The Weeping Bell's Assassin

The lantern-lit tavern was choked with mist as Dragos Vranic struck a dark bargain, trading a priceless future-knowledge artifact for a simple iron suppression ring. Dragos had survived the apocalypse and cleared the final dungeon, only to be rewarded with a blade through the back from his trusted Guild Master. Now, thrown back in time, Dragos refuses to be a pawn again. Enrolling in the Umbral Hearth of Kravna, he masks his lethal Shadow Stalker class as a mere gutter-rogue. Told in alternating perspectives between Dragos and Mirela - the brilliant, burdened swordswoman he loves but cannot dare to touch - the story follows Dragos's desperate, silent vigil. But Kravna is infested with arrogant elites like Stjepan, a gilded noble who buys his strength and relentlessly mocks Dragos’s rusted daggers. Dragos bites his tongue - until Stjepan violently kicks Dragos's shadow-hound pup. Snapping, Dragos rips off the suppression ring. The courtyard instantly drowns in suffocating, apocalyptic darkness, bringing the elites to their knees. But as the shadows recede, the system tolls a horrific truth: Dragos misunderstood the rules of his return. Regression wasn't a second chance - so what exactly did the final boss attach to his soul?