Jin woke up in a new place that looked the complete opposite of the [Devil Realm]. He was no longer surrounded by the ruins of a city on fire underneath a red sky.

The sky was a bright blue with white clouds and there were green trees all around him that towered higher than some skyscrapers, hanging from them were all kinds of fruits that Jin had never seen before. Some were even glowing.

Jin got to his feet, to his surprise, the clothes he was wearing were the same ones as when he died, and they were returned to their pristine condition.

His stomach rumbled and his throat felt unbelievably dry.

‘How long’s it been since I ate or drank something?’

In the Devil Realm he didn’t get hungry or thirsty but that wasn’t the case here. Jin approached one of the trees and plucked a yellow glowing apple and opened his notebook.

[Celestial Apple]

Completely nourishes the body and soul if eaten by the blessed. But it is deadly to all others.

Jin ate the Apple and felt completely rejuvenated.

‘I wonder…’

Jin teleported to the other side of the tree.

“The blessings we grant are nulled in the Realm of the Devil’s.” A booming voice echoed through the forest.

Jin looked behind him where the voice came from and saw the celestial form of the God of War.

“Where am I?”

“This is the [Garden of Paradise] within the [Celestial Realm]. We have brought you here after you proved your strength and resolve.”

From the shadows came the God of the Void and a beautiful golden-haired Goddess that Jin had never seen before.

But he knew who she was from stories told to him by other heroes.

A flowing white dress, glowing golden eyes, and a wreath of gold around her head. It was the Goddess of Creation.

“You have shown that you are able to carry out our will back in the world you came from.” The God of the Void conjured an image of King, Adeline, and 2 others he had never seen before into the air. One was a short stocky man with glasses curly brown hair and the other was a young blonde man. “The God of Beasts, God of Knowledge, God of Time, and Goddess of Spirits have lost faith in humanity. They seek to rule humankind and conquer the Devil scourge themselves. Thus, they have incarnated in those that they have blessed.”

Jin was confused, as much as he hated King, wasn’t a bunch of God’s coming to help kill the Devils a good thing?

“You want me to stop them?” he asked.

“I understand your confusion, but while they have struck a significant blow to the Devil army, they have damaged humanity just as much. They kill anyone that does not submit to them or has received blessings from any God besides themselves.”

“What?! How many people have they killed?”

“During your time in the Realm of the Devil’s 103,872 humans have fallen along with all heroes that we have blessed. You are all that remains of the champions blessed by us Gods here in the Celestial Realm. Without our blessed, we are unable to incarnate into humans and combat them.” The Goddess of Creation looked pained as she spoke. Despite her words, the Goddess’s voice brought Jin a strange sense of comfort.

“How come you don’t just incarnate into me then?” Jin looked to the God of War.

“You are blessed by not only me, but the God of the Void, to incarnate within you would create an unholy abomination. The best we can do is strengthen you and send you to put an end to their tyranny.”

The Goddess approached Jin, “Kneel and receive my blessing, I seek no sacrifice after the pain you’ve endured and time you’ve lost while away from your world.”

“Wait, how much time has passed since I’ve died?” Jin thought of his family, friends, and most importantly the wife he left behind.

“When you reawaken in your world, 7 years will have passed. Time in the Devil Realm moves exponentially faster, usually a day is a month in your world. But the God of Time altered it in order to slow the growth of the Devils after your death, changing it so a day there is a year in your world.”

Jin was enraged and felt an even stronger need to get revenge by killing King. He knelt before her and the Goddess imbued Jin with a new power.

“You will now be able to create artifacts of your own. May this help you on your journey. The stronger your enemies, the stronger the artifact will be that you can create from them. Now rest and return to your world.”

Jin felt overwhelming exhaustion again, but this time he gave in and closed his eyes.

When he awoke, he was back in the location that he had died in. He looked out and saw the city had undergone repairs. It no longer looked like a hellish landscape, the sky was sunny and there was a significant amount of repaired and new buildings. The noise of the people living in the city was even heard.

“7 years, guess I am technically in my 30’s now.” Jin laughed at this realization.

He considered what he should do now and how he should hunt down the incarnated Gods.

‘That all can wait, I should see her first.’

Jin thought of his home and teleported back.

His home looked as it did the day he left.

A modest 2 story house located in the countryside of Iceland, Jin had moved here with his wife years ago because Iceland had remained relatively untouched by the Devils and thought it was a safe place for his wife and younger brother when he was off fighting Devils.

Jin approached his home and had strong feelings of nostalgia, wondering how his wife would react seeing Jin after all these years unaged and with the arm of a dragon.

He knocked on the door as light as he could, afraid that he might destroy the door since he was still learning to manage his newfound strength.

But instead of his wife answering the door, a young boy did. He looked somewhat familiar.

“Uh hi, are your parents around?” Jin asked, wondering if his wife and brother decided to move. It had been 7 years after all.

The boy’s eyes grew wide, and he screamed while pointing at Jin’s arm “Mom, there’s a Devil at the door looking for you!”

A beautiful blonde woman in a white T-shirt and black pants came running around the corner to her son, her eyes filled with tears as she laid eyes on Jin.

“Jin?” her voice trembled as she spoke.

His wife didn’t look a day older from when he left, she was just as beautiful.

Jin smiled, “See Lace, I told you I’d be right back.”

Lacey ran over and hugged Jin as tight as she could, never wanting to let go. Jin hugged her as lightly as he could.

She finally broke away and kissed him.

“Mom why are you kissing the Devil?” The boy looked at his mom with concern.

She put her hand on his head, “This isn't a Devil.”

Jin motioned towards the boy, “So who’s the kid?”

Lacey smiled and nudged the boy forward, “Leon, I’d like you to meet your Dad.”

Jin’s head was spinning more than when the Devil King was throwing him around.

The boy looked at Jin with awe, “My Dad’s a Devil? That is so cool!”

Lacey rolled her eyes, “I told you he’s not a Devil. But Jin, what is with your arm?”

Jin rubbed the back of his neck, “It’s a bit of a long story.”

“Well come in and tell us, you better have a good reason for disappearing all these years. We all thought you were killed in the raid.”

“Well technically I was.” Jin laughed awkwardly and then followed his family inside.

He sat down in the kitchen with his wife and son. Jin told his wife everything that happened as she cooked lunch for them all.

Jin and his son ate, while Lacey just stared at Jin in disbelief.

“Does this mean you’ll have to leave us again?”

Jin heard the sorrow in her voice. “I have to stop them, especially after you told me how the Gods have been running wild here while I’ve been gone.”

Lacey had told Jin about the mass killings of Heroes and people of different Gods that took place over 2 years after Jin's death. The incarnated God’s had become the unofficial rulers of the world. They had armies of heroes that they blessed and did whatever they told them.

The Devils were now more professionally managed in the world, except for Australia where they still had full control. Apparently, there were some enemies strong enough there to fend off even the Gods on earth. But in the rest of the world there were few cities still controlled by Hell Devils.

After finishing their meal, Lacey sent Leon to his room and sat Jin down on the couch in the living room. She had heartbreaking news to tell him and was figuring out how to say it.

“Lace, what’s wrong?”

“It's about Hoji…”

Jin felt his stomach turn upside down. “My brother?”

“He was killed when the Gods were culling the heroes.” She hugged Jin in an attempt to comfort him.

Jin felt his heart speed up, he just kept getting more reasons to stop these Incarnates. “Why?! He wasn’t even blessed by a God!”

“After you died, he could not just standby anymore and started hunting Devils. After a few months he received a blessing from the God of War and was granted a celestial bow in exchange for his sense of touch. Not long after that, the killings started and Hoji helped mount and offensive against the {God of Time: Ezriel}. But the God was able to predict their attack and ambushed them, Ezriel went there personally with his champions and left no survivors.”

Jin’s heart broke as he imagined the pain his brother must have gone through, he lost everyone to the Devils. All their family was killed when Devils invaded Seoul, it was before Jin became blessed and he barely managed to escape with Hoji.

Jin spent the next couple of weeks with his family, getting to know his son and researching the details on what has happened in the world since he had been gone.

‘Dammit.’

Jin tried to find any info on the God’s whereabouts, but they were secretive in their movements. It had been a year since they had been in the spotlight for personally going out and slaying powerful Devils. It looked like that after gaining enough power to rule the world they retreated to the shadows and left the Devil hunting to their champions. The Gods were ruling from the shadows.

From what he could tell, the {Goddess of Spirits} had incarnated in Adeline and her army was the largest. She ruled out of England with her force of 10,000 mages and healers.

The {God of Knowledge} incarnated in a Russian hero nicknamed ‘Warmind’ with an army of roughly 5,000. Jim had visited him in the past for advice on how to take down certain Devils and various strategies. Those blessed by the God of Knowledge were not particularly strong, but were incredibly wise and well versed in weapons, especially guns. The Warmind that Jin knew was famous for his strategic thinking and always hunting monsters with his artifact gun The Stinger.

The {God of Time} was a complete mystery, no one knew where he was located or approximately how big his force was. All that was known was his incarnate was a former Hero named Ezriel. Jin had never heard of the God of Time before recently, he only started blessing heroes after Jin was killed.

The {God of Beasts} Incarnated in King and was crowned strongest in the world after Jin was killed. He was known for being the strongest and most powerful God despite only having an army of 300. He was living in Hawaii and the only one who was still known to go out and slay Devils whenever a powerful one appeared. If it didn’t boost his reputation, he didn’t bother.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Jin compiled a file of all the info he could gather on the Gods as well as a list of places still overtaken by Devils. The number had shrunk significantly since his days of hunting them, it must have been due to the exponential increase in the number of blessed heroes. There used to be roughly a thousand, but now there was almost ten times that amount. It looked like the Incarnated Gods were blessing anyone with enough money or loyalty. But most who received a blessing didn’t sacrifice a part of themselves for power, so they were barely half as strong as a normal blessed.

This fact was obvious by the amount of casualties whenever the Gods were raiding cities with their forces. Jin was able to retake Los Angeles with a force of only several dozen. Whereas that raid would require close to a thousand or more of these new heroes and even then, most would die.

Jin spent another week with his family after finishing his research, he spent his days with them and at night he was teleporting to Antarctica to train and adapt to his new strength and abilities. He summoned flame sword in one hand and bone sword in the other. As he trained in the bitter cold, the heat of his sword would keep him warm. As he finally began to understand how to wield his blade, Jin could now send arcs of flames from his swings like the Devil King of Power.

‘It’s time to really test how strong I am.’

Jin went back home to sleep in his own bed with Lacey for another night. She woke up first and started making breakfast for them all.

Leon woke up soon after her and sat down at the table and played some games on his tablet.

Jin was still asleep when she finished cooking, Lacey knew that he was out late training again, so she went to wake him. He followed her to the kitchen and had breakfast with his family. These past weeks had been a dream come true for them all, even Leon who loved listening to his father’s stories about slaying Devils.

Leon finished eating and went to his room, while Jin explained to his wife that it was time for him to start hunting Devils again.

Lacey sighed, “I understand, just please come home when you can and don’t push yourself too hard. It’d be a shame for you to lose that fancy new arm after just getting it.”

Jin laughed, “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” He then grabbed one of his utensils from the table, Jin slammed a steel kitchen knife full force into his scaled arm and the blade broke in half.

“Cool, but maybe don’t break my silverware next time and say okay or thanks for worrying.”

Jin blushed and picked up the broken blade and threw it away. “That’s not as cool though.”

Lacey hugged him one last time, she knew how strong Jin was, but she couldn’t help but worry. If the God’s all found out Jin was here to kill them, then she knew he wouldn’t be able to fight them all at once. “Be safe.”

“I will.” Jin walked outside before teleporting, Lacey always complained that the smoke lift behind when he teleports always sets off their fire alarm.

Jin pulled out a list from his pocket of cities still ruled by Devils.

The God’s had all grown to get as strong as they could in their incarnated form and Jin had some catching up to do. Thanks to the [Serpent’s Mark] he had a way to keep growing infinitely stronger until he could not only face the Gods, but annihilate them. Getting stronger was definitely the priority, but he needed new artifacts.

His fire sword was strong, but he knew that his old scythe was stronger, plus a ring that slightly increased his speed and a necklace that sent him to hell weren’t exactly top tier artifacts.

Jin had distributed his best artifacts to the heroes during the raid on [Fallen Angel], so who knows where they ended up now.

There was actually a town in Iceland that had been taken by a Devil that none of the heroes had bothered to deal with since it was the only place in the country and seemed like a waste of time.

Jin teleported to the outskirts of the small-town and scouted it out. He only saw a few strange Devils wandering throughout the street that resembled corpses. They were stitched together, bloated, and had pale green skin. Their bodies were filled with mismatched pieces of different Devils.

The sight was uneasy, a dense fog filled the city, and it was the middle of the day, but grey clouds hid the sun. Jin decided stealth would be the best approach and didn’t summon his flame sword.

Jin teleported behind a group of the [Patchwork Devils], there were only 3 of them. Jin snuck behind them and sliced through the trio before they could defend themselves.

Green ooze spurted from their bodies instead of blood and when it hit the ground the ooze fizzled and melted the cement.

‘Well that’s gross.’

Jin heard footsteps behind him and turned around, a group of 10 [Patchwork Devils] was mindlessly stumbling through the streets. One of them spotted Jin and let out a loud screech. The others then began running towards him.

More Patchworks emerged from the nearby buildings and ran to attack him. He was now completely surrounded.

“Well so much for doing this the cautious way, sorry Lacey.”

Jin summoned his flame sword and sent arcs of flames in every direction incinerating the Devils, only leaving a handful of stragglers.

As Jin prepared to attack them, a patchwork jumped from a nearby roof and vomited bright green acid at Jin.

Jin teleported onto the roof the Patchwork left from.

The acid landed and melted a sizeable hole where Jin was just standing.

“Now that’s just an uncalled-for level of disgusting.”

Jin launched more flames from the safety of the roof, he thought it best to kill these Devils from a distance.

They just kept coming though, emerging from all different directions, and Jin kept bouncing around the rooftops to kill the Devils on the ground.

After killing nearly 50 more Patchworks, Jin heard a strange cackling.

“Finally, a new test subject!” The man sounded giddy with a twisted excitement.

Jin killed off the remaining Devils and looked for who said that.

Before he could spot the man, acid started to rain down from the sky. The rain drops burned Jin’s skin and clothes. He shielded himself with the flame sword and teleported inside a nearby building.

“Come out, come out wherever you are.” The mystery man began to laugh maniacally.

Jin looked out the window for the man, but it seemed like the choice was coming from all directions outside.

“Found you.”

The voice came from inside the building, behind Jin.

He spun around and came face to face with the man.

His face was half covered by a ruined plague doctors mask, his body was abnormally large and filled with mismatched colors of skin stitched together. Acid was dripping from the stitching and a grey lab coat hung from his waist.

Jin attempted to teleport, but the Devil punched him in the face with his oversized face sending him out the window and into the acid rain.

He got up and looked for the Devil as the acid rained down on him, but the Devil was gone.

“I’m over here.”

The Devil punched Jin in the back and sent him flying.

“Now I’m over here.”

Before Jin could land, the Devil grabbed Jin’s arm and threw him into a building.

‘This strength reminds me of the Devil King, but his speed is on another level. Can he teleport like me?’

Jin looked for any nearby place to teleport to before the Devil landed another hit. He spotted a room through a window and teleported there to catch a breather.

Jin released his fire sword so he could better hide himself and looked for the Devil. He then saw the Devil laughing in the streets as he walked around and looked for him.

“You face the [Devil King of Plague], young champion. I smell the God’s stench on you, come so I can cure you of it.”

‘A Devil King outside of the Devil realm? I bet this is the real reason the Incarnates avoided sending anyone here, they must’ve known about him.’

Jin decided the best way to fight an enemy with this much speed would be to just keep hitting and running before he could counter.

He teleported behind the Devil King and sliced his back, acid blood shot out, but Jin blocked it with his scaled arm preventing any severe damage. Then he teleported away as the Devil King turned around.

“Clever, but it won’t be enough to kill me.”

‘We’ll see about that.’ Jin thought as he waited for the Devil King’s guard to falter before attacking again.

After watching and waiting for a couple minutes, Jin launched his second attack, this time he aimed higher and sliced the head of the Devil King clean off.

“That was almost too easy.” Jin stood before the headless Devil King, proud of his quick victory.

“Wrong!” The Devil King’s severed head shouted, and his headless body slammed its fist into Jin.

Jin managed to block the attack and watched the [Devil King of Plague]'s body as it reattached the head.

The very next second, the Devil King appeared behind Jin and grabbed his arm.

Jin clawed at the Devil King, trying to pry his arm from its grasp. But the Devil King was unflinching to the pain and crushed Jin’s arm.

Jin dropped his sword and summoned a sword of fire and severed the Devil King’s arm then broke free. Both teleported away from the other.

Jin could feel his arm slowly starting to mend itself, meanwhile he heard the [Devil King of Plague] screaming in the distance.

“What have you done?!”

The Devil King’s arm had turned to ash in the street.

“What, you can’t deal with a little fire?” Jin taunted the Devil and began sending arcs of flames in its direction.

The Devil King shifted back to Jin’s location and began trying to hit him, but his attacks were less precise after feeling pain for the first time Iin so long.

Jin used this to his advantage and took the Devil’s attacks head on, when the Devil King hit Jin’s blade of fire it scorched his fists.

The Devil King recoiled in pain and Jin impaled him. The [Devil King of Plague] went up in flames while screaming.

His corrupted green spirit streamed into Jin and the acid rain stopped.

Jin’s arm was still broken but the burns from the acid had healed for the most part, he went and retrieved his bone sword. After grabbing it, Jin laid the bone sword into the ashes of the fallen Devil King and closed his eye.

He activated the blessing from the Goddess of Creation and fused the ashes into the sword.

The sword had now turned lime green and become serrated on one side, its hilt was a black metal and an inscription carved into the blade. Patchwork’s Plague

Jin checked his notebook.

[Patchwork’s Plague]

A devious sword with an extremely toxic blade. The poison is deadlier depending on how much stronger you are compared to your victim.

He flipped the page.

[Diseased Heroes Spirit]

The spirit of a former Hero blessed by the God of the Void, grants the ability to summon an acid rainstorm that harms others and heals you. Also provides a further boost to your overall strength and regenerative abilities.

Jin tried his ability and summoned the storm, the acid mended his clothes and finished healing his broken arm. But he observed how much it damaged the world around him and thought it was best to not use this ability unless it was absolutely necessary because it could easily harm innocent people.

He dismissed the acid rain and took his list from his pocket to look for his next target location.

‘This city in Mexico is infested with [Hydro Devils], it doesn’t even say that there is any [Hell Devils]. But the government can’t afford to pay the amount that the heroes are charging to clear it out. It should be an easy day for me though.’

Jin shifted to the middle of the city and garnered the attention of all the Devils there by shouting as loud as he could.

“Who’s first?!”

The Devils were a humanoid shark hybrids with 2 heads that wore silver pauldrons and wielded large battle axes, they began to swarm him, and Jin cut them down with his upgraded sword. Even when he didn’t land a killing blow, the Devils were collapsing seconds later from the poison.

After clearing the town of the Devils, Jin looked for any artifacts besides the armor they wore and axes they wielded. It wasn’t surprising that he couldn’t find one, these types of Devils were more brutish than others.

Jin had an idea and compiled all the bodies of the Devils along with their weapons and used the Goddess’s blessing. To his surprise it worked, all that remained from the massive pile of bodies was a silver shark scaled arm band.

[Band of the Water Warrior]

The wearer can breathe underwater, swim twice as fast, and run on the surface of water.

‘Awesome, this should be enough for one day. I am actually pretty tired from all this running around and fighting. Not to mention I have eaten since this morning.’

Jin teleported back home, Lacey felt a wave of relief when Jin walked through the door and even Leon was excited to see him. They sat down for dinner and Jin told them about his day.

Leon loved hearing about all his Dad’s fights but hearing everything just made Lacey feel anxious. She could tell that Jin was purposely leaving out the grimmer details of his battle with the Devils.

Halfway through the night Jin woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep, so he decided to go out and hunt some more Devils.

A [Hell Devil] had appeared on top of Mt. Everest, it would occasionly fly down and terrorize people then retreat back to the peak, because of the location and randomness of its attacks, no heroes had been able to slay it.

Getting there wouldn’t be a problem for him though.

Jim teleported to the mountain, it was freezing cold and to make matters worse there was a harsh blizzard constantly tormenting the area since the appearance of the Devil.

The air was thin, but Jin’s regenerative abilities made it breathable without any equipment and he summoned his sword of fire to combat the cold.

‘Now where the hell is this thing?’

A loud roar rang out through the mountain and Jin saw the Devil fly up into the sky then dart towards his direction.

It was a giant [Frost Dragon], it wasn’t big as the serpent in the Devil Realm, but humans were still dwarfed in comparison to it. It was a translucent blue with glowing white eyes and spikes covering its body.

Flying Devils were always problematic to face. But Jin had been practicing for enemies like this.

Jin morphed his blade of fire into a spear and launched it at the Dragon. The spear impaled the dragon’s side and threw it off course.

Jin continued to form [Spears of Hellfire] and pelt them at the dragon.

The [Frost Dragon] dove towards him and let loose a breath of pure frost that froze the landscape it touched.

Jin summoned a [Great shield of Hellfire] and blocked the attack, but the frost extinguished the flame and covered his arm in ice.

The Dragon hovered in front of Jin and prepared to let out another attack.

Jin ran towards it, leaped into the air, and grabbed its tail.

The dragon started to fly upwards at full speed, but Jin held on.

He climbed into the center of the dragon’s back and plunged his poison blade into the Devil.

The dragon screeched and began plummeting towards the earth.

The force of the wind blew Jin from its back with his sword still stuck in the dragon, he plummeted and looked for a place to teleport to. He saw where the Devil would land and teleported nearby, but the ground was slick, and he started to slide down the mountain.

The dragon hit the mountain and caused an avalanche.

Jin looked around for any place that seemed remotely safe as he slid. He saw the dragon erupt from a mountain of snow and prepare to fly up again.

Jin teleported to its location and jumped back onto its back.

The [Frost Dragon] took to the sky before the avalanche hit their location.

Jin grabbed his sword and used it as a way to keep from being blown off the dragon.

The Devil flew from the mountain at an extraordinary speed, but the poison started to take effect and slowed it down.

Jin withdrew his sword and summoned a [Great Sword of Hellfire] into his other hand. Now that the dragon had slowed down, he could stand on its back, so he stood up and used all his strength to stab both blades into the dragon.

The dragon became enraged and dove down towards the ground while spinning.

Jin held on and summoned another [Great Sword of Hellfire] then stabbed the dragon's scaly back before pulling out his poisoned blade and flying off the dragon’s back. They had flown from the mountain and were going to land by a nearby town.

The Devil crashed into the ground and Jin teleported beside it.

‘Rollercoasters will never be fun after doing this’ Jin laughed as he looked at the Devils corpse.

A blue stream of energy bled from the body of the Ice Dragon and into Jin.

Jin then used the Goddess’s blessing on the Devil. He was excited to see what kind of artifact it would create.

After using the blessing, all that remained of the Devil was a chain-link bracelet that looked like it was made of ice.

Jin heard sirens in the distance and teleported home before he was spotted. He knew that it’d be a problem if the Incarnates learned that he had come back.

Jin teleported home and opened the [God of Knowledge’s Notebook].

[Spirit of the Frost Dragon]

Grants the ability to conjure wings of ice. Provides increased resistance to frost and a dramatic increase to speed.

[Bracelet of Dragon’s Breath]

The wearer can use the Ice Magic.

‘Holy shit, with these new abilities I can fight on a whole new level! With my arm I can pretty much use Fire magic and now I can use Ice Magic too. I can’t believe how much stronger I’m getting, I'll be able to take the Gods on in no time at this rate.’