There is always a consequence for every crime, no matter how small or grave. If you disobey or bully, your parents will dole out an appropriate punishment, taking away toys or banning play altogether. If you steal or harm someone, the ruler or government will extract justice. If you wage war for land or wealth, sowing chaos across your domain, the sheer destruction wrought upon yourself and your lands would be punishment enough. Every action begets a reaction, balancing good and evil in a delicate equilibrium – only time takes its course. Justice will surely be served.
Even the Demon Lord, who tried to unravel the very fabric of Nature itself, met his end. The great heroes prevailed with a resounding victory, restoring balance as it should be. But...
"What about me? Who is going to punish me?" Aiden asked with a somber voice.
"My parents? They are already gone, dead. The king?...Dead. Haha, even if he lived in all his glory, he could only lick my boots. What about the heroes? The very saviors of our world, the ones who did the impossible. Yes, my former comrades, who defeated the Demon Lord himself, the embodiment of evil. Truly an honor to call them friends, perhaps the very reason they came close but couldn't finish me in the end..." He trailed off, his crimson eyes growing somber, a hint of tears forming.
He lifted his chin, trying to halt the tears threatening to spill, distracted by something else capturing his attention.
"So it's only you, huh?" He asked, his gaze turning skyward. His Yggdrasil staff trembled, sensing the impending presence. His wounded hand quivered with his feet, yet his eyes still burned bright.
Surrounded by nothing but mountains of dead bodies, deceased celestial animals, and fallen guardians – a river of blood blazing its path to his feet. Any soul should have crumbled in horror, but not Aiden, the one responsible for it all. He still stood, his body covered in wounds, poisoned and infected veins distorting half his form. His purple robe lay tattered and burned at every corner. Such was his condition.
He could see it – a brilliant light falling from the sky like a shooting star. Beautiful, yet something terrifying lurked within. But he didn't care; his instincts warned him to flee, hide from this light that was no mere illumination but a dangerous being racing towards him. He had a strong suspicion of its identity.
"Only one being is left in this world, and it can only be you," he called out as he walked towards the light, bleeding further, yet a small smile verged on his cheek. Not a smile of happiness, familiarity or joy – no, the smile of a person teetering on the brink of madness, about to erupt.
The temperature rose, and so did the pressure, until Aiden's body froze stiff.
"...What took so long...Light Bringer?" He asked as the light halted before him, melting and shattering everything it touched.
[...Aiden, oh Aiden.] The light replied. [You already know, I cast that name away...It's GOD now.] The light responded, intensifying its aura and pressure even more.
Aiden, already weak, couldn't handle the strain any longer. His body surrendered to the bloodied ground. His back was ready to fall, his remaining consciousness fading. But the almighty lord couldn't let him go so easily, could he? As if by miracle, a boulder appeared behind Aiden to support his back, forcing him to face the light head-on.
[Oh Aiden, you thought I would let you go that easily? I left for what? Ten years, and my world is already crumbling? ...Hahahahaha...What say you?...Slayer?]
Aiden only scoffed, placing his staff down as he retrieved his smoking pipe. "You wouldn't mind lighting my pipe, would you?" He asked as bits of tobacco fell.
[Hmmmm...]
The eerie light that melted rock, earth, the very essence of matter, drew close to Aiden's pipe, only slightly burning the tobacco. The smoke was lit as Aiden inhaled deeply to assemble his crumbling, wrathful mind, even if only a little.
"Haaa..." He sighed, slowly puffing out a cloud of smoke. His crimson eyes stared into the blinding light, as if the whole sun were before him. "You don't seem so mad?" He asked, unflinchingly meeting its gaze.
[Haha...Well, as omniscient as I am, I already knew the end was sure to happen. It always comes...In the end, the laws of infinity demand it so. Where there is high, there will be low; where there is good, there will be evil; where there is beginning, there will surely be an end. And the end did come, but...It came sooner than I anticipated.]
Aiden only chuckled, puffing out more smoke, trying to dissolve the scent of death and blood with tobacco's aroma. "Not so omniscient, I see..." He ridiculed.
He felt the temperature rise ever so slightly, his silver hair burning as part of his face darkened where the light grazed past his protection magic. But it lasted only a second, the intense heat dialing down like before.
[Hahaha...HAHAHAHA...Funny, a mortal having the actual guts to speak to me, a GOD.] The light commented. [Such a dreadful sin. I'm surprised, really. This moment was never meant to be, yet here it is happening before my very sight. The fate of this world, its end should have come much later, far more dreadful with even greater hatred and horror, leaving only...]
"...The Hero?" Aiden interrupted, his crimson eyes flaring fiercely, momentarily losing control of the anger that filled him with bloodlust and wrath.
Suddenly, the light brightened even more, pacing closer towards Aiden with excitement. [...You knew?...But how...Oh...So that's why...Hahahaha, you mortals, you humans...Hahahahaha.] It started laughing, a piercing sound echoing through realms, as if it hadn't laughed for eons.
Listening to such maniacal laughter, Aiden's anger and bloodlust folded. Like a laugh ridiculing him and his friends, his wrathful aura trembled the ground around his battered body. "You!...You mad psycho!" He shouted through gritted teeth. Forgetting his immobile hand, he summoned his staff to his palm as grids of magic spells appeared above them, dark neon spells piling one after another, reaching all the way to the crimson clouds in mere milliseconds.
"{Affain—heim--@#@}!!!!!!}" He chanted with all his remaining vigor.
The spells shone bright and brighter by the millisecond until a beam of ethereal energy descended upon them like a comet crashing from the heavens. Yet it all happened so quickly, within a mere second – only an exceptionally experienced genius mage with a hint of a miracle could perform such magic in such a sorry state.
Booooooommmmm!!!!!
The devastation, the chaos twisted Nature itself as thunder rumbled from the aftereffects. Blooming like a mushroom, the aftermath's smoke reached the crimson skies, creating heat storms spanning miles apart, destroying whatever remained in a single heartbeat.
[Aiiii...Human imagination is indeed scary.] The light responded with a hint of pride. [You thought I would let you die so easily, Aiden Von Hummer.]
Aiden, who had already closed his eyes in resignation, gradually opened them, watching his disintegrated body gradually reform piece by piece. Feeling no pain, anguish, burn – nothing. Normally he would be in awe witnessing such a miracle, but he had imagined as much, guessing who stood before him. 'So this is the power of a GOD,' he thought.
[Haha...Indeed. So, let's not waste any more of my precious time. I will give you two options: Option one, be my eternal tortured SLAVE, or...Option two, become my...Adam.
My prime candidate for the perfect Adam was the hero. After he destroyed this world, of course, oh how long I waited to see that goody-too-shoes turn into a man-made monster! I was excited, you see, for I, the one true GOD, had personally written his fate. So you must know what I should be feeling when somebody just destroyed my masterpiece into a MILLION PIECES!!!] The light roared. Its single echo blasted away all the smoke and debris from the magic explosion, clearing even the crimson heavens, leaving only the dark night with a human and a burning light within the deep, charcoaled crater.
[But...Sadly, the hero's story has ended, and only your remains. So you, Aiden the Slayer, are my only creation left in this world, with no other options for my grand plan. I hereby decree that you are sufficient to become my Adam, so I can finally, I mean finally!, make my own perfect garden.] The light proclaimed with a hint of excitement.
Aiden gritted his teeth, listening to how it spoke of his dear friends, his comrades, his world. But who was he to judge, being the one who destroyed it all? He had no right to say anything in return to the light that shone with such unquenching pride.
What's done was done. He had fulfilled his role, diverting the worst possible route for his friends by taking the path of a sinner.
"Just...kill me already," he replied, his voice lowering like a lifeless doll. "You can torture me, cage my soul, banish me from reincarnation – do whatever you must. As for now, I can't defy your power. But I will NEVER be your slave or your shitty Adam!" He responded, his defiance still loud and clear for the light to hear.
The light only sneered, listening to the mumbling mortal. Finally grasping what the human desired. [Hahahaha...It's the second time you have insulted me. It really hurts my pride, you know? I am a GOD, and you still treat me this way, even after I revived you. Haaa...Such a disobedient child you are.]
The light edged towards the fallen human, dimming with every inch closer until taking a humanoid form with hands and feet. Nearing Aiden, it came down to his fallen body, Aiden's eyes clearly reflecting this new form of the so-called god.
[Tell me, Aiden, what do you desire?] The light asked, its voice resounding with less authority than before.
Aiden said nothing, staring right at the light head-on. His eyes, cold like the darkened crater.
[No words, huh?...You really are a selfish, hypocritical piece of shit, doing whatever disobedient things you like. Now you want to be punished, waiting for me, ME! to punish you. Thinking it would give your heart even a little relief. And here I thought I was the biggest hypocrite, but now here is someone who seems to be a far greater charlatan than me. Should I be proud, or what? Haha, daddy's really proud...]
Again, no reaction. Only silence. The shining light could only look into his hollow, lifeless eyes, knowing that whatever it said or did would mean nothing to the person who had killed himself in his heart. It could torture Aiden for eons, but it would all be meaningless.
The light looked around at the pure beauty of destruction. No humans, guardians, celestials – nothing. All life crushed to dust. Its once bountiful world, which it had created and managed eons ago, now gone, remaining empty. No sounds of prayer, no hope, no despair – nothing, only absolute silence.
It looked back at the sinner responsible for all the destruction, his eyes still lifeless. Covering this much sin would need a sin itself, a heart, kind and cold enough to bear a world upon its shoulders. Such a strong soul would not submit to simple torture but instead revel in it.
[Selfish cunt...] The light cursed. [Let's see...oh! I've got it – you don't want to be my Adam, right? Then you will be my, wait for it.....THE DEVIL!!! ...Hahahaha...Hahahahahahaha.]
Aiden heard the maniacal laughter of the being that proclaimed itself God. What could he do or say? This was his endpoint. He could defeat anybody and anything, yet his will was gone, his beating heart pumping only emptiness through his veins.
'Devil, it says. I'm already far worse than any devil could ever be...' He sobered.
But he could do one last thing, something he had never imagined he could do to the literal God of his world. Bringing his palm towards the light, he flipped it off, stopping the maniacal laughter once and for all.
The Light Bringer couldn't believe it – such defiance, such atrocity, such sin greater than destroying its handmade world. It couldn't fathom that any human or any other living being could do it. But another miracle was added to Aiden's list as he showed his middle finger directly in its face, his crimson eyes bearing only defiance.
[.....]
The light only brought out its hand, utterly speechless. Its finger readied to snap. And with that snap, light fell from the skies in all directions, bearing ten times the brilliance of the holy sun, condemning all to blinding white, including the lone human, Aiden.
Aiden did what he could do, gradually closing his eyes, letting the light swallow him whole. His body disintegrating? Vanishing? Turning to nothingness? He couldn't tell, and he didn't need to. All he knew was that this was the end.
.
.
.
[...So it begins again.]