I Was Reborn in Another World, But I Awoke Inside a Corpse

Chapter 120: The Weight Beneath the Flame

The skyship drifted above the endless forest like a silent dream, its sails catching threads of moonlight rather than wind. Far below, the night-washed canopy of Elaraiya shimmered with veins of mana-laced growth, glowing like a living tapestry woven from starlight and memory. But Isaac wasn't looking down.

He stood at the prow of the ship alone, staring ahead, arms folded over the rail. The stars above were sharp, brilliant. Too distant to reach, but too bright to ignore. He didn't move. Didn't speak. He just breathed and watched and thought.

Behind him, the softest sound—a step, barely a whisper—announced the presence of the only person who could walk that quietly.

Sylvalen joined him without a word. She was dressed simply, no ceremonial mantle, no polished armor—just travel-worn elven silk and a quiet gravity that never seemed to leave her. Her silver hair was loose tonight, caught lightly in the breeze. She stood beside him and rested her hands on the railing, mirroring his posture.

They stood like that for several moments. Together, but silent.

"You've been quiet," she said softly at last, not looking at him.

"So have you," Isaac replied.

Sylvalen turned her head slightly, enough to study his profile from the corner of her eye. "Ever since you said you weren't from this world... you've kept something else hidden. Haven't you?"

Isaac's eyes didn't move from the horizon. But his voice changed—softened, and darkened slightly. "Yes."

She waited.

And when he didn't continue, she said, gently, "Will you tell me?"

He was quiet for a long time. Then his hands unclenched, and he let out a slow breath.

"I died," he said simply. "In the world I came from."

Sylvalen didn't interrupt.

"I don't remember the details. Just a street. A flash of cold. The sudden weight of silence. And then... nothing." His voice grew quieter. "No pain. Just the absence of everything. Then I woke up in a place that wasn't a room, wasn't a grave. It was something in between. I wasn't alive."

He finally looked at her, and the expression in his eyes made her breath catch. It wasn't sorrow. It was raw, old memory. "I had been placed inside a corpse. Not buried yet. Not clean, either. My body didn't move. I couldn't speak. Couldn't scream. Couldn't even breathe. I was blind, deaf, paralyzed. A soul stuffed into flesh that had already failed."

Sylvalen raised a hand to her lips, horror flickering behind her composed expression.

"I don't know how long I stayed like that," Isaac continued, voice rougher now, as if the act of recalling it burned his throat. "But eventually… I heard something. A voice, not from the sky or any god—just... a system. Cold. Direct. It offered me a choice. One EX-rank skill. Any of them. No second chance."

"And you chose Resurrection," Sylvalen whispered, beginning to understand.

He nodded. "Because even if I had no strength, no weapon, no magic—if I could die and get back up, I'd eventually make it out. No matter how long it took."

He turned back to the sky. "I died more times than I can count. Suffocating underground. Choking in dirt. My fingers cracked. Nails torn off. My lungs collapsed. My throat burned dry. Each time I revived, I had to dig with whatever little strength my body had regenerated."

Sylvalen's hand trembled slightly on the railing.

"I don't know if it was twenty times. Fifty. A hundred. At some point, I stopped counting. But then I felt it. Air. Light. Cold wind. And for the first time in what felt like eternity… I crawled free."

He smiled bitterly. "And all that waited for me was monsters."

"You fought them?" she asked.

"I had no choice," he said. "I had nothing. No allies. No coin. No name. I scavenged. I ran. I killed. I survived. Until I met her."

He paused.

"Sylvalen… Lira was the first person who helped me without a reason. No agenda. Just a knife through a monster's back and a glare like I was taking too long to thank her. We stuck together. We learned how to live."

"And now… you've become something the world fears and whispers about," she said, her voice quiet, heavy with the weight of everything he'd just shared.

He turned to her at last. His eyes weren't cold. They never had been. Just guarded—until now.

"I never told anyone," he admitted. "Not everything. Not like this."

Sylvalen looked at him, pain and awe written clearly across her face. "Why now?"

He took a breath, then stepped closer, resting his hand over hers.

"Because you're not just my ally. You're not just someone I respect, or admire. You're my lover. And that means… you deserve the truth."

She stood still, shaken—but not from fear.

She brought her hand up slowly, resting it over his, and leaned her forehead against his shoulder.

"I can't imagine what you went through," she said, her voice breaking for the first time. "But I'm here now. And I'm not leaving."

He smiled faintly.

"I know."

They stood there in silence as the skyship floated onward toward Elaraiya, the stars above dimming in reverence, and the forest below humming like it already knew—

A storm, long buried, had survived.

And its name was Isaac.