The screams of burning Oakhaven echoed in the distance, but in Morath's ears, there was only the deafening silence of an empty world.
He gently laid Sarya's cold, lifeless body onto the blood-soaked grass, pressing one final, trembling kiss to her pale forehead. Then, like a madman possessed by absolute despair, he ran.
Branches whipped against his face; sharp stones tore open his bare feet. He stumbled, fell, crawled through the mud, and dragged his broken frame through the pitch-black canopy of the ancient woods until he burst into the secluded clearing beneath the weeping willow.
There stood the moss-covered altar of the Lord of the Pale Threshold.
Morath fell hard onto his knees before the grotesque stone idol, slamming his fists into the freezing soil until his knuckles broke.
"Look at me!" Morath screamed, his voice cracking into jagged, bloody sobs. "Look at the weakling who crawled to your feet! She told me to save them... she told me to protect the village... but I couldn't even keep her warm! I AM WEAK! I have always been a useless, fragile piece of garbage!"
Tears poured down his dirt-streaked cheeks, mixing with Sarya's drying blood on his tunic. He buried his forehead against the freezing stone pedestal, weeping until his lungs burned.
Then, slowly, the weeping stopped.
The tears dried under a sudden, terrifying heat radiating from his chest. The overwhelming despair in his heart didn't vanish—it twisted, violently compressing into a searing, bottomless hatred.
Morath raised his head. His eyes, once soft and gentle, were bloodshot with manic fury.
"If the world is ruled by the strong who crush the fragile..." Morath whispered, his voice turning colder than the void itself, "...then give me the power to harvest them. I don't care about my life. I don't care about my soul. Give me the strength to fulfill her dying wish and slaughter every monster that stole her breath!"
The entire forest fell dead silent.
VUMMMMM—!
From the hollow, carved sockets of the stone idol, two blinding pillars of emerald-green and pitch-black light erupted toward the clouds. The ancient stone scythe resting against the statue began to peel away its weathered granite crust, revealing an immutable, primordial black-iron blade pulsing with necrotic fire.
A deep, ancient voice vibrated directly within the marrow of Morath's bones—a voice of the primordial Death God:
"A soul that asks for nothing... but offers everything. Receive the mantle of the End, child of ash."
The black scythe dissolved into a tempest of green phantom flames, surging directly into Morath's chest.
Morath's frail body hovered into the air as the divine necrosis reconstructed his entire existence. His fragile bones snapped, reinforced with the density of ancient Nether iron; his pale skin turned ashen grey, radiating absolute stillness; a tattered, majestic green mantle unfurled behind his shoulders, billowing in an ethereal wind.
When he landed back on the earth, he was no longer a mortal boy. He stood tall and majestic, an ethereal death deity holding the colossal, black-iron Death Scythe that hummed with the wailing cries of primordial authority.
In a single, soundless glide, Morath vanished from the woods.
He rematerialized in the center of the burning village square.
The dozens of shadow demons that were slaughtering the helpless villagers froze in sheer terror. The oppressive, freezing death aura descending from Morath choked the demonic flames instantly.
"What is that—?!" a demon shrieked.
Morath didn't utter a word. His eyes were calm, devoid of all mercy.
He swung the Death Scythe in a single, sweeping horizontal arc.
SHRRRRK—BOOM!
A wave of pure green-black necrotic energy carved across the square. In a fraction of a millisecond, over thirty shadow beasts were cleaved in half, their immortal cores disintegrating into pale ash before they could even scream. Morath blurred across the battlefield like an unstoppable reaper—slashing, severing, and annihilating every invading beast that had touched his village.
Within minutes, the demonic slaughter came to an absolute halt. The surviving villagers stared in stunned disbelief at the majestic, green-cloaked figure who had just eradicated the monsters single-handedly.
Morath lowered the scythe, breathing heavily, looking at the village he had successfully protected. 'Sarya... I did it...'
Squelch.
A sudden, paralyzing chill pierced straight through the center of Morath's back, erupting through the front of his chest.
A massive, shadowy claw coated in dark violet lightning protruded from his sternum, holding his newly awakened death core in its grip.
Morath coughed up a thick spray of black ichor, his knees buckling.
Behind him, emerging slowly from an open dimensional rift in the sky, hovered a towering, terrifying silhouette—a terrifying demonic entity whose overwhelming dark presence made the previous shadow beasts look like harmless insects.
Lord Ghost Demon.
Lord Ghost Demon leaned his shadowy, grinning face right next to Morath's ear, his cold, amused voice echoing through the ruined square:
"Fascinating... A mortal who awakened a death god's relic..."
Lord Ghost Demon chuckled, his grip tightening around the core in Morath's chest.
"...Yet in the end, boy, you are still far too weak."