Ashen Crimson stood before me, silent for a moment, his crimson eyes scanning me with an unnerving glare before he spoke with a voice too low and pale, a whisper coming from the very deep bottom of a well.
"As you already know my name," he began, "let me tell you who I actually am."
He turned his back on me as if he were looking into his own past, a past only he could see--a past smeared with blood and sagged with remorse.
"I was once just like you" - a human, a man with ambition and intelligence, with zeal. I had it all- a love that would move mountains, power that could shatter kingdoms, wealth that could have bought the stars. Everything that people crave. But I was a fool blinded by brilliance.
His fists were clenched at his sides, the memory of his own folly a fresh wound.
" Everyone whom I ever cared about either died because of my stupidity… or by my own hands. I was the villain of my world, a world called Zerawell. I could have chosen differently. I could have been their shield, their champion. But I chose…" himself. "I chose power. I chose destruction.".
He looked at me with those empty, crimson eyes: "I made a pact with the Fallen Gods- twisted light and screaming shadows-through which I acquired strength to create chaos. Layer after layer, they have peeled away my humanity. Layer after layer replaced it with a cold, insatiable hunger for more. I always lose when I fight the Champion of Zerawell, chosen by the light against me-his chosen hero. First time I've lost it, second time, third. All eight times I've been defeated. Every fresh humiliation brings another log to my pyre of hatred and desperation."
The bitterness in his voice was laced with the centuries of regret. "So I begged. I crawled to more Fallen Gods, from other realms. I offered them my soul, my sanity, my very being. In return, they gave me power, and slowly, I lost myself. My humanity dissolves like salt in water. I kill everyone in my way. For revenge. For ego. For power.".
He laughed-hollowly, brokenly, with sound echoing in the silent void.
"Even the gods of Zerawell themselves came down to stop me. But it was too late by then. I had surpassed them. I had reached a stage beyond immortality, a stage in which pain, love, and sorrow are but distant memories. I felt nothing. Not even guilt. Not even myself.".
He raised his hand, staring at his palm as if it held the weight of a thousand massacred worlds.
"I became unstoppable. And when there was nothing left to fight, I destroyed my world: the sky burned crimson, the seas boiled to dust, and the last sound was the echo of my own hollow laughter. Betrayed everyone who ever stood by me. When the dust settled, I was left standing on a dead planet, cursing a monster I became.".
He now faced me, his voice trembling with years; now finally human. "I wanted to die. But death… had no more options.".
He drew a slow, shuddering breath.
"In time I'm going to hunt down the very Fallen Gods that corrupted me." I absorbed them and became something above the gods."
"You might ask- why? Why would I keep going? Why chase more power?"
He stepped forward, and his eyes locked with mine.
"Because I wanted to change my fate."
With that he fell silent, an emotional deathly hope now hanging for a moment in the air.
"I made a deal. With ancient gods from other realms, beings who exist outside of time and space. I would annihilate the evil gods that plagued the multiverse… and in return, they would grant me a chance. One chance-to regress, to return to the beginning of my story, and make it right."
"But when the moment came, the regression failed."
He clenched his jaw, the muscle twitching in his perfect face. "Why? Because my soul was no longer powerful; it was cursed, shattered, confused, monstrous. My very existence was a paradox that threatened to unravel reality. Even the gods trembled before it."
With that in mind, he just turned away, his shoulders slumping under the interesting story of his final failure. "With no choice left, then, they devised a final plan-to find a soul from another world. A pure soul. One powerful enough to carry my burden… to lift the curse. To change the ending I could not."
But as he turned back toward me again, his gaze seemed piercing, hopeful, and perhaps terrifying
"That soul… is you."
My mind reeled and the ghostly form in which I stood specked about like a dying flame. "Why me?" I whispered, hardly a breath. "Why should I help you?" I suffered more than you can imagine, in my life even lost everyone I ever cared about. Honestly, I don't care. I just want to die in peace."
He chuckled darkly, a sound that held no humor, only the bitter taste of irony. "Hah. The goddess told me you were a genius… but maybe she chose the wrong man."
His smile twisted. "You ask what's in it for you. I don't know. But what I do know… is that if you refuse—death will not come to you peacefully. I will make sure your afterlife is a pain worse than hell."
I gulped. His aura, even weakened and spectral, sent chills crawling down my translucent spine. But fear wasn't enough to break me. Not anymore.
I was Kai. And I have survived a life worse than death. If this man thought he could threaten me… he was underestimating the resilience of a broken soul.
I stood straighter, my form solidifying with newfound resolve. "Fine," I said. "But you said you won't return to the past yourself. So why bother? You won't even be able to see those people again—the ones you cared about."
He smiled for the first time—not with cruelty, but with something… softer. A genuine, heartbreaking warmth.
"You wouldn't understand," he said. "Even if I can't see them with these eyes, even if I never hear their voices again… the thought that they can live, that they can be saved—that alone is enough to bring me peace."
I didn't respond. Part of me still thought this was a dream, a elaborate hallucination before the final darkness. But something in his words struck a chord deep within me, an echo of my own mother's final, selfless act. Was this monster, this world-destroyer, capable of the same pure love?
I looked at him, my spectral form wavering. "How are you so sure I'll succeed? I'm not strong. Not like you."
He chuckled, the sound lighter this time. "Because you don't understand true strength yet. It doesn't come from muscle or magic—it comes from here."
He pointed to his head.
"The goddess searched your memories… and out of quintillions of souls across universes, you were chosen. That's no coincidence."
He raised his hand, and a complex, swirling glyph of golden light materialized in the air, a fusion of ancient runes and cosmic geometry. It pulsed with a life of its own. "Besides… I'll be helping you. A fragment of me—my familiar—will be embedded into your soul. It'll act as your guide… a system that leads you on the right path."
The light didn't just head for my chest; it tore through the void, a comet of pure energy. When it struck, it wasn't just pain. It was an avalanche of memories, emotions, and power. A billion lifetimes of rage, sorrow, and regret crashed into my soul. I saw faces I'd never known, felt love for people who never existed in my world, and wielded power that could shatter stars.
The world around us didn't just shake; it fractured, the golden light cracking like glass as reality itself buckled under the strain of our merging.
"You won't be alone, Kai. But remember…"
His voice echoed into my fading consciousness as the golden void shattered around me.
"…the path ahead is painful. And the burden is heavy. But if anyone can rewrite fate…"
"…it's you."