The corpse stirred.
The man who should have been dead rose to his feet, a hollow gasp tearing from his throat. Silent observers dragged him into another chamber. At its center stood a golem.
Without hesitation, the construct tore his body apart.
Flesh ripped. Bones shattered. Blood splashed the floor.
And then… it regenerated.
The golem pierced his chest. The wound closed.
A beam punched through his skull. He screamed, collapsed, then stood again.
Another blast tore through his heart.
This time, he fell.
He screamed until his voice broke. And then, silence.
The golem shut down.
The researchers entered, inspecting the body. Every wound had healed. Every organ had regenerated.
Except one.
The heart.
The core of mana generation. The foundation of life itself.
They took the corpse away and brought in another subject.
The scene shifted.
A goddess sat upon a throne of gold, inside a hall vast enough to cradle entire planets. Her eyes were cold.
"These mortals," she said, her voice echoing through eternity, "attempt to reach godhood through foul means. They must… be erased."
Golden light rained from the heavens.
A colossal shadow descended, swallowing the sky whole. Alarms screamed. Defense protocols activated. Guns fired. Lasers burned. Magic roared.
Nothing even scratched it.
A voice echoed inside every mind.
"You have seven days. Cease your pursuit of immortality."
A man shouted back, trembling with rage. "And if we don't?"
The voice answered calmly.
"Then you will die."
The shadow vanished.
The goddess returned to her palace.
The humans ignored the warning.
"And that," the unseen narrator whispered, "was our greatest sin."
They forged weapons meant to kill gods.
Created spells never meant to exist.
Built golems. Cannons that erased mountains as if they were paper.
When the seventh day came, the shadow returned.
"I warned you," the voice said. "Are you brave… or merely reckless?"
They unleashed everything.
The shadow did not move.
"You will now die."
The scene shifted again.
Far from the kingdom, beyond its walls, stood a small house. A family lived there, exiled for refusing to aid the experiments, even though the father was the greatest mind humanity had ever known.
Children laughed outside.
Their father watched them.
Their mother cooked inside.
Then the sky darkened.
A presence so vast it felt unreal loomed overhead, crushing mountains beneath its form. One child looked up and asked what it was.
The father froze.
"Run," he said, pushing his children away as he turned back toward the house to save his wife.
Golden light descended.
It stopped inches from the child's eyes.
Then vanished.
Where the kingdom once stood, there was nothing. No ruins. No ash. No dust.
Even their home was gone.
The child ran to where it should have been. Found nothing.
He screamed.
He cried.
He raged.
Driven by grief, he walked to the kingdom's remains. The goddess had twisted the surviving humans into monsters.
The child picked up his father's sword.
He slaughtered them all.
When the last fell, their bodies dissolved into the earth. He felt it then. Perfect control. Absolute command over death itself.
He built a palace far from the ruins.
And in time, he transformed.
The world would come to know him as the Death God.
"You have seen my birth. Now witness my prison"