“ *Sigh*, I also apologize for shouting at you.”

"..."

“You only have 2 months until time for you to return comes. I will go try and restore enough ‘aura’ for that occasion, honestly I didn’t expect you to only use 10 years of the 100 years for training. Anyway, before I go, I promise to answer a few questions, including those about Death’s enemy, so go ahead.”

Taking in a deep breath I look him straight into his gold-purple eyes.

Finally I can learn about Betty’s killer. But I will ask that last as not to impede my decisions when it comes to question-making.

“What was that power I used? It seemed like a copy of your ‘gift’, only it came from black ‘aura’ instead of your silver one.”

“Hoho, starting with a good question and not jumping straight to the ‘enemy’. Hmm… I can only think of one logical reason, but I can’t tell you about it since Death made me swear silence. So, next question please.”

“... Are you trying to piss me off? Because it’s working.”

“No no no, not just that, it’s mostly the actual answer. Ask another question. Try again.”

Mostly?

“Right... You said that your power can reverse time for 100 years and it is the only one that can do such a thing, but I have the capability to reverse time as well. I discovered that I could when my ‘aura’ escaped my body in the mortal world and then reversed leaf fall.”

Chronos looked at me with an astonished look, which quickly turns into the same grim look that he has used so many times. This time it actually suits him with his aged body.

Aged body?

“... same answer as last time. I swore silence.”

“... Really!? How many questions can I even ask you and get an answer out of? Fine, I know you can answer this one. Why are you older than before? How did you suddenly grow up?”

“...”

“Oh for Hell’s sa-”

“Don’t worry I can answer that one, so don’t start cussing. It’s just that it is a sensitive topic. You know of Ra’s cycle of rebirth in the underworld? Same principle, where I age as each hour passes. My age goes from 8 to 70 before my old wrinkled skin sheds and I slim down to become and 8-year-old again.”

“Exactly what’s the benefit from that? Why does that even happen?”

“It’s actually one of the abilities of the ‘gift’ that I received. The benefit is that every hour my power recovers with my sudden aging. Although not fully, it recovers by about 1/10th of a percentage extra, over my normal recovery rate. It is a really powerful benefit for prolonged battles.”

“I see. Well then final question: Who killed my master?”

The last sentence was spoken with incredible anger, but the flames of anger were quickly extinguished with the next statement that the ‘man’ used. Chronos tilted his head slightly and stated a kind of shocking fact.

“What? Oh Lord Death? He’s dead, that’s for sure, but he still exists, has a mind and has a body. He’s still combating his enemy.”

A mixed expression of shock, surprise and happiness crossed my face, before logic set in.

“How is that possible? I saw his head shatter right in front of my eyes.”

Raising his eyebrows, he questioned me.

“How did you see Lord Death’s head shatter? I am certain that you were not there during the fight.”

I explain starting from Betty’s warning and all the events leading up to Betty’s well... death.

“Hmm, I understand the reason for your killing intent now. Don’t worry, Death is most certainly not erased from existence yet, he is far too powerful for that. Didn’t you just say that he stated that ‘Death is eternal’?

That is all you need to know. He is literally indestructible, you cannot; no matter what kill him.”

Strangely enough, I don’t feel incredibly surprised. Thinking back, although it was only 4 years, Betty was with me for most of my new life, but I reacted so… calmly to the matter. Normally one would have a far worse reaction to hearing such news. Even my anger towards the 'enemy' seemed forced. I guess I had never really believed that my Grandfather in hell would die.

“Sit down boy, to learn of this story will take a short while, but it’s better to sit down. I will start with why Death along with myself and Death’s enemy: Chaos, are feared.”

He sat down with his legs bent under, motioning me to imitate him, which I slowly did.

“Immortals are literally unkillable, this of course includes Gods. However, there are 2 ways in which a death-like state can be induced, and another way in which you can actually kill the unkillable. Again, the only exception to this is Death who has control over the realm of killing.

The first method of inducing that state is sealing, and isn’t feared at all. This is because all the Gods that have ascended due to their skill in sealing are weak without help. Although the first God of Sealing is powerful, he doesn’t have any special sealing capabilities. He needs another God to infuse an ability into his seal to make it more powerful. For instance, had I helped the sealer, I could increase the time that it takes to break out of the seal by screwing with the target's sense of time.

Another weakness of it is that the sealed being can still train their ‘aura’, although it is far more difficult than in an unrestricted plane and they can also erode the seal with their ‘aura’. Because of this, the seal needs to be resupplied with power repetitively, but you cannot supply power above the upper limit set during its creation. This means that since the sealed being grows more and more powerful, and it can eventually break out.

Another method is one that is the reason why Death is feared. The sealing method traps the body and soul in some kind of ‘aura’ array, but Death’s reaving is far more terrifying. It can pull souls out of bodies and then rip the souls apart into many pieces. When you train in ‘aura’ capacity, you increase your capacity by a percentage of your maximum each training session and not a set amount like 5 ‘aura’.

This means that theoretically when you have a total of 100 ‘aura’, you can train 1 ‘aura’ an hour, whereas when you have 10 ‘aura’, you can only train 0.1 ‘aura’ per hour. So effectively, by breaking the soul into many pieces you greatly limit their training capability as each soul part has only a fraction of their previous ‘aura’ capacity.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Not only that, but when Death rips the soul into many pieces, they need to come back together, which depending on the soul can take billions of years, and it is even possible to seal each individual part.

That is why Death is feared and was cast out, because of this horrific power known as reaving. If the Gods had the power to kill him and he didn’t have the important job of after-death soul mediation, he would’ve been sealed away long ago. This is also why you must never have the Gods realise your ability to reave souls while you are this weak.

Then there is the third ability, the only one which can actually kill immortals, not including Death. ‘The Law of Chaos’. This ‘Law’ has a subsection of destruction, one that only a single being has managed to master, this being that we Gods have named ‘Chaos’.

‘Chaos’ had incredible power, unmatched save for his single enemy. ‘Chaos’ sat at the 2nd highest place of the immortal food chain, but he sacrificed his mind to kill the one that sat at the top, taking the top spot but leaving his soul with no mind to control it.

After losing his mind, he went on a rampage, but with his greatly reduced power due to the previous fight, the Gods and Death managed to seal him away, but every year we have every God donate a large amount of their power to maintain the seal. But even this is not enough, so every month, we have to sacrifice one of the Gods to fight ‘Chaos’ in his sealed location.

His power allows the complete annihilation of souls, capable of completely eradicating Gods off the face of the many universes, and this is the reason why we have to resupply the location with a God every time. The strongest Gods wouldn’t dare go to their inevitable death, so they instead send the weakest among the Gods, but still strong enough and that is why they can survive a month.

This time Death, predicting what would happen in the future if we didn’t send the strongest people, volunteered himself to be used as the next sacrifice. Death can probably last a few million years before all his power is exhausted, and although he won’t die as he is the only true ‘immortal’, he will not be able to prevent ‘Chaos’ from freeing himself. That is the enemy that Death is fighting right now.”

I breathe in, understanding that I have a time limit of a few million years to save Death. I know it is a long amount of time, but simultaneously, it seems so short as I have to kill a being far older than me.

“So is that the ‘enemy’ that Betty, I mean Death faces?”

“Yes, luckily ‘Chaos’ has lost all reasoning, because had he still had his previous intellect, Death wouldn’t even last a year.”

Only a year!? I understand why everyone fears him now, and even someone like Chronos who has a small fraction of his power is feared due to his involvement in the law of chaos.

One must understand that a year is incredibly short in terms of the lifetime of an immortal, with fights usually lasting many times longer. I understand that and that is why it is so surprising.

“So I take it that he can’t use any of his abilities?”

“You’re right, he cannot use a single ability, and only uses raw ‘Chaos Aura’ to assault the enemy and protect himself, relying on instincts. Had it been infused with an ability, its colour would change, similar to how my ‘aura’ becomes silver upon release.”

Terrifying.

He stands up from his seated position and looks at the sky, revealing his face which aged again with the passing of another hour.

“Would you like to see your master again? I can link you to the seal for about 1/100th of a second. The only reason this is possible is because of your connection with him, had you not had any connection to anyone inside the space, this linking would be impossible.”

“Mmm. Thank you, even if it is a really short while, I would like to see him.”

Chronos nods and seems to teleport to the space in front of me with a single step. He then clenches his right hand into a fist with his thumb sticking out as he places the thumb on my forehead and everything goes dark.

---Inside the Seal’s Space---

My vision in the dark space seems to move forwards until I see a golden light in the distance getting rapidly closer.

The battle between Death and ‘Chaos’ fills my view.

Death draws his scythe made of ‘aura’ back before spinning with it in his hand and creating a crescent shape shockwave of ‘aura’ heading at incredible speed towards the golden man known as ‘Chaos’. His hand stretches out and a wave of his own ‘aura’ heads out to collide with the crescent shockwave.

Both waves of ‘aura’ collide and small sections of the two ‘aura’s’ break off upon collision and hit the opposing casters. The golden man is hit first since Death sent his wave first, and his entire arm is cut off. Less than a second later, Death is hit by the small shards of the golden shockwave and his entire body save for his head gets completely disintegrated.

Then the golden man's previously lopped off arm reappears in its original place with a flash of light. Simultaneously Lord Death’s torso, arms and legs grow back with incredible speed, like accelerated footage of a lizard growing its tail back.

Death’s scythe that was destroyed in the attack reappears as he and ‘Chaos’ charge straight at each other, one pushing their palm out and the other swinging the scythe to hit the attacking hand. As the two attacks smash into each other, a bright light flashes and my consciousness is back in my physical body.

---In Chronos’s Plane of Existence---

“How was it?”

“... That fight felt like a good 5 seconds, not 1/100th of a second, don’t lie to me.”

“No, that fight was definitely as long as I had said, I just used my time magic to help with your perception of speed. Unfortunately those suicidal battles will continue for a long time, with neither side having any regard to their body.”