The world around me was a blur—red, black, and white like some twisted kaleidoscope. The colors twisted and danced, but they were all wrong, out of place, as if the very fabric of reality had been shredded.
I stood in the middle of the ruins, my body frozen, my mind scrambled. I could feel the crackling of energy in the air, a faint hum at the back of my skull that told me something was wrong. My body... it felt cold. Unnaturally so.
Where is she?
The thought flickered through my mind like an ember that refused to burn. My mother. Where was she? The one person who had always been there for me, who had kept me safe through everything. She had been with me moments ago, fighting alongside me. Her face was still vivid in my mind—her strong, determined eyes. The way she wielded her katana with precision, her blue energy lighting up the sky.
But now... Now, all I felt was the weight of nothingness.
I felt my heart beating. It was strange. It was still there, thumping against my chest. But it didn't feel like my heart anymore. It felt like a hollow thud—like the beat of a drum with no purpose. It had lost its rhythm. My breath was shallow, but I didn't feel panic. I didn't feel anger. I didn't feel anything.
I looked around, but my body refused to move. My legs were stiff. My arms felt like lead. I should have been searching for her. I should have been looking for any sign of her, anything to tell me she was still alive. But I couldn't move. I couldn't summon the will to move. Every part of me felt... distant.
My eyes landed on the battlefield. The wreckage around me. The remnants of the clash between my mother and the silver-haired man—Xin Sheng. There was so much destruction. So much chaos. But none of it felt real. Not to me. It was like watching a video, a simulation, and not like I was in the middle of it.
Where is she? Where did she go?
And then, like a sharp snap, a voice filled my mind—cold, mechanical.
[Host, emotional stress detected. Self-preservation protocols activated.]
I clenched my fists, feeling the energy swirling within me. The electricity that had leaked out before—raw and untamed—still thrummed beneath my skin. But the voice of the system... it did something. It snapped me back. It reminded me that I was more than just some weak child.
Emotional stress?
That was all it registered?
I was supposed to be grieving, right? I was supposed to be furious, or heartbroken, or something.
But I wasn't. I wasn't anything.
I was... empty.
My eyes remained fixed on the distant silhouette of Xin Sheng, his form flickering in the haze of smoke and dust. He was still standing. Still alive. I should have been angry. I should have been filled with a burning desire for revenge. But all I felt was a dull ache—a vague sense of something missing. Something important.
Was this it? Was this how it felt to be detached from everything? To be a hollow shell, floating through this world as a god?
I looked at my hands, watching as the crackling energy in my palms slowly dissipated, leaving nothing behind but a dull ache. Was this what I had become?
I should have cried. I should have screamed. I should have felt something, but all I could hear was the echo of my own empty thoughts.
I'm a god now...
The thought hit me like a lightning bolt. The truth of it slammed into me, cold and hard. But it didn't feel like an epiphany. It didn't feel like anything. It was just a statement of fact, like reading a line from a textbook.
I was a god.
I wasn't Seo Kwan. Not really.
I was Azuki Takiro—a name I couldn't fully remember, but one that resided somewhere deep within me. A boy from another world. A normal boy.
A useless boy.
Before I had died, before I had been given this second life, I had been an otaku—consumed by my obsession with fictional worlds, trapped inside my own fantasies. I had lived a life of isolation, sitting in front of screens, watching endless anime, reading manga, escaping into stories that weren't real. I had never truly understood the weight of human connection. I had never known what it meant to love or mourn. I had never known what it was like to lose someone I cared about.
And now, here I was, in a world of monsters and gods, and everything felt... fake. Like a simulation. A game.
Did I ever really care?
I couldn't remember.
I tried to. I tried to hold onto the emotions that should have come naturally. The ones I should have felt when I saw my mother fall, when I saw the destruction around me. But it was like trying to grasp water with my hands. It slipped through my fingers, leaving nothing but the faintest trace of something I couldn't even describe.
[Host, caution. High-level energy signature detected.]
The voice of the system pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts. A warning. A reminder of what I had to do next.
Right. There were still enemies to deal with. Xin Sheng. The silver-haired man. They were still alive. Still a threat. Still dangerous.
But why didn't I care? Why was I just standing here, staring into the void, as if everything happening around me was someone else's problem?
I felt a shudder run through me. Was this... what being a god felt like?
No. This wasn't it.
I wasn't supposed to feel empty.
I wasn't supposed to feel detached from everything. But that was how it was.
This is my fate.
I was supposed to be something more than human. I was supposed to be a being of power.
I wasn't supposed to feel this way. But there was no going back. No changing who I was now. The path had already been set.
I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. The raw energy surged within me again, like a storm building inside my body. It was almost overwhelming. It pulsed through my veins, crackled at my fingertips, burned in my chest.
I could feel it.
The power.
It was limitless. It was mine.
But with it came... nothing. No relief. No peace. No satisfaction.
Just power.
I opened my eyes and glanced once more at the wreckage—the battlefield, the destroyed remnants of my past. My mother. Her face flickered in my mind, but it was like a fleeting shadow that I couldn't quite reach. I should have mourned her. I should have cared. But I didn't.
I looked at the silver-haired man, still standing far off, his eyes locked on me with a cold glint of recognition. Xin Sheng. His dark aura clung to him like a shroud, his expression one of calculated coldness.
What was I supposed to do now?
I should've been angry. I should've been desperate to take revenge. But all I felt was... indifference.
Fight, I told myself. Survive.
That's all there was. That's all I could do.
I pushed forward, moving toward the battlefield. My steps were heavy, but they were sure. Every movement felt like I was going through the motions of something I didn't quite understand. But there was no choice. There was no room for hesitation. No time for grief.
I wasn't human anymore.
I was something else.
I was a god.
And all I had left was power.