On his way home, Revlo felt a wave of immense pain but it was not on his physical body but his soul.
It felt like a pair of hands was grabbing his soul very tightly and were trying to rip it out of his body.
"Aghhh!" He clutched his head and screamed, but he was in the middle of the forest which he used as a shortcut to get back to his home and the academy, so there were no people around other than monsters and magical creatures who lives in this forest.
Soon, his scream attracted their attention and headed his way as he tried his best to resist this pulling motion on his soul, he knew that he attracted the attention of the various creatures of this forest and most of them are hostile but he couldn't even move his body.
He placed a barrier down and applied stealth magic on it to hide but due to his attention being mostly on resisting those pair of hands that tried to grab his soul away, the magic he did was half-done and could only fool the lower level monsters.
"It hurts! Why is this happening?! Why? Is this an enemy attack? But I hadn't sense anyone here"
The first thing he thought was this had to be an attack from an enemy, the kingdom he was in just had a war a decade ago, even though the war stopped but this did not mean that their hostilities had faded, he tried to sense if his attacker was nearby.
Sometimes the enemy kingdom tried to attack or assassinate each other's talented magicians as a way to weaken each other.
He also offended some children of nobles during his time at the academy but tensions between his kingdom and the enemy kingdom were rising so those noble households couldn't possibly spare any effort to hire someone strong enough to avoid his senses just to assassinate a 15-year-old mage.
As he was in the middle of scanning the area, the pulling motion got stronger, and couldn't have any spare energy to locate the enemy's location any longer.
All of his focus was on resisting this soul magic attack and also trying to find a way to get out of this mess.
A moment later though, he heard the barrier that he just put up shattered into big fragments, it finally couldn't withstand the dozens of monsters pounding constantly on it.
He couldn't move, he couldn't cast magic, it seemed like all hope was lost until finally a pendant that he was wearing lit up and cast another barrier, even though this barrier was smaller than the other one he just casted, it was stronger and more durable, not a single crack appeared on the barrier despite the monsters smashing it with all their might.
This was his trump card just in case he encounters someone strong that tried to take his life, he got this from adventuring once in a dungeon, it could even withstand an attack from a peak rank mage.
But even so, his situation was still dire, his soul was slowly being ripped away from his body and it hurt like hell.
He tried to analyze what this magic was but couldn't find any record of it from his knowledge which he found nearly impossible since he was one of the few people that read the thousands of books in the academy's library so his knowledge was not that shallow.
This spell was not familiar and he didn't specialize in soul magic, so he could only watch as his soul was being slowly ripped away.
His vision turned blurry, his consciousness fading, his face pale and sweaty.
Then he thought of his mother and aunt in this life, smiling at him, the friends he made in the academy, the expectations of his seniors and teachers.
'You make me so proud, I'm sure your father is smiling at us in heaven' The proud voice of his mother sounded in his ears.
'Hey you, you're strong, let's fight!' An idiot friend declared during their first meeting.
'Tsked, you commoner trash, you won't amount to anything!' An arrogant noble kid said condescendingly.
'Keep up the good work student Hathaway' A teacher at the academy said.
'Nephew, look! this is magic, cool right?' His aunt said while showing him the wonders of magic for the first time.
His life flashed before his eyes and all the experiences he had in this world played like a movie.
Tears welled up and flowed down his face and he refused to believe his fate to suffer like this, his resistance became stronger but the pain also got worse.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I REFUSE TO DIE LIKE THIS!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.
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Unfortunately, no matter how much willpower he put up, the power of friendship wasn't enough, those pair of hands finally snatched his soul away and his life ended just like that.
The barrier that protected his body just broke the moment any remaining life force in his body disappeared and his body was slowly being mercilessly devoured by the pack of monsters.
Any traces of Revlo Hathaway in this world disappeared just like that, only the memories of his loved ones lived on.
By the time the monsters dispersed from the spot Revlo was lying in, only a patch of dry blood and the pendant were left, no bones, no flesh, no organs were left behind.
The monsters thoroughly devoured him whole!
No one found out about his death until a year later. His mother grieved when she found out and refused to eat for a whole month and suffered depression, first her husband and now his son was gone. She even tried to commit suicide but was stopped by her little sister, her original beauty was gone, and looked haggard.
His death was blamed on the enemy country, even though he made enemies out of some of the nobles, they wouldn't be that petty to kill a 15-year old and he was considered a talent in the kingdom with a high chance at reaching the peak level of mages, talent like him was precious, especially during times of war.
Though some of his friends blamed the noble children that made enemies with him there was no evidence nor any traces of any attacks; only a trace of a barrier being casted possibly by Revlo and the case ended there.
Revlo's soul was back drifting along with the void filled with darkness where he was the last time when he died.
"WHY! WHY! WHY! WHY! WHY! WHY! WHY!! AHHHH!!" Revlo screamed but the sound didn't travel very far like the sound waves were being suppressed and could only travel a few meters away.
He was angry, unresigned that he died, all the effort he put up for 15 years was gone just like that, this time he didn't know if he could be reincarnated again or could maintain his memories from his past lives.
He left behind his family and friends again, this time his reaction was more violent.
His efforts just betrayed him just like that and worse of all was that he didn't even know how he died, some random attack on his soul just came out of nowhere and he was powerless against it.
Then sadness came, he imagined his mother and aunt's crying faces when she finds out that he was longer alive, his friend's sad looks and griefed filled faces when they hear the news, and all the expectations his kingdom had of him.
Just like last time, he cried once again in the same void but once again no tears came out of his soul body.
"What is going on? Why is this happening to me?" He said.
Before he could settle down his emotions there was another egg-shaped light appeared in the distance.
This scene was familiar. The same thing had happened before he reincarnated!
"Another chance?"
He gritted his teeth, his mind formed the image of the friends and families of his 1st and 2nd life and said "Please guys, wait for me, I will find a way to come back to you"
Light flashed in his vision, he was a baby again but this time, he was in a cyberpunk world, where his father had a robotic eye and his mother had a robotic arm.
He tried to use magic but because of the different laws of creation that govern this world and the fact that mana or magic doesn't exist here, he couldn't even summon a simple fireball.
He was depressed that all those years of hard work were flushed down the toilet and had a harder time adjusting to this new world compared to the old one.
He was not without hope though, using the fact that your potential is at its highest when you are young, he tried to learn everything there is about this world and he concluded that he had a higher chance of returning to Earth in this world than in the previous magical world.
This was a hidden benefit that he never expected, in the previous magical world where spatial magic was not that developed, teleportation and portal technologies existed here.
So he busted his ass off, not to become the strongest in the world this time but to be the best scientist in the world, he became famous as a young genius and was scouted by large tech companies.
The day he became 15 years old...
He had just entered a research lab that he was working in and said some greetings to his co-workers.
His body was now 50% made of metal from all the bodily enhancements he made to himself, so his current combat strength was not all that inferior to his mage-self in his previous life.
He just entered his lab but then...
A familiar pain suddenly took over him at this moment, the familiar feeling that brought him nightmares for years. To him, this feeling was synonymous with death itself.
His soul was being ripped away again!
Revlo was surprised, he was sure this wasn't an attack because the security of the building was pretty tight and the alarm would go off if any intruders were to infiltrate the facility.
Plus, technologies that could attack someone's soul had not even been developed yet, he screamed but no one could hear him because of the soundproofing in his lab, he also couldn't move.
After some pain and struggles, his life was taken away once again, and just like last time, he was powerless to do anything about it.
The third time, he landed in a cultivation world only to die at 15 years old again...
The fourth time, he was in a futuristic world that is a lot similar to star wars only to perish 15 years later...
In the fifth reincarnation in a cartoon world...the same scenario happened.
The sixth...
The seventh.....
The eighteenth...
The twenty-third.....
Fifty-fifth.....
Sixty-Eighth....
A hundred thirty-second....
Three hundredth.....
Four hundred nineteenth...
Six hundredth....
Six hundred sixty-fifth....
The nine hundred ninety-ninth reincarnation.....
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over..... again.
The same scenario kept repeating itself in a never-ending cycle...
No matter what he did to prevent it, it didn't matter like his death was an inevitability, he tried various methods to escape his fate, he tried guarding his soul, learned some powerful magic, cloning, diversion, hiding, reversing, and slowing downtime, etc.
No matter if he was in a ninja world, monster world, magic world, cartoon world, game world....
IT WAS USELESS!
HE KEPT DYING THE MOMENT HE TURNS 15 YEARS OLD!!
It wasn't until he reincarnated for the one-thousandth time that he noticed that something was different.