Reincarnated as a Death : vengeance against the Creator

The cathedral's interior was not constructed by hands, but by despair. It was a hollow place, built of whispers and ash, where each step echoed like a memory being erased. There were no walls, not truly—only immense veils of gray mist, curling and rising like smoke trapped in time. Reyan's boots made no sound on the ground, because there was no ground. They walked on absence itself. Aesthera's light wards flickered violently, as if struggling to hold their form in a space that denied reality. Selene gripped her blade tightly, but her gaze was unfocused. Already, the weight of forgotten sorrow pressed against her mind like cold fingers clawing through her thoughts.

Haldran did not move from where he stood at the center. He was still as death, his crown of rust and bone glinting faintly under a colorless sky. The mist that cloaked him stretched in every direction, and within it, shadows moved—slow, shapeless, grieving. These were his followers. Not cultists or warriors, but souls emptied of memory, walking vessels of unending sadness. Each had once had a name, a reason to cry, to scream, to love. Now they wandered with nothing but the feeling of loss, nameless and quiet.

Reyan stepped forward, the divine runes across his arms glowing faintly. The presence of his restored godhood clashed against the emptiness of the chamber like a flame in a vacuum. "You speak of release, Haldran. But this—this isn't peace. It's annihilation."

Haldran's voice responded without sound, threading directly into their thoughts. "You mistake silence for absence, Reyan. This world was born in grief. To grieve without end is the truest state of being. Memory poisons sorrow. I have freed it."

"No," Selene said, her voice trembling but steady. "You've severed it. You've taken meaning and turned it into a weapon." Her eyes locked onto the wandering shades. "They don't even know why they hurt."

"That is the gift," Haldran replied. "Pain, unburdened by reason. Grief, without the agony of truth. Is that not mercy?"

Aesthera stepped beside Reyan and unrolled a scroll etched with divine flame. The Codex of Echoes—one of the few surviving relics of the old world's truthbearers. "We're here to close this place," she said, her voice calm. "To end your influence. You've taken what the world must remember to heal."

Haldran raised his hand. The mist around him surged forward, writhing like smoke becoming claws. The room darkened, not from shadow, but from the crushing weight of unspoken grief. Selene gasped as the emotion pierced her thoughts. Images surged through her mind—her brother's death, her father's abandonment, the scream she never let out when she was left alone. But it was muted. The feelings arrived without context, like a flood without shape. She fell to her knees.

Reyan roared and drew his blade—Soulbreaker, forged from his divine essence and regret itself. He struck into the mist, each swing illuminating bursts of memory—faces, moments, names—like stars blinking back into the void. For every cut he made, a fragment of truth returned to the fog. He turned to Selene. "Don't fight the grief. Name it."

She clenched her fists and shouted through gritted teeth, "Ardin! You died to save me! I couldn't save you—but I never forgot!" The mist around her recoiled. Her eyes sharpened. She stood again, her blade igniting in memory's fire.

Aesthera unleashed a wave of arcane light, the scroll in her hand glowing gold and violet. "Truthbinding Spell: The Archive Awakens!" The names on the walls around them reappeared, glowing one by one. The lost, the mourned, the forgotten. They began to remember themselves.

Haldran staggered back, his form flickering. "You would return them to pain?"

"No," Reyan said, walking through the storm of mist and sorrow like a god reborn. "We're returning them to themselves."

The nameless followers around Haldran stopped moving. A few turned their heads. Others blinked, as if awakening. The mist faltered.

Haldran raised his hand again—and this time, the Codex appeared.

Bound in black leather that pulsed like a heart, the Grey Codex hovered above his palm. Runes of oblivion etched across it, dripping ink that disappeared before it touched the floor. "This is the future," he hissed. "A world without memory. Without cause. Without guilt."

Reyan narrowed his eyes. "Then let it burn."

He raised Soulbreaker high, the blade howling with every name he had ever spoken, every soul he had ever guided into peace. And with one strike, he brought it down toward the Codex—

—but Haldran vanished.

The Codex did too.

Only his voice remained, echoing through the mist like a prophecy.

"You may delay silence, Reyan. But you cannot kill it. I will return. And next time, even memory will not remember you."

The silence that followed Haldran's departure was unlike any Reyan had ever known. It wasn't empty—it was echoing. Every step he took rang against the floor like the breath of someone remembering how to live again. The cathedral trembled. The carved names along its walls began to glow one by one—not because Haldran had willed them to life, but because they had chosen to be remembered. The mist that once suffocated thought now receded, unraveling into fading wisps of silver light.

Selene sheathed her blade and fell to her knees again—not from sorrow this time, but release. "They're waking up," she whispered. The shades who had once wandered without identity now stood still. A young man looked at his own hands and muttered a name. An old woman gasped, mouthing something as if recognizing a face. And then, a child cried—not in pain, but in understanding. A cry that remembered its mother.

Aesthera stepped forward, her robes flickering with the last magic of the scroll. "The Codex was never meant to hold power. It was meant to steal it. And now that it's gone..." She looked toward the pulsing walls, "...this place has no anchor."

Reyan turned toward the heart of the cathedral, where Haldran had once stood. The gray floor cracked beneath his feet. Light—real light—began to pour from the fractures. "He escaped. But we've cut deeper than he expected. He'll hide now, but he won't stop."

Selene looked up, sweat clinging to her brow. "Do we chase him?"

Reyan shook his head. "Not yet. He feeds on forgetting. If we pursue him now, he'll slip into the spaces between memory. But there's something he can't hide from." He turned to the people—the survivors. "Remembrance."

Aesthera stepped beside him, nodding. "Then we spread it. Not just stories. Not just regrets. Names. We give the forgotten their voice again. And if Haldran tries to return... the world will already remember what it once lost."

The cathedral groaned louder now, and the floor gave way beneath them—not a collapse, but a release. Pillars turned to ash. The ceiling dissolved into strands of light. The structure that had housed endless sorrow was breaking apart—not in destruction, but in transformation. The grief that once defined the space had been given meaning. And meaning was something Haldran could never hold.

They emerged on the mountainside, where morning finally touched the Blackridge peaks. The valley was no longer dead. Flowers grew along stone. The sky shimmered—not with magic, but clarity. Selene looked back once, expecting ruins. There was nothing there. Just wind and sunlight.

Reyan drew a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding for centuries. "It's not over," he said, "but we've changed the shape of the fight."

Aesthera touched the back of her neck, where a faint rune glowed. "He'll move faster next time. His Codex wasn't destroyed—only hidden. If he completes it... he could unmake everything we fought to preserve."

Selene stepped beside them. "Then we build something stronger than his Codex."

Reyan looked at her, curious. "What do you mean?"

"A book of remembrance," she said. "A new Archive. One written not by gods, but by mortals. Names, regrets, triumphs, failures. A history owned by the world, not dictated to it."

Aesthera's eyes lit up. "Something even Haldran can't erase."

Reyan gave a rare smile. "Then let's get to work."

---

Back in the Sanctum, Reman sat beneath the great memory tree—roots woven with runes of sorrow and hope. The wind brushed gently through his silver-tinged hair. His eyes were closed, but he was listening. Always listening. To every whispered name. Every forgotten face. Every regret that had finally found breath. He had not fought Haldran. But he had changed the battlefield.

As Reyan, Selene, and Aesthera returned, Reman opened his eyes and smiled faintly. "You didn't kill him, did you?"

Reyan shook his head. "No. But we made the world louder than his silence."

Reman nodded. "Then I'll keep listening. And when he tries to return, he'll find a world that refuses to forget."