Immortal.
A being that can, under no circumstances, fall to death. Even those that seemingly do, always come back.
They've existed for centuries, since the dawn of the first men to the fall of the first empire. Their influence could be felt in every corner of history and the world.
This world's Great Hero was one such immortal, even if no one knew. After each end of a human life cycle, he was simply reborn in another body with all memories and abilities intact.
Those who knew of this ability counted it as a blessing. Some revered the immortals as gods. But to every single immortal, this supposed blessing was nothing more than a curse binding them to the whims of a true god. A terrifying god.
And of course, the Great Hero was no exception to this.
In the palace of the demon lord, quite the scene had unfolded.
An age-old battle that repeated itself through no less than 100 different eras, finally met its epic, albeit underwhelming, conclusion. In a torn apart grand throne room, there were two figures. A corpse, laid bare on the cold marble floors and a man with dark hair and steel blue eyes, sitting confidently on the broken throne.
It went without saying that I was the man sitting on the throne.
Cheers of joy reverberated around the world in gleeful anticipation of what was coming. Gleeful anticipation I was not at liberty to enjoy, however.
Another announcement rang in my ears. One no one else was privy to.
[CONGRATULATIONS ON DEFEATING THE DEMON LORD!]
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED 1,000,000,000 SP]
I tried to ignore the reward for this mission. It merely added to my already very deep pockets. Last I checked, I'd accumulated about 6,543,732,168,900,980,250,403 SP. The System points I acquired always carried over to my next incarnation to make the start easier, but at some point, I found a hack
All I needed to do was extract all my abilities and place them in a tool for me to collect in my next incarnation. Ever since then, I'd merely been collecting system points and rarely ever used them. It was quite a comical loophole once I thought more about it.
All that to say, the system point was practically worthless to me. My eyes scrolled past all the unnecessary rewards: new titles, new items, new blessings, new skills, more experience points and level ups.
[TIME UNTIL DEMON LORD RESSURECTION: 23 YEARS]
I frowned.
"That's even shorter than the last time.", I muttered, stroking my chin.
A red cloaked figure materialised next to me. "It's trying to balance things out by having you face a fully realised demon lord in your old age." She explained, resting on the arms of the demon lord's throne, right next to me.
"It's no fun watching one team win all the time, huh?", I nodded, pleased. Even if it was practically inconsequential, I managed to anger this blasted World. "Is the prep work done?"
"You know how difficult it was to do all of that in 10 seconds? Couldn't you have made the fight much longer?", She whined.
She had no name. Well, no name that she'd give me at least. I'd known her for about a half of my lives. Eventually, I dubbed her 'Witch'. She was one of the few immortals I'd encountered in my time. Of course, I didn't know what her Immortality Condition was.
Immortality Conditions were exactly what they sounded like. Terms agreed upon by the immortal and the god to allow them their immortality. Should they be broken, one would be punished. In often excessively cruel and unexpected ways.
Most Immortals liked to keep theirs' secret. But I wasn't most.
Depart from my home between the ages of 5 and 10. Have no attachments to mortals. Go on a quest to strengthen myself. Save any and all people in need of help. Defeat the demon lord within 16 years of awakening.
Those were the 5 conditions given to me to reman immortal.
I grew weary of the bit, so I foolishly tried to break the conditions in order to die. What I didn't know was that the World, wouldn't let me go so easily.
For the first rule, he made it so I was born an orphan every time. Hence, I had no home. For the second, he locked away all my emotions. For the third, I couldn't physically be in the same area for too long. For the fourth, my body moved without my will to help everyone, including enemies I'd sniffed out. For the fourth, I felt an absurd hatred for demon kind. The only emotion I was allowed.
"Sorry, the demon lord taunted me. I couldn't help myself.", I shrugged. "At least everything went well, yes?"
"Of course it did!", She declared boldly. She puffed out her chest, then jumped off the chair. "Who do you think I am? It's ready." She then handed me a vial.
"This is the poison?", I inquired, as I brought the vial up for further investigation.
This vial contained what appeared to be living energy. It crackled like lightning and moved with the fervour of a storm. It radiated so much power I doubted even I could survive consuming the contents of this vial.
"Sure. Why not?", As usual, she couldn't be bothered to dumb it down for me.
I took another look at it. I could feel a strong pulse coming from it. It tremored ever so slightly, but for some reason, it felt violent. Wrathful.
This vial contained the cure to my curse. The oh so loathsome curse we immortals are forced to deal with by TheWorld. I wasn't going to waste a moment.
"Before I do this, here.", I handed over my sword. It was currently sheathed in its scabbard as I mostly never had real use for it. Hell, I couldn't even remember what it actually looked like, but no matter.
"You're certain you want me to have this?"
"I'll have no use for it anymore once I'm dead. Do with it as you wish.", I said, pushing the sword into her hands.
She said nothing.
I took off the cap and a powerful wind blasted out. My instincts warned me that if I dallied for even a second, the contents of the vial would merely rage out into the world. I quickly swallowed the weird substance.
Strangely enough, nothing happened.
"Uh, you're sure that wa-AHJBJBJSBDABIBD!"
A pain unbelievably severe ran through my body. It felt like my nails were being pulled out, each hair on my body was torn off and my skin was peeled away layer by layer. My eyes simply burst and I felt like I was choking on the air in my lungs. The very air I breathed felt like sulphur, etching award at my innards. My brain was on fire, feeling everything to the very minute detail, but never stopping from shock. I felt everything in excruciating detail for all 45 seconds of it.
Before I realised, my soul was forcefully ejected out of my body.
I was looking at a corpse now. Nothing but skeleton in a blue tunic and pants, with some light armour covering a few bits and a white hood on it. That corpse was mine.
An underwhelming display from the great hero. Normally one would expect heavy, grandiose armour, but I found all that to be pointless. My actual skin had far surpassed any armour's durability.
Next to the corpse, was the Witch.
"So the pain I felt was because that what was happening in real time?!", I gasped, horrified by my gruesome death. I'd been burned alive, flayed, ripped apart piece by piece, poisoned and many more, but no pain compared to what I just experienced.
"It was… quite the scene."
"You can see me?"
"Of course.", She said it like it was a matter-of-course. "Now listen to me clearly."
"Hm?"
"That 'poison' as you put it is going to grab your Immortality Condition and keep it from acting. Your soul will be pushed out of the Samsara Wheel, out of The World's grasp. Your soul will exist out there, in the void, where nothing can exist. Eventually, it will be eaten away by nothingness and you will no longer exist."
I wondered why she explained this to me, when we'd already discussed this. But I pushed those thoughts aside. The Witch had always been peculiar.
"Ironic, isn't it?" She clasped her hands together. "The last gift you will ever receive from this world, is pain."
"What?"
And just like she promised, a pain incomparable to anything I'd experienced in my hundreds of incarnations descended on my soul.
It was instant. Suddenly, all the pain I was feeling was gone, like it was never there before. The memory even felt distant, like a blast from the past.
Next thing I knew, I was choking on smoke. Bright red and orange illuminated my field of vision. Houses and trees on fire, mixed with a gut churning smell of iron, blood and faeces. I coughed, holding back the urge to immediately throw up my stomach at the stench.
Corpses littered the ground, all dismembered or disembowelled or decapitated. A thick, large pool of blood swarmed the ground and in them, I saw a dark reflection of the flames. A few meters away from me, a corpse stood out. Unlike the bright orange and red, this corpse was covered in white flames.
The corpse was smaller than most. By now, it was practically charcoal, with no discernible features. I could only assume it was a child.
But even then, I still couldn't think about it. I felt something slip from my cheeks. Something cold, heavy and wet.
Taken in by the shock of everything, I hadn't even noticed something heavy rested on my laps. A body. She had soft features. Large eyes, a small nose and lips. Soft, lengthy curly black hair that somehow glistened. She was deathly pale, with a lot of blood smeared across her face.
I felt my heart drop. It ached. I could feel air build up in my chest. My lips trembled and without my will or permission, I uttered the words,
"Mother?"