The sky was no longer merely dark—it was a crushing weight, as though the entire world had chosen this single moment to collapse. Below, the ground had vanished beneath an ocean of corpses, each one a drowned story told only in blood. Millions of dragons blotted out what remained of the light, their wings vast enough to swallow cities, yet the old arrogance had drained from their eyes. What remained was a cold, centuries-old fury.
Among them stood elves with drawn bows, titans like living mountains, undead emperors whose faces were nothing but polished bone, void-beasts woven from darkness itself, and ancient machines that still ticked and whirred as if life lingered in their gears. Divine and demonic beings fought side by side—angels whose wings now sprouted devils' horns, every species fused into one. They had come for a single purpose: to kill one man.
He stood alone, wounded, blood running freely down his legs and pooling at his feet. But in his eyes there was no rage, no fear—only exhaustion, the look of someone who had already seen everything and was simply waiting for the end.
A quiet thought surfaced in his mind: They have all come to kill me, but death claims only the body. The mind endures forever.
The philosophical question hung unspoken between him and the army: What is death—an ending, or a new beginning?
He regarded the encirclement as if it were merely a final conversation.
A divine being raised its voice, the sound tearing through the heavens. "He is our enemy."
The man said nothing. His silence only fed their anger, answering without words.
Then he spoke, calm, each syllable an arrow loosed with perfect precision.
"You all say 'our' so easily."
No one moved. The word echoed inside them.
He paused, letting it settle, then continued.
Everyone listened to him.No one dared to attack.
Not because they respected him—but because no one knew when he would move.
For thirteen days straight, he had been fighting.Thirteen days without rest. Without retreat.
And in those thirteen days—he had slaughtered millions.Alone.
"Our race, our faith, our city, our nation, our gods, our heaven, our hell."
A short pause. Just enough to breathe.
"But tell me, how much of any of it did you actually choose?"
No one answered.
"You did not choose where you were born.You did not choose your blood, your species, or your beliefs."
He spoke slowly. Not for effect—because there was no urgency.
"You simply arrived.The result of an accident of geography and biology."
His eyes didn't harden. They didn't soften either.
"And then you turned that accident into your entire identity."
He shifted his weight slightly. That was all.
"You are not proud of yourselves.You are proud of the place you happened to exist in."
A breath.
"Had you been born a little further away, you would stand on the opposite side today.A little further still and you would curse the very gods you now worship."
His tone didn't rise.
"There is no divine will in this.No demonic conspiracy."
A pause. Short. Controlled.
"Only chance."
Then:
"But after chance comes choice."
He looked at them again.
"And you gave that choice away."
No anger.
"You chose to follow.I chose to decide."
He didn't wait for reaction.
"You hide behind morality.I look only at outcomes."
One last line. Flat. Final.
"That is why you call me a monster—because I betrayed instead of getting sucked by it."
Silence.
"What you do quietly and justify endlessly."
You can kill me if you can,
He continued speaking, and with every sentence he quietly triggered the geo-atomic charges buried across the battlefield—silent switches pressed without anyone noticing.
Then they attacked.
Dragons breathed rivers of fire. Angels loosed volleys of burning arrows. Demons hurled curses that rotted the air itself. The world began to break in slow motion: the earth split open, the sky fell in shards, corpses rose into the air like leaves in a storm.
The man allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.
In his mind, he whispered: This is as far as I got in this life. Out of the hundred lives I wished for, only one remains.
A memory flashed—his very first life.
That world had been simple, like ours: no powers, no magic, only people and the choices they made. He had been a gentle boy, born into a home with little money but much love. He understood others instinctively—their pain, their joy. Helping came naturally to him: lending notes to a classmate, assisting his mother at home, walking elderly neighbors across busy streets. To him, kindness was as effortless as water flowing downhill.
But slowly he learned: kindness itself was the problem. The kind are always left behind, because the world uses them. One day he helped a boy at school, only for that boy to betray him and shift the blame. He began to think: Good and evil are just names society invented. Evil takes; good gives.
Gradually he changed. He acted only for himself, for his own benefit. Yet before he died, he wanted to secure a good life for his family so that he would never carry regret. He turned that ordinary world into his playground. He became its richest, most powerful, most brilliant mind—surpassing even the grandest historical figures, achieving what conquerors and tyrants could only dream of. He unified the entire world and pushed civilization far beyond its limits. How he did it would be told later, piece by piece, as fragments of his past surfaced.
The scene shifted.
He stood before a god cloaked in darkness so complete that even light refused to touch it.
The god laughed, a sound like grinding void. "A world with no limits at all. Hah—do you wish to become a god yourself? Entertain me for ninety-eight lives, and I will send you to that very world."
His eyes snapped open in a frail, useless body—neither strong enough to stand nor weak enough to die quietly. Pain throbbed through every limb.
In his mind, he cursed: You bastard. You dumped me into this worthless shell.
Then, quieter: Fine. What's done is done. This is my final life—and it's going to be the most entertaining one yet.