The world smelled like iron and burnt meat.
Raziel opened his eyes and the first thing he felt was that the floor was sticky.
When he tried to get up, his hand slipped.
He looked at his fingers and the scream got stuck in his throat.
There was blood, rivers of it running between the cracks of the cathedral's sacred tiles.
"Mmm… I thought the Clerics' drop rate would be higher, what a scam!"
The voice was sweet and way too calm.
Raziel looked up, shaking.
The last thing he remembered was the book in his hands, the orphans in front of him, the colored stained glass shining while he was in the middle of his sermon, telling stories about Zhalyr's kindness and the power of faith.
Brother Thomas was a few yards away, his body twisted at an impossible angle and the choir kids...
Raziel had to look away so he wouldn't puke.
On the altar, sitting where only the High Priestess was supposed to be, there was a young girl with brown hair and shiny black armor that didn't look like it belonged in this world.
She was wiping an spotless sword with a silk cloth.
"Who are you?" Raziel's voice came out cracked.
"Me?" She hopped down from the altar, landing without a sound.
"You can't pronounce my name, but everyone calls me Zion. I'm the Player who's gonna reset this rotten server."
Raziel didn't understand half those words.
But he understood the tone, because it was the same one demons used in the scriptures when they mocked the saints.
"And you..." Zion walked closer with slow steps, almost playful.
"You're an NPC, a filler mob. The kind of character that exists to die in the prologue and give the hero motivation."
'Don't step back.'
The thought came from somewhere deep, older than fear.
Words from the Book of Psalms echoed in his head: 'The righteous does not run when no one is chasing him.'
Raziel took a deep breath and even if the shaking in his hands didn't go away, something else settled in his chest.
Faith.
"I don't know what you are," he said, "Demon, heretic, or something that doesn't even have a name in the scriptures."
He grabbed the iron candelabrum from the floor, it weighed like an anchor, but it didn't matter.
"But if you think I'm going to die on my knees in front of anything that isn't my Goddess... you're seriously wrong."
Zion stopped.
She blinked once, twice.
Then a slow smile spread across her face.
"Oh? I like you."
Raziel didn't answer because there was nothing to say, he only had action left.
He charged at her.
He didn't know how to fight, he was a cleric, but faith guided his hands where skill failed.
He threw the candelabrum at her head with all the force his arms could make.
She didn't move.
A hexagon of black light appeared in front of her face, the candelabrum slammed into the invisible barrier and broke apart into dust.
"Slow," Zion said, almost disappointed. "[Void Cut]."
She moved her index finger.
Raziel felt the hit before he saw it.
Something invisible punched through his chest and threw him back and he crashed into the broken pews, feeling his ribs crack.
He spit hot blood onto the splintered wood.
But he didn't give up.
"Zhalyr... give me strength..."
The words came out like a desperate prayer and something answered.
A golden light, warm and wild, burst out of his skin, but no spell from any book ever felt like this.
It was his soul screaming that it wasn't done yet.
Zion froze.
Bright red letters floated in front of her eyes, invisible to Raziel, but clear to her.
"Interesting," she muttered, and her smile turned hungry. "Looks like you're a Hidden Boss after all."
She drew her sword and the blade turned black, eating the light from the last candles.
Raziel, blinded by his own light and the pain, got to his feet one last time.
Not because he thought he could win, but because giving up wasn't an option his faith allowed.
"For the ones you killed!" he yelled. "For the innocent you defiled!"
Zion sighed. "So dramatic, this is the classic filler character speech."
She swung her sword sideways. "[Despawn]."
Raziel's world split in two.
He fell on his back, slamming into the cold floor.
The pain vanished fast, replaced by numbness crawling up from his legs.
He couldn't move anymore.
Only stare at the cathedral ceiling, where the night sky peeked through the hole she'd made.
'Zhalyr... forgive me... I failed…'
But then, a shadow covered his vision.
Zion leaned over him.
Her perfect face was framed by the moon, and those crimson eyes looked at him with something neither hate nor disgust, more closer to hunger and fascination.
"Wow," she said softly. "You still have 1 HP, your stubbornness is stupid for a low-level NPC."
She smiled, and there was something almost sweet in her cruelty.
"You're cute."
Raziel tried to speak, but only a wet gurgle of blood came out.
Zion frowned, leaning closer.
"What did you say?"
The words came out like a broken whisper, but clear:
"Poor... creature. How much pain... must you carry... to have turned into this."
Zion's smile froze.
For a second, something crossed her eyes, an emotional glitch that shouldn't exist.
"Do you... pity me?" Her voice lost that mocking melody. "Me?"
Raziel used his last breath to move his lips one more time.
"I... forgive you."
The silence after that was final.
Zion stared at him and her fingers, the ones that had lifted to finish him off, trembled.
"Interesting," she whispered, pulling off a glove.
She touched his forehead with a touch cold like the void.
"Consider this a gift from the Protagonist. I want to see how far your faith can go... before I break it into pieces."
Bright letters flashed in front of Raziel's dying eyes.
[ITEM USED: RESURRECTION TOKEN]
[STARTING REGRESSION PROTOCOL...]
[SAVE POINT FOUND: 4 YEARS PRIOR]
[CONTINUE? YES/NO]
Before he could answer, Zion snapped her fingers.
CLICK!
The cathedral vanished. The pain, the blood, everything rewound.
Raziel felt his soul get ripped out of death and dragged backward, breaking every natural law.
And then, the fragments came.
A library in flames.
Raziel holding someone as she bled out, her lips moving in a warning he couldn't hear.
"...the fifth regression... you can't... remember everything..."
The image shattered.
A throne of bones with Zion sitting on it, smiling at her feet, bodies. All of them familiar.
"Ready to try again, priest?"
CLICK.
Darkness.
'How many times have I died?'
The echoes faded, leaving only broken pieces of lives he might've lived, or might live.
And then the darkness spit him back into the light.
---
[REGRESSION COMPLETE]
[TIMELINE: RESET]
[PREVIOUS MEMORIES: FRAGMENTED (92% CORRUPTED)]
[RESIDUAL INSTINCT: ACTIVE]
[LOADING SAVE POINT: 4 YEARS BEFORE THE END]
[WELCOME BACK, REGRESSOR]
[CURRENT ATTEMPT: ???]
[FAILED ATTEMPTS: ???]