As Arman slowly awoke, his senses overwhelmed by the brightness of the light that flooded his vision. Blinking away the haze, he gradually adjusted to his surroundings, he carefully looked at his surroundings seemingly trying to digest the fact that he had just woken up in
"heaven" that was the only word that escaped his mouth at this point
A space filled with soft and misty clouds appeared in front of him as he saw the towering pillars in a distance supporting god knows what as their height seemed endless and disappeared into the shade of sky.
he approached the altar that was visible from the distances at the center of the pillars, a sudden thought came to his mind
"This feels like another one of those reincarnation tropes from those novels," Arman muttered to himself, his skepticism evident in his tone.
"I have no interest in getting involved in any more of these quests or doing any more social service. It's been ages since I've had a decent night's sleep.
I'm not going near that thing; it might just end up sending me off to battle some demon lord."
As he thought that, he approached near the boundary of a random pillar in the way and just lied down there as he closed his eyes.
Whether it was years of deprivation from sleep or his yearning for mental peace, nobody would believe until they saw it with their own eyes that as soon as he laid down under the pillar and closed his eyes, he drifted into sleep at the very same moment.
And he slept like a baby.
If one could see carefully, they would see the altar shaking lightly.
As time passed, arman didn't wake up from his slumber finally after a significant amount of time the altar shook again, this time a bit energetically and transformed into an old man.
"This is much more difficult than I thought it would be" he sighed and approached the sleeping boy who seemed to be a young teenager from his size and face.
"Yo boy wakey wakey"
"**Zzzzz...**"
"Wake up boy!!"
**Zzzzzzzz...**
A water droplet forms on the tip of old man's finger, and he drops that on arman's face.
**JOLT!!!**
"HUH!!!"
for a few minutes, Arman is dazed after awakening from his deep slumber.
"Hufff...right, I had died previously"
**Stretches his body and he stands up**
"What a good sleep after such a long time"
Seeing him act like this the old man's eyebrows twitched, wasn't he supposed to be extremely shocked and cower in fear seeing a real God in front of him.
"Huh!! Old man? Did you also die recently? Did you die of a disease? No, your organs must have stopped working, I guess."
Hearing the tone of this young man in front of him, the old man gritted his teeth but didn't say anything about it as he came to the point directly.
"I am not an old man you brat, in fact I am the god of this realm and I have summoned you to guide you so that you can fulfill the divine purpose assigned to u by the mother of all."
"You will be reincarnated in a world different from yours, and you will have to…"
As he was about to speak ahead, Arman interrupted him in midway and added with a serious tone
"I am not interested old man, I have already suffered much in my past life, all I want to do now is sleep, eat and live with leisure and without any worries"
He then continued
"Sorry for this but no I can't do anything, I am spiritually and mentally exhausted"
Seeing the unexpected response, the old man tried to convince him
"Young man you are underestimating the rewards and power this mission will bring to you"
As if already expecting such words from the being in front of him arman replied
"Do you know old man? In my previous world I was the strongest person on the planet, there was a time when the masses moved to do my bidding.
Nations made rules to suit with me. Do u think I don't know how good it feels when u have power?"
"But you know what? all it took was a black seed to destroy everything I had, everything I had achieved by fighting countless bloody battles was gone In a matter of days"
"And the worst thing was I was betrayed by the same people I was fighting for and at that time I realized that life is unpredictable, and I should just mind my own business and careless about other people or things
I made a mistake of caring too much of things that I wasn't in control of and the more I tried my way out of this endless abyss the more I got stuck within it"
So I decided the moment I was about to pass away that if I ever got an afterlife, I would invest all my time on myself and live with simplicity.
So at the end I would just say that u can send me back to wherever I deserve to go or erase me out of existence, but I am sorry I can't help u with anything."
The old man was stunned as he looked at the boy in front of him, the boy in front of him didn't even want to listen. He had expected arman to get lured by the mention of power and rewards, but this guy talked like an old man who had renounced the world before his death.
Beads of sweat dropped from his forehead trying to formulate a way to convince the boy in front of him.
"You can stop here, I will take over from here"
A deep female voice came from somewhere near the altar, arman looked in the direction from where the voice came, a little bewildered as he didn't feel any presence before the voice came.
"This voice is just a manifestation of this self, I exist everywhere"
The hairs on the back of his head stood as he felt goosebumps all over his body. The mysterious voice had apparently read his thoughts. He now felt completely naked in front of this existence.
"Even though your reaction is normal, I will still say fear not, my child, as I have already seen everything. Come near the altar and stand in front of it."
As soon as the voice finished speaking, arman's body moved on its own without his permission as he walked towards the altar
"Good child, I know your case and I understand if you don't want to do something, but since I have summoned you here I still have the duty to fulfill one of your wishes as an exchange of transporting you to a different realm since I can't send you back now."
Although the tone of that voice reflected a bit of helplessness, Arman still speculated that it was trying to fool him.
After all, how could such a powerful entity not have the capability of sending him back.
Still, he decided to go with the flow since unlike when he was interacting with the old man he did not show any fear, but that was due to how used he had gotten in his previous life encountering various powerful entities.
Although he knew that the old man was very much stronger than any of those entities but since after coming to this realm his senses and emotions seemed to have gone numb, and it was not very difficult for him to face the old man.
But things were different when it came to this unknown voice, he felt goosebumps whenever he heard its voice, as if something beyond the confines of his imagination was talking to him.
Even though he knew that the entity could read all of his thoughts, but he couldn't do much in front of it.
"Umm, it's fine going to a new world, I don't want to go to that wretched planet anyway"
"Haha very well! Now ask for a wish. Whatever you ask shall be yours, although I already know it, I will still would like to give you a chance"
after a bit of contemplation, arman's eyes lit up as he replied
"I want a life that is in my control, my fate shouldn't control me but i should control my fate"
"GRANTED"
Just like that???? Was the first thought that came to his mind
as if ignoring his doubts, the voice spoke
"although our meeting didn't come out as I expected, I had some gifts prepared for you to help u on this mission, what you know from your memories as cheats that would make you a monster in terms of power,
but since you have declined our request the power will still be connected to you, consider it as your luck or bad luck, but for some reason the power is not coming off your soul as if it has taken a liking to you, it is complaining that if you can have freedom from responsibilities then it also deserves its own freedom
since it wants to live with you, I cannot force it out. That's all for now, in three seconds you will be transmigrated, have a safe journey."
"Wait...!!" arman tried to rebuke as a bad premonition crept up his heart. Why was he still being given a golden finger?
Feeling as if he had been manipulated, but he couldn't get the chance to do so.