The breeze of peaceful air hit him, carrying the freshness of the mortal world.
"Haaaaa…"
He took a long breath, feeling the warm air settle deep inside his lungs, chasing away the lingering ash of a dead universe. His gaze drifted downward, taking in everyone—the whole of humanity. Thriving. Children laughing in the streets below, cars humming along sunlit roads, lives unfolding without the shadow of parasitic gods. He couldn't help but let a small, fierce smile form.
He was back. Truly back.
He looked at his clothes—ragged, stained—and his body, which reeked of stale sweat, neglect, and cheap alcohol. The stink still clung to his breath like an old memory. In this moment, stripped of allies and faith, he was indeed at his weakest, both in heart and soul.
He took one deliberate step back from the ledge—he would not repeat the same mistake again. Not like before, when his dried heart had driven him foolishly, fiercely forward into empty air.
"Not this time," he muttered, voice low and iron-hard as he turned away from the corner. Away from that fate.
He wasn't going to waste a single second feeling sorry for himself, trying to end it all again and again. He had a purpose now, a burning mission that lit his veins brighter than any divinity ever had. His eyes flicked back to the hovering status window. His karma was deep in the red—five digits bleeding negative.
"Hmmm…..Should I ask help from the angels?" he thought, lips curling. ''...No, this is bad, so bad even Michael can't help me, let alone anyone."
He walked down to his apartment, each step deliberate but familiar.
The moment he opened the door, darkness and a foul stench slammed into him like a living thing.
He'd thought his body stank, but his room was infinitely worse. A sprawling apartment drowned in garbage—pizza boxes fossilized with mold, empty bottles rolling underfoot, the reek of urine and dead rats thick enough to taste. Sunlight filtering through grime-coated windows revealed the full disaster. He stood there a moment, golden eyes narrowing at the ruin he had allowed himself to become.
Then he rolled up his sleeves.
He could have finished it in seconds with a whisper of power, but karma… he didn't want to mess with it yet. One careless flare and the backlash could escalate to dangerous levels, even for him. So he worked by hand—brute, mortal labor.
Bags of trash hauled out one by one. Windows forced open, letting sunlight and fresh air battle years of decay. He scrubbed white floors until they gleamed, wiped down tables, rearranged sofas with careful precision. The vacuum sputtered and died twice; lights flickered rebelliously; a shelf collapsed and nearly took his head off. Karma's little jokes.
He laughed once—short, bitter—at the absurdity. Objects fell on him, electricity rebelled, but he kept moving. Sweat mixed with the fading stench until, after a full hour of stubborn war, sunlight poured in bright and unforgiving. The apartment breathed again, and he breathed with it. The afternoon light felt sharper, cleaner than he remembered possible.
Standing in the renewed space, he looked out the open window, breathing deep. For the first time in longer than he could count, he felt almost human. Almost fragile. Almost alive.
Then he sniffed again. Not the apartment. Not himself. Something drifting in from outside—faint, acrid beneath mortal scents. Familiar but wrong.
He let it go for now. Paranoia could wait. He needed to get in touch with the ones he had thought lost. But with this miracle, he couldn't wait to meet them all again.
He reached for his ancient phone. The screen lit with hundreds of missed calls from years past. Names glowed like ghosts: Herald Khorn. Herald Percy. Herald Trevor. And lower, buried under a thousand unanswered pleas—Adam.
Over a thousand missed calls from Adam alone.
They had all reached out, desperate to help. Back then he had ghosted them, too shattered to admit the truth: the crushing toll of living too long, the curse of Eve, the betrayal that had stripped his powers and faith bare. He had been wrecked. Devastated. A hollow shell.
Now he stared at the list and felt the weight settle differently—not crushing, but fueling. He hovered over "Herald Khorn" and pressed call.
One of his friends who was with him until the very end. He was the man he had blessed first and the one he had lost first. The line rang and rang, endlessly. No answer. A flicker of worry gnawed at him. He tried Adam next—his brother from the very dawn, the one soul he had cherished through every age.
Ring… ring… ring…
Nothing. Again and again. Silence.
His instincts sharpened. They weren't the type to ignore him. Something was wrong.
Finally he scrolled to the last name: Ureil.
His heartbeat spiked, eyes twitching, seeing the name alone. The memory of her broken body flashed white-hot. "…Maybe later. Not yet," he said aloud. She was different now—younger, untouched by war, a whole other person. He wanted to hear her voice more than anything, say something—anything—but the timing had to be perfect.
His clothes were finally dry: long coat, shirt, pants. Golden hair braided tight, beard ripped away by hand. Clean at last, he stepped out into the city. He needed answers. He needed his comrades. So if calls weren't working, he would see to his heralds himself.
Walking along the sidewalk, his head filled with mashing thoughts of what was to come, a prickling instinct snapped his head sideways. He dodged—just in time. A massive television smashed into the pavement where he'd stood, glass exploding outward.
"Oh my god, I'm sorry!" a woman screamed from a balcony above, face pale with panic.
Aron looked at the smashed TV on the ground, seeing how close it was, and at the worried woman. "It's okay…" he said, but as he walked away, a car veered wildly onto the sidewalk. He could have jumped right off, but a teenage girl was walking by the side. He couldn't help but grab the girl and turn his back to the incoming car.
Bang!!!
Metal crumpled. Air punched from his lungs. He felt the direct hit on his back, knocking him and the girl down. He absorbed it though, pressing up without a scratch—as his stats laughed at mortal force.
'…So this is the brand-new experience my status was warning me about,' he thought as he checked the girl. And thank God she was alright.
Understanding clicked like a loaded chamber. It wasn't the woman's clumsiness or the driver's heart attack. It was the world itself turning hostile. Karma didn't just drain a number—it weaponized probability. And now it weaponized against him.
'Mess with time, and it tends to mess back.'
He shoved the car away with casual ease, letting the girl go.
"Son, you okay…?" an old lady asked, eyes wide.
"Yes, nothing much, just small injuries," he lied. "Please take care of the girl. I think she is scared." With those words Aron quickly walked off. Onlookers gawked at the man who should have been paste yet strolled away untouched. He didn't want any commotion here.
The old lady turned to a young man beside her. "…Is this normal? Are men these days that strong…?"
The ruckus spread fast. People poured from nearby shops and cafés to stare at the wreck. When the daughter's father, a middle-aged man, saw it was his daughter who was in the accident, his heart sank to his gut as his feet ran past the people quickly. As he hugged his daughter.
"Baby, baby. You okay? What happened?" he asked, seeing his daughter without a single scratch and the car's front all destroyed. A miracle among miracles.
Feeling her father's warmth, she couldn't help but let her tears flow, finally feeling safe. "I'm okay, Dad… It was… that man. He blocked the car and… and saved me…" she said, pointing at the golden-haired man.
He looked where she pointed. As he saw the man, his blue eyes opened wide. That aura, that walk, that golden hair.
'It couldn't be…' he thought. As he stood up, and in time he saw his wife coming as well, worried. He quickly told her to stay with their daughter.
"Love, I will go thank that man. You both stay here. Sweetie, take care of our daughter, okay?" he said to his wife, her nodding and hugging their sweet daughter.
The middle-aged man followed him—quickly, increasing his pace, crossing the road with hurried, careless steps. He didn't—no, couldn't—lose sight of him. One of the cars almost hit him as well.
"Watch the road, jackass!" the driver shouted. But the middle-aged man didn't care. He just followed the man—the tall man who could perhaps be the second human of all existence.
He didn't care. Couldn't. Centuries of waiting, rumors, prayers—and now the figure walked mere blocks away. The second human. The Slayer. The solution to his gnawing fate.
"Please...let it be him…" he prayed. His steps grew quieter and quieter until the echo of them stopped altogether.
Aron still walked, but more carefully—slower, even. He didn't know what would happen next. Even though he had been weak during his previous timeline, the world had still been with him. His karma had always been overwhelmingly positive, helping him in every way possible—like he was the chosen main character who wouldn't fail, couldn't fail.
But that wasn't the case now. Even now, he'd just had to dodge a water splash, watch the road, avoid touching any mortal human. On top of that, he hadn't been out long, and he could already smell someone—a familiar scent. But not a good one.
'…A demon? No… the corruption is there, but not the sulfur. A half-breed…? Could be, but this…' he thought as he sniffed more. Then a familiar scent hit him hard—a familiar aroma that made his hands tighten and his eyes sharpen.
'Eve's herald… so that was what I smelled before. I should have known,' he thought as he took a sharp turn into the alley. He pulled his hands from his pockets, gripping them into fists as veins started popping out. 'I didn't think I would meet these cunts this early…' he growled.
'Charge…'
Blue windows flared to life.
[Charging: 1% █████████░░░░░░░░░░░]
[Irregularity Detected: ⚠️Negative Karma Overflow ⚠️]
[Timeline Integrity Violation Imminent]
[Warning: Even primordial entities fear this debt.]
[Charge Complete: 1%]
He exhaled—a slow, weary sound—and glanced at the faint glow: one solitary percent. It was enough. He wasn't facing gods today. Just vermin. Insignificant, scurrying things that deserved less than nothing. Eve's minions, the ones who started it all. The ones who started the cursed deal, the ones who started the reckoning.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Aron halted. The street around him was nearly deserted; only faint echoes of human life lingered in the distance. Good. Fewer innocents to mourn.
He turned his head, voice low and edged with winter.
"You can stop there."
From the empty air behind him, a figure shimmered into existence: a middle-aged man with bright blue eyes and a smile far too eager for the moment.
The smile widened into something almost childlike with triumph.
"It is you," he breathed, reverent and greedy all at once. "That divinity… it's unmistakable....its you, Aron. The second human to ever draw breath." His voice trembled with awe. "The Slayer."
Aron turned fully now, fingers still curled tight at his sides. The name struck him like an old wound reopened.
"I have hated that title," he said quietly, "for longer than your bloodline has existed."
There was no softness left in his tone, no mercy in the golden stare that pinned the man in place. Only contempt—cold, ancient, absolute.
The man's glee faltered. "Wait—Slayer, I'm not here to fight—"
"Do not Speak!"
The command cracked through the alley like a thunderclap, raw power rolling outward in a wave that shoved the man back a full step. His smirk died instantly, replaced by the stark realization, a late realization that every story whispered about this being had been woefully...Wrong.
Step.
The man retreated, legs buckling. He saw it now: Aron wasn't merely angry. He was catastrophe wearing human skin—a golden storm that had already decided the world owed him something.
Words clawed at the man's throat and found no escape. As breath itself felt borrowed.
Step.
He stumbled, fell hard onto his back, mind scrambling for the divinity he'd flaunted moments ago. But fear had scattered it like ash.
Step.
Aron's fist ignited—only a faint white nit at first, a mere wisp of flame. Yet the pressure behind it was grand, he only saw it once and knew what was coming.
Death.
Aron swung and he swung hard.
In the heartbeat before impact, the man's life narrowed to one fragile image: his daughter's voice, light and puzzled, floating from memory.
"Dad! Where are you?!…"
The fist froze bare inches from the man's face.
The shockwave alone was enough—ripping through the alley, hurling the man backward in a tumble of limbs and dust until he slammed to a stop at the far edge.
Aron's fingers uncurled slowly, the white fire guttering out. At the mouth of the alley stood a young girl, phone in hand, eyes wide with everyday teenage frustration melting into confusion and dawning fear.
He remembered her, she was the one he just saved and seeing her, for the first time in longer than he could measure, Aron stayed his hand.