A tear in space stood above the falling man who appeared out of the abyss as though once again crawling from the mother of the world’s womb a fresh child. There was no blood or violence as the adult man tore through the hole in the world, and yet it almost seemed as though he had triggered something in the time leading up to his birth, something fundamentally at odds with the host from which this parasite was emerging.

What had once been a small purple hole that lit the sky only slightly had grown to something much larger and much more resembling a tear than a pinpoint rupture in the fabric of space. It shone brightly orange at the center and faded to red in great swirls several feet across. At the edges the pattern frayed as though unable to maintain existence in the world, constantly flickering in a fractal-like pattern of static that refused to even resemble reality or pretend to abide by its fundamental laws. Though still only some six or so feet across, it was more than large enough for a man to be born shoulders-first at its six-foot height from the earth at which it now stood.

Henry felt no pain as his neck snapped, vision merely dimming for what felt like a moment and then returning to normal. In the interim the bright light of the sunrise had faded and now only evening remained. He supposed death had passed the time, but considering it didn’t affect his consciousness it was hardly more than a mild inconvenience and barely of note.

“Where… am I?” he muttered groggily as though waking from decades of sleep.

Rubbing his eyes, Henry surveyed the landscape: grass, shrubs, and small trees. Surrounding him were the kinds of foliage expected in the aftermath of a forest fire, and yet he remembered there being a heavily fortified city here, the kind that doesn’t just disappear when you leave it out of sight for a few seconds. He had set out from it just that morning… or, he supposed, the day before.

“Oh, right, I died. Ok.”

He remembered fading sensations of panic allowed to disappear only when he let go of all the weakness allowed to fester in him for far too long. A cold sense of power in the form of static had filled his core and overwritten the things that had suppressed him to give rise to a power he knew he deserved. And yet it wasn’t enough in the end. Some pathetic cretin child of a god that played with a fire he could never control had erased His burgeoning perfection from the earth with the aid of the lingering corruption of a gardentender too stupid to understand what was being culled was the fruit of divinity.

In this moment Henry was filled with burning hatred far hotter than that which had burned him away not even to ash. It was something he was unused to feeling, something he never was. This feeling of spite was almost too fitting in his soul. It settled in like a warm blanket and gave him motivation to continue in this life— to kill Zorvilon and raze everything he had ever known to a fine powder not allowed to scatter to the wind, instead consumed and allowed to give rise to something far more deserving of that which fueled life than the disgusting creatures who would oppose replacement by their betters. Divinity had emerged once more into the world, and it could no longer be suppressed. Each passing day gave rise to just a little more connection. Each day the walls of this little garden grew just a little bit weaker and the divine blight from beyond the sky would be allowed just a single inch farther in toward the things once protected by the hands of a gardener who had long abandoned this place. Henry would find the fruits undeserving of life and cull them. He would take many long centuries whittling the ripened fruits down until only the most fitting dessert remained.

But for now he would start with whatever this near-mortal called Zorvilon had once called home. It would soon come to rue the day he had opposed divinity. Suddenly, a voice called out to Henry as though only just having noticed his arrival.

“You’re here! You’re finally here!”

A feminine voice cried out to him much too emotionally. There was a twinge of something he had left behind that resonated in it, and though he could no longer remember what it was, he felt a tear fall from his left eye in response.

Wiping it away as the small woman approached in a filthy blue satin robe that fit much more like a dress, Henry felt his rage at first cool and then freeze over. Why had he felt that way? The whole reason he was here was because he had wanted to die. Being killed should hardly matter given that was the totality of his ambition in his past life. Did he lose something more than weakness when he let go of himself? How much of his memory was lost?

“I’ve waited for so long,” the voice cried out much louder now, nearly at his ears. A sudden pair of arms appeared and surrounded him, assaulting him violently as though trying to squeeze his soul out through now-open lips parted in a grunt at the motion. He fell, and the figure followed.

“You’re all I have left and you’ve finally returned to me,” Amanda said, Henry at last recognizing her. The robes she wore were stained much more closely to brown than the brilliant royal blue they had once been. Huge holes were torn into them, and various colors of patchwork had been applied in a sloppy attempt to keep the outfit just intact enough to wear one more day at a time. There were no stitches, but the garment seemed no less chaotic for their absence. All had been dyed in an attempt to match the color of the original, but it didn’t help.

Henry blinked slowly, confused and reminded of someone he had once cared for. Pushing Amanda away, he chided her,

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“Ok,” she answered, pouting.

“Why are you even here? How are you even here?”

“You died ten years ago, I’ve had a lot of time to prepare for you to come back to me.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question, why?”

“Because you’re all I have left.”

“We barely knew each other.”

“Even still, when Sion died it almost broke me. He was the only person I had left after living for so long. It’s been so many years since I had someone I truly cared for. They all died, leaving me alone without them. Sion was my last love. He’d lived for centuries before we met, but when I saw him for the first time I knew it was love.”

“And you thought the same for me?”

“No, but when he died you didn’t. When you died it was temporary. I held out hope for your return and now you’re here! I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to protect you then, but if you’ll let me serve you I’m super sure I can make up for it.”

Henry didn’t know what to make of this. Why was a cute girl asking him to let her serve him after pining away at memories of all of a few hours spent together for ten years— and he was dead for ten years?! The thought only just struck him fully, and yet at the end of the initial surprise it hardly mattered. Whether dead for ten years or none he would continue to live as he had decided, in pursuit of power enough to take everything he deserved by force; power enough to protect all the things he cared about and ever would. But first it was a question of why Amanda was acting so… unnaturally attached. He asked her to explain further, to explain everything, and then he would decide on how to handle the situation.

“Xevis sent us on a suicide mission,” she began.

“You probably knew that already, but what you don’t know is why.”

“After the Great Scourge— after that hole there appeared in the sky— powers of gods from outside the world flooded in. Xevis and his god of entropy was one of them. Naturally this caused a super huge amount of chaos as gods fought each other for territory and former mortals abandoned the duties that once called them. For the first year it was pure bloodshed. All the old borders dissolved and no-one knew what the future would hold besides war and death.”

“That’s when Sion and I came to Xevis asking for protection. He and the other two members of the Triumvirate, Aphelion— so called “God without Organs”— and the man known to most only as the Hidden Emperor, had just banded together to bring something resembling order to a small new territory. What we didn’t know at the time was that they were forcibly conscripting anyone with power and both Sion and I were forced into their service.”

“They sent me on mission after mission to attack the Covenant of Ancients— the other power in this region and remnants of those who betrayed Yaldabaoth— but I eventually drew Zorvilon’s attention, and… well, you saw his strength. Xevis berated me and beat me to within an inch of my life for running away. He called it the “ultimate display of cowardice,” and said that “Quorus was right about you, women can’t be trusted to follow through. Emotions cloud the mind from duty. If you don’t kill him on your next mission I’ll kill Sion and then you myself.””

“Why didn’t you ask someone for help?” Henry interjected.

“Ask who? Zorvilon would never trust me and can’t be reasoned with anyway. The only other ally around here is the sea, and the only good that would do me is by drowning myself to avoid returning in shame.”

“But then why did you act so friendly with Xevis and call him “Xevie”?”

“I did everything I could to protect Sion and the act… rubbed off on me.” She looked away for a moment and paused, then finally continued after an uncomfortably-long silence.

“When Sion died I thought it was over. I almost left the city and walked into the waves, but then I saw you. I knew in that moment Xevis would find his end in you, and I knew in that moment I didn’t need to die. He thinks by expanding the Great Scourge above us he can open the world to more of the power of his god, but what he doesn’t know is how strong yours is. I had a telepathic link with Sion, and while it broke when he disappeared, I could still feel him through it. He was a deeply religious man, and yet I felt his devotion shatter like glass. I knew then that your god was stronger than Xevis’, and maybe than all the rest.”

“All I want now is to make Xevis suffer for what he did to Sion and the scars he left on me. I don’t care how you treat me, just let me watch him die and I’ll do anything for you. I know Sion wouldn’t want me to do this, but I know you didn’t mean to kill him. I know it was our fault for coming here and naively trusting we would find peace under the law, but even so, I want to make Xevis suffer. Everytime I close my eyes I see his face, I just want it to bleed. I want to tear his eyelids off and burn the eyeballs so badly they never recover, even with magic. I want to rip off his fingernails and feed them to him. I want to castrate him and force him to eat the charred remains of his masculinity, just to heal him and do it all over again. Please, just let me serve you and I’ll do anything if you let me do this, or even just let me watch.”

Henry… was surprised. Whatever he had expected here, this wasn’t it. He thought this would be the start of an isekai harem, but the way things were going he wasn’t sure Amanda would be the most, how shall he say, welcoming, of others interested in him that way. His stomach did not flutter as he accepted her offer. There was nothing but the calculation of what it would mean to accept her here and now— that it meant possessing the trust of someone with knowledge of how this world worked. This would be advantageous, whether or not his former harem dreams would ever come true.

Henry thought back to the memories of a small star erasing him from the world and began to seeth once again in rage. He vaguely remembered something he knew at the time he never wished to forget— some pastel vision of a sight he had never appreciated, the joy found in something he had never seen for what it was— but as quickly as this burgeoning memory came he allowed it to pass. Memories made him weak. All the things belonging to his old self were worth nothing, even in memory. Everything he ever was deserved to be forgotten.

Now was the time to look forward, to look into the evening and see the coming dark. He would get his revenge and ensure Amanda got the same. They would erase all the great powers of this world and then he would take a great many years to enjoy the fruits that remained in the absence of thorns.

“Yes, we shall make the very stars quake in our footst—” he began to shout, but choked on his words and coughed. Amanda said nothing.