So I gazed into the hidden frawork of the world.
I saw a glimpse of Underrality when I was only in my late teens.
You’d think I couldn’t possibly have a bigger feat under my belt at such a young age, right? Because obviously, it couldn’t get any better than this, right?
Wrong. It could, and it did.
There was a throbbing sharpness in my only remaining left arm — as my artificial ice one had crumbled away — a strange feeling of coldness that shaded the white-hot agony of being speared.
It prompted to shift my focus toward it, and that’s when I saw sothing even stranger than the strings of runes making up our material world.
What could be stranger than that?
Oh, I don’t know. Possibly an eerie black halo emanating from my flesh, swathing my golden greatsword tightly like a ghostly skin.
To top it off, every thread of those shimring letters — be it the spider-silk-thin ones of the fog or the thick chains of the glacier — was being torn open under the touch of my dark energy-wrapped blade.
My sword was quite literally unraveling the runes, the very codes of reality.
Death...
No, this was beyond simple death.
This was outright Erasure.
This was so kind of cosmic power to end existence itself.
I don’t know how I reached that conclusion, but it was pretty obvious by then. I understood, in that world-shattering mont, what Oldest Death actually ant.
It ant nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.
All of this epiphany happened in the span of a single blink.
By the ti I was done — by the ti I closed and opened my eyes again — the world had returned to normal.
I only saw Underrality for a mont.
After that, my vision returned to normal.
And though my flesh was no longer visually emitting any primordial force, I could still feel the bone-chilling coldness in my arm and the low hum of my sword vibrating.
I could still feel the blessing of Oldest Death coursing through , using as a vessel to channel sothing far more ancient and absolute than my little mortal mind could ever hope to understand.
So while I could no longer see it, it was still there... whatever it was supposed to be.
In the sa instance, I also felt the most prominent enchantnt of Aurieth take its full effect:
[Final Gambit – When the wielder faces mortal peril, Aurieth’s power surges exponentially, turning the tide of battle in their favor. The closer to death, the greater its lethality.]
I was not just close to death. I was on the very verge of it.
Consequently, the strength that had left earlier returned a thousandfold, like floodgates bursting open all at once.
Essence didn’t simply flow back into my core, it detonated. My spent reserves roared to life like a sun exploding inside my veins.
I can confidently say I had never felt as powerful, as invincible, as I did in that heartbeat.
And I made good use of that explosive strength.
I planted my feet firmly in the frozen ground, gritted against the pain, and turned around in a snap.
The needle was still lodged in , and the God was still holding onto it.
So, when I suddenly whirled with all that reborn vigor, even a fallen deity as imposing as him was yanked forward.
He tried to wrestle into control through the obsidian needle lodged in my chest, but I won that contest when his grip slipped completely.
The God staggered forward, and I continued my twirl until I aligned behind him.
Then, using the flow of my spin, I flashed my sword forward... and cut him down from the base of his waist.
KALCH—!!
Yeah, that was it.
There was no flash of light. No thunder or rain. No divine scream or unholy resistance.
There was... nothing.
Nothing but a spray of black, rotting ichor as Aurieth arced through. Then, it was done.
The God Who Eats Is was no more.
I had killed n before.
And if you asked to tell the difference between ending a mortal’s life and ending a god’s, I couldn’t have told you anything.
Even now, I can’t.
Because there is no difference.
A dead god is just as dead as a dead man.
Death is equal to all — that saying holds true, I guess.
Anyway, that was it for my first fight against a god, albeit a fallen one.
The corrupted deity stood there, frozen, his many arms still clutching the divine weapons... before they started falling from his grasp one by one, clattering to the ice with dull clangs.
A thin black line appeared across his midsection as the God split in silence.
His upper half slid forward while his lower half began tipping backward. As a spitting image of what he was trying to do to re monts ago, he fell in uneven pieces.
...And I did, too.
•••
I couldn’t recall how long it had been after that. Maybe only a minute, maybe a bit more than that.
What I could recall, however, was that I was on my side. Missing one arm, I was desperately clinging to Aurieth with the other.
On the ice of the glacier that had very slowly started to lt without maintaining it, I was crawling toward the shore of the Lake of Grief.
I could tell my skewered heart had just stopped beating in my chest. The only reason I was still awake and scuffling was because of [Final Gambit] still being in effect.
The closer and closer I was pushed to death, the more and more power I was getting imbued with.
The enchantnt was paradoxical... but it had its limit. I could feel it slowly waning.
I could feel the finality settling in.
Between my teeth, I clenched a ring. That was the Ring of Healing.
As its na suggested, it had the power to nd wounds and cure diseases, basically recovering any damage done to the body and restoring it to its natural state.
The only problem was that it was a Divine Artifact, aning it had to be bound to a soul.
So, both its capacity to restore and the speed of restoration depended on the Rank of its user.
The other only problem was that I couldn’t bind it to myself because — if I hadn’t ntioned it enough already — I was dying.
No big deal, I know.
But I didn’t have enough in to bind it and then heal myself in addition to it. I’d lose consciousness long before that.
Sure, I could try.
But what if I started the binding ritual and passed out?
If soone ca to save , it’d then take more ti for their soul to undo the progress mine had made. And if I succeeded in binding it completely, no one else could claim it until after I died.
They’d have to rip the ring off my lifeless finger, wasting precious ti they could have spent on my glorious resurrection.
So, my only real option was to get it to soone else.
Now the other, other only problem was that there was no ’soone else’ for as far as I could see.
They all were probably still in the canyon, either dead already or too busy dying like to move.
Which, by the way, irked to no end!
Here I was, victorious against a fucking deity, and every single one of them combined couldn’t even defeat one person?!
Yes, yes, I know that one person was the unfairly strong protagonist buffed by two unfairly strong deities.
But still! Still!
Thak—
"Agrhk!"
Reaching the edge of the ice island, I slumped.
There was a broad stretch of silver water between and the solid ground of the sandy coastline.
I was in no condition to swim through it.
Not only anatomically, but also because the last vestiges of the [Final Gambit] had nearly dried out.
This was, quite literally, the end of the line for .
I... was really about to die...
As I lay there on the frozen ground, my life slowly ebbing away, I felt a rush of panic and inexplicable fear.
There were a multitude of emotions bombarding my head — sadness, horror, and desperation to na a few — but only one triumphed over all else.
Regret.
I realized I had tasted all of these sentints once already.
It was during the final monts of my past life.
I rembered when I had collapsed after being run down by a truck, my mangled body bleeding on the ceramic floor of that convenience store... I had regretted everything back then too, as I was doing now.
Of course, this regret was different.
Back then, I regretted that I hadn’t done anything aningful in life.
Right now, I regretted not living because I was too occupied in pursuit of that aning.
Before I awakened my past life’s mories, I was so busy striving for my father’s validation every single day, busy being jealous of my sister, busy feeling inadequate and bitter.
And after my mories returned, I started plotting for Ishtara, started scheming to steer the main characters into directions I decided fit my future plans better, started setting up goals and sches and contingencies.
Sure, I might’ve gotten a little complacent along the way and failed to stop the massacre... I also might’ve been a little scared to face my feelings head-on regarding several matters, as that had been my defense chanism since I was little.
But... I didn’t want to anymore.
I...
I didn’t want to die...
I was just a kid, for fuck’s sake! I didn’t want to worry about gods and monsters! I didn’t want to carry the burden of hard choices! I didn’t want anything to do with glory or destiny!
...I just wanted to make friends, people whose company I’d enjoy as much as they’d enjoy mine. I wanted actual, serious romance. I just wanted to live the sitcom life, not a tragedy.
That selfish, childish wish rose up from sowhere deep inside , raw and ugly and desperate all at once.
My fingers twitched weakly against the ice. The ring slipped from between my teeth and landed beside my face with a soft clink.
I didn’t know when my cheeks turned slick with wetness, but I did notice when warm tears started rolling down onto the frozen expanse.
How pathetic.
After dooming a whole city for a belief I deed justified, after killing thousands upon thousands of innocent n and won and children... here I was, whining because I didn’t get to live.
How fucking pathetic, indeed.
I would’ve laughed if I had any air in my lungs.
My fingers let go of Aurieth, and I had all but accepted my fate... when, out of nowhere, I heard the swishing of footsteps on sand.
I lifted my head with all the energy I had left.
My vision was bleary, sared with tears and blood and darkness, but I could still make out the silhouette of a tall young man, his body covered in thick white fur and his eyes the shade of the lightest blue — like a young Arctic wolf pup.
He seed to have rushed to the shore and was now flicking his head around in a frenzy, only stopping once his gaze landed on .
Kang!
Oh my god, Kang!
I had never been happier to see him!
Just like the mutt— I an, just like a graceful canine he was, Kang started racing in my direction while shedding his clothes.
Yes! Yes! That was my boy! My homie! I always believed in him!
After quickly breaststroking through the water, Kang pulled himself up from the edge of the small ice island and skidded to a stop near , claws digging into the chilly ground as his eyes widened in horror upon taking in my condition.
I could do nothing but lay there motionless. My breathing had stopped, and had my heartbeat.
I had all but blacked out and may as well have been dead. But internally, I was screaming in joy!
...At least until his eyes fell from my face and onto the ring.
He seed like he was contemplating sothing deeply controversial for a few seconds... then he grabbed the ring and, without a word, turned around to swim back to the shore.
For half a second, my brain didn’t process what I was seeing. Then it did.
TH-THAT BASTARD WAS LEAVING ! THAT INBRED, FETID MUTT! THAT DAMNED WASTE OF SPACE WAS—
I died.
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