The world was quiet.
Too quiet.
Not in that eerie, horror-movie way — no. This quiet was more... dramatic. Like the universe had paused its infinite scroll just to watch him. A man seated cross-legged on the jagged peak of Mount Gulgoroth, the most obnoxiously overnamed mountain in the Western Skyreach. His robe billowed violently in the storm, though there was no wind. His hair floated unnaturally. His eyes, glowing a subtle blue, stared into nothing — and everything.
He was meditating. Or pretending to. Or maybe he forgot what he was doing entirely. Hard to tell.
The man's name was unspoken, legendary, and possibly unpronounceable due to an unfortunate amount of consonants. But those who dared whisper it called him Sevven of the Severed Realms, which sounds way cooler than it actually is. In reality, it was just a fancy way of saying he'd been kicked out of three continents for "accidental" magical explosions and one questionable relationship with a sentient tree…
But now… now Sevven had a plan.
He was going to die.
But like… properly.
Not from poison, not from old age, and definitely not from being crushed under a falling elephant during a teleportation test—again. This time, he was going to orchestrate his death — dive voluntarily into the jaws of Tribulation Lightning, and reincarnate into a perfect body with his soul fully intact. Clean slate. Cosmic rebirth. Dramatic music. You know, the works.
He'd read about it in the forbidden Codex of Ak'Tanar, between two pages that kept biting each other. The theory was elegant: Death by celestial judgment would purge all imperfections — if one could survive it. But nobody ever had. Because dying was easy. Dying correctly? That was the real art.
But to die properly, one must first do something far more dangerous than facing death itself:
Visit an alchemist.
Specifically, Varka the Alchemical Binder — a man so brilliant that the laws of reality often took coffee breaks when he started experimenting. Varka once accidentally turned a lake into soup. Not metaphorically. Literal soup. A thousand fish died. Two evolved into sentient sea monks. It was a whole thing.
Sevven arrived at Varka's workshop through the standard route — teleportation circle shaped like a screaming goat skull, because subtlety was overrated.
The inside was exactly what you'd expect from an alchemist's lair: glowing vials, humming runes, a few suspiciously twitching jars, and one ominous cat that blinked sideways. A harp played itself in the corner, weeping quietly. A floating eyeball wearing spectacles hovered near the ceiling, reading upside-down blueprints of something labeled Plan B: The Bigger Boom.
"Sevven," Varka said without turning. He was hunched over a slab of something alive. Or at least it had been alive before he'd started slathering it in glowing paste.
"I need to die," Sevven said casually.
"Don't we all," Varka muttered. "Pass me the jar labeled 'Regret'."
"No, really," Sevven pressed. "I want to reincarnate. But properly this time. I'm tired of dragging soul fragments and cursed karma from one life to another. I want the real deal. A clean reboot. Preferably with better abs."
Varka stopped. Slowly, he turned around. His goggles magnified his eyes to comical proportions. One lens was cracked and leaking what looked like sarcasm.
"You want to challenge the Tribulation Lightning head-on?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You know it's not just a lightning bolt, right? It's the will of the heavens given form. A cosmic judgment compressed into a billion volts of pissed-off reality. It doesn't just zap you — it scans your soul, rates your past lives, and then tries to delete you if you've been mildly annoying."
Sevven raised an eyebrow. "And?"
Varka stared. "...You once killed a man because he sneezed during your monologue."
"Exactly. That's why I'm prepping." He threw down a bag full of spirit stones, a few forbidden grimoires, and a disturbingly lifelike sculpture of his own face. "Make me something. An elixir, a pill, a gas, a powder, I don't care. Just brew me an alchemical miracle. Something that can help my soul bind properly to the next vessel. No karma baggage. No soul fragmentation. No reincarnating as a worm."
Varka squinted. "You want me to bind your soul during reincarnation. You realize that's like asking me to nail water to fire while being punched by god."
"Small 'g'," Sevven said solemnly.
Varka paused. "…Right."
And so, Varka got to work.
Golden smoke, alive with alchemical energy, spiraled through the air. In this realm, Alchemical Energy transcended mere utility; it was the fundamental connective force, the metaphysical bond between essence and form. It was the unseen hand knitting atoms together, the silent understanding that bound neutrons to positively charged protons or negatively charged antiprotons, and the intrinsic knowledge that defined fire as fire. It was the invisible thread that allowed soulmates to feel each other's pain across vast cosmic distances. A relative of magic, perhaps, but more profound, more ancient, existing in both the tangible and the intangible, much like Mana itself.
Alchemists didn't just mix ingredients. They whispered to the laws of the universe and offered them a better deal.
Varka chanted in six languages, none of which had vowels. He stirred the brew with a feather made of forgotten dreams… literally, added a dash of liquefied destiny, and dropped in a grain of salt from a god's last meal. At the nucleation point of the solution, the ceiling opened to reveal a mini black hole that burped and vanished.
Hours passed. Maybe days. Time was subjective in Varka's lab. At one point, Sevven aged backward for ten minutes just to kill time.
The alchemist finally reappeared, his eyes shining a radiant gold with vermillion runes floating around, Alchemy itself was acknowledging his creation and a small crystalline vial was clutched in their hand. Within it, a shimmering silver liquid pulsed with a life of its own, its gentle rhythm echoing a heartbeat. Peering closer, one might discern the intricate arrangement of its molecules — a hexagonal lattice of hydrogen bonds, a structure mirroring the familiar architecture of water.
"This," he said, "is The Elixir of Proper Death™". Trademark pending. Drink it exactly five seconds before the lightning hits. It will bind your soul's essence and encode your current will, memories, and karma-state into an unfragmented core. If it works, you'll reincarnate perfectly, with your soul bonded tighter than the Oracle king's reality tax code."
Sevven took the vial and held it up. "It's beautiful."
"It smells like boiled regret and will give you hallucinations of your most embarrassing moments."
"Perfect."
And so, with preparation complete, Sevven returned to Mount Gulgoroth.
He sat. He breathed. He laughed a little.
"I'm about to die on purpose," he said to no one. "Again."
This time, he felt it coming before it came. The wind didn't just blow, but space itself began to ripple. Thunderclouds didn't just gather — they formed from threads of celestial will, condensing like a verdict about to be read.
The sky cracked open like an ancient scroll. Blinding light laced with judgment spilled forth. The scent of ozone, old parchment, and impending doom flooded the air.
The heavens sent down its intent:
{Oh, it's you again.}
Sevven's grin widened, a mischievous glint in his eyes. With a flourish, he raised a single finger skyward... the middle one.
"Come on then. Let's do this properly."