After that night… everything changed.
The boy who had begged the world for mercy died in that dungeon.
What came out of it was something else.
Azazel kept his promise.
I don't remember exactly how we left that place. One moment I was standing in the burning depths of his domain, staring at rivers of fire and hearing the endless screams of the damned… and the next I was back in the world of the living.
But I was no longer the same.
The rage inside me had been sharpened.
Given purpose, given immortality.
And so it began.
A never-ending cycle of violence.
I hunted them one by one.
Everyone who had ever stepped on the lion's tail.
The man in purple who said my mother deserved to die.
The priests who laughed at me.
The guards who dragged me like an animal.
And Carlos…
I wiped them out.
Not just them.
Many others who stood beside them.
People still whisper about those nights. Entire streets stained with blood. Houses burning in the dark. Bodies found with no explanation.
A fraction of the town's population vanished.
Even to this day, no one truly knows what happened.
But I do.
I was there.
And the world moved on.
Empires rose and fell while I walked through the shadows of history.
I watched as the Roman Conquest of Hispania (218–19 BCE) unfolded, when Rome slowly crushed the Iberian tribes and turned their lands into Roman provinces.
Years later came the reforms of Augustus in 27 BCE, reorganizing Hispania into provinces like Baetica and Tarraconensis.
And in 212 CE, the decree known as the Constitutio Antoniniana, issued by Caracalla, granted Roman citizenship to most free men in the empire.
I saw it all.
Wars.
Kings.
Empires turning to dust.
But none of it mattered to me anymore.
Because after my revenge was complete… I returned to the one who had changed my fate.
The old man from the dungeon.
The ruler of the burning abyss Azazel.
And from that moment forward, I became his weapon.
His right hand.
The world would call creatures like us many things, demons, devils, angels of death.
But my true role was simple.
I became his Soulreaper.
I did not kill because I wanted to.
I killed because the time had come.
Azazel would open the Book of Death and look into the threads of fate. Inside that book were the moments every soul was meant to leave the world.
My task was only this:
When that moment arrived…
I would take the soul.
Sometimes death came through war.
Sometimes through sickness.
Sometimes through accidents.
But sometimes… death needed a hand.
My hand.
And so the centuries passed.
Cities burned.
Civilizations crumbled.
I walked through them all like a shadow that never aged.
More than two thousand years of blood, silence, and stolen souls.
Until the day everything changed again.
Until the day…
I met her.
For over two thousand years I had taken souls without hesitation.
Names came to me.
Faces.
Times.
And I did my job.
One afternoon, however, I received an order that would change everything.
Her name was Esmeralda.
She studied at a place called Emirates Academy. According to the Book of Death, she was meant to die in an accident at 3:40 PM.
My task was simple.
End her before then.
I arrived at the school grounds by 3:00 PM.
Old habits never leave you. I observed everything the gates, the road outside, the pattern of students leaving. Teachers chatted near the entrance. Cars lined up to collect their children.
The warmth of summer rested on the air.
At 3:30 PM, the school day ended. Students poured out through the gates in waves of laughter and chatter.
I waited.
Two minutes later… I saw her.
3:32 PM.
She stepped out of the gate with two friends.
I glanced down at the photograph in my hand.
Then back at her.
It was the same girl.
But the picture had not prepared me for the reality.
Heavens…
She was beautiful.
Not just beautiful in the way humans usually are. I had seen beauty across thousands of years—queens, actresses, warriors, poets. Faces that had driven men mad with love and war.
But this was different.
There was something else about her.
Something… warm.
Something that felt alive in a way I had almost forgotten existed.
For five minutes I simply watched.
Her smile.
Her white teeth when she laughed.
The softness in the way she spoke to her friends.
The way her long hair moved when the wind touched it.
I had seen beauty.
But nothing had ever captivated me like this.
Nothing had ever made me hesitate.
I looked at my watch.
3:38 PM.
I sighed.
Enough of this.
I pulled out the gun.
From where I stood, I had a clear line of sight. All I had to do was pull the trigger.
I raised the weapon and aimed it directly at her chest.
My finger rested on the trigger.
And yet…
It would not move.
What the hell is going on with me?
For two thousand years I had never failed.
Never hesitated.
But now my hand felt heavy.
Frozen.
Time kept moving.
3:39 PM.
She stepped toward the road. Her driver waited on the other side beside a black car.
And then I saw it.
The way she was meant to die.
A boy across the street called her name.
"Esmeralda!"
She stopped in the middle of the road and turned to wave at him.
At that exact moment…
A trailer came speeding down the street.
Its brakes had clearly failed.
The massive truck roared forward, out of control.
The world seemed to slow.
Her friends screamed.
Her driver jumped out of the car, running toward her.
And I stood there.
Wait.
No…
I wasn't standing there.
Why am I moving?
Before I understood what was happening, I was already running.
Fast.
The trailer thundered toward her.
Then
CRASH.
The deafening sound of metal smashing into a tree echoed across the street.
Dust filled the air.
Silence followed.
And she was in my arms.
I had pulled her out of the road just before the impact.
For a moment I simply held her there.
She smelled… nice.
Her perfume was soft and delicate.
Then her eyes opened.
Light brown.
The colour of the herbal tea I sometimes drank to pass time through the centuries.
She looked confused… but unharmed.
I gently arranged her hair and helped her stand on her feet.
"Are you okay?" she whispered.
Only then did I notice something.
I tried to step back.
Pain exploded through my body.
The trailer had crushed one of my legs beneath the debris.
People began rushing toward us, shouting in panic.
Esmeralda looked down and saw the twisted bone.
"Oh my God!" she cried.
She grabbed my arm.
"You need a hospital! Someone call an ambulance!"
I smiled faintly.
"No need," I told her softly. "It's good you're safe."
I turned and limped away quickly before anyone could question me.
Behind me, I heard her voice.
"Thank you!"
But by then I had already disappeared into the streets.
Eventually I found a lonely alley and stopped.
I looked down at my mangled leg.
"Ok now, heal up," I muttered.
The bones shifted.
The flesh repaired itself.
Within seconds, I was standing normally again.
I took a step.
Then another.
As I turned the corner
Someone was standing there.
Waiting.
A voice spoke from the shadows.
"I knew you were a fraud."