Will opened his eyes and he was standing on a field of energy that looked like a desert. He tried to look around but before he could do anything a man tackled him to the ground and tried to take the coin that was in his hand.

He used all the force he could muster and hit the man in the face, the man hit the ground as he was holding his face and trying to crawl away while speaking to Will in a language he couldn’t understand.

“You need to be careful my friend, the people here will hunt you down for your coin, some of these souls have been stuck here for ages trying to get a coin to enter the world of the living,” said a voice coming from behind Will.

Will turned around and couldn’t believe his eyes, it was a dragon! It was made of the same light as everyone else, but even so, it was still a dragon.

“Why would you need more than one coin?” Will asked in surprise. It was not like he could be reincarnated twice of something.

The dragon smiled clearly amused by Wills reaction. He could always tell when someone had never seen a dragon before, most people would try to hide it but he could see it in their eyes, they could try to hide their emotions, but he could see the souls of people only by looking them in the eyes.

“The coin lets you pick one of only ten worlds, but if you have more than one coin you can go to a bigger hall of choice and pick a world out of more than a hundred. You didn’t expect to have the choice from all the millions of worlds for just saving one life, did you?” the dragon said in a mocking tone.

Just as the dragon was talking the man on the ground stood up and tried to attack will. The dragon seeing this used his hand to knock the man into the air, so far that Will was not able to see his body anymore.

“Don’t worry kid, souls can’t die in this world. You have the luck to meet me here, because of that I will give you five minutes to decide which world you want to choose. I do want to give you the advice to not pick one of the first two choices, those are worlds for the blessed and unlucky, to enter them you need to have the will of at least an immortal,” the dragon said with a cocky smile on his face.

Will listened to the dragon with caution, he believed the dragon because if the dragon wanted his coin there was nothing he could do about it, Will was curious as to why but he didn’t plan to ask him, that would be like asking the officer why he didn’t give you a ticket while he caught you driving 180 on the freeway.

Just as Will was looking through the information provided by the coin, the dragon opened it's winged and flew away. The people surrounded him used the chance and started to move closer.

“I did not say five minutes from right now did I kid,” the dragon smiled and watched from the air as the people surrounded Will.

There was no way to escape, the only thing he could do was to give them his coin or enter the path to one of the worlds not even immortals would tread without caution. Will had seen the description of it, it was called the world of sin, one of only thousand worlds where people were put who had done great deeds of evil in their past lives.

Will decided to risk it and run towards the vortex that was the entrance to the world. The path was long and made of energy like the rest of the place and there was nothing in sight except the vortex that was clearly the entrance to the world. Will expecting some sort of challenge kept running, but nothing happened, before long he heard voices of pain from behind and turned around to see the who were chasing him screaming in pain. What was happening?

“How Is he able to stand the pain?” the dragon said with some surprise in his voice, he had sensed Will's soul and the kid was clearly mortal in his past life, so why was he able to keep moving forward?

But the dragon knew it didn’t matter, the pain right now was only 1% of the pain it would take to reach the vortex, even he couldn’t enter that world if he wanted to, the kid was really unlucky.

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Will kept running and after a while had almost reached the vortex while at the same time expecting something to happen. When the dragon saw Will reach the last couple of steps his eyes almost popped out of their sockets, “there is only one way this is possible, there is no other explanation, he must have a mutated soul, I can’t let him get away, to think what I can achieve with a mutated soul this powerful”

“Boy you better come back and let me take your soul or I will make you wish you were dead!” the dragon said while his voice field the air.

But Will didn’t care, he just kept running, there was no chance the dragon would let him go anyways.

The dragon seeing this started to chase him with great speed. Will looked back and knew that running would not help as the dragon would reach him in seconds, but before he knew it the dragon hit the ground in pain, the screams of the dragon were so powerful the ground started to shake.

“Come back here kid, if I can’t have your mutated soul, I will burn you with my flames, these flames are so powerful that it has the ability to overcome reincarnation, I can’t kill you with it, but even you will feel pain that even immortals would not be able to stand, you will lose your sanity!” the dragon said while coughing up blood.

Will didn’t look back and kept running, he didn’t have the fear of pain other had. The dragon seeing this got angry and opened his mouth and black flames surrounded Will in a blink of an eye.

Will felt something for the first time in his life, it was like someone was pinching him. He didn't know why but he started to laugh, finally, after so many years he finally felt something, and even though it didn’t feel pleasant one of if deepest wished had been fulfilled.

The dragon saw Will stand up while his body was covered in black flames, was he laughing? “This is…. Impossible!”

Will tried to experience the feeling but before long it was gone, the flames were still there, but the feeling had gone, there was no need to wait anymore, he looked behind him one last time and saw the dragon crawl back as he jumped inside the vortex.

---

“quickly, the wife of my brother is having a baby,” said a middle-aged man while the people of the town were gathering around the small house. As the man entered the house he saw Weidrek pacing and waiting for her wife to give birth to their fourth child. Even the fourth time was still as anxious as the first, he didn’t care if it was a boy or girl, the only thing he wanted was for the child to be healthy.

“Weidrek, it seems like drinks are in order,” the middle-aged man grinned as he entered the wooden house that looked just a modest from the inside as the outside.

“Brother Oslac! Its good you came, but let’s wait with the drinks and hope that the gods will grant me a healthy child like he has the last three times,” Weidrek said as he looked up to the wooden ceiling and made a quick prayer.

“She will be fine, unlike you, your wife is a capable woman who will be able to deliver you the son you always wanted, maybe then you will stop trying, or is it so much fun?” Oslac said with a big smirk on his face. Just as he was about to continue the house filled with screams.

“Hiltrude!”

Weidrek and Oslac ran into the room only to see Hiltrude screaming, even for someone who was giving birth this felt wrong, it felt like she was being tortured to death.

“What is happening to her?” said Weidrek trying to understand what was going on, his wife was one of the strongest women in the whole town even he had never seen her scream like this before.

“I don’t know, I don’t think it’s because of the childbirth, even so, let’s get the baby out quickly,” the old woman quickly got a birth pill and forced it inside her mouth, the pill was used to make childbirth a quick and painless process. It was a hard pill to make and it was only used in emergencies.

The pill seemed to work and the old woman tried to quickly get the baby out now that the head was visible. When the woman touched the baby a pain like she had never felt before entered her body, so painful that she dropped the baby on the ground.

Weidrek seeing this happen tried to catch the baby unsuccessfully, the baby hit the ground hard but the baby was still, there was no crying. When he touched the baby with his hand he felt a pain that felt like his finger was chopped off, as he pulled back his finger the baby opened his eyes and looked at the world for the first time.

“What are you doing brother, quickly pick up the baby!” Oslac said while he reached for the baby. Weidrek stopped him with his arm and picked up a blanket from the bed and covered the baby and tried touching him with the same finger, even that one second of pain was painful enough to be the most painful experience of his life, but this was his child, he had to find a way to hold him.

Luckily there was no pain and after some experimenting, he could pick up the baby, he looked at Oslac and said, “brother, instruct everyone not to touch the child if they do they will surely feel a pain so strong that I can’t describe it.”

Oslac was surprised, his brother was one of the strongest warriors of the town, he couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been for his brother to say that. But when he took a long look at the two woman he understood, the pain was so great that Hiltrude had lost her sanity, she was looking at the ceiling and drooling while breathing rapidly.

At the same time Will opened his eyes, he could remember everything, earth, his death and even the dragon. “What is going on, where is this place?”