eventually wither away into nothingness. However, the exact opposite came to pass. The more he watched her from afar as the years rolled on, the more tormented his mind became.

Because right in front of his very eyes, he was forced to watch her fall in love with another man. He watched her start a family, build a peaceful life, and bear children.

All the while, that buried, one-sided love relentlessly eroded his mind and soul. Yet he endured the agony in quiet isolation for her sake. If she was truly happy in the arms of another man, that was all that ever mattered to him.

His one-sided love was so pure and selfless that, in his own mind, he had rendered his personal existence as utterly irrelevant. He believed he was unimportant and that his personal feelings held no value whatsoever. Expressing his buried emotions held no purpose.

Because of that poisonous, unyielding affection, he grew old completely alone. He never moved on from her memory, never entered a relationship with another woman, and never married anyone else. The simple thought of being with another person disgusted him to his very core.

And so, in the end, the old man died alone in a cold bed, weighed down by the singular emotion that had ruined his entire life. Yet a faint smile touched his lips on his deathbed, knowing that the endless pain was finally coming to an end. He closed his eyes, believing his soul was about to enter an eternal slumber.

However, fate proved far too cruel to grant him that peaceful rest.

His eyes suddenly opened once again, awakening in a distant era within a completely different body.

And in that new life, through a twisted twist of fate, he encountered her once again.

She was the same woman he had been madly in love with in his past life.

Upon seeing those familiar red eyes, his heart skipped a heavy beat, pulsing in a rapid rhythm that his soul knew all too well. It was as though he were falling in love with her visage all over again.

Despite the miserable life he had endured previously because of that unrequited love, he was not horrified by her reappearance. Instead, he felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude, believing the universe had granted him a second chance. He believed he was finally allowed to pursue everything he had ever wanted, and all he had ever wanted was her and her alone.

So, this time, he refused to stand idle and watch her from a distance. He stepped forward, reached out his hand, and boldly proposed to her without shying away.

Yet, despite the hopeful expectation in his heart, the boy was met with nothing but a swift, brutal rejection.

He did not relent. He kept trying again and again, remaining steadfast by her side.

And just as he had hoped, her stone-like heart was eventually melted by the sheer depth of his genuine love.

Yet, the very moment she finally accepted his affection, she was struck down and killed right before his eyes by the personal swordsman of an arrogant, wealthy noble who wanted her to become his concubine.

The boy went completely mad at the sight of her corpse. In a blind rage, he slaughtered the swordsman, the noble, and every single person related to that noble household, completely unconcerned with whether they were guilty or innocent. Once the bloodbath was finished, he drew a blade across his own throat and ended his life.

Yet his eyes opened once again in a new body.

The tragic cycle repeated itself. They met again in a different era, at a different location, living under different identities and speaking a different language.

And the boy fell for her again at the very first sight. He could always recognise her immediately by those striking red eyes that only she possessed.

This time, he approached her with extreme caution. He operated as a silent assassin from the dark, systematically hunting down and killing any suspicious individual who wandered anywhere near her.

Just when the woman finally opened her heart to him once more, she died in a sudden, tragic accident right in front of the man’s eyes.

The horrific loop repeated and again and again and again.

Every single time, no matter what methods the man deployed or how carefully he acted, she would always die one way or another if she dared to return his love. It was as though the universe itself actively intervened to ensure they could never remain together.

The boy continued to reincarnate so many times that he eventually lost all count of his lifetimes. The sheer agony of watching her die repeatedly had taken a dark, irreversible toll upon his spirit.

At one point, he stopped approaching her altogether. He stopped trying to make her love him back. In those lifetimes where he kept his distance, she never died young. She lived a long, happy life with another man, eventually dying peacefully of old age while he was forced to watch it all from the shadows.

In one life, he woke up as an ordinary teenager; in another, he awoke as a powerful prince commanding a vast empire. In one incarnation, he lived as a ruthless murderer, and in another he was born as a deformed beggar living on the streets.