The sky tore open with a blinding flash—like a meteor was coming straight for us, determined to burn this world to ash. Two figures dropped from the heavens and stopped in midair so abruptly the shockwave of their braking hit the ears like a cannon shot.

  Two more Archangels hovered in front of me. In their eyes, hatred mixed with a sticky, cold fear.

  “WHERE IS OUR BROTHER?!” the first one roared, and the air itself shuddered from the scream.

  The second suddenly went pale, horror twisting his face.

  “It can’t be…” he whispered, staggering back. “How did you…? I can feel him! His core… it’s inside you! How?!”

  I only grinned wider, already savoring the fun.

  “Oh. New toys.”

  They moved instantly. A storm of a thousand strikes crashed down on me—a glittering whirlwind of light and steel. But for me, time seemed to freeze into thick syrup. I lazily stepped back, slipping past attacks that looked laughably slow.

  A moment.

  I casually waved one away, flinging him aside like an annoying fly, and lunged at the second. My teeth sank into his throat.

  He screamed—wild, terrified—trying to shove me off, clawing at my skin, tearing it open, but I held on. I wasn’t drinking blood. I was draining his very essence. His radiance began to fade, his eyes rolled back. One second—and an empty shell remained in my hands. I opened my jaws, and the dim body fell like a stone into the abyss below.

  The one I’d thrown aside managed to catch his brother in midair.

  “No… no… THIS CAN’T BE!”

  He hurled the corpse away and charged at me, turning into a knot of pure rage.

  “DIE!!!”

  Our fists met.

  CRUNCH.

  The sound of the bones in his arm snapping was sweeter than any music. He howled, but at that instant the heavens above us finally split wide open. Blinding light flooded everything—a portal to their world. From it, like a swarm of enraged wasps, dozens of angels burst out.

  They were too late.

  I didn’t wait. I flashed to the wounded Archangel, grabbed him—one hand on his head, the other on his body. He kicked, tried to wrench free, screamed something at his kin, but to me he was no stronger than a dry branch.

  A jerk.

  Flesh tore.

  I ripped his core out and, staring at the approaching army of heaven, swallowed it.

  “MORE!”

  The angels closed the ring. A forest of spears and swords aimed at my chest. One of them, in shining plate, stepped forward—but his confidence was cracking. A whisper of terror ran through the ranks of the winged host:

  “Impossible… an Archangel fell? By a human’s hand? He killed them… that can’t be…”

  I laughed in their faces.

  “MORE!”

  Snap.

  The sound of my fingers was a verdict. In the same instant, the heads of every angel surrounding me separated from their bodies. A rain of dead celestials fell downward. I drew their cores into myself, but they were crumbs—pathetic sparks compared to the power of Archangels.

  I needed more.

  The portal’s light began to throb, inviting me.

  I didn’t keep it waiting.

  I rose—and stepped through the edge of worlds.

  Before me opened a blinding white expanse. A world of sterile purity, where there was no place for dirt or shadows. Hundreds of angels circled the sky, staring at me in confusion. In their eyes, I was an error—a stain on their perfect canvas.

  My laughter ripped that sacred silence apart.

  “TODAY THIS WORLD WILL BE PAINTED RED!”

  They surged at me like an avalanche, trying to crush me with numbers.

  “No. That’s not interesting,” I whispered. “I want it so that when your heads roll off your shoulders, the expression on your faces won’t be rage—

  it’ll be fear. Animal terror in front of me.”

  A strike—there was a clean hole through the chest of the first attacker. The others didn’t stop.

  I snapped my fingers again.

  Space warped. Hundreds of wounds opened across dozens of angel bodies. I lit a furious black flame, and the heavens filled with screams. They burned, but they didn’t die right away—

  I wanted to hear them.

  There were more and more of them. Hundreds. More hundreds.

  Then, in one moment, their formation wavered.

  They understood.

  They started to retreat.

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  “Finally!” I roared, bursting after them. “There it is—fear!”

  I butchered them in flight, ripping through their ranks like a wolf through sheep.

  And then—amid the panic—I saw two Archangels. They weren’t fighting.

  They were running.

  A flash of darkness—and I appeared right in front of them.

  One didn’t even have time to brake. His head left his shoulders before he realized I was there. I greedily drank down his core. The second didn’t even look back at his brother. He just fled.

  I was about to chase—

  but something blocked my path.

  It wasn’t an angel. It wasn’t a demon. It looked at me with endless, cosmic grief.

  “So the cores of my nephews…” its voice was quiet, mournful. “You swallowed them…”

  It lifted its gaze to the endless white sky, as if searching for answers there.

  “I can feel it… I won’t be able to defeat you now.”

  One blink—and it dissolved into the air, like it had never existed.

  I didn’t waste time thinking. I launched after the second Archangel. I decided to play with him. I drove him like a hound drives a hare, letting him believe he had a chance.

  Ahead, colossal Gates appeared. The Archangel, frantic, tearing his nails, tried to force them open. They yielded—

  too late.

  I caught him.

  One swing—and his legs stayed behind at the threshold.

  He crawled on his hands, leaving a golden trail of blood, and screamed until his voice broke:

  “FATHER! FATHER, SAVE ME!”

  And then the Archangel vanished—dissolving in a flash of light.

  The Gates swung open.

  Beyond them stood a Being of impossible size. From its mere presence, the world began to crack at the seams.

  “YOU KILLED THEM.”

  His voice was thunder that collapses mountains.

  I grinned up at the giant.

  “You let me kill them. And you call yourself God? You’re not God. You’re a fake.”

  He rose from his throne. Each step was an earthquake.

  “YOU ARE NOT GOD!” he roared.

  A torrent of blinding light poured from his hands and drowned me. The pain was searing, my skin hissed—

  but… it was bearable.

  When the radiance fell away and he saw me still alive, shock flickered across his face.

  “Impossible… I AM GOD HIMSELF! Why are you still alive?!”

  “AH-HA-HA-HA!” I laughed, shaking the остатки of his magic from my shoulders. “You call yourself God? You send your children to slaughter and you can’t do anything yourself? A real God would snap his fingers—and I would vanish. A real God knows the future. And you… you can’t even see your own nose!”

  He roared, losing control. I rushed him. His enormous fist came for me.

  Our strikes collided.

  The shockwave was so violent the floor turned to dust.

  He took a step back. Swayed.

  “It can’t be…”

  I didn’t let him recover. I jumped and sank my teeth into his arm, tearing divine flesh.

  “How delicious you are!”

  He swatted me away like an insect, but his light began to flicker nervously.

  And then that grieving Being appeared beside him again.

  “Brother… I can’t handle him!”

  A slaughter began. We moved at speeds no eye could follow. Sonic barriers burst one after another. I felt my human body cracking, unable to endure such force. Blood lashed from my mouth, muscles tore, but I didn’t stop.

  Madness drove me forward.

  A hit—

  the Fake God flew back, smashing into the wall of his own throne hall.

  I turned on the second—the grieving brother.

  A hit—and he flew too, tumbling through the air.

  I was about to leap on him and rip out his throat when an unknown force gently, but irresistibly, shoved me back.

  Between us appeared another figure.

  Dark. Ancient.

  “ENOUGH.”

  The Fake God, rising from his knees, breathed out:

  “Brother Darkness… But how?”

  “I broke the seal. Your power is fading. Your seals are weakening…” Darkness’s voice was like the rustle of grave soil. “And I came here.”

  He slowly turned his head to me. Then looked at the Fake God.

  “No… no… He killed them?”

  I tried to rise, bracing on shaking hands, but it was too late. The three High Ones—Fake God, the Grieving Brother, and Darkness—closed a circle around me. Their lips moved in unison, reciting an ancient forbidden formula that made space itself begin to fold.

  An unknown light—heavy and burning—crashed down on me from above like a waterfall of molten steel. I dropped to my knees, unable to withstand the pressure. My skin hissed, but I forced myself to lift my head and laugh in their faces—rasping, bloody:

  “AH-HA… You’re powerless against me! Even the three of you… you’re nothing!”

  The Fake God, whose glow was already flickering from exhaustion, turned to the others. Panic

  “Brother… we can’t kill him. H

  “THEN LET HIM HAVE A DIFFERENT PUNISHMENT!” thundered a voice mixed of rage and fear. “LET HIM LIVE FOR ETERNITY—BUT LET HIS MEMORY BE AS SHORT AS A MOTH’S!"

  The light changed. It s

  I screamed.

  This wasn’t physical pain—this was worse. It was like living pieces were being ripped out of my soul. The torture seemed to last forever, though no more than ten minutes passed.

  My life began flashing before my eyes—images igniting and immediately burning away in white flame.

  My parents’ faces… their sm

  My childhood, the smell of hom

  My sister Mira… her laughter, her strength, her promise to stay near… I reached for that memory, tried to hold it—

  and it crumbled to ash between my fingers.

  Tears poured from my eyes. I couldn’t stop them.

  “No… not this…”

  The memories kept coming. Adventures. Elves. Silly General Reim. Then—emptiness.

  Riza… her face, her eyes… I was forgetting what she looked like right now. I was forgetting who I was.

  Suddenly Darkness screamed, his voice full of agony:

  “FORGIVE ME, BROTHER!”

  His dark figure began to break apart, turning into smoke. He spent all of himself on this curse.

  “NO!” the Grieving Brother shrieked, beginning to crack like a shattered vase. “HOLD HIM! DON’T LET HIM GO!”

  The stream of light ran dry.

  I stayed on my knees. In my head rang a deafening, sterile silence. Where my life had been, now there was a burned desert. I didn’t remember names. I didn’t remember faces.

  I knew only pain.

  The Fake God collapsed to the floor, breathing hard. The Grieving Brother fell beside him, crumbling into dust.

  “Forgive me, brother…” whispered the vanishing Darkness.

  “NO! BROTHERS! NO!!!” the Fake God roared.

  He was alone.

  Staggering, shaking from weakness and rage, he stood. Madness burned in his eyes. He pointed at me with a trembling finger.

  “This… this is all your fault! All of it!”

  I slowly lifted an empty, tear-soaked gaze to him. There was no anger left in me. Only cold, absolute truth.

  I whispered so softly—yet he heard every word:

  “It’s your fault. Only yours.”

  He froze. My words hit him harder than any spell. He knew I was right.

  Unable to look at me anymore, he raised his hand. The floor beneath me vanished—an black portal opened.

  And I began to fall.

  Into the unknown. Into oblivion. Into the beginning of my endless cycle.

  I fell, spinning helplessly in the void. The world below rushed closer, but it no longer stirred recognition. Familiar outlines of continents, oceans, forests—now they looked чужие, like a map I’d never seen. The bond was severed.

  Impact.

  I crashed onto a snow-covered slope of some mountain. Hard stone and icy wind met me. Pain was so sharp my mind shut off instantly, dragging me into a dark, viscous sleep.

  But the sleep was worse than reality.

  It was a nightmare of erasure. I watched my world collapse into white noise. I stood in the middle of nothing and reached forward in desperation, trying to grab onto anything at all. From the thick fog, a hand reached back—thin, warm, painfully familiar. Our fingers almost touched—

  and at the last instant it dissolved, scattering into ash in the emptiness.

  I snapped my eyes open.

  My face was wet. Tears. They ran in an endless stream, burning my wind-frozen skin. I touched my cheek, staring at my damp fingers with genuine confusion.

  “Why…?” I whispered.

  Inside was a hole. Huge. Aching emptiness. I could feel I’d lost something unbelievably important, but I couldn’t remember what.

  Why was I crying? Who was I mourning?

  With effort I propped myself on my elbows and looked around. Only snow, gray cliffs, and cutting cold. My body hurt like every bone had been shattered and every muscle torn.

  I tried to find even one hook in my head—one name, one memory—

  and hit only a dull, impenetrable wall.

  Wind howled in my ears, but inside my thoughts there was ringing silence. I stared at my trembling hands, then at the white horizon, and asked the question that frightened me more than the cold:

  “Where am I?”

  And then, with horror as the truth landed:

  “…And who am I?”