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The last thing he can remember is a bright, blinding light. An explosion detonated by all sets of strikes, earthly lifeforms attacking a half-celestial being, a whirlwind of clouds as the battlefield.
Now there is no sound, or color, or texture. Only darkness.
The nothingness.
It is a place he has been in before, one where he has sent countless others to. Not like he cares. Every single one of those pathetic, worthless beings deserved death. Desperately clinging to this pale blue dot in the vastness of the cosmos, their souls roiling in the eternal path of life, their insignificance an amusing thought to the power that he is. Or rather, to the kind of grandness he should have been.
He concludes he must be dead, and he is, but his consciousness remains. If he was completely gone then he wouldn't be able to even think about all this. This must be the last passage to the afterlife. Strange, since everything felt so short.
Was that really it?
To be birthed- no, produced for an uncontrollable force, waste your life working for that force, then going your own path yet you are still wasting your life because there are a million roads you take, but they all lead to the same end. To nothing.
No, no, he did do something. He might be a product, but his will wasn't manufactured. It's his most valuable asset. Neither was the loyalty of it. Yes. He's been loyal. An admirable, honorable warrior of will. A loyal soldier.
Once to a system and once to a god, his creators. But always to himself.
He realizes that he has a body. Not his corporeal one, that one doesn't exist anymore. His essence body, a manifestation of his real physical self. He stares at his hands, feels the familiar texture of his skin, the simulation of a pulse. He's stripped to the waist but he doesn't feel cold. Everything is curiously warm, actually.
From the dark, something forms itself to his side. It's his sword. He instinctively grasps it, the simple act of wielding it makes him smile.
Just like his will, it's always been a part of him. It's a manifestation of violence. Because violence is the only thing he's always known, and the only thing he has ever been.
And then, one last epiphany hits him.
He was built to destroy
and destroy is what he did.
It is ridiculously funny. After everything hes done, after almost ascending to godhood, after all that, he never escaped his predetermined purpose. To use his self-gifted freedom to escape, create a new reality, only to continuously confirm the fact that he is, indeed, the most effective, destructive weapon to ever exist. A sentient tool denying it's use.
Despite being meant for greatness, he lost at the end. What a fundamental failure.
So he laughs, cold and detached, at his own stupidity. At how pathetic it is to be on the edge of supreme victory and fail. At how much he has come to hate everyone, everything, but most importantly himself.
At the irony of his violent yet empty existence.
His deranged laughter fills the nothingness, echoing inside a mind, beckoning. The mind of someone almost important to him. Someone he has come to acknowledge. To almost admire, although he will never admit it.
He grips his sword firmly and stares at the darkness, waiting for that special person to show up. He wants to give a proper farewell. To that pawn, to that puppet, to that nobody.
To that nobody who somehow found everything.
A man travels through the thread of spirits, his mind a gateway to the nothingness. Floating, weaving through the darkness, the man opens his eyes. He starts to descend, and sees a man bellow, smirking at him. The one he hates the most.
The men come at at a standstill, one last showdown. One shifting his weight to accommodate his sword, calm and composed. The other draws his sword firmly, preparing, steadying himself. Time stops as they gaze into each other's eyes.
His eyes always bathed in burning rage, in a desire to kill, traced in madness and contempt, glowing with almost, almost hidden respect. The other's eyes are filled with empathetic sorrow, the smallest shade of kindness, but with the spark of undying determination.
Both laced with the finality to end things once and for all.
It can't be called a fight, he has already lost. He doesn't want to win. The other man gathers all of his strength, and attacks.
His senses are overwhelmed by intense, burning pain as a myriad of cuts pierce his torso, the other man viciously slashing him. Each strike charged with hatred, culminating in a soul-shattering blow.
Pure shock can at last let itself be shown, he can't even feel himself bleeding.
Everything is light. What is beyond that great light, he doesn't know. It doesn't matter.
His soul rests in peace.
He has returned to the planet.