Chapter Text
Challengers, single lifers, there were many names for those who had a special fate. A fate predescribed for greatness.
A greatness that may be achieved after going through many hardships. To eventually attain a rank among the gods.
Choi Han went through many such hardships. So many more than anyone else. So many that his attribute, the core of his being, became despair. A negative force he clung to and made his strength.
Never did life grant him anything. Never did anything go his way. Dropped into a forest filled with monsters, finally getting out and finding a home, a family, just to have it ripped away again. If this was fate, it was truly cruel. He kept on fighting and fighting, always losing. Even the wins felt shallow.
He managed to defeat a dragon, but it wasn’t as glorious as described in fairy tales. Far from it. It had been a child that cried from happiness as he finally put it down. How could that be possibly called a win?
It was always losses. Never did Choi Han fight to win, only to lose as little as possible. No matter how hard he tried to not get attached to save his own heart. It was simply too big. So he kept making friends and acquaintances, only to have to fight tooth and nail to somehow protect them.
It didn’t always work out.
Pendrik died and Lock went berserk.
Even when he achieved perfect despair. even when he consumed the black cores of those cursed golems, that wiped entire battlefields clean, yet whispered to him with alluringly sweet nothings.
He had felt as if his veins were filled with filth, black blood dripping down his face as he lost himself. Once he came to, the battlefield was clean. Nothing left, only blackness. How relieved he was once he learned that Rosalyn had managed to teleport their allies away in time. Away from him.
He swore to not do it again for his own sanity.
But dire situations required even more dire means.
The crown prince was only using him as a pawn. The hero title just a pretty publicity stunt to keep the people calm, give them hope. Choi Han didn’t care. They did share the same goal after all. Protect what they could.
Eventually Choi Han became a commander in the ever continuing war. Many of the soldiers looked up to him. And he, as the only general from commoner blood, was close to them. Celebrated with them every little win and drank to the losses as well. The soldiers would often drink to taking revenge.
The one thing despite everything Choi Han had little care for. So much always went wrong it was impossible to find a single scapegoat to blame it all on, to take revenge on.
Yet he sank his blade deep into his enemies again and again.
The betrayal of the Empire hit hard. The Wipper Kingdom’s fall inevitable. And then the battles set fire to even the Eastern Continent. That was when their true enemy was revealed.
The White Star. The leader of the Secret Organization that had orchestrated so much and caused Choi Han to lose and lose and lose.
He was strong. Countless battles where he could barely lay a finger on the white masked man. And yet it all fed to Choi Han’s despair, the one thing he clung to and turned into strength.
The war took 20 years. 20 long god damn years. That was when the final battle took place. Choi Han was still as youthful as all these years ago when he had fallen into the forest. When being dropped into this world had ripped everything away from him and continued to take everything he gained.
Yet Choi Han couldn turn to hate this world. For the friendships he made along the way were still meaningful. And so even the love he felt turned into fuel for his despair to claw into his enemies, to somehow protect what he could.
20 long years and his blade finally buried deep into the body of the White Star.
20 long years and the war finally ended.
20 long years and he could finally take a break.
Rebuilding the kingdoms was a slow process but they managed, Choi Han helping as much as he could, rooting out the remains of their enemies. It was never truly over. And as if to laugh in his face and reinforce that fate.
The White Star came back.
He looked different, but acted the same. He was the same, unmistakably wretched person as he always was.
But Choi Han was still as youthful as he always was and for the first time he was thankful for this fact. Even as his friends and allies grew older, even as he lost and lost and lost, he could fight on.
He would never truly win, but at least he had become strong enough to protect at least a little bit. Always fighting to the brink of death, barely ever truly living. Forced to consume even the black despair again and again until his eyes bled black and even his allies feared him.
Choi Han fought on.
And eventually he died.
But for him who had always stayed young, even death wasn’t final.
Choi Han wanted to laugh at that strange fate. The fate to ascend after death was measured by what he went through. When he learned how others coveted this fate and even tried to steal it for themselves.
But if Choi Han had learned anything from his long life, then, that he was never lucky.
So even now this grand fate spat at him, mocked him.
For his attribute was despair, his entire life was filled with it and he had made it his core, embraced it and always fought on.
And now this despair, this attribute made it impossible for him to ascend fully.
There could always only be one god of one jurisdiction. And despair was already taken. Choi Han’s despair was pure so there was no other way for him. And despite all his strength he couldn’t kill an already established god. Nor did he even consider serving the bastard as intern after he learned that the current God of Despair had a hand in the damned White Star.
In addition he was deemed dangerous, even by other gods, so nobody extended help or offered to at least take him in as a servant. To prevent fate from taking its course.
Choi Han was meant to ascend to godhood and yet, as a being filled with nothing but despair and the position of God of Despair already taken, there was no place left for him.
A being half ascended, a demigod of despair.
Trapped in the Void.