Reborn in Another World: I Became a God

The downpour was relentless. Rain the size of beans hammered the herb shop's weathered tiles, creating a barrage of rapid, rhythmic knocks—like countless tiny knuckles tapping against a door.

Raen stood beneath the eaves, silver-white hair dripping. He glanced up at the crooked sign swinging in the storm—"Marsha's Herbs & Curios". The snake-and-staff emblem on it had been nearly erased by time and weather.

"Come in, don't stand out in the rain."

A hunched figure peeked from behind the half-open door, beckoning him in with withered fingers.

Raen followed the crooked figure through a slanted corridor, each step evoking creaks of protest from the decaying floorboards, like the house itself resented their passage.

Dried herbs lined the walls, casting jagged shadows under flashes of lightning—clawing silhouettes that twitched with each bolt.

Raen's right hand involuntarily moved to his left wrist, where faint green markings veined beneath the skin, like plant roots spreading unseen.

"I heard from the old hunter... that Madame Marsha might be able to help me?" he asked, voice low, almost swallowed by the narrow hallway's muffled air.

The hunchback didn't reply—just gave a rasping chuckle. "Marsha knows everything, boy. Especially... about that little issue on your wrist."

Raen's pupils narrowed. He had never told anyone about the markings.

At the end of the corridor, a wooden door etched with the snake-staff motif stood ajar. Faint green light spilled from within, eerie and pulsing.

The glow stirred something deep in Raen's chest. A strange, stabbing sensation radiated from his heart to his limbs.

"Come in," croaked a woman's voice from the other side, layered and echoing, as if spoken by several throats at once.

Inside, Old Marsha curled in a wicker chair, resembling a skeleton wrapped in human skin.

Her hollow eyes turned, cloudy orbs locking onto the green veins on Raen's wrist. He instinctively stepped back, throat tightening.

"Sit," she commanded, pointing a branch-like finger toward a squat stool. Her fingernails were an unnatural bluish-grey.

As soon as Raen sat down, he noticed glowing vines coiled around the stool legs—the exact same pattern as on his wrist.

His breathing quickened. Fingers clutched tightly to his knees.

Marsha pulled an iron-bound book from her lap. The once-silver serpent-staff emblem on its cover had oxidized into a dull black.

When she opened it, a sickly mix of rot and incense wafted into Raen's nose, turning his stomach.

"Thousands of years ago," her voice rang suddenly sharp and clear, nothing like a frail old woman's, "the Goddess of Life, Aeona, transformed her heart into twelve crystalline seeds." Her claw traced a page—twelve dwarven craftsmen circled a crystal altar. The illustration seemed to shimmer, as though it might move at any moment.

Raen felt a sharp pain in his chest. He clenched his jaw, suppressing a cry.

It was as if roots were burrowing through his flesh, resonating with the image on the page.

"Later, the Council implanted these seeds into the bodies of various races. But the last one..." Her voice faltered and drifted.

The pages turned by themselves, stopping at a drawing of a green heart.

Green motes flickered at the edges of Raen's vision. Whispering voices echoed faintly in his ears.

"It resides in you."

Marsha lunged and gripped his wrist—hard enough to crack bone.

Her eyes turned completely emerald, swirling with living runes instead of pupils.

"You are the twelfth vessel. The cursed outlier."

The roar of the rain was drowned by the pounding of Raen's heartbeat. Thud, thud, thud—it overshadowed everything. The illustration shifted under Marsha's words—no longer still. The craftsmen now moved, embedding a glowing green crystal into the chest of a wailing infant...

And that infant had Raen's silver hair.

"No... it can't be..." He tried to pull back, but Marsha's palm oozed green mucus, binding their skin together.

Horrified, he saw his right hand begin to petrify—wooden texture crawling up his fingers. Tiny roots sprouted from his fingertips, matching the vines on the stool.

Marsha smiled with eerie relief and spat out a coil of writhing green mycelium.

The fungal threads swayed in the air like sentient beings, drifting toward Raen.

"On the full moon..." her voice was suddenly youthful, decades peeled away from her face, the wrinkles smoothing out. "The Council... will reclaim the vessels... You must—"

A deafening crack of thunder outside swallowed her final words.

Lightning illuminated the room—and Raen gasped.

Marsha's face was melting. Like wax, dripping thick green goo, revealing another face beneath...

"What... are you?" he croaked, trembling, his wood-forming hand shaking uncontrollably.

"I was the subject before you." The new face emerged—skin silver-white, ears long and pointed, eyes filled with flowing runes.

"Parasitized countless bodies. Cursed for ten thousand and seven years."

Raen's temples throbbed. Disjointed images flashed in his mind: sterile labs, masked researchers, the scream of an alarm box... Memories collided with his known life like tectonic plates.

"Why me?" he whispered, collapsing to his knees, clutching his splitting skull.

Marsha—or the thing she had become—stepped closer, finger brushing his forehead.

A cold shock brought new visions: eleven incubation pods lined in a row. Each contained a different race. The twelfth pod—open. A masked dwarf placing the green crystal into a newborn's chest.

"Because the Abyssal Council and the Holy League discovered... your soul resists this world's laws." Her voice blurred again. "You are... the final... subject..."

Before she could finish, her body convulsed violently. Black tendrils streaked across her silver skin.

Instinctively, Raen reached to steady her. The moment they touched, his mind was pierced by another vision—deep within the Rotbone Marsh.

Twelve hooded figures sat around a black crystal altar. Above it floated eleven green crystals wrapped in black mycelium.

"They're summoning..." Marsha gurgled, black liquid spilling from her mouth. "Three days... until the full moon..."

Her body went rigid, then shattered like cracked pottery.

A burst of glowing spores exploded from the cracks, spiraling around the room before all surged into Raen's chest.

The crystal heart pounded loudly—thump, thump, thump—shaking loose dried herbs from the walls.

Raen felt his chest ready to burst. Countless alien memories flooded in: ancient wars, laboratory screams, years of imprisonment...

When the last spore vanished into him, his right hand was fully restored.

But on his left wrist, a new ring of glowing elvish runes had appeared. As his fingers brushed them, their meaning formed clearly in his mind:

"The Curse of Life—unto death it binds."

Footsteps clattered outside. The hunched man burst in, arms full of spilled herbs.

He glanced at Marsha's remains, then at the glowing text on Raen's wrist. A flicker of eerie green shimmered in his eyes.

"Master Raen!" His voice trembled theatrically, but Raen caught the false twitch in his smile. "It's the east side again—someone's fallen ill!"

Raen's gaze dropped to the healer's neck—black lines faintly pulsed beneath the skin.

He gave a quiet nod. "Take me to them."