Cough! Cough! Cough!
"What the hell! What's going on?!" — the dark-haired young man rasped, wincing as he touched his neck. Feeling something strange there, he froze. "A noose…? I don't remember planning to hang myself at such a young age — I'm only forty-seven! Wait! My voice, what happened to my voice?!" — he began frantically feeling himself, running his hands through long black hair, touching soft skin… "WHAT?! I'VE BECOME A WOMAN?! ARE YOU MOCKING ME?!" — he grabbed between his legs and froze, then exhaled with relief. "Still there. Otherwise I really would have gone ahead and hanged myself."
Removing the rope from his neck, he examined his black robe with curiosity. Beneath it was a classic grey suit with a green tie. He then walked to the mirror, where he saw a young man with greasy black hair down to his shoulders, a hooked nose, and cold black eyes — which brought a nostalgic smile to his face.
Not a bad gaze. Reminds me somewhat of my own, back before I slaughtered the entire Magistrate. Oh… those looks, full of hatred and despair… How magnificent that was! — a faint smirk crossed his face, his gaze turning ice-cold as he recalled it. I remember now… — the smile became slightly sad. I died. How depressing. You miserable old bastard!
A lone man wrapped in a black cloak stood in the middle of a ruined building, his long black hair stirred by the autumn wind. The scene might have seemed ordinary, were it not for the corpses scattered around him — people dressed in identical dark cloaks. Some had no eyes, others no limbs. There were even those who had lost everything: eyes, nose, ears, tongue, skin…
For any ordinary person, this would have been a nightmare — true hell made real. But the man standing at the center of the ruined building felt only one thing: relief.
He had not moved from that spot for hours. His black eyes stared up at the sky, seemingly drained of all life. But a moment later, they blazed with bloodlust as his gaze fixed on a figure who had appeared. It was an old man in a grey cloak, his hood fallen back, revealing long silver hair, deep wrinkles, and black eyes filled with disbelief and hatred.
"GRID! YOU BASTARD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" — the old man screamed with fury, and darkness descended over the entire clearing. Black mist swirled around him, and his eyes burned with a crimson, sinister glow.
"Old man, you're back early," — Grid greeted him with a light smile, his voice calm, even… almost monotone, yet with an unmistakable edge of mockery. "I expected you tomorrow, so I entertained myself with your disciples and was getting ready to set a trap for you… Kh…" — before he could finish, only a rasp escaped his throat, yet a smile bloomed across his face as he looked down at the wrinkled hand closed around his neck, then back up at the old man's contorted face.
"GRID! I WON'T KILL YOU!" — his voice cut to the bone. "I won't let you die. You will endure every torment my disciples suffered, you will feel everything they felt — but a hundred times worse!" — the old man, noticing Grid trying to say something, loosened his grip slightly.
"Is that so? I'm flattered. Tell me, old man, do you remember the city of Romalia?"
The old man froze for a moment, staring into the man's face with growing astonishment, his eyes widening with every passing second.
"You… That child?!" — the old man exclaimed. "How did you survive?!"
"Do you remember what you told me, after you erased my home, killed my entire family and friends, left only me to drag out my existence, stripped of both arms and legs?" — the smile never left Grid's face, and it filled the old man with a creeping sense of dread. "You said: 'I won't kill you — live. I want to watch you survive and take your revenge…' Those words lodged themselves in my heart. And as you can see, I survived. In thirty-seven years I reached the rank of Archmage — and I did it all for this revenge. And as you can see, I succeeded… Kh…" — the hand around his neck tightened once more.
"A genius. It took me nearly five hundred years to reach that title, yet you rushed," — the head of the Magistrate sneered. "Perhaps a few more centuries, and you might have become a Great Archmage — then you would have at least stood a chance. But you chose to carry out your revenge now, and to attempt to kill a mage who reached his peak long ago."
"You were planning to try and advance to 'Creator' this month. I realized that if I didn't kill you now, I would never get another chance — because once you achieved that, you could have found me with ease."
"I see. You're right. But it's too late now."
"What makes you say that? And isn't it strange that I can speak?" — Grid seized the old man's arm and freed himself with ease, then looked into his face. "I deceived you. I had time to set the trap," — a small dagger appeared in his hand. "I have exactly one minute — that's how long this spell will hold." — a smile never left his face throughout, but when he saw a flicker of fear in the old man's eyes, it only grew wider.
Grid cut his finger and began carving words into the dagger, while his enemy stared at the hilt with growing horror.
"I see you recognize what I intend to do."
"You'll die. Surely you understand that?" — the old man attempted to frighten Grid, assuming he did not know what using this would cost him.
"For you, it will be worse than death," — in the next moment, he drove it into the old man's chest. The runes on the hilt blazed and were absorbed into his body, and the dagger crumbled and vanished.
The wound closed rapidly, and the old man could move again.
"It is done," — the gleam slowly faded from the young man's eyes, and in its place, two lone tears ran down his cheek. "Mother, father, brother, Din, Rudi, Clea… and all the others — I did it… Just wait for me. I'll be with you soon. It won't be long now," — black blood spilled from his mouth.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" — the old man screamed in horror. "MY POWER, MY POWER! HOW COULD YOU?! YOU BASTARD! I'LL KILL YOU!"
"You're too late. But," — Grid, looking into those eyes filled with hatred and terror, could not suppress a gloating smile — for those eyes, how much they resembled his own on that day — "You've only lost your power. That's all," — he swayed toward the old man and seized his arm. The old man was powerless to resist; he simply had no strength left to oppose an Archmage. "But you have too many advantages — four of them. That needs to be corrected."
"NO!"
CRACK!
The old man's arm hung limp, and tears streamed from his eyes. He had felt such pain only once before — fifteen hundred years ago, when he had been nothing but an ordinary Magister, and someone had broken his arm for touching what he should not have.
CRACK!
The old man lost his second arm. His screams grew louder, and so did his tears. A moment later he lost a leg, then the other. He lay on the ground, his eyes holding nothing but despair.
"Could you keep it down…" — the man scolded him with a look of reproach. "There are wolf packs around here fairly often, had you forgotten?" — but the old man seemed not to hear a word, for in a single moment he had lost everything he had built over thousands of years — and all of it at the hands of a mere Archmage.
Grid stared at his hands with sorrow as they began to blacken and crumble before his very eyes.
So this is death… I hope that before I reach hell, I'll see all of them — at least one last time… — in the final moment before his death, he thought he heard someone cry out. And from beyond the horizon, a brilliant green light was approaching the site of the last battle between Archmage Grid Ilius and Great Archmage Avalon — within it, barely visible, was the silhouette of a human figure.
If I have no memories of it, then I likely didn't meet anyone. And I've never heard of anyone being reborn after using the Seal of the Cursed God… Though where would I have heard that from? — Grid peered into the mirror again. With a face like this, no one is going to give me anything… for free. But then again… who cares. — He sniffed his clothes and touched his hair, his face twisting instinctively. Wash myself and launder everything — that comes first! — Closing his eyes, Grid tried to sense the magical energy flowing through his body. "This…?!"
Magic was there, but slightly different, and its density was about a hundred times less than in his world — making it far harder to control.
What's going on…? — Grid did not panic immediately. Instead, he decided to take stock of his surroundings first.
The room was magnificent. He felt as though he had stepped into the bedchamber of some nobleman. The first thing that caught his eye was a large canopied bed — wooden, with beautiful carvings, clearly the work of a master craftsman. On it lay a soft mattress covered with a silk sheet, which stunned him, for silk was an extraordinarily expensive material — even high-ranking nobles could rarely afford it.
To the right of the bed was a nightstand. To the left, in the far corner, a wardrobe, and directly in front of it a second, larger nightstand with a wide mirror above it. What struck him was that all of it had been made by a true master of the craft.
Who was the previous owner of this body? — Grid wondered, and in the very next moment he grabbed his head and collapsed to his knees. "DAMN! MY HEAD! WHAT THE HELL?! IT HURTS, FOR THE LOVE OF—!" — the Archmage clenched his teeth and sank to the floor, closing his eyes, forcing himself to calm down as the new memories began to settle in his mind.
Only twenty minutes later did the young man open his eyes. He had done a surface scan of the previous owner's memories and then blocked them — after all, if that vast amount of knowledge flooded into his mind all at once, anyone would lose their sanity, and Grid was no exception.
Damn, my head is splitting… a warning would have been nice… — but even so, he took a deep breath and looked upward with a sad smile, toward the remnant of rope still hanging from the beam. He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. …Still, the boy had a hard life. But… so be it. In this second life, I'll help you a little. And after that, I'll go on living for the both of us. I promise — your name will be remembered for a long time. Whether in a good light or a bad one… that's for fate to decide.