"Panting voice" "So there are more it seems, 70... No... 72 I think, fuck it let's round off to 75. Just a few more, I should be done within 45 to 50 minutes."

It's a huge, dried-out land, littered with rocks and unconscious bodies, wounded soldiers, and scattered armory and weapons. Where the eye can see, there are mountains in the distance, jagged and imposing. It looks like a colossal war has taken place, one that is about to come to an end.

A man, just above average height, with black eyes and hair, stands amidst the chaos. He is dripping with blood—his own and that of his opponents. Clutched in his remaining hand is a small, half-broken dagger, its blade stained red. His armor, once a gleaming silver, is now a barely recognizable mass of blood-soaked metal, its original luster obscured by the grime of combat.

He faces a crowd of giants, their towering forms looming over him like dark clouds. His body is riddled with wounds: four or five stab wounds on his stomach, and two knives protrude from his flesh—one embedded in his right shoulder, the other in his thigh. Blood drips steadily from his left side, where he had been forced to sever his own arm to prevent further injury. His vision is blurred, the flow of blood from his head mixing with the exhaustion that weighs heavily on him. The fight is taking its toll, and yet he stands his ground, ready to face whatever comes next.

As he faces them, he thinks, "Man... WTF, I always imagined doing solo vs 100, but now I get how hard it really is. Though I'm having fun thinking I should be done within an hour, somewhere I know I won't be alive even for the next half hour. Guess I made the reaper wait for me for a long, long time, and now it's about time. At least I'm having fun; my dream came true even if it means my death."

Now that I think about it, though it's been years for me, it's only been six months on Earth. I still remember the day when all of this started.

The last day of my graduation, coming back home with my friends...

We were on our way home, heading towards the railway station to board the train. It had been a tiresome day. We submitted our project, had extra lectures, and there was a company visit to recruit new employees after graduation. It took longer than usual—almost two and a half hours more than usual. But even so, we saw "Veer" standing in front of our college gate.

Veer is an 11 Year-old boy, but he is more mature than the average kid his age. In fact, his maturity is on par with mine. As they say, "Maturity doesn't come with age; it comes with experience and the things you have encountered." His parents were beggars, and he never had a roof over his head. He was brought into this world so that his parents could get money from others through pity. But as he grew up and his parents saw that no one was giving them money because he wasn't that young anymore, they found him useless and didn't show any affection towards him. Later, they had another child, a younger brother. But Veer knew what his parents were like; it was only a matter of time before they started ignoring his younger brother.

So, when he was 9 and his younger brother was 4, Veer took his younger brother and ran away. He decided that rather than begging, he would earn the money and give everything to his brother that he didn't get. At first, he collected money through begging and then bought some stuff at a cheaper rate, selling it at a little above the cost price. He would use the money he earned to buy more items at a cheaper rate and sell them at a slight markup. But of course, it wasn't enough, and they didn't have proper meals or a place to sleep. At night, he would cover his younger brother with the clothes he wore during the day and hug him so that his brother wouldn't feel cold.

A few weeks ago, we met them when we were going to college. I accidentally tripped into him, and my pack of biscuits fell on the ground. I ignored it because I was already late for my lecture, but when we left the college, he was standing there at the gate, holding a new pack of the same biscuits as an apology because he thought it was all his fault in the morning. I refused to accept it, but he insisted that I take it, so I accepted his apology and took him for a treat as my apology to him.

From then on, it became common for my friends and me to hang out with him and play with his brother after our lectures.

But today, we got late, yet he was still there, holding his brother in his arms, waiting for us.

My friend got an A in his project, so today he was going to treat us as a celebration. But as we were heading towards the railway station, we heard a loud banging sound from the opposite direction, like a building had collapsed. We rushed towards that direction and saw...