“S—spare me, Alastor!” King Belial begged, backing away slowly. His regal red attire paired with his jeweled crown did not make him look flashy in the slightest, only emboldening the sense of authority he subconsciously exuded.

The subject of his fear, Alastor, was a young man wearing a black demon mask engraved with golden runes, forming words that were supposed to be lost within the incessant river of time.

Alastor stepped on the withered bodies littering the giant hall freely and caused them to crack even further. King Belial took two steps back for every step the young man took towards him, uncharacteristic fear filling his wrinkled face.

“And why should I?” Alastor asked, tilting his head curiously. He flicked his wrist, and a magical parchment paper appeared. As he scanned the oddly ephemeral list, the demon mask quivered continuously. The horns atop the mask shone a dangerous red gleam.

King Belial fell forward onto his knees, his head pressed to the ground in defeat as he blubbered incoherently and cried in desperation. When Alastor didn’t stop, he growled in frustration, “The ministers plotted against me!”

Alastor tutted lightly, shrugging uncaringly before muttering in a playful tone, “Come on, old man, at least accept your fate with dignity. That’s not asking too much, is it?”

Raising his sword to strike down King Belial, the mask-wearing young man smiled. A vibrant light burst out of King Belial, transforming the hellish hall into something holy.

Waves of light blinded Alastor, but he remained stoic and unflinching. By the time the hall’s transformation ended and the power quit gushing out like an unlimited geyser, King Belial donned robes of condensed holy energy. The crown that once sat atop his slick and greasy hair had become a halo of purity.

The Regalia of Goddess Agnes.

“Hey now,” Alastor called, shaking his head. “This doesn’t seem like fair play, but a little bit of spice makes things a bit more interesting.”

King Belial looked at the bloodstains disappearing from the hall and the holy endowment gifted to him, an almost manic, ear to ear smile warping his face. His blue eyes shimmered with hope as when he met Alastor’s blank stare.

He declared, “Even Goddess Agnes hates you! How about you roll over and die now, pathetic third hero!”

Contrary to the king’s expectations, Alastor did not despair.

Instead, he yawned and rubbed the haze of boredom and exhaustion away. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and took off his mask, an unsettlingly slow laugh echoing through the divine palace. “I need to finish up here. I’ve got a date with destiny. I’ve only completed,” he checked the list again, “two subquests. Man, and here I was, thinking I could complete the entire new main quest today.”

Black veins wriggled and roiled underneath his skin, all emanating from a single silver-violet eye. In less than a second, those blackened tendrils spread over half of the young man’s face and spiderwebbed across his neck, shoulders, and arms. He embodied the likeness of a noble demon—one that had crawled straight out of the clutches of the underworld.

Alastor looked across his arms and sighed. “I really need to try this in a different manner the next run. This took too long to clean up and I didn’t get the results I wanted.”

The vibrancy of divine light filling the holy palace and powering Goddess Agnes’ Regalia faded in just another second. As the power nearly vanished as if never there before, a yellow circular orb split the king’s skin from within and appeared on his forehead.

The king’s face turned stoic, numbed.

The pained voice of Goddess Agnes whispered through the throne room, spilling out of King Belial’s throat like a siren’s call, “Hero, why have you wrought so much destruction upon the world? What do you have to gain from this nonsensical violence?"

A smile spread over Alastor’s face as he looked at the king. “My, my. Goddess Agnes, it’s been a while. I didn’t think this much would be enough to make one of the goddesses appear. Are the chains of fate forcing your hand?”

The king’s emotionless face scrunched up slightly at his words. “Do you not fear the chains of fate? You, of all people, should be quite aware of the consequences, yes?”

Alastor did not reply, his gaze turning towards his hand instead. The demon mask turned liquid, morphing into an intricately designed sword. Its hilt was black, engraved with golden runes similar to those of the mask.

“I see,” she muttered through the kingly proxy, her gaze turning quite melancholic.

Alastor lifted his sword. A black orb of mana quickly gathered over its tip. He slashed down, the orb of mana expanding within a split second.The palace ceased to exist.

—

“Is it truly worth it?” Goddess Agnes asked, staring back at the man in front of her with unflinching resolve, despite the threat of his vorpal sword only a short distance from her neck.

“To right my wrongs, anything is worth it,” Alastor said, his gray hair swaying gently in the warm winds. “I can only reset once things reach the end. Even now, I’m only fifth on the ranking charts. That’s not good enough. I need at least third place, but to really achieve my goals, I can’t accept anything less than first. Man, the gamers before me were real monsters, huh?”

Even though Alastor didn’t care much for the gods, the holy kingdom called to a side of him that wished for peace and prosperity. The presence of vast life, the calm rippling ponds, and the sprawling wildlife coexisting and inhabiting the same space without a shed of violence. A true paradise, unbefitting of the lazy beings governing the heavens.

It appealed quite deeply to the open world exploring side of him.

“I see,” she muttered, her gaze turning somewhat nostalgic. “How long has it been, traitorous hero? A few decades? Or even longer?”

The man frowned. “See, that’s not very nice, Agnes. How about you move out of the way. My grudge is not with you, and you know that. Remaining in my way any longer will mean you’ve chosen to side against me and stop my reset. I need the reset bonus quite desperately, you see. It might be the boost I need to raise my ranking quite significantly!”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

A queer smile spread over Goddess Agnes’ face. “Really? Is it not the condition for Chaos that every living being has to be consumed completely? Will you truly spare me, Alastor?”

Nothing she said phased him, but she’d watched his fall from grace with a heavy heart, knowing this day would come.

“You know the rules, Agnes.” Alastor shrugged. “You could’ve stopped them from messing up my run, but you just let it happen. ‘Not my problem’, you probably thought. That’s okay, though. When I put my mind to something, there’s not much I can’t do, and you helped me finish this run by pure virtue of spite. Like, seriously. It’s way too annoying to hunt every single fucking being down, you know?”

Her pained eyes softened as she muttered, “Being the only being alive seems awfully boring, either way. So be it.”

She stepped forward abruptly, skewering the vorpal blade through her neck. Golden ichor dripped down his sword, and the hungry blade made sure not a single drop spilled to the ground below.

Alastor looked at the blade and grumbled, “NPC dialogue, man… Always so cliche and repetitive…”

The holy palace began to crumble around him as her divine power emptied from her lifeless body. Those eyes, piercing blue ponds of pain, reminded him of why he went through all the pain to get to where he now stood.

Alastor’s face twisted upward ever so slightly. The process continued. Deridre showed no mercy as it drank her existence into him, absorbing her soul with finality.

A few seconds passed in silence. A similar image had played out time and time again, but now, his next run would begin.

“Finally,” he whispered. He flicked his wrist, and the listing appeared. Scowling, he looked at the tasks he completed, achievements obtained, time taken, and overall ranking. “Fourth… I swear to god…” Taking a deep breath, he muttered to himself, “Let’s go again.”

—

All conditions for Regression satisfied.

Standing within the endless Void, a tinge of fear seeped into Alastor's heart.

What if… Chaos glitched? Feeling a faint tingle calling to his soul, he knew better. No, that’s not it, but… Chaos is quite wonky at times… I still remember the time that I was stuck in this Void for god knows how long. When was it again? During my third reset?

The all-consuming Void, the only thing left after the fall of the heavens, only exacerbated his anxiety.

Alastor looked at the translucent screen that appeared in front of his eyes blankly, his wrinkled face aged by the passage of time in the failed run.

“Activate.”

Regression activated. What age do you wish to return to?

“Fifteen, right before my first transmigration. You should know about this by now, Chaos.”

Alastor felt his consciousness fading, fainting completely, as a single notice popped up within the endless darkness.

Return successful.

—

Alastor opened his eyes. A white ceiling loomed over him and filled his vision. Spots of dirt stained the surface while the paint had begun peeling away, a testament to how well maintained the place was. Sitting up, Alastor’s gaze flitted over the items present in his room. A rickety chair, a laptop his father had bought six years ago, a few novels he had rented from the library…

Before he could really adjust to the effects of the regression, the door burst inward as a loud and obnoxious voice assaulted his ears, grinding his already frayed nerves.

“You still haven’t washed the dishes yet, you idiot?” his father, an overweight man with far too much ego for his own good, asked. As he talked, his jowls flopped, and spittle spewed from his lips.

The middle aged man wiped his greasy hands through his equally greasy hair then wiped them on his filthy white tank top. And of course, the man could never just shut up once he got started.

“Feeding you fuckers is truly quite the waste. I should just get rid of you, seriously. You’ll be the end of me…”

Alastor’s father trailed off as he noticed the gaze directed at him, Alastor’s bored stare and predatory grin catching him off guard.

To Activate The Chaos System, Consume a Soul.

“Thank Chaos, I’m back,” Alastor muttered to himself.

Before his father could bolster up the confidence to continue scolding him, Alastor stood and took a confident step forward.

Seeing the young teen step towards him with near-arrogant levels of confidence and not a shred of fear on his face, the man raised a threatening hand and bellowed, "What are you doing, you idiot? Have you lost even the basic shred of decency you had before—uhn…"

An expression of disbelief warped the man's face into a pained frown.

Alastor watched the man’s shifting expression.

Fear. Confusion. Despair. The memories of all the times the man threw a tantrum like a child and lashed out at Alastor, his mother, or Mabel, his sister, made this moment precious. It’s never boring to kill this bastard, is it? Like, seriously. He’s the only one who’s so consistently shitty that he consistently manages to enrage me. It’s admirable, in a way.

The man struggled and tried to push Alastor away.

He couldn’t. So he tried to open his mouth to scream for help, but it was of no use.

Alastor tightened his grip onto the pocket knife, embedding the blade deeper into the man’s neck. He twisted, just in case, before commanding Chaos, “Suck.”

Soul being sucked… +1 Soul Point Gained.

The man’s body rapidly withered, and all his excess fat rapidly faded away. Even the blood on Alastor’s hand and the pocket knife disappeared, evaporated by the golden runes that abruptly appeared on his hand.

After a few seconds passed, the teen pulled his trusty pocket knife free, placing it into the back pocket of his sweatpants. Even his original fifteen-year-old self, as paranoid as he'd been, wouldn’t have expected that it’d ever be used.

Losing its only anchor, the withered body toppled over and crashed to the ground. Thin cracks spread over the brittle husk, breaking into a pile of human-shaped ash and dust.

“Alastor?!” Mabel, only two years younger than him, gasped.

The teen raised his gaze away from the pile of ash and through the opened door. Two people stood in the living room connected to his room, his sister and mother.

The fact that they trembled in fear irritated him, but considering things, he didn’t blame them. If he didn’t know any better, he’d also be quite surprised.

“W—what have y—you done? M—murder…? Th—the police… W—what about the police?!” his mother muttered, her words frantically growing hysterical.

“It won’t be a problem, mom,” Alastor replied. His head throbbed. He knew nothing would convince his mother now, so he instead prioritized waiting for the system’s notice to appear, as much as not explaining things pained him. Man. Dealing with these two is always a rollercoaster of emotions, huh? Well. It became kinda boring after the fifth regression or so, but still…

And in just a few seconds, what he waited for appeared.