The statue's stone eyes stared down at him.
Karh lay in the blood-soaked circle, breathing shallowly, watching torchlight dance across the carved scales of his former self.
Banikawa.
Life 9,812.
Only four hundred and nineteen lives ago.
Recent—by his standards.
He closed his eyes.
And remembered.
---
The ocean had once trembled beneath his coils.
He had been vast—so vast that clouds brushed against his scales. His body had circled currents, reshaped tides, and crushed fleets without noticing. His mission back then…
Become a myth.
That had been it.
Simple. Vague. Dangerous.
He remembered splitting a small island in half with a lazy flick of his tail, watching it crumble into the sea as priests screamed his name in terror and worship alike.
He remembered a man—robes blazing with arcane fire—hurling a concentrated sun toward his face.
A fireball.
Impressive, for a mortal.
Karh had eaten him.
Whole.
Crunchy.
He squinted slightly.
'Was he the strongest grand archmage of the era?'
He couldn't quite remember. There had been so many "strongest" humans across his lives.
The chanting around him grew louder.
"Praise the great Banikawa!"
"The one who split the greatest continent!"
"The devourer of the most powerful Grand Archmage in history!"
Karh blinked.
'I split a small island,' he thought dryly.
Humans exaggerated well.
'Still… becoming a myth had required spectacle. Perhaps the story had grown larger in retelling.'
That was the nature of legends.
He almost felt nostalgic.
Almost.
A hooded figure stepped forward from the crowd. His robe was embroidered with serpentine patterns stitched in gold thread. His voice echoed with theatrical reverence.
"I," the man declared, spreading his arms wide, "am the greatest devotee of the legendary calamity—Banikawa!"
The cultists erupted in cheers.
Karh stared up at him from the ritual circle, blood drying against his chest.
'You have no idea how awkward this is.'
The devotee continued, voice trembling with excitement.
"Tonight, with this offering, we complete nine hundred ninety-nine sacrifices out of the thousand required!"
Thunderous applause filled the cavern.
"This final sacrifice will usher in the manifestation of our god!"
Karh frowned slightly.
Manifestation?
'That didn't make sense.'
His soul had already left that body. He had reincarnated over four hundred times since.
Summoning Banikawa again would be like trying to call back a flame after the firewood had turned to ash.
Unless—
They weren't summoning the soul.
They were summoning a fake.
Or worse.
An empty vessel.
The chanting intensified. The air thickened with magic. Blood in the carved grooves began to glow faintly crimson.
The hooded devotee raised his hand.
From within his robes, he drew a curved scythe—its blade black, etched with runes.
"For the glory of the Calamity!"
He stepped forward.
And plunged the blade into Karh's chest.
---
White.
Blinding.
Agony.
Karh's body convulsed.
The scythe pierced through ribs and lung, scraping bone before embedding deep into his heart.
His vision flickered.
He held back his scream.
Sixteen years of living peacefully. Sixteen years of pretending to be ordinary.
Live a peaceful life.
He tasted iron in his mouth.
He let his body go limp.
Pretended to die.
The cultists gasped in reverence.
But the pain—
The pain was very real.
He exhaled weakly.
"…You people really don't do things halfway, huh…"
His consciousness retreated inward.
Toward the place where numbers slept.
Skills he rarely used.
Abilities he avoided because they complicated missions.
But this—
This clearly violated the spirit of "peaceful."
He focused.
A familiar skill surfaced in his mind.
Manifested Past.
The ability to transform into a previous life by recalling its number.
He hadn't used it in over a thousand incarnations.
It was messy.
Violent.
Inconvenient.
He tasted blood and whispered under his breath—
"…Nine… eight… one… two…"
The cavern trembled.
The blood circle pulsed.
His bones cracked.
The scythe embedded in his chest shattered as flesh stretched, tore, and reformed. His small human body elongated grotesquely, spine multiplying, ribs fusing into armored segments.
Scales erupted through skin.
His neck extended upward—longer, wider, heavier.
Cultists stumbled backward as the ritual circle exploded outward.
"What—what is happening?!"
Karh's voice deepened.
Layered.
Ancient.
"Life… 9,812."
The cavern ceiling shattered.
Stone rained down as an enormous serpentine form burst upward, ripping through earth and rock.
But he wasn't finished.
Transformation alone was not enough.
He reached for the second skill.
Infinite Aura.
Only usable after Manifested Past.
It allowed him to release the aura or abilities tied to that life, cannot be used if manifested past is not used first.
He activated it.
And the world changed.
---
A pressure descended upon Harbor.
Invisible.
Crushing.
Ancient.
Across the continent, sailors froze as the sea stilled unnaturally.
In a distant capital, a crowned king dropped his goblet as his palace windows cracked from sheer atmospheric weight.
High in a mountain tower, a white-haired archmage choked mid-incantation, staff trembling in his grasp.
In the abyssal north, a reigning Demon King rose abruptly from his throne, eyes widening.
"What… is this presence?"
In forgotten forests, ancient monsters that had slept for centuries opened their eyes in primal fear.
Every powerful being on Harbor felt it.
A suffocating, world-encircling aura.
Legend.
Calamity.
Myth made flesh.
The legendary serpent.
Banikawa.
Back in Eastport, the sky darkened unnaturally as an immense serpentine body ascended beyond the clouds—so vast that its coils seemed to stretch endlessly along the horizon.
Karh felt the familiar weight of that form.
The power.
The magnitude.
The overwhelming instinct to constrict the world itself.
He exhaled.
The breath alone summoned tidal waves along distant shores.
Down below, the surviving cultists fell to their knees in hysterical worship.
"It worked!"
"He has manifested!"
Karh peered down at them with colossal golden eyes.
"…You only needed one sacrifice," he muttered, voice echoing like thunder.
Lightning crackled across the sky as his aura continued to spread.
Across kingdoms.
Across oceans.
Across the entire planet of Harbor.
The Calamity had returned.
And somewhere, faintly flickering at the edge of his awareness—
His mission window trembled.