Esoth Continent, South Territory.

  At the edge of the Eryndor Empire, a twisted halo of magic was slowly forming.

  First, the outline of bones appeared within the halo, then the muscle fibers wrapping around the bones, and finally the skin covering the body along with short flaxen hair.

  The newly formed Ryan suddenly clutched his neck and staggered backward, only to trip over some rubble and roll twice before coming to a stop.

  He pushed himself up from the ground, his Adam's apple moving as he tried to speak:"I am still alive?"

  When the hoarse voice came from his throat, a flash of wild joy crossed Ryan's eyes. He had been reborn once again.

  But the joy quickly vanished, replaced by a weight that penetrated to his very bones. He knew clearly that this was the last life granted to him by the Grimoire.

  He had fought a prolonged and intense battle with Grand Magus Evelyn.

  Their magical collisions tore apart the clouds, even fracturing the spatial barriers, nearly affecting the Esoth Continent below.

  That had been the strongest life of his nine existences. He had disguised himself as an ordinary apprentice and forced his way from a magic apprentice to Grand Magus, yet in the end he still fell to Evelyn's ultimate ice magic.

  He did not feel regret, though. At the moment before death, using the last remnants of his magic, he took advantage of Evelyn's brief distraction.

  He grabbed her sleeve, and a second before driving the sword through his own heart, he pressed his lips to her cold ones.

  Even in death, he wanted to disrupt her path in magic. That was the stubbornness of his eighth life.

  "Grimoire, come out quickly!" Ryan urgently called to the Grimoire bound to him in his mind.

  【Wait a moment, I am still repairing the magical circuits……】

  The voice of the Grimoire was broken, like a magical communication being interfered with, each syllable stuttering, making Ryan's heart pound wildly.

  Suddenly, the Grimoire's voice became clear, yet carried a trace of desperate roar,【My magical source has already been drained by you! This is the last time I can reshape your body. If you die again, we will both completely dissolve in the magical current!】

  The voice in his mind made Ryan's face go pale. He had never imagined that even the Grimoire which had accompanied him for eight lives had reached its limit.

  "What year is it now?" Ryan asked in his mind while cautiously scanning his surroundings.

  【It has been ten thousand years since your battle with Evelyn.】

  "What?" Ryan's voice suddenly rose several times in volume. In his previous eight rebirths, the interval never exceeded a thousand years, but this time it had spanned ten thousand years?

  He remembered that the Grimoire had said that each rebirth seemed instantaneous, but in fact it consumed the magical source in the spatial rift to reshape his body and adjust the timeline.

  【Think for yourself, what level had you reached in your eighth life?】 The Grimoire's voice carried a hint of fatigue.

  Ryan froze, then realized that in his eighth life he had been promoted to Grand Magus.

  Reshaping a Grand Magus level body required far more magical source than any of his previous lives. Spending ten thousand years made perfect sense.

  In his eighth life, he had relied on disguise and patience to reach the position of Grand Magus in the academy.

  There were three Grand Magi in Ryan's eighth life. The first was a reclusive elder who never appeared in public.

  Ryan remembered clearly that when he became a Grand Magus in his eighth life, there were only three individuals on the Esoth Continent capable of reaching that level.

  The second was Evelyn, the woman who commanded ultimate ice magic.

  The third was himself, a Grand Magus elevated through the Grimoire, who had not even had time to decide on his own magical title before Evelyn's ultimate ice sword pierced his heart.

  What crushed Ryan even more was that he and Evelyn seemed bound by an invisible magical tether.

  No matter where he was reborn on the continent, no matter what life path he chose, he would eventually encounter her.

  Several times, he even suspected that the Grimoire in his mind was secretly controlling everything. Yet every response he received carried absolute certainty:【If this were my doing, I would have long since been torn to pieces by the chaotic magic of the spatial rift!】

  He knew the Grimoire was telling the truth. With every rebirth, a portion of its magical source was consumed, and this time it had been nearly exhausted.

  Ryan thought,"She must be dead by now, right? Even if she is not, after ten thousand years, her magical veins should have long since withered. God willing, may she vanish completely!"

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  No sooner had he spoken than the Grimoire's voice came through his mind:【Wait, I am using the magical source to scan the entire continent for magical fluctuations.】

  A few seconds of silence felt like centuries to Ryan. His heart raced in his chest, and even his breathing became rapid.

  【Scan complete!】

  【Detection shows that there is only one Grand Magus left on the continent, and it is not Evelyn!】

  "She is finally dead!" Ryan could no longer contain his excitement. Scalding tears slid down the corners of his eyes as unrestrained laughter burst from his mouth.

  That laughter carried the frustrations of nine lives, the fears of nine lives, and the unprecedented relief he had never felt before. He laughed for a full two and a half minutes until his throat went hoarse.

  But when he heard a soft crack, Ryan clutched his waist and gasped sharply. The smile on his face did not diminish at all. In his haste, he had twisted the freshly reconstructed muscles of his waist.

  Pain spread along his spine, yet as he looked up at the sky, the sunlight felt unusually warm today.

  He thought of the experiences of his first eight lives, and his eyes grew moist again.

  How many nights had he curled up in the storage rooms of the magic academy or hidden in mountain caves, repeatedly asking himself: why does a being like Evelyn exist?

  In his first life, he had just arrived in this world and believed that the Grimoire he was bound to was a legendary artifact of the protagonist, capable of letting him defeat powerful enemies with ease and marry the daughters of magical nobles as described in the magical tomes.

  But reality delivered the cruelest blow. He saw the stunningly beautiful Evelyn and could not resist the urge to touch her face. At that time, she was only an Apprentice Mage, yet with nothing but a dagger, she pierced his throat.In his second life, knowing he had nine chances to be reborn, he became arrogant.

  In his second life, knowing he had nine chances to be reborn, he became arrogant.

  He ignored the Grimoire's warnings and boldly ventured into magical secret realms, believing that his supposed immortal aura allowed him to do as he pleased.

  Until he encountered Evelyn again. He sought revenge, but by then she had been promoted to Adept Mage, a full level above him.

  He fled overnight across more than ten magical mountain ranges, yet her ultimate ice magic caught up to him, and finally, an ice arrow pierced his skull.

  In his third life, he had grown smarter. He secretly observed Evelyn fighting a fire giant, planning to strike once both were weakened.

  But unexpectedly, Evelyn defeated the fire giant in just three moves.

  Even worse, her ultimate ice sword was sent flying by the giant's power, shooting straight toward him. This time, he did not even have the chance to beg for mercy before the sword decapitated him.

  When Ryan awoke in his fourth life, he was sitting cross-legged in a magical forest overgrown with ferns."Grimoire, why do I encounter Evelyn every time I am reborn?"

  【I do not know either. Perhaps your magical fluctuations resonate in some way?】 The Grimoire's voice carried a rare uncertainty.

  To avoid Evelyn, Ryan had the Grimoire use its remaining magical energy to activate a random teleportation scroll.

  But when the white light of the teleportation faded and Ryan opened his eyes, he found himself facing Evelyn's frost-covered eyes.

  At that moment, the ultimate ice sword in Evelyn's hand still dripped with the blood of magical beasts.

  Seeing Ryan, there was not a hint of surprise in her eyes, only cold annoyance. She lifted her wrist lightly, and the sword stabbed straight into Ryan's heart.

  Ryan clutched the sword piercing his chest, blood gushing wildly from the corner of his mouth, and his mind was filled only with curses directed at the Grimoire:【You traitor! Did you tamper with the teleportation scroll?】

  The only response he received before his consciousness faded was the Grimoire's apologetic voice.

  The fifth life ended even more absurdly. He had hidden in the loft of a tavern in the magic city, thinking the crowd would cover his magical fluctuations. He never expected Evelyn to burst in while pursuing a dark mage.

  In the chaos, he was shoved into Evelyn by the crowd. Before he could explain, Evelyn's boot inlaid with magical gemstones kicked him in the chest.

  The ultimate ice magic embedded in the boot immediately froze his heart. He did not even see Evelyn's expression before losing consciousness completely.

  Later, the Grimoire told him that was Evelyn's newly acquired Frost Spike Boots, which carried a freezing strike spell.

  In his sixth life, he tried to be smart, hiding in a nomadic magical tribe in the desert, surviving by disguising himself as an apprentice of the tribe's shamans.

  But just when he thought he could live through this life safely, Evelyn passed through the tribe in search of the Flame Heart deep in the desert.

  He tried to hide using the tribe's sand barrier magic, but Evelyn still noticed the anomaly.

  A sword aura shot from her fingertips, piercing through the sand barrier and his skull.

  At the moment of death, he only saw Evelyn's back as she walked away, without a single chance to explain.

  In his seventh life, he disguised himself as an ordinary farmer with a mask and dug an underground tunnel in a remote valley to study magic in hiding.

  Evelyn's breakthrough to Grand Magus would trigger an elemental storm, but he did not expect her to choose to break through directly above his valley.

  When nine destructive lightning elemental storms exploded overhead, Ryan almost lost his mind.

  The lightning storms caused by Evelyn's breakthrough collapsed his underground tunnel. He had no chance to escape and was shredded into pieces by the storm, leaving not even ashes.

  【Perhaps this is the magical tether of fate.】 The Grimoire's voice carried unprecedented helplessness.

  In his eighth life, Ryan completely abandoned all hope for luck. He refused to use the teleportation scrolls and magical maps given by the Grimoire.

  The disguise mask stayed on his face at all times, even while sleeping.

  He traveled by foot, changing locations every three days, moving from the southern wastelands to the northern snow mountains, from the eastern magical archipelagos to the western Death Desert, covering nearly every corner of the Esoth Continent.

  This was the survival law he had learned from his deaths in the first seven lives: never stay in one place, never use anything that might reveal magical fluctuations.

  He did not even dare to marry or have children because he knew that as long as Evelyn found him, anyone close to him would be affected.

  Thus, he lived cautiously for over a thousand years, occasionally advancing from a magic apprentice to Grand Magus with rewards granted by the Grimoire.

  When he broke through, he deliberately chose the underwater magical ruins and set up three layers of silent barriers to barely survive his own elemental storm.

  But the expansion after the breakthrough made him forget the lessons of the previous seven lives.

  Remembering being killed by Evelyn seven times and all the absurd and frustrating deaths, a flame of revenge ignited in his heart:"If I do not avenge this, I am no Grand Magus!"

  He charged directly to Evelyn's magical palace atop the Peak of Ultimate Ice and used magical energy to detonate crystals, attacking the palace.

  He forgot that he had just broken through and his magical energy was unstable, while Evelyn had long been an established Grand Magus.

  The battle lasted only ten minutes. He was frozen by Evelyn's ultimate ice magic, and the ultimate ice sword once again pierced his heart.

  Seeing escape was impossible, Ryan unleashed his final magical energy, broke free from the ice, and fiercely embraced Evelyn, pressing a bloodied kiss to her cold lips.

  He thought that even in death, he would make this woman remember him.

  But he did not expect that after his death, Evelyn would freeze his corpse with ultimate ice magic and swing her sword at it.

  To Ryan, it was no different from desecration.