As the man emerged from his crater, he found that his legs felt far weaker than he remembered them being. Then again, the very last time he could truly remember anything, he was nearly a God. Having slain nearly all but one of the Gods in his previous timeline, Keres was perhaps the strongest mortal man to ever exist.

But something troubled him so. How could he be alive, here and now, if he had witnessed his own eradication in real time? Not to mention he had been responsible, at least partially for the destruction of the observable universe and once his nemesis, Vogvir, got involved, all of known reality.

"This is all so bizarre," He noted as he clenched his hand a few times to gauge his current strength, "My power has diminished greatly. No, it's as if all of it has vanished. Could it be that whatever has led me to this place has traded my power in return for life? How would it even decide that? What could even decide that? I guess it matters little as to how any of this occured. I need to make a plan."

As his legs got used to the basic motions of walking once more, he looked around and began to notice things were askew. The grass in this world was different, wisps flew about in the night air when in his former home, wisps were the stuff of legends and folklore. This world, as he began to notice, was relatably younger as he could feel the seismic energies of the world which fueled its magical atmospheres reverberating within him. But what was even more amousing was that this world had not one, but two moons. In his earlier moment of bliss, he had not noticed it, but the world had one large moon and then a smaller sibling moon that seemed to loom closely behind its bigger sister. He scoffed, realizing what this could mean for his future magic related endeavors, but that was something he could not to think about right now.

"Burn."

Nothing.

"Quake."

Nothing.

"Thundering Pulse."

Absolute silence.

"Divine Spear: Ender of Eternity."

Not even a single spark emitted from his fingertips.

"What the hell... Have I regressed so far that I've lost all my spells and abilities? How powerless am I right now? Am I no stronger than a regular human being? Do I even hold any magical power at all?"

He heaved a sigh as he continued his walk into the wilderness before him. The dense forest he was walking through was calm, quiet, serene. This was not a good thing. When animals in the forest grew quiet, that could only mean a predator was nearby. Despite it being night, not even the nocturnal creatures emitted a single sound to make their presence known. This, along with the recent loss of his abilities, made Keres worry. There was a possible predator in these woods and it certainly wasn't him.

"Keep a steady head," Keres whispered to himself as he tried to calm himself, "First goal is to get out of this forest. After that, I need to find the first hint of proper civilization within this world and get myself some clothes. After that, I can begin gaining knowledge of where I am, the state of the world as a whole, how magic works here, the governing system, so on and so forth. The more information I can gather, the better I can plan out my next moves."

Then, a spine chilling thought crossed his mind.

"But wait... Does that wretch know that I still live? Is he aware that I continue to conspire against him and his bretheren? Oh, this can't be good. In my current state, any encounter with that time freak or any of his servants would prove fatal to me. Having loss the Divine Spear too has rendered me defenseless against those Gods. I should be careful not to say their names or mention them too often. Seeing as how they could appear before mortals by simply calling their names before, I should keep my mouth sown shut if I wish to avoid their detection."

The ground beneath his feet began to shake. Tremors ran through the ground and therefore his feet and legs, rocking his core to the brink of frenzy. This was not a natural reaction of the world itself and he was currently not aware of any mountains capable of eruption in the area. What could this imposing rumbling be? What in this new world could shake him and the forest ground like so? Then, he saw it through the clearing. It was tall, far taller than he was. Its head snapped the taller branches of the pine trees above as it stomped its heavy feet towards him. The creature looked like the mix of a bear and an ogre, with a big, ugly, drooling snout and razor sharp teeth to boot. Its belly was big and furry and it walked on two legs, with big balding arms and big hands with sharp black claws instead of fingernails. It wore a loin cloth, no doubt made from the skinned remains of some type of wild animal, perhaps a boar and in one of its hands laid equipped a blunt log that had been beaten into the shape of a club, as shown by the dried blood left on the weapon and the scratched up and missing pieces of bark flesh. Its eyes were black, devoid of any reasoning, devoid of mercy for the living. This thing was most definitely not an intelligent creature; This thing was a wild beast, through and through. As Keres crouched down into a defensive stance, he could feel his inner core shaking and trembling out of fear. How long had it been since he had truly felt afraid, he wondered to himself. Ever since he had learned magic as a boy, he never defaulted into the primal need to fear something stronger than him. Even when facing Gods, hundreds of thousands of years old with appearances and abilities that would drive any sane man mad, he would remain undeterred. But this beast? In his current state of weakness, where his spongy, human flesh did him no favors whatsoever, with an arsenal of absolutely zero weapons, spells, abilities or even armor or clothes for that matter, he stood absolutely terrified. He exhaled shakily, trying to hide any presence of his current fear from the creature. Keres knew that if there was even the slightest chance that this thing could be reasoned with, he needed to attempt diplomacy with it. So, seeking a coward's way out of this situation, the man took a deep breath and stood up straight to face the creature in front of him, speaking loudly and clearly to it.

"Hello! You there! You seem like a well versed fellow. Would you mind telling me where I am? I seem to be a bit lost!"

The creature stared blankly at Keres, as if it wasn't looking at another human being, but rather at a piece of flesh that it needed to consume. Its growl rumbled lowly in its throat, opening its gaping maw to unleash the noise louder for the man to hear. Then, in an unexpected turn of events, it spoke.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"You who speaks the Commontongue of this land. I am Detrinomous, Lord and God of this Forest. All creatures of this land hide and silence themselves in my presence. Why do you seek to dishonor me by speaking your filthy tongue?"

Keres stood frozen in place. Lord and God? He cursed his bitter stars and his luck. To have found himself in the presence of a God so early on in his journey, how unlucky could one sap be? He tried to calm himself before he lost any more of his composure. He tilted his head down, as to not meet the Lord's gaze any further, as a sign of his respect and submission, though he did not wish to show either.

"You must forgive me," Keres began, trying to sound as apologetic as his unstable tone could muster, "I am but a poor wayfaring stranger in these lands and did not know this forest belonged to you, My Lord. Please, do forgive me, for I meant no disrespect in what I said to you. If you could show me the way out, I'll make sure I never cross your path ever again. So please, if you would, won't you show this unworthy sow the way out of this fo-?"

The earth beneath his feet split as it was pummeled by the grotesque club of Detrinomous. Keres jumped back, successfully dodging the attack. It would seem that his diplomacy had failed him. He expected as such, he was not much of a diplomat in the other timeline anyway.

"I will have your man flesh for speaking to me," said the Forest Lord, "Surrender it and consider your life forfeit before I have to take it by force, man creature."

Keres could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins. His eyes widened, his muscles tensed, he could see clearer and his body felt lighter in the heat of this moment. Despite the clear power gap between the two of them, the man could feel something brewing within him, a familiar feeling that in his homeland was called battlelust. When two men met and began sizing each other up, it was only a matter of time before they engaged in bloody combat and despite strength, height and skill differences, the fact that they both faced the challenge ahead with such resolve and excitement were clear indicators of the wonderous phenomena known as battlelust. Keres Stormveil was by no means a down and dirty brawler in his past life. In fact, he would prefer to use magic and weapons to finish the job. Perhaps that was part of the reason why his battle against Vogvir went the way it did. Not having the time to summon forth his Divine Spear and being forced to face the God head on in an ultimate battle of fists and knuckles, Keres found himself in the losing end of that battle. But would he find himself in the losing end of this battle against his first God in this new world? His muscles continued tensing in anticipation. For the first time in his existence, he was properly experiencing battlelust and it was such a rush, such a thrill. He openly welcomed the challenge ahead.

"Come then," Keres grinned as he taunted the God, "Come and take this flesh from me."

The bout began. Detrinomous rushed Keres sloppily, his eagered stomping closing the distance between the two combatants quickly. As he swung his club this time however, Keres took advantage of the weight of the weapon and hitched a ride on it as it came around to try and crush his ribs. He rode the momentum of the weapon as he crouched down on its rounded side and leaped into the air once the weapon had reached its highest point. He grabbed onto a high branch on a nearby tree and hung there for a moment as he began to laugh at the petty Forest Lord.

"Are you certain you are a God?" Keres questioned condescendingly, "I've faced a God or two in my hayday and let me tell you one thing: None of them were as miserably slow as you are, friend."

"I AM NOT YOUR FRIEND!" The creature roared at him, bearing all of his teeth in an attempt to further frighten his opponent, "I WILL PICK YOUR BONES CLEAN OF YOUR MAN FLESH AND WEAR THEM AS A TROPHY!"

With one swing of his massive club, he split the tree horizontally, sending it hurling towards the ground. Keres jumped off, as to not be crushed by the falling timber, but he would soon find himself engulfed in the shadow of the Forest Lord. As his eyes looked up, he would see the black of his opponent's eyes for a split second before feeling a crushing sensation slam against his ribs, sending him flying back into a nearby tree. As his back hit the trunk, he coughed a good splatter of blood, clutching onto his now bruised side. He laughed however, as he fully expected to die from the attack. It seems his endurance and constitution was above human, if only slightly.

"Do you see it now?" The Forest Lord growled lowly as he approached his injured opponent in slow, intimidating steps, "The vast differences in our powers, in our abilities, in our strength and in our skills. You, man thing, might be slightly faster, but I am infinitely stronger."

Keres held his hand over his injury and whispered a soft incantation to cast a healing spell, but alas, even that had been taken from him. He groaned and stiffled a wince as he got back up on his feet, holding on to his bruised ribs as if to keep them from moving around and causing anymore damage.

"You're definitely strong, you big brute," Keres spoke as he tried to catch his breath, "But I hate to be the one to burst your bubble: You're no God."

"What did you say?!"

"You're not a divine being. Call yourself Lord and God of this Forest if you please, but you are nowhere near their level. After all, you're just an ugly, no good, slobbering beast."

The false God let out an angry roar and grabbed his club with both hands and prepared to swing it. As he began to bring it down towards the man's head, Keres exhaled slowly and steadied himself. He had only one shot at this lest he be turned to a mushy, red human meat paste. He reached his arm up and focused all of his concentration and all of his energy on his fingertips.

"Momentum: Reversal."

Just as the club touched his fingertips, Keres sent it swinging back in the opposite direction. The speed at which the club traveled back was so fast, it broke both the wrists of Detrinomous and the leftover momentum dragged his arms up and caused him to cave in his own skull with his weapon. Pieces of brain matter and skull fragments flew out from the now deflated head of the Forest Lord, his body falling to the ground with a heavy, ground shaking thud as it convulsed and began to spasm until eventually, it laid still and dead. Blood gushed from the open gash, staining the green grass red and black under the night sky. Keres finally took a breath and slumped back against the tree before looking at his own hand. He had cursed them before, but now, he thanked his lucky stars that he at least kept his Momentum Reversal spell in his arsenal. Though, the pain and hemorrhaging from his broken ribs might do away with him in the end. He may have won this battle, but the Forest Lord might win the war in the end.

"I didn't expect you to actually win against Forest Lord Detrinomous, naked man thing."

A female voice caught the attention of a nearly faded out Keres. His eyes darted from side to side as they tried to locate the source of the voice before they rested up on the tree line. A short, young woman, with golden blonde hair and glowing green eyes looked down on him with a sly smirk, as if he were the most interesting thing she had ever seen. He reached a hand out to her as he began to have trouble adjusting his vision. It grew more blurred by the second.

"Who are you?" Keres asked softly.

"I am Sherry," The woman replied kindly, "And I might just be your savior, man thing."