Why do we fear death?

Why do we fear the end?

Why do we dread our last breath?

What was this immense fear about passing that can cause anyone to scamper and hide to keep their lives safe?

What were we so afraid of?

Were we afraid of vanishing because of the fear of abandoning the people we love without knowing how they'll fend for themselves once we pass? Were we afraid of death because of the torment and sorrow that we'll go through before meeting with our definite end? Was it because death was related to blood-smeared weapons, widespread plagues, and heedless criminals that we cannot symbolize death with anything mesmerizing?

There were many reasons for such perturbation but perhaps the fear of not knowing what was beyond death and the sense of powerlessness against the unknown were the primary reasons. Who knew that the unknown can be such a nightmare? It can mess up one's mind and raise someone's expectation to an extent of collapse. It was the best tool to torment a mind full of questions.

"Corlos, they're coming!" Kogen exclaimed.

I opened my eyes and let a breath escape from my lips before standing up from the rock protruding from the sand. I tossed my Zeke up and down my palm and clutched my slim sword in my other hand.

Sharp screeches and booming growls from the land and from the skies resonated from afar. They covered each end of the visible horizon creating whirling dusts carpeting their intense arrival. The skies darkened from their storm-cloud appearance and just ahead of the charging creatures was the newly armed Guta glowing with sacred power.

The ends of my lips curled mischievously and I took steady and restrained steps forward.

Guta did not disappoint.

"You don't have to do anything," I told Kogen.

Anyone who'll help me will only get in my way. I want to be the one who'll rip them open and release the fluids that made their bodies function. No one else was better suited for this job. Only I can end their meaningless lives. They were begging for their deaths.

"What are you saying? Are you seeing what I'm seeing Corlos because I know for a fact that you aren't blind!" he protested.

"I don't want you to do anything," I simply told him. "Just stay there, sit tight, and comb your hair. Not a single animal will get past that rock, "I assured.

I wasn't being arrogant. I wasn't trying to prove anything. I wasn't being a show-off.

I just knew that I didn't need Kogen's help.

"You can't do this alone," Kogen pushed on as the creatures charged towards us.

"I don't need you in this war so save your energy for later when we finally deal with Esgard. You'll be more useful there."

"I don't know if I should be offended or be touched by your words however I am suddenly craving to stab a certain pocket-size God who seems to be so full of himself," Kogen muttered before sitting down on the rock and crossing his legs with a pout.

I slightly turned my head to look at the upset God and sniggered at him. "Don't ever belittle me."

A surge of strong zephyr swished in every direction around me and it may seem like I was merely standing in place but in truth, I was already gyrating to hurl my Zeke towards my opponent.

My Zeke soared across the desert creating a blazing fire that formed into a meteor-like structure and engulfed a massive scope in inferno.

Sandworms which dove up into the air and drilled back down into the sand were my first targets. I sprinted towards the army of monsters and animals and focused my eyes on the movement of the sandworms which were the front line.

My pupils constricted in focus and once the worms dove up, I twirled my wrist and controlled the sand to rise and form into spear-like shapes that effectively impaled my targets and created my initial defense against the monsters taking up the land. I leaped into a twirl from one of the pointed tips of my sand and stayed afloat. I drew a circle with my two fingers swiftly decorating it with a spell which became visible to the naked eye. The circle summoned the reaping hands which grabbed anything that had a spark of life in them before ruthlessly crumpling them like paper.

I felt a blast of white light from behind me and saw Guta charging up ahead with the force of the crazed toscans behind him. Other flying creatures circled me in attempt to intimidate me with their number.

"Impotent fool!" Guta snarled. "I have brought with me Esgard's holy army to mark this day using the blood of the sinners! Your head is mine!" he snapped at me.

I loved every second of this.

"You have that spirit that I like. Let me crush that for you..."

I lifted my chin up and faced the darkening skies with mirth before pirouetting with my sword pointing to the side. I slashed the birds lingering around me and lit their blood with fire which then became revolting rings that tore through more of my enemies. Guta managed to escape my blade and flew away from me having his underlings do most of the work.

"I want him alive!" Guta screeched.

My other sword materialized in my hand and I landed down to begin my massacre using my blades. I sliced a two-legged monster that had an elongated jaw having sharp pointed teeth lining the edges of its exposed gums and beheaded a four-legged viper-looking being with a tail of a scorpion.

My movements were swift, sharp, and smooth as I alternated the use of my swords in a hurricane of bladed noises. I created one magic circle after another that it astonished me on how much knowledge I was hiding from myself until now.

Every skill and every technique came naturally to me that I was harmonizing with my destructive persona. Lightning wrecked havoc in uncontrollable directions; winds lacerated flesh after flesh carrying droplets far away from its owner; fire twirled playfully through the air of war and water forced its way into the mouths of the unwilling drowning them into their demise.

A familiar toscan lunged towards me and a smile curved my lips. His beak pierced through my hand and it tickled me into a fit of giggles.

"I never thought I'd see you again..." I told Skrooth. His eyes were clouded with emptiness. I pushed my bloodied palm further piercing his beak through it until I was able to clutch half of his face.

Death was the greatest thief of the universe. It had stolen so many lives, so many opportunities, and so much happiness from everyone.

And I was the God of it.

"Death be with you..." I whispered before crushing his skull like a fragile fruit and withdrawing my palm from its impaled state.

My heart throughout all of this was raging with intense beating. I couldn't explain the exhilaration that I was feeling. The scent of death was breathtaking. The sound of flesh being torn was so exciting that I could almost taste it and feel the succulent drips of sweet agony on my taste buds.

My heart couldn't take the overflow of emotions flooding inside of it that in that moment, it stopped pounding. I stopped breathing.

I became one with death.

I became one with my once conflicted self.

I finally unleashed the strength which led to eradication.

It was so quick that I didn't even notice. I only remembered floating into euphoria and my vision was consumed by darkness. My ears were flooded with gurgling and wheezing noises and when I finally took control of my body, I was holding Guta's head while I stood among the millions of dead bodies lying around me.

My heart began to beat once more and life returned to me. I was standing in a pool of blood which was slowly being absorbed by the already drenched sand.

I was at lost.

This was my power.

"Dear God..." I heard Kogen mutter from behind me. I turned around and found him in an utter state of shock.

"Don't waste anymore time Kogen. Remember their life forces," I reminded him. Though my beating heart signified my life, I felt empty. There was a void that made me unfeeling. Frustration latched onto my heart and I craved for more bloodshed.

Kogen snapped out from his paralysis and he gathered his hands upwards from the sides. The life forces of the dead became visible and they started to gather towards the God of Justice into a ball of light. Once every life force was in that ball, Kogen released it into a long beam which stretched into an unseen distance. The two of us chased the fading beam which he released and reached a portal caused by the rupture made by the impact of intense life energy.

"We have the hurry, the portal will only last until this shifting ends," Kogen alerted me.

I did not have any clue of what to expect upon entering Esgard's realm and I wasn't all mentally and emotionally prepared to spare something living but we pulled through...

It was too easy...

It went so smoothly that I was paranoid about how we managed to pull this off without breaking a sweat. There was a missing piece to the mystery evidently being hidden by someone watching from a risky distance yet still managed to go unnoticeable due to myself being blinded by trust.

When we entered Esgard's realm, the God was in ruin. His mind was in all places and He kept on muttering the words: "Lie...Sham..." and then it will be followed by a long and struggling hum before adding the word Bug to His list.

Esgard had golden dreadlocks which overflowed down to his ankles. His tan tattooed skin had branches of dark veins which seemed to cause him so much pain. The God snapped his gaze at me and I thought he was going to attack but he fell on to his knees right in front of me and began to repeat his words.

"Lie! Sham!" he wheezed out and released a hum before screaming "Bug!"

Esgard gripped my wrists tightly as he heatedly stared at my eyes. I was obfuscated by his desperation to make me understand the message that he was trying to express and I wanted to comprehend his situation but in his current state I don't think he knew what he was trying to say either. No wonder I wasn't noticed despite the mass murders that I did.

The sudden frenzy of the animals and the toscans were due to Esgard's own mental hullabaloo.

Seeing a fellow God in this state was nettling. Whoever did this was a piece of—

I knelt in front of Esgard and secured my hands on his shoulders.

"Did Imjir do this to you?" I asked him. Esgard attempted to nod in affirmation but a cough broke out followed by the rise of black substance oozing out from his mouth.

"Corlos," Kogen called out bringing me back to our initial mission.

I wanted to know more about Imjir but I can't bear to see Esgard suffer like this. He needed to be rehabilitated first to remove all the impurities created from whatever bullshit Imjir made.

"You'll be okay. We'll talk to you once you recover," I told him.

Esgard released series of pained hacks and an ivory hued magic circle appeared under Kogen. The God of Justice brought out his purification stone and Esgard started to get drawn inside the stone.

"You'll be okay Esgard," I comforted him. The God of Belraria raised his lowered gaze at me and my worry heightened when he gave me a stare of uncertainty and hopelessness which meant to me as: "Will I really be okay?"

That severely put me into a guilt trap.

I didn't want to give him false hope but Esgard knew something that I didn't. The things he was saying before must really have a deeper meaning behind them however; he was struggling to make sense.

We returned to the temple and started to instruct the people of Belraria on what to do. The barrier separating the yvarians and the toscans will soon fade therefore we needed to get them into higher ground. I will talk to Ten Ten about the situation and request her to make sure that the yvarians won't attack the toscans. The two Ayken brothers plus Kogen and I held a small meeting in the office of the late Priestess Ebu.

"Where are we going to take them? There aren't any mountains in Belraria," Chaos pointed out.

Irritation raised blood into my head and I groaned. Didn't Esgard go through any creativity class back in our planet?

"There are tall ruins created by the early toscans. Esgard ordered the creation of these ruins in case there was a breakage in the barrier," Kogen explained.

"It's settled then," I concluded.

"We can get there by going north but we have a problem," Rupture sighed.

"What kind of problem?" I asked him. We had a bigger problem than the lack of safe shelter, food and water?

"The mess you made is the problem. How can these people walk through the desert of the dead with the dead still exposed?"

Oh that problem.

I pointed at Chaos and grinned. "I already told Chaos to prepare a mass funeral."

The ex general sheepishly laughed and began to scoot away from me. "Yeah, about that, I didn't think you were really serious so I...I only made two graves..."

Kogen rubbed his head from stress and crossed his arms. "This shouldn't even be a problem. Corlos, go clean up the mess you made. I'm sure it's going to be an easy task for you seeing that you eradicated ninety percent of Belraria's population in a span of one and a half hours."

"But pai~" I whined and yelped when Kogen turned me around and angrily smacked my butt. I sharply inhaled and slowly gave Kogen a look of astonishment.

Chaos cleared his throat and hastily pushed me out of the room. "Let's get to cleaning!" he enthusiastically cheered before dragging me out of the temple.

As we trudged our way to the disheveled graveyard, Chaos threw in a question.

"You killed them so what now?" he asked me. We did not explain in detail of what really happened with the crazed ones and Esgard and Kogen explicitly told me not to say a word to the ayken brothers.

"I really don't know..." I lied. "But it's all up to Esgard now," I added another lie. Chaos and I had a bond and it wasn't a friendship kind of bond. I didn't like lying to him but if he knew what I was things might change between the two of us.

"You're keeping lots of things from us," Chaos chuckled. "I mean we deserve to know but seeing the power that you possess, I know that we're an inferior race and that you belong into a planet that's far more superior to any other planet in the universe. I've see skillful, powerful, and ruthful warriors all over the universe but you? You're on your own league," Chaos stated and snorted after.

I stopped walking and grabbed Chaos's arm looking away from him because of shame and guilt.

"Sorry..." I whispered.

The ayken pulled me against him into a loose embrace and we held each other in a brief yet ardor moment before proceeding to our destination while holding hands.

I looked back at the temple with no reason whatsoever and found a lone Knight standing by the entrance. Another tall figure came out and judging by the length of his hair, the person was Kogen and I figured that the Knight was Rupture.

The two of them returned to the temple but Rupture stopped on his tracks before looking back one last time and I realized that he might be having animosity with what he was seeing between his brother and I.

"You think your brother will resent us?" I asked Chaos.

Chaos scoffed and snickered.

"Trust me, he already does. He's the God of Jealousy after all."

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A/N: I have some several arts to post and to make so I may put them on display on the next update. 

HI TWINKS