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Saho limped over to where Rio had fallen.
The healer looked like he had just died and come back to life. His skin was coated with a thin layer of ash, and his impressive beard had been scorched thoroughly, with a small flame still burning at its tip. His staff had been utterly destroyed, not even a splinter of it remaining.
“Are you alright?”
Rio gaped at Saho. Saho waited for an answer.
“What was. . .” Rio trailed off.
“I think you’re alright.” Saho responded, helping him to his feet.
“That’s not an answer.”
Saho continued walking over to where he had seen Fuyuko be thrown. Rio trailed behind him, trembling slightly.
Fuyuko had fallen unconscious, still propped up against a broken bookshelf, blood staining her fur. The only reason Saho could tell she was still alive was the slow rising and falling of her chest. While Rio healed her– still shaking– Saho walked over to where his opponent had fallen. On the ground, burned into the stones, the demon King’s silhouette lay, all other remnants of it gone.
The rising sun cast the battleground in golden light, and Saho could feel the presence of his patron.
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Adachi could tell that their captors were unhappy.
Just in the last few days, several demons had clearly wanted to destroy her and Sou while they were helping around the castle, although all of them had been scared off by either the not-beastkin or the red-and-white demon. If she didn’t know better, she would think that her and Sou were their pets.
She had overheard that the invasion had been repelled– which sent a twinge of joy through her– and that a large portion of the demon army had been slain, which unfortunately meant that lots of powerful demons had returned to the castle from where they had been directing their hordes.
The not-beastkin and the red-and-white demon, interestingly, were not seemingly too upset about their loss, which confused her.
At least they were keeping the other demons from attacking her and Sou.
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It just occurred to me that my initial appearance was kind of. . . rushed.
The avatar was fine, but giving up my existence was pretty hasty. I can’t take it back now though, so I gotta work with it.
. . . Golems look sort of like my initial avatar. . .
Screw it. Let's make some dark gods. My first avatar will become a godlike golem, and the chains binding it will be transferred to my new avatar. I’ll shift the appearance of the stone a little and. . . perfect. Similar, but not identical. This will be. . . Khel.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
For the skaven god, I want a rat king.
A rat king, for the uninformed, is when a number of rats get their tails tied into a knot by extraneous circumstances. In this case, it will be a skaven dressed as a king, with 7 heads in a ring each with a small golden crown, and with 7 tails in a knot. This will be. . . Lok.
I’ll make the other gods later.
Now on to a more pressing issue: the afterlife.
When it comes to the afterlife, things can get pretty complex. I mean, depending on the religion or story, there can be a “heaven” and a “hell”, or just one of them, or reincarnation, or both, or neither, or anything else!
Akira DID set up a basic reincarnation system, which will be really easy to manipulate towards my own goals, but it’s still missing something. None of Akira’s creations will reincarnate as one of mine, and none of mine will reincarnate as one of hers. Actually, none of mine will reincarnate at all. Right now all my dead creations' souls are just sort of floating in the void.
I guess I should do something about that.
Akira’s reincarnation is really simple. Souls are immortal, and have existed since the beginning of life itself. When dead, a soul enters a random empty shell. Souls can enter animals, sapients, plants, and just about any other living thing except my creations.
There IS a “heaven”, but it’s basically just Akira’s personal palace.
Anyway, I need to do something about all these free-floating souls. Reincarnation sounds like the right route.
First let's sabotage Akira’s little system, yes?
. . . There. Now Akira’s creations can reincarnate as my creations. I’ll also make it so that the souls of my creations can reincarnate as well. An orc can reincarnate as a demon, or as a human, or as a fucking tulip. Does this mean that my demon hordes will occasionally kill the reincarnated soul of one of my creations? Yes. Do I care? Not really, it’s not like it’ll be on purpose, and not killing them would be suspicious.
Looks like the number of the free-floating souls is going down.
. . .
I should reincarnate some random high-schooler as a goblin at some point. That’ll be funny.
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Hifumi resisted the urge to stare daggers into the elven royal that she had been gifted to.
She had been separated from the other captured orcs, as each of them was sold to various nobles across the continent. Evidently she was this noble’s 13th birthday gift, the crowning jewel upon an already gleaming pile.
She had been forced into a rather uncomfortable dress, hiding the bulky chains that bound her, and the sharp tusks that she had such pride in had been filed down, presumably so she couldn’t gut her new ‘master’ with them.
She held no belief that her godly parents would come and save her. They had always stayed out of mortal’s business, even when that business went against the gods.
The Bright One never got involved either, only having sent a single Hero to take care of the demonic invasion.
The Dark One, named Adho– meaning “First Warrior”– by the orcs, couldn’t get involved, as according to her godly parents, Akira had bound him in unbreakable chains and banished him from the universe. The presence of demons showed that Adho was not as defeated as the stories that Kaito and Mei told her, but that wasn’t what was important.
Hifumi was alone. She would receive no assistance. There was no cavalry coming. But she would persevere. She would learn.
She would win.
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Smash. Crush. Break.
The demon King regained consciousness. The pain it felt from dying was gone.
Smash. Crush. Break.
It was not a demon anymore. It had lost its horns and tusks, its wings and its claws.
Smash. Crush. Break.
It sniffed the air. It listened to the forest. It felt the lull of sleep once more.
. . .
The small white rabbit slowly succumbed to rest, memories of its old life quickly fading.
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