BANG!
Silas Mortaine hit the ground hard. His knees slammed into stone, cracks spreading around him. The impact shot pain up his legs, rattling his bones straight to the hip. He stayed there for a moment with his teeth clenched and hands pressed flat against the ruined ground to keep himself upright.
The pain gradually faded, not because it got any better but because the battlefield had long stopped caring about the pain of the defeated. After ten years of surviving in a world that wanted you dead, your body learned to file pain away. Put it somewhere quiet to deal with later.
Unfortunately, there was never a later.
"Cough-cough."
Thick dust choked the air. It mixed with the smell of blood and ash. Around Silas, the last of humanity's fighters were falling one by one like candles in a storm.
Some lay defeated on the ground, their armor cracked open like broken shells. Some tried to crawl to safety, their fingers dragging across the scorched ground, leaving red trails behind them. Others screamed short, sharp sounds that cut through the roar of the battlefield, then stopped. Their misery was cut off shortly.
Ten years. Ten long, brutal years of running, fighting, bleeding, and surviving. Of watching stronger people die. Ten years of clawing through dungeons that were never meant for someone with a C-rank talent. Ten years of being told that he wasn't good enough. Wasn't strong enough. Wasn't enough, full stop.
All of it. Every scar, sleepless night, and impossible choice. All of it led here. To this battlefield. This final hour under the weeping sky.
Silas lifted his head and focused on the God of Wrath. The deity stood at the far end of the battlefield, though the word 'stood' was too pale to describe his supreme regality. His aura dominated every inch of the air around until it felt heavy, as if existence itself were bowing in servitude.
He was gargantuan, a presence too vast to be real despite being a phantom clone with barely a ten-thousandth of his original strength. His body was built from fire and shadow woven together, not layered, but fused into one, becoming inseparable. Surprisingly, the flames that covered his skin were not orange or red, they were dark. They twisted and coiled like living things, like the fire had a will of its own and it was angry. Endlessly, eternally angry.
The ground beneath it had melted. Solid stone turned to black glass, still glowing faintly at the edges where the heat hadn't died yet. Each step left a print that glowed red before fading to char. He looked at the last few humans still breathing, the way a person looks at scattering ash. Not with contempt but... zero emotions.
Around the God's feet were the strongest humans alive.
Rei Ashan, the Tempest Blade, ranked second in the world. She lay on her side, her twin swords snapped at the hilt, her armor torn down the middle like paper. Her chest had stopped moving since long ago.
Commander Dusk, leader of the Golden Dusk Guild, the largest guild in the Eastern Continent. His massive frame was crumpled against a chunk of rubble that used to be a wall. His famous gold-and-black armor had turned to ash from the shoulders down.
The Twin Saints. The Hollow Knight. The White Empress. Heroes. All of them were.
Dead. All of them were.
Silas had fought alongside them before. A few of them, anyway. But he was always the background character, the one who survived by being careful instead of powerful. Always the one they didn't need to save but never quite trusted either.
He hadn't been able to save a single one of them. His fist clenched against the stone, knuckles turning white. His fingers trembled, but not from fear. Fear had left him a long time ago. What remained was pure Rage.
"W-why," he muttered. His voice came out dry and cracked. Barely recognizable as his own. "We fought with everything we had. But now, we've lost everything." He exhaled slowly, watching the God of Wrath turn its massive head. "And this is how it ends?"
The God's arm rose slowly, but it was many times faster than Silas could see. The shadow-fire wrapped around the fist thickened, layers of darkness coiling like muscle. The pressure in the air spiked. Silas felt it hit him in the chest before anything else. It was like a wall of heat and force, like standing in front of a moving burning train barreling toward you.
The battlefield went quiet. Even the dying stopped making noise. Every eye that could still open was fixed on that rising arm.
Unwilling to give up, Silas tried to push off the ground. His arms responded but gave up halfway. His legs sent the signal and got no answer. He was too tired. He'd pushed past his body's limits three hours ago and kept going anyway, and now there was nothing left in the tank. Just fumes and memory.
The arm came down. FAST.
In the last second, the God moved with terrifying speed.
BOOOOOM!!!
The shockwave hit before the fist did. Everyone was sent flying, dead or alive.
Silas' body left the ground entirely, spinning through air that had turned to burning heat. He caught a half-second glimpse of the sky. It looked mesmerizing tonight, spotting black clouds with flickers of orange light.
"Beautiful." he whispered, a smile tugging at his lips.
BANG!
He hit the ruins of a building that had been destroyed hours ago. The force sent him through it. Stone and rubble exploded around him. He felt the impact as he hit the ground on the other side and skipped once, twice, then rolled to a stop.
His vision turned blurry. As he inhaled, he felt a stabbing pain in his ribs. Four, maybe five had broken. Some of them might have shifted somewhere they shouldn't be. He tried to roll onto his side but experienced the same thing.
Moments later, his vision flickered then turned black. He couldn't hear the battlefield anymore. He couldn't feel the ground beneath him or his own hands. Just a complete, total silence in the void.
Was this death?
He'd wondered, sometimes during the worst nights and moments where surviving another day felt like the cruelest joke the world could play. He'd wondered what it would actually feel like when it finally came.
He hadn't expected it to feel like... nothing.
Not even grief or sadness. Just... hollow. For a moment, there was peace. Until...
[Ding! Warning: The Host has died…]
[Initiating System Protocol: Temporal Reversion…]
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.