Lucian

Lucian stared at Thanatos calmly as he looked onward in confusion. It was a long time coming. All the schemes he had to plan to survive were finally paying off. Previously he was out of his depth with so many magical and incredible things he wasn't used to. And he still wasn't. But there was one crucial thing that never changed regarding all sentient beings.

That thing was emotions. The complex emotions that guide everyone, including gods, to their actions.

They might be gods with all governing power of different sorts, but one thing that never changed was the emotions that made a sentient being function. And he was a master at manipulating it.

Lucian stared at the winged god impassively as he was slowly encircled by his own energy contract. He found it really ironic how things were panning out.

The Energy constricted around him as it tied his wings and dropped him carelessly to the ground, restricting his movement. His eyes widened in realization as unbridled rage warped his beautiful face. He didn't understand what was going on. How did this mortal escape his grasp? How could he evade the power of the Styx?

"You must be confused about why I can still move. Well, it's actually two simple reasons, really. Honestly, It's pretty obvious. I thought an all-knowing god like you would know!" he said with no small amounts of sarcasm. He had to have his fun while he was ahead, right?

"It's okay. I'll explain for your little pea brain," he said with a smirk as he continued.

"First reason. I remember saying during the contract that 'I need a body to inhabit when I escape. Ideally, something strong enough to handle my soul's strength. Second, I need you to help in disabling the Mirror of Samsara when I ask for it. Finally, I need all of this in a binding format, and in turn, I will help you cause disturbance in the realm'. Do you remember that?" he asked innocently.

Thanatos' eyes dilated. Pieces of the puzzle seemed to be returning to his head.

"The second point, namely 'I need you to help in disabling the mirror of Samsara when I ask for it" is part of the rules of the contract. Unfortunately, it still needs to be completed. I wonder why?" Lucian asked with a confused expression.

"Was it because you could simply break your contract and force me to do your bidding when the time looks fit? That does make sense! I probably would have done the same thing in your shoes! However, that's where the similarity stops." He said with a frown as he continued.

"Now, you found out I had help from another god..." Lucian exclaimed as he watched the god thrash around all over in defiance, unfortunately to no avail.

"...and that god created a backdoor in your foolproof plan. So now, in your arrogance, you bound the contract, which you never planned on upholding, with a power you couldn't break, the River of Styx. How stupid could you be?" he said as he looked at the god in condescension like he was looking at a worthless husk.

He sighed. "When I first had the displeasure of encountering you for the first time, your arrogance, your disregard; they made you weak. You are far stronger than I am. You had every chance to prevent such a mistake, but because of your arrogance, you couldn't see the weapon hidden between your eyes," he said calmly.

"You knew what was in your contract; however, you refused to believe a weakling like me could escape your grasp. Too lost in your ambitions and feelings of grandeur to read the fine print."

"With the wording on the contract, you are forced to help me disable the Mirror when I ask. 'Only, the thing is, you won't. You can't. I won't let you." Lucian said jokingly

"You can't touch the Mirror without my help. So, in essence, you will try endlessly. Until you can, I shall be free to do whatever I want for up 3 days, which will conclude the year." he concluded with finality.

"WAIT! YOU STILL HAVE YOUR PART OF THE CONTRACT TO FULFILL! YOU ARE BOUND BY IT TO COMPLY!" Thanatos screamed in shame and anger. If he was bound by the same contract, he had no way of escaping. They were virtually tied together!

"HAHA, YOU STILL WON'T ESCAPE UNLESS YOU DESTROY THE MIRROR!" he said while laughing hysterically.

Feigning surprise, he exclaimed. "Oh! You are right! Now that's where the second step comes in!" he said as he willed off a clump of soul energy from his body. The Energy radiated with a mighty curse and the red Energy of the contract.

"After we had sighed the contract, I noticed that as I absorbed more souls and got stronger, the contract binding power seemed to restrict smaller and smaller parts of my Soul."

"From the context clues both you gods so generously gave me, I believed that this situation had never happened before. I am truly an anomaly never seen ever before. Which also means only in that instance regarding knowledge, we were equals!" He explained, matter of factly, as he held onto the clump of soul energy.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Just like myself, you also had no idea that the more souls I absorbed, the more my soul had fundamentally changed in structure. I am no longer the same person you signed the contract with. Only a small portion of my soul is still bound by its power. Finding this out was relatively easy once your brother Charon implanted that curse within me."

"Studying it, I noticed that it only seemed to surround specific parts of my soul, not the whole. The same with the contract! With this knowledge, I knew removing it would be quite simple as long as I am willing to lose a small part of my soul which was non-consequential in the grand scheme of things." Lucian explained calmly as the piece of soul energy floated into the air. He immediately activated Soul Eater, quickly capturing the other souls nearby and regaining what he lost.

"Hey, I'll level with you. I was not 100% sure of anything so having different contingencies in place was also helpful. If I couldn't escape it, I would've just had you destroy the Mirror, and that'll be that. However, my hypothesis was right lucky for you." he said as he continuously used Soul Eater. In a few minutes, he had already replaced what he had lost.

He then willed the piece of soul energy to establish a connection with the Mirror, instantly setting it ablaze. Slowly, the connection began to break the soul down.

"From what I can tell about this contract when either of the contract holders dies, its effect ends, and we can't have that, can we? And we can't have you tracking me with my soul either, so here's what ill do. I'll throw you a bone and allow you to escape the contract once the soul dies, alright? Now all you have to do is attack the Mirror while I'm gone."

The contract's Energy surrounded the god as he was forced to get closer to the Mirror. Try as he might to escape its bindings, his efforts were fruitless. He stared at Lucian as he began to walk through the Mirror, his expression conflicted.

Even with all his pride, he couldn't help but concede to the fact that he had lost. He lost due to his arrogance. Ironically he believed himself more intelligent than a mortal, only to suffer defeat at a mortal's hand. If he had paid a bit more attention to him, he might've been able to salvage the situation and come out on time. However...

"I can only blame myself...." he muttered, his head drooping in defeat. He slowly moved towards the Mirror as he braced for the pain he would be inflicted by its defensive capabilities.

Lucian stared at the Mirror in amazement. It was finally time to escape.

Just as he moved through...

“AAHHHHH!!!”

A Painful scream resounded through the cave as Thanatos experienced the full capabilities of the Mirror's defense.

Taking that as his cue to escape, he walked through the Mirror. The world shifted as he moved through the Mirror. Suddenly he was transported to a white space of nothing but him.

Slightly confused, he looked around for answers until he saw a system menu pop up in front of him. His control of the Mirror gave him different options on how he wanted to resurrect! Lucian instantly chose the age of 16 since it was a prime time the body developed, giving him the most bone potential.

More options popped up as he picked the first. Race, height, sex, features, etc. It was almost like a character creation menu in a video game! Quickly he picked his race as human, height, sex, and features, primarily similar to his previous appearance.

Just as he thought he was done, he saw a final message:

[Due to your current state as a skeleton, you may choose additional gifts for your body as compensation. Your options are as follows:]

[Supreme Bone Skin (Rank SSS)]

[Savant's Nerval Accuracy (Rank SSS+]

[Innate Optical Omnipotence (Rank SS+)]

[Primal Muscle Activation (Rank SSS+)]

[Innate Demonic Regeneration (Rank SS)]

[Primordial Bone Burst (Rank SSS+]

[Titanic Body] (Rank SSSS)]

[You may choose up to [3]. 147 Seconds Remaining]

Lucian couldn't help but laugh in delight at the options given to him. He wouldn't be able to gain any of these options without Thanatos's help which was ironic to him.

All the options were at least SS-ranked! He didn't know exactly how powerful that was, but it was safe to say they were at least very helpful!

Lucian thought about the different options. The Mirror gave no indication of what they actually did, forcing him to pick blindly. However, it was easy to infer what each could do if he thought about it a bit.

Obviously, [Supreme Bone Skin] was for defense against attacks. It seemed to focus on the skin rather than the whole body, which Lucian didn't know if he liked much, but it was SSS ranked, making it a pretty high up-there option. For now, he would keep that as one of the options to pick from.

[Savant's Nerval Accuracy] must be related to his nerves somehow, but he didn't know how exactly. From the name, he inferred it helped with accuracy, which was definitely great! The more precision, the better! Plus, it was SSS+ rank which was the highest option there! He kept it in his choices as well.

[Innate Optical Omnipotence] did sound pretty cool to him. Most likely, it had something to do with his vision which he was all for. Although, it seemed to be on the lower end of the ranks, which curbed its appeal slightly.

[Primal Muscle Activation], on the other hand, he knew he would pick. Knowing how vital muscle activation was to applying strength, he knew that it had a lot of potential to be excavated. Its rank was simply extra icing on the cake. He immediately chose it as he moved on to the next.

[Innate Demonic Regeneration] sounded terrific. The ability to heal from wounds was a great gift to have. However, its rank made it hard to pick as it was the lowest rank among the options. He decided against it as he picked it off the list.

[Primordial Bone Burst] just sounded painful. Why would he want to burst his bones? However, Lucian knew there was most likely more to it than let on. Plus, its rank was a telling sign of how powerful it was.

Finally, [Titanic Body] sounded like the perfect fit for him. Lucian was a big subscriber to the belief that a strong body was the basis of everything in life. And this gift was able to offer this. Compared to [Supreme Bone Skin], Which seemed to only target the skin, this gift transformed the body overall, which was much better, in his opinion. Plus, it had the highest rank of all his options. He quickly chose the gift, leaving one remaining choice to make.

In the end, it was mainly a choice of [Primordial Bone Burst] and [Savant's Nerval Accuracy]. Logically, he knew that [Savant's Nerval Accuracy] would help him significantly. However, his gut feeling was to pick [Primordial Bone Burst], leaving him conflicted.

[You may choose up to [1]. 5 seconds Remaining]

He didn't have time. Ultimately, he trusted his gut as he chose [Primordial Bone Burst]. So far, his gut hadn't failed him, so he planned to continue the streak.

As soon as he picked the final gift, the world around him began to twist as he was finally transported to the Multiverse. His bones began to morph into a teenager's body roughly around 16. His soul moved towards his skull as his bones slowly developed veins, organs, muscles, and blood. Lucian did not feel a thing. The only thing he could see was the Energy surrounding him as his consciousness began to fade.

"It's time to begin anew..." was his last thought as his consciousness faded. The start of a new journey in the Multiverse.