
by O_del
Death is not a second chance. It is erasure. Leif was a failure—a bitter alcoholic drowning in self-pity who drove away the only person who ever cared about him. When a sudden blackout tears him from his decaying apartment and drops him into a seemingly heavenly forest, he believes he has finally found salvation.He couldn't be more wrong. Within minutes, he is torn apart by grotesque monsters and learns a horrifying truth: he has not been saved.He has been cursed. Leif awakens in Malkuth, a twisted world where the sun rises in the west and time itself flows backward. The world is divided between the holy lands of Sephirot, the burdened domain of Tumah, and the monster-ridden wastelands of Qliphoth. Though he cannot see it himself, Leif carries an immense amount of Tumah—a spiritual corruption visible to everyone except its owner. To others, he is not merely suspicious. He is an anomaly, a walking nightmare marked by sin.To survive, Leif must rely on a terrifying form of immortality. The world possesses a fixed Respawn Point that determines where he returns after death, while Leif creates personal Save Points whenever he kills a Qliphoth, absorbs Tumah, or commits a sin. Whenever he dies, time rewinds by an increasingly greater amount until it eventually reaches his latest Save Point. But there is a cruel rule:Everything Leif does after a Save Point is erased when he dies. Everything done by others remains. If an enemy murders his ally and Leif later kills that enemy, all of it will vanish the moment he dies. The murderer returns alive, unaware of their erased death, while the ally remains dead forever.Leif can undo himself. He cannot undo the world.Accompanied by Kimeri, a strange anomalous spirit, Leif is forced to navigate a society of religious zealots, covenant-bound knights, sin-wielding mercenaries, and grotesque monsters born from corruption itself. To survive, he must turn his own deaths into weapons, create save points through bloodshed and sin, and claw his way out of the abyss. He was a failure in his first life.in this one, he may have to become a monster.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 13 Oct 2026, 01:58 UTC
Entry forecast updated 13 Oct 2026, 01:58 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 13% of similar stories
not enough data yet
needs about a week of observations
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 10–19 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.