The air within a 1-foot radius of the monolith was incredibly hot and became hotter as Red got closer.
Eventually, when there was only a small space between his fingertips and the monolith, his hand started to burn.
The excruciating moment before he touched the monolith felt like an eternity, but eventually he made contact.
Buzz!
Buzz!
Red's headache became much worse as the buzzing sound intensified significantly.
He looked around, but there was nothing that seemed to be causing the sound, and it didn't come from any particular direction.
It was like the sound came from within his skull.
Suddenly, a small crack appeared on the monolith, which quickly grew.
Soon, the whole structure was covered in cracks, and then it shattered like glass.
Boom!
Red's entire vision went dark, and he lost his sense of up and down.
His breathing sped up as he became extremely dizzy.
He felt like he was about to vomit until he regained his vision.
Red was in a purple field of grass with what seemed to be giant golden hairs scattered around, towering over him.
On his right, he noticed a knoll with a giant claymore sticking out of it.
In that moment, a figure shot down like lightning onto the ground, sending Red flying into one of the gold hairs.
It was rather sturdy and was painful upon impact, knocking the air out of him.
His eyes quickly darted around, then locked onto the figure.
It was larger than both him and Snowy combined and had long red hair that touched the ground.
Under the hair was a hideous pale face full of wrinkles and scars, and on that face was a large grin of jagged teeth.
"Ah, it seems that you have found your first memory."
The creature held its arms out, and a second pair of arms shot out from its sides.
Then, it stomped over to the knoll with the claymore, every step causing the ground to shake.
Once it stood in front of the knoll, it grabbed the hilt of the sword with all four arms and bellowed as it yanked the giant blade from the soil.
The creature held the weapon high in the air, dirt falling off of it.
It then pointed the massive claymore at Red and charged forward.
"You must remember, chosen! Remember!"
The creature ran towards him and stabbed him through the stomach with the sword.
No blood came out, but the sword shone with blue light, blinding him.
Red's vision once again went dark, and then he opened his eyes.
He was standing in a strangely familiar room, facing a beautiful woman.
This woman seemed extremely distressed, tears streaming down her face.
"Felix! If you keep selling weapons to those monsters, you'll get caught up in their business! And if that happens, you'll wind up dead in some goddamn ditch!"
Felix?
Is that his real name?
Felix did not reply and only stared at the woman.
"Do you hear me? If you die, then I'll be a widow, and our son will be fatherless! I'll have to raise him all by myself! If you want to support us, get a respectable job!"
Felix sighed, rubbing his temples.
"A respectable job won't pay off all this debt! Shit will pile up, and this is the only way to get rid of it!"
The woman's face burned red, and she slapped Felix across the face.
"I wish I had never had a child with you!"
The woman stormed back to her room and slammed the door.
"Eliza!"
Felix called out to his wife but got no reply.
"Dad, what's going on?"
A young boy came out of the room next to the woman's, looking concerned.
"Nothing… everything will be okay…"
"You promise?"
"I… go back to bed."
The boy sighed and closed the door behind him, leaving Felix alone in the hallway.
Suddenly, the scene went black.
Then Red, or now Felix, opened his eyes.
Felix quickly looked around and found that he was back on the mountain.
He immediately checked his stomach, but there was not a single scratch, and his hands were completely healed too.
Even though he was in perfect physical condition, his mind was still reeling.
If he continued on this path, would that ever go away?
As Felix was about to climb down the mountain, a series of numbers forcefully appeared in his head.
[NAME: Felix Morren]
[MEMORY COUNT: 1]
[RANK: Fool]
[SOULS COUNT: 1]
[DEATHS: 0]
Deep down, he felt like he had an understanding of these numbers, but that knowledge was somewhat foggy.
Felix knew that 'Souls' meant how many lives he owned, which could mean how many lives he had taken… which the number 1 would accurately represent.
This lingered in his mind for a minute, as he felt a wave of guilt wash over him.
It felt like he was taken underwater by this wave, and he began to drown.
Though he clawed himself up, and took a breath.
A temporary moment of air, only to one day be taken by the waves again…
Forcefully expelling these thoughts from his mind, he focused on the task at hand.
'Memory count' meant how many memories he had collected. This confused felix for a minute, until he remembered the vision he had upon contact with the blue monolith!
Was that a memory from before he came to this world? Although that was assuming that he lost his memories only when entering this world, it still wasn't too far from reason.
Maybe if he learned everything about his past, he could find out how to become a god and redeem himself!
Felix excitedly moved onto the next statistic.
His 'rank' meant how powerful he was.
This was directly connected to his path to ultimate strength as well!
Now that Felix thought about it, he felt a bit stronger and healthier after the vision, so that must mean each memory makes him more powerful, and would increase his rank.
Now he that he had figured out what these numbers meant, there was only one left to decipher, as his name was self explanatory.
'Deaths' meant how many times he had died.
As he comprehended this, Felix realized that it meant he could die multiple times.
His mind was once again washed over by a wave of questions.
Was this the same for Snowy? And if it was, did that mean he was still alive?
And if he was still alive…
Was Felix really a murderer?
He smirked. If nobody dies in this world, he could 'kill' whoever he wanted!
Redemption is not what he needed! It was never so!
As he saw it, this world was never built on such trivial morality…
It was built on power!
And Felix will get that power. He would become a god.
That was the ONLY WAY!
P
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T
H
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W
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GO AHEAD
Kill everyone
It doesn't matter
They'll crawl right back to you
So you just kill them again
You are god, after all.