The air smelled like burnt toast.
Not the grand, cosmic ether I once breathed as stardust, nor the sacred incense of divine halls. Just… toast. Charred, mundane, and annoyingly human. My dorm room at Corona Magic Academy was cramped, its peeling walls plastered with posters of famous mages flexing spells I could dismantle with a sneeze. I slumped onto my creaky bed, glaring at the ceiling.
This is what I get for playing mortal.
"Kaito! Get your lazy ass to class!" A fist hammered on my door, followed by the shrill voice of Lila, my self-appointed "academy guardian." Her neon-pink hair probably glowed in the dark. "Professor Grimshaw's gonna turn you into a toad again!"
I groaned. Last week, Grimshaw had turned me into a toad. For sleeping. Which, to be fair, I'd earned after staying up all night fixing the academy's crumbling barrier spells. Not that anyone noticed. Or cared.
"Five more minutes," I mumbled, rolling over.
The door exploded inward.
Not metaphorically. Literally exploded. Splinters rained down as Lila stomped in, her wand crackling with violet lightning. Her mismatched eyes—one gold, one silver—narrowed. "You're late. Again."
I sat up slowly, letting the threadbare blanket fall. "You know, most people knock."
"Most people don't sleep through fire-alarm-level yelling." She grabbed my arm, her grip deceptively strong for someone built like a twig. "Move. Now."
I let her drag me into the hallway, where students in black-and-gold robes scrambled like ants. Corona Magic Academy's towers loomed outside the arched windows, piercing a sky choked with mana-storms. The air buzzed with spells—first-years botching levitation charms, third-years hurling fireballs at each other, and somewhere, someone screaming as a summoning backfired.
Same old, same old.
"Why do you even care if I show up?" I yawned as Lila hauled me toward the Grand Lecture Hall. "Grimshaw hates me."
"Because I hate wasted potential!" She whirled, jabbing a finger at my chest. "You've got mana thicker than the Headmaster's beard, but you'd rather nap than cast a damn spell! What's your deal?!"
My deal? I almost laughed. If she knew the truth—that I'd forged galaxies before her ancestors were primordial soup—she'd faint. But rules were rules: incarnated as a "commoner," my memories sealed, my power locked behind a mental vault labeled DO NOT TOUCH. All part of the "mortal experience."
Thanks, past me. Real fun.
"Maybe I'm just lazy," I said, shrugging.
Lila's eye twitched. "You're impossible."
The lecture hall doors swung open, revealing a cavernous room packed with students. Professor Grimshaw—a skeletal man with a beard like a dead octopus—paused mid-lecture to glare at us.
"Ah, the sleeping prodigy graces us." His voice dripped venom. "Tell me, Kaito, since you clearly find my class beneath you… what's the counter-spell to a third-tier necrotic curse?"
Silence fell. All eyes turned to me.
I blinked. "Uh… sunlight?"
Snickers erupted. Grimshaw's face purpled. "Sunlight?! This is advanced necromancy, not a vampire's allergy! Detention. Again. And tonight, you'll clean the Hellhound kennels. Without magic."
Lila facepalmed. I smirked.
Worth it.
The problem with being an amnesiac god? You know you're forgetting something. Something… big.
It clawed at the edges of my dreams—flashes of a throne carved from dying stars, a war that shattered realities, a woman's voice whispering, "They're coming for you."
I woke in a cold sweat, the dorm shaking. Not from my nightmares. From something else.
"K-Kaito…!" Lila burst into my room, her robes singed. "The academy's under attack! Demons—they're tearing through the east wing!"
I sat up. "Demons? Here?"
"The barrier's down! They're heading for the Vault of Souls!" She tossed me a wand. "Come on!"
I stared at the wand. "I don't need this."
"What?"
"I said I don't—"
A roar shook the building. The wall exploded.
I shoved Lila aside as a clawed hand the size of a carriage slammed into my bed, crushing it to splinters. The demon loomed in the hole—a hulking, eyeless beast with jagged obsidian skin and a mouth full of screaming faces. Its breath reeked of sulfur and rotting hope.
Lila screamed, firing lightning. It bounced off the demon's hide.
"Pathetic mortal magic," the demon rumbled. "Where is he? The Creator. We smell his stench here."
My chest tightened. Creator.
The demon lunged. Lila dove, but I stood still. Annoyance flared in my gut.
I just bought that bed.
Something clicked in my mind. A door cracked open.
I raised my hand.
"Silence," I said.
The world obeyed.
The demon froze mid-lunge. The screams died. Even the dust hung motionless.
Lila gaped. "W-what did you…?"
I stepped toward the demon, my bare feet crunching glass. "You're looking for the Creator?" My voice echoed, deeper now, layered with a thousand harmonies. "Funny. I've been looking for him too."
The demon's jaws creaked open. "Y-you… It can't be! He's gone! The Creator died!"
I smiled. Cold. Empty. A smile that had watched universes burn.
"Death's a relative term."
I snapped my fingers.
The demon disintegrated. Not into ash, but into stardust, swirling into a tiny supernova above my palm before winking out.
Silence.
Then the academy alarm blared. Distant explosions. More demons.
Lila stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "What… are you?"
I flexed my hand. Power hummed under my skin, familiar and terrifying. The vault in my mind was crumbling. Memories surged—wars, creations, a betrayal…
"They're coming for you."
"Kaito!" Lila grabbed my shoulder. "Talk to me!"
I met her gaze. "We need to get to the Vault. Now."
"Why?"
"Because whatever's in there?" I strode past her, the air bending around me like a bow. "It's not just a relic. It's bait."
And I finally remembered who I was baiting.
Chaos reigned outside. Students battled demons in the courtyards, spells clashing against claws. I moved like a ghost, Lila struggling to keep up.
"Kaito! Slow down!"
"Can't," I said, weaving through debris. The Vault's spire gleamed ahead. "They're after the Godslayer Blade."
"The what?!"
"A weapon that can kill me. Or… us."
"Us?!"
A demon pounced. I flicked my wrist. It vaporized.
"Long story."
We reached the Vault's entrance, where Headmaster Orion—a mountain of a man with a molten lava beard—was dueling three demons at once. His staff blazed with runes.
"Headmaster!" Lila yelled.
"Lila! Get back!" he bellowed. "These are no ordinary—urk!"
A demon slammed him into the wall. The others surged toward the Vault door.
I sighed. "Hey, uglies."
They turned. I snapped.
Two exploded. The third lunged. I caught its throat.
"Kneel," I commanded.
The demon collapsed, its bones cracking. It whimpered.
Headmaster Orion stared. "Who… what are you?"
I crushed the demon's neck. "Someone who's really tired of this Monday."
The Vault door was sealed with blood magic. I placed my palm on it.
"Kaito, don't!" Lila cried. "That's a ninth-tier curse! You'll die!"
The runes flared… then shattered. The door crumbled.
I stepped into the Vault.
Inside, floating above a pedestal, was a shard of black crystal—the Godslayer Blade. And standing beside it, a woman in a crimson cloak, her back to me.
"Took you long enough," she said.
My blood froze. I knew that voice.
She turned. Her face was mine.
"Hello, me," the Creator's Echo smiled. "Let's talk about the apocalypse."