Chapter 22: What? Today I'm the Aeon of Destruction?
The next morning, Dan Heng stood before Rekka's door, mentally preparing himself for the daily game of blind box. He pressed the control panel. The metal door slid open with a soft hiss.
He stepped inside, his sharp gaze sweeping the room. Instantly, his hand drifted toward the hilt of Cloud-Piercer.
The person standing in the center of the room was not Rekka.
Dan Heng was one hundred percent certain of this fact.
Crouched near the window sill was a youth. He had light-brown skin, a head of messy snow-white hair, and was dressed in overly simple, almost ragged clothes. But it was the eyes that made Dan Heng freeze—a pair of piercing, molten-gold irises that glared back at him. A faint, jagged scar marked the boy's cheek. He looked like a cornered beast, radiating pure, unadulterated hostility.
Footsteps echoed from the corridor. "Rekka? Are you awake?" March 7th's cheerful voice bounced into the room. "Didn't we agree to hit the swimming pool today?" She popped her head in, blinking at Dan Heng's rigid posture. "What's wrong, Dan Heng? Did he oversleep?"
"It's not oversleeping," Dan Heng replied, his voice dropping an octave, solemn and tight. "It's the wrong person."
"Huh? What do you mean 'wrong person'?" March stepped fully into the room, her hands on her hips. "Did he turn into a bug again? Or some weirdly shaped..."
Her voice trailed off as she finally spotted the boy.
The youth hadn't moved an inch. He stared at Dan Heng like a feral wolf cub backed into a corner, muscles coiled tight, ready to snap at the slightest provocation.
"...Who are you?" Dan Heng asked, his tone measured.
The youth only shifted half a step backward, his spine pressing hard against the cold glass of the window sill. Those golden eyes remained locked deathly onto the spearman at the door.
"Where is Rekka?" Dan Heng pressed.
Still no answer. Just that heavy, suffocating glare.
"Whose kid is this?" March 7th leaned closer, her pink eyes wide with bewilderment. "Wait... did Rekka turn into a kid?"
"Doesn't look like it," Dan Heng said, his reply clipped.
"Doesn't look like it?"
The youth refused to make a sound.
"Are you Rekka?" March 7th tried, offering a tentative, friendly smile in an attempt to extract something useful.
Only a heavy, tense silence answered her.
"Where is Rekka?"
Silence.
March 7th scratched her pink hair, her ahoge drooping as she looked at Dan Heng with utter helplessness.
"What should we do? He won't talk."
Dan Heng's eyes narrowed, his stance shifting into a combat-ready posture. "No choice. Let's try to restrain him first. We'll make him talk."
Rekka woke up.
Only, the sensation of waking up this time was entirely alien.
There was no physical action of opening his eyes. Instead, his consciousness simply expanded. He felt as though he possessed an total, omniscient perspective. It was as if the entire universe—every swirling galaxy, every dying star, every speck of cosmic dust—was laid bare beneath his gaze.
Immediately following that realization came an indescribable, crushing sense of weight. Power. Absolute, unadulterated power coursed through him, so dense it felt like it could shatter reality itself.
Groggy, he tried to raise a hand to rub his eyes.
Rumble—
With just that extremely tiny, subconscious thought, the surrounding fabric of space reacted. It sounded like a sheet of tempered glass taking a direct hit from a sledgehammer, letting out a horrific, overwhelming crack. Ripples of terrifying golden energy exploded outward with him at the epicenter. Several massive asteroid fragments floating nearby didn't just break—they were instantly annihilated, erased from existence in a blinding flash of light.
"?"
Rekka was stunned.
He looked down—if shifting this cosmic perspective could even be called looking down—at his own body.
Bronze skin. A physique that looked as though it had been forged in the heart of a dying star. Every single inch of muscle fiber flowed with a terrifying, apocalyptic energy, easily sufficient to crush an entire galaxy into dust.
Across his chest, a massive, jagged golden crack slanted downward, glowing with a fierce, blinding light. Drops of golden, divine blood oozed from the fissure, suspended in the vacuum of space.
In fact, his entire body was covered in these glowing, golden wounds.
This wasn't his body.
'I've turned into Nanook?!''Wait, bro!''I usually just talk big! How did I actually turn into the Aeon of Destruction?!'
Before he could even process the absurdity of his new form, the sheer divinity of Destruction began battering his consciousness. It was a tidal wave of primal instinct. The absolute desire to annihilate, to reduce everything to ash, locked into a brutal struggle with his fragile human rationality.
This was the Primum Mobile of an Aeon. The absolute rules of the Path.
If he did not obey these rules, his consciousness might be entirely consumed by the Path of Destruction, leaving nothing but an empty shell. But if he did obey... then he would become a true, mindless slaughtering machine.
Aeons indeed possessed the right to interpret their own Path, but the glaring problem here was that Rekka wasn't Nanook. He had simply logged into the guy's account!
'Then should I... go destroy something?'The moment the thought of wanting to destroy arose in his mind, that agonizing sense of urgency and suppression instantly vanished, replaced by a dark, humming satisfaction.'So, if I just destroy some pests, does that count as destruction?'
It seemed there was no problem with that loophole.
However, he desperately needed to figure out why he had turned out like this. His daily Path switching had always been completely random, but a situation this absurd had never occurred before. The Aeon of Destruction? This was no longer within the scope of normal Path switching; this was a direct, VIP jump to the absolute pinnacle of the universe.
Unless...
A terrifying possibility suddenly dawned on him.
'Today is the Path of Destruction.''And I have become the Aeon of Destruction.''Then what about the original Aeon? Where did Nanook go?'
If he was currently occupying Nanook's divine shell, then Nanook's consciousness must be...
"No way," Rekka muttered, his cosmic voice vibrating through the vacuum of space.
He felt a sudden, desperate urge to check on his friends, but he forcibly slammed the brakes on his own perception.
'Don't look at the Express.''Don't look at the Express.''Absolutely DO NOT look at the Astral Express.'
If he cast even a single glance toward the Express right now, his massive, uncontrollable will of destruction would follow his gaze. He would accidentally burn the train, along with its surrounding star systems, into absolute ash. And even if the Express somehow survived the glare, countless fanatical Pathstriders of Destruction would sense his gaze and charge over in a heartbeat to finish the job.
This forced suppression made the destructive impulse within him surge even higher. It felt as if a raging supernova was burning inside his chest, screaming at him to break something, to crush something, to tear the universe apart. If he didn't vent it soon, he felt like he would literally explode.
Since destruction was a mandatory requirement of this body, he might as well broaden his horizons. Since he had to destroy something anyway, he might as well destroy things that actually deserved it.
Sweeping his omniscient senses outward, his perception soon locked onto a distant star sector.
'Wow, there are even Incendiaries here.'
What were Incendiaries?
They were a faction of extremists who believed that genetic inertia constrained civilizational progress. Therefore, they reasoned, there must be someone hunting civilizations from behind to provide the motivation for explosive, desperate advancement. Simply put, they were a bunch of bloodthirsty lunatics committing mass genocide under a noble, philosophical banner.
'You guys it is.'With a mere flicker of his will, a wave of pure, annihilating force surged across the cosmos, wiping the fleet of Incendiaries from the fabric of reality.'Phew.''That's better.'
But the relief was only temporary. The destructive impulse was already clawing its way back up his throat. He needed more targets. More venting.
The glaring issue remained: he couldn't look at the Express.
He couldn't think about it.
He couldn't allow a single stray thought to point in that direction.
Because he had no idea if he would lose control at some random moment and pour the absolute will of destruction through that mental connection.
"Tsk."
'A bit troublesome.''Right now, I'm like the King of Hell checking his ledger for names to cross off.''Let's go for a stroll.'As his cosmic gaze drifted through the star systems, Rekka spotted a very familiar, flaming goat head.'A goat head?'He pondered for a moment.'...Soul juice?''No, can't do that. That's a matter of [Elation], not [Destruction].''But this goat head... really looks a bit like...'
Before Rekka could fully piece together the identity of the flaming figure, the goat head suddenly cried out, practically weeping with manic joy.
It was entirely because the Aeon had just happened to look in his direction.
'Oh, right.'
Rekka suddenly realized, finally remembering exactly who this dramatic guy was.
Duke Inferno, Ifrit. The leader of the Ever-Flame Mansion, a notorious branch of the Annihilation Gang, and a fiercely loyal believer of the Aeon of Destruction. The fire demon race, beings who burned incessantly, regarded Nanook as their Emperor and constantly hailed him as their Benefactor. Yet, despite all their fanatical devotion, they had never once received so much as a passing glance from the Aeon.
But honestly... how should Rekka put this?
True, the Annihilation Gang technically belonged to the Path of Destruction...
But Ifrit's... purity was just too low.
In fact, if Ifrit were placed in a lineup next to the Incendiaries, the Saviors, or the Star-Pickers, the flaming demon would look as benevolent as a Buddha. However, to give credit where it was due, Ifrit himself did possess a genuine martyr spirit; he wasn't just a cheap hypocrite.
"Benefactor! The great Benefactor has finally shown pity to Your humble believer!"
Down below, Ifrit was so overwhelmed with excitement that his entire body was trembling—if roaring, ethereal flames could be said to tremble. That burning, demonic head of his was bowed low in the most devout, subservient posture imaginable.
Rekka: "..."
'No, I didn't glance at you on purpose. I was literally just testing to see what consequences my gaze would cause.'
He looked down at this wildly excited, flaming fellow from his position high above the cosmos, his heart completely and utterly unmoved.
[Aeons are not driven by their Path; the protagonist isn't an Aeon, he just logged into the account...]
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