1 Death and Rebirth

In the middle of a black void, a man stood at the edge of a precipice, gazing down into the abyss. His foot rose from the inky black earth beneath him and hovered over the drop. Just as the man's weight shifted forward, drawing him closer to the edge, his eyes opened, revealing two holes where his eyes should have been. Dark mist seeped from where the man's eyes ought to be.

For a moment he looked down into the abyss with a blank stare, straining his ears when he heard a sweet melody emanating from out of the abyss. He started to wobble and lean closer to the fall, but just as he began to fall a light illuminated him. It burned away the mists that had gathered in his eyes, but it also served a greater function than that. The light awakened the man to his reasoning once more.

The man suddenly recoiled from the precipice and hastily retreated away. He tried to look around to find the source of his light and eventually saw the faint glimmer of light far off in the hazy darkness of the void. The man went to rub his eyes to make sure the whole scene before his eyes was real, only to realize that he had no eyes. . . yet he could still see.

As his panic and fear threatened to wash over him like a wave the light in the distance flared to life, calming him and revealing the path he must take. Just for the barest moment, he saw the path illuminated as the light burned away the darkness. The man could see a thin winding path made of black glossy stone or glass with sharp ragged edges. To either side of the narrow path was a sheer drop into the abyss.

The man hesitated, he wasn't even sure if the path was wide enough for him to tread upon it safely, but as he hesitated the light in the distance began to drift away. The darkness that had been scattered by the light started to return and the man realized that if he didn't move now he would be consumed by the darkness and eventually fall into the abyss. The path wasn't illuminated now, but the glassy material still slightly reflected the dim light. It was hard to make out, but it was enough for the man.

He began to make the perilous journey across the path. He had been right in his assumption that the glassy rock was jagged. With every step, his feet experienced a new kind of torture as they were slashed open and impaled upon the unforgiving rocks. Yet the man didn't dare to slow his pace, in fact, he sped up, doing all he could to reach the glimmer of light in the distance. Eventually, the pain in his feet died, but he dared not look down to find out what had happened to them.

The sound of his wet footfalls was all the reminder he needed of the condition his feet were in. His sacrifice proved to be worth it however as he finally gained enough distance that he could make out the light and its source. A glowing screen floated in the air, radiating a persistent, almost defiant glow, fighting back the encroaching darkness. Just as he reached out to touch the screen he stumbled. As his knees impacted a particularly cruel rock split his knee in two. The pain was overweilming.

The light continued to drift away as the man cradled his now crippled leg. All his pain was forgotten when he saw the light begin to drift away. The longer he remained in this void the more sure he was that he wasn't alone. He didn't know how, but he could feel that he was being stalked. The only thing that kept his attackers at bay was the light. The fear that this revelation brought him trumped all of his feelings of pain.

The man used his arms to drag his body against the sharp rocks until he was directly below the light. At this point, he knew that it was all or nothing. His body couldn't take anymore no matter how much he feared the dark and the creatures that dwelled within. With one final desperate movement, the man reached up and tried to touch the surface of the screen. His hand passed right through it, falling limp to the cold hard ground of the void.

Then the light flared up once more before finally disappearing together with the body of the man. The man's ruined body fell on a new stone floor, not that he could tell now that he was unconscious. This stone was white with flecks of gold in it and had a texture closer to marble than that of blades. There was no darkness surrounding the body of the man as well, only blinding light.

As the man's body lay there his wounds began to heal from exposure to the light. His crimson blood flowed in reverse and the pools that had formed on the floor made their way back into his body. Soon the man looked good as new and began to stir. It didn't take long before he sat up in confusion. He was sure that he had died in that black hell due to his wounds, but now after inspecting his body he was surprised to find that he had none.

Looking up he still saw the screen hovering right above him. After a moment of consideration, the man pulled himself to his feet and stood before the screen, looking down at it. He didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't what he saw before him. A simple message was displayed on the screen.

[Would you like to reclaim your precious memories?]

[Yes] or [No]

The message caused a deep feeling of unease to grow inside of the man, but he wasn't exactly sure why. He hesitantly reached out his hand a clicked [Yes], however, he immediately regretted it. His head felt like it was being split open with an axe as new memories were pumped into his head. He wanted to scream, but he now realized that he had no mouth either, as if to compliment his missing eyes.

Soon the pain stopped, but the man's body didn't stop shaking. He now knew who he was and what he had been doing in the abyss. The man shuddered even more as he recalled his new memories. He was born Jack Otto Cooper and died when he was tossed into a river while tied down by chains. He had died in agony as his lungs filled with filthy polluted water. The water's pollutants had burned his lungs even more, ensuring his painful death. All this happened because he had chosen to love the wrong girl.

He had only been 18 when he died. He had wanted to do so much more, but it had been cut short because someone else didn't like him talking to a girl. There was a bright side to this extremely shitty situation that he found himself in. Jack had read enough fantasy novels and fanfictions to tell what the screen that had saved him was. He rose to look at the system before him on unsteady feet.

The message had disappeared and new information was projected on the screen.

World: [Choose Here]

System Type: [Choose Here] or choose two to combine, in that case [Choose Here], [Choose Here]

Race: [Choose Here]

Appearance: [Character Creation Here]

Perks: [Choose Here], [Choose Here], [Choose Here]

Jack smiled despite the pure misery he found himself in. A system would definitely be useful no matter what world he found himself transported to. Taking a closer look at the options he went through them one by one. For the world option, he decided to go with the world of his favorite web novel, Custom Made Demon King. It's true that it's a dangerous world, but that only depends on what you do and what race you are, and what one of the infinite worlds you find yourself in. He had chosen this world specifically due to its connection to an infinite amount of other worlds.

Next up he looked carefully at the options for the type of system he could choose. Every type of system imaginable was present, but Jack already had a combination of two systems that he wanted to take. The gamer system was one of the systems that allowed hosts to have practically limitless potential. However, Roy's system from Custom Made Demon King was extremely versatile and allowed him to create anything he wishes as well as modify his body and powers as much as he wanted. What Jack wanted was a fusion of these two systems.

When he inputted both systems into the slot a warning popped up on the system screen.

[Merging the Gamer system with another system automatically removes the two starting skills of the Gamer System]

[Merge anyway]

Jack quickly pressed the merge anyway button and moved on to his next selection. Many races popped up when clicking the race menu, but only two truly interested him, demon and angel. Choosing demon would be risky, but he would already know what to expect. Angel on the other hand would be safer due to not really having to worry about backstabs, but it was also unknown. Very little about angels was explored in the web novel. Despite the unknowns, he still choose angel due to it being relatively safer.

Choosing an appearance was easy. Jack wasn't a massive Warhammer fan, but from all the lore he did know Sanguinius was his favorite primarch, plus the art of him looked absolutely badass. In the character creation menu, he modeled Sanguinius the best he could from his favorite piece of artwork. Long golden blond hair that reached halfway down his back, 3.5 meters tall (~11.5 feet), crimson eyes, and two massive white wings extending out his upper back. He also made himself look extremely handsome, like a sculpture crafted by a god. He also filled in his name as Sanguinius once he completed crafting his future body. (Artwork here)

Lastly, Jack looked at the 3 perk slots he had available to use. With the gamer system, he would be reliant on skills, so he choose [Fast Learner] which increased skill leveling speed by 100%. Next, he looked and saw a perk that immediately caught his eye [Double Xp]. This caught his eye, but not for obvious reasons. He wasn't sure what his copy of the Custom Made Demon King system would run off of instead of souls, but this made him think that it would be XP, so he quickly choose this perk. Finally, he wanted to get a perk to improve combat power, but he knew what he needed to get instead, [Mental Immunity]. According to the description he wouldn't be mentally affected by anything too much, including his emotions to a limited degree.

He would be in a world where killing is normal, so Jack knew he needed a perk like this to steel his nerves. Looking back to his filled-out sheet he saw a golden button appear at the bottom, [Finish]. He reached out to press the button but hesitated. Once he clicked this button there would be no going back. He fell into deep thought as he made the decision that would decide the course of his entire second life.

Taking one final deep breath Jack, no Sanguinius now closed his eyes and proceeded with his rebirth by clicking the golden button. He panicked as he found that he was quickly being sucked into the screen of the system, but after he moment of resisting the pull, he stopped and allowed himself to be pulled in. Everything went white and he was blinded until he finally felt his body once more. He seemed to be in an egg right now so he clenched his hand into a fist and punched forward.

He felt the smooth white eggshell shatter under his onslaught. Sanguinius stepped out of the egg to find he was in some sort of temple atop a nest of golden feathers. He looked around and quickly heard a cheer from someone behind him. He spun to find a six-winged angel floating before him. She wore a white gown and had long golden hair, and gave off an incredible aura of power, but the most striking thing about her was her wings. They were jagged like a thorn bush and had no feathers, just holy light.

Before speaking to her Sanguinius quickly muttered "Status" under his breath and watched as the system opened up in front of him.

[Name: Sanguinius

Race: Angel

Rank: Two winged - Angel

Perks: [Fast Learner], [Double XP], [Mental Immunity]

Skills: Flying lv. 1, Holy Light Manipulation lv. 1

XP: 0]

It was a pretty bare-bones system with only the status, inventory, and creation/modification elements from Roy's system. There was a model of himself in the top left corner of the screen. He took a moment to admire himself quickly. He looked exactly like how he had created himself to look earlier, plus now he wore a white toga with gold accents and a golden laurel reef crown. His skin was pale, but also a bit ashen, giving him an interesting look. (Posting the same image as before here too)

A polite cough pulled him from admiring his system.