In the vast expanses of the starry sky, a giant comet was drifting slowly. A closer look at the celestial body would reveal its strangeness. What seemed a normal asteroid from afar, was in truth a giant sphere of azure brilliance, a floating castle inside it, akin to a planet core.
The majestic structure was guarded by two imposing statues of humanoid creatures, a crown of red gems laid upon their horned head. After an untold amount of time passed, a gleam appeared in the eyes of the left statue. His sight focusing on the horizon, a powerful voice boomed outwards.
"Master, the Harvest has come to us! "
Eleven beautiful lights were coming from the distance, faster than what the eye could perceive, faster than thought. Each gleam held the consciousness of an extremely talented person, souls caught in the web of an ancient game, now ready for the true start of their journey.
From inside the castle, a melodious sound rang.
" Finally! Roseval, open the curtains! It's time to see what destiny has reserved for us this time..."
Without hesitating, the other statue took his crown off and put it on a formation that materialized on the enormous gate of the castle. The azure layer of the outer sphere opened, mimicking the castle entrance.
A powerful suction force captured the souls, bringing them closer to the planetoid. Rushing past the curtains, the statues and the gates, the insides of the building ignored, eleven shimmers reached the innermost hall of the temple of Raila, supreme of reincarnation and newly appointed seat at the council of Great Ones.
A planetarium revealed itself to the wandering lights, held in the air only by the will of the powerful creature sitting on a throne in the center of the revolving planet. The divine figure stepped off her seat, floating towards the ground, without a single sound being made.
Opening her arms, ten lights rushed to her embrace and the selection process started as it had done for eons past. The goddess glimpsed at the memories found in the souls, deciding which domain needed their presence the most.
The Pantheon used those souls as catalysts for change, as heroes and villains for their respective world, in a cosmic effort to further their agendas into the mortal realms, and Raila, as the youngest ascended, was chosen to replace the previous supreme after her mysterious demise.
With a touch, the lights were sent to their respective worlds, planet after planet lighting up briefly before disappearing from the construct over the goddess's head. Two particularly bright souls were separated, without feel or care, radiating sadness and longing for each other.
Her work finished, Raila noticed finally the last light still remaining in her halls, a look of mild surprise painted on her otherworldly visage.
"And now what do we have here? An old soul?"
Rubbing her chin, a malicious glint made way to her eyes.
"Are you the reason why this batch took so long to get here? I've never heard of a mistake made by the system, but Gale was also very secretive with her doings...well, It matters not, for wasting my precious time, I guess a little bit of punishment is needed "
Another touch, and the final light vanished, sent away without scrutiny.
"An old fuck for an Old Fuck, his crucible will grind you to pieces little lamb... a most unpleasant end for your journey, if a deserved one "
The melodious laugh rang once more through empty halls, the gates closing silently, an azure sphere of crystal beauty continuing his journey in never-ending space.
It's with this careless decision, with the petty revenge of a not so high being that everything started to change.
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On the other side of this Universe, a small plane was orbiting around a massive planet, covered in a transparent bubble, shielding it from prying eyes, cosmic wind, and other unpleasantness that could be only experienced by the most powerful of this reality.
A three-story European building jutted from the ground, complete with gardens and a small ornamental lake on its backside.
A figure was standing outside the garden, a tall man in a lab coat, looking through a telescope at the giant landmass below him.
Running a hand through his disheveled hairs, the strange man froze.
"Uh??"
With a rapid gesture, he opened his coat, revealing a well-toned chest, crisscrossed by scars, with a pinky finger enveloped by three chains tattooed over his heart. One of the chains started to rapidly fade.
With a serious expression, Abaddon stepped away from the telescope, his golden pupils narrowing, looking at the vast expanses of his domain. After a brief scan, his eyes locked on a small mote of light approaching the reality bubble.
Soon the soul of Vincent Roy Salazar impacted the barrier, and what a moment before was mind incorporeal, turned into a naked old man freefalling towards the ground.
With a tired sigh, the tall man snapped his fingers twice, the first time materializing a bed, the second teleporting Roy into said bed. A blink later and both mortal and god disappeared inside Abaddon mansion.
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Roy woke up to a pounding headache and a not so gentle background noise. Hearing a voice mumble in his hazy state, he tried to gather his wits. Memories coming back to him, his headache subsiding slightly, Roy focused on the unfamiliar room he found himself in.
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An elegant black wardrobe stood in front of him, at the feet of the queen-sized bed in which he woke up. A giant poster of a pin-up model in questionable poses was attached to the mahogany wood.
In a drunken stupor, he almost failed to register the smell of coffee, bacon, and eggs coming from the same direction of the now intelligible voice.
"Fucking classless upstarts, fuck them and fuck their council of morons"
"They gain an ounce of power in any chosen field and think that they are some shit in the grand scale of things."
" You spare them once, you think they are just godlings that know no better, and the next moment you have to deal with intergalactic bullshit on a daily basis"
"Primordial of Destruction, the fucking cruel one, yadda yadda, that's why! That's fucking why! I told them to leave me alone, signed their stupid contract, I've been very nice by the standards of any eldritch abomination of untold power, and the reward is a big fuck you in the form of a poor sod that is now my problem to deal with! Should be crueler! Vaporize their progeny, suck dry their domain and build another reality for me myself and I !>>
The door swung open, and Abaddon, Primordial of Destruction, the Feared one, God-Slayer, God Eater, and God Maker entered the room.
"AH, finally, you woke up! Perfect! Want breakfast?
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After breakfast, Roy found out that bacon and eggs are truly a cure for any kind of hangover, even one caused by your soul being ping-ponged across reality, condemned to suffer the whims of a shitty goddess.
After remembering his condition after the fight, his life flashing before his eyes, the three dead men on the floor of the alley, you could say that this old professor was handling himself fairly well
He discovered that collecting his thoughts was easier than expected, while sipping the best coffee you could find in existence.
The supposed immortal being in front of him was waiting for him to speak in a surprisingly amiable manner, considering how inconsequential his existence should have been for the man.
The silence was broken by the sound of Roy placing his cup on the coffee table beside the bed.
"So, am I still dead? "
A glint could be seen in the eyes of the figure seated near him.
"Eeeh, not quite"
"Also, you are pretty clever for noticing, once you touched the edges of my domain, your body was reconstructed in the same exact manner as it was before you died"
" Basically, your soul acted as a blueprint for the inscriptions etched into this reality to passively make you a new vessel to inhabit while you are my guest"
With a pensive look on his face, Roy scratched his chin with his left hand.
'I guess that changes nothing since I can't seem to leave anyway. I wonder what would Bella say if she found out that the afterlife is managed in the same way as bureaucracy in a third-world country.'
A bittersweet feeling made his way between his ribs. The opportunity given by retaining your memory after dying was appealing especially for someone like Roy, but the thought of being so far from his loved ones still left a mark on the old man's heart.
'Well, It's not like I thought they would be left stranded even when I was dying. The only difference now is that I can imagine how rough they must be all feeling.'
With a bemused chuckle at the thought of worrying for his far-away family while not even knowing what to do of his own situation, the formal education of a lifetime asserted Its presence.
"I'm really sorry for my manners, I would like to thank you for your kindness and for giving me the ability to live again, as limited as It may be. My name is Vincent Roy Salazar, but please do just call me Roy "
The man's eyes got wider and with a mirthful chuckle, he answered in kind.
"Well, what a composed one we have here. As you have heard in my righteous rage, my name is Abaddon. I don't think anyone has ever called me with a nickname, but we can work around that in the future. You see, Roy, while you are indeed limited to my place, that's quite temporary"
"I'm just a tiny bit more powerful than the members of the council and as such everything around me works differently from how they do things."
"Raila, the puppy that oversees the reincarnation system for their domain, has fucked up quite splendidly this time. Of course, she is unable to provide you wandering souls with a complete overhaul like me, but if she had done her work properly nothing like this would have happened."
With a gesture of his hand, a screen appeared in mid-air, showing a fast-forwarded version of the events that transpired inside the glacial domain of the goddess.
"First of all, she separated the twin stars of destiny that should have helped Nature kickstart her domain again after her last apotheosis"
"And then, she disregarded your soul without even bothering to look at your actual value"
The goddess touching him in soul-form appeared on the screen, her musical voice now quite a few shades more irritating.
"She seemed to think that sending me here would have been quite the punishment though"
Looking at the red-eyed primordial, still smiling in his lab coat, Roy couldn't help but feel something off about the whole situation.
" Well, That's because of quite a few factors. She doesn't know me personally, since her ascension is pretty recent, and so she probably thought I would simply smite you and get it over with, ya know, me being destruction incarnate and whatnot"
"Second, and that is actually something that should be more worrying, is that I implemented a somewhat impossible crucible for all reincarnated souls trying to enter my domain because I have had a strict noninterference policy from outside sources placed in my project since I started it quite a few eras ago"
Still struggling to reconcile the jovial young man with a chaotic force of nature, Roy caught on quickly to the hidden meaning of Abaddon words.
"So, are you actually making an exception for me"?
The god smirk got even wider, letting his eyes leak a bit of malice.
"Quite and not quite, my clever friend. I'm making an exception because my work is almost ready, and you will be a very nice finishing touch."
"Also, I want to force Karma to do his job for once and teach those upstart a lesson. You see, one of the pantheon challenges Is a tournament in which the first place can decide on a boon, or if he has reached a certain level of power, can challenge a god."
"Now, wouldn't It be really nice to beat some full-kitted-out hero with your knuckles, and teach this malicious brat how the world works?"
Roy thought about the goddess's words and felt a thin veil of anger.
He wasn't a vengeful person by any means, but he also thought it would be nice to kick down a peg someone so powerful. A smile started to spread on his lips without him noticing. What excited him the most was the fact that he would fight again. After a lifetime, his only regret made itself clear, and after death, he discovered he could rectify this regret.
In a spectacular manner if everything went accordingly to how Abaddon predicted.
"Well, you give this old man something to do on his twilight years," he told the god with a chuckle.
Abaddon smiled again.
" Ah, If you think surviving my crucible will be so easy, I have quite the bad news for you. But if you do survive, mortality will be the last of your problems. Now get up and follow me, I'll let you see something funny before explaining how you are probably gonna die for real this time."
The weight of the situation thrust upon him for the first time in full, doused Roy's spirit a bit.
He was worried, more about squandering his chance than dying again, but felt something inside himself that he missed for a long time. The comfort of his station back at the university soothed the social nature of the man. He was loved and loved back.
But the challenge of the ring, the triumph he felt when someone hit the ground in front of him. He missed the feeling of success he had when overcoming difficult situations, the feeling of bettering himself bit by bit.
Professor Salazar got up from his guest bed. Looking down, he put on the pink bunny slipper the most powerful being in the universe laid at his feet.
He met Abaddon's eyes, the god visage a mask of stone. He nodded.
He hungered for power.