Death and Rebirth

Learning about the existence of higher leveled mana, the gods traced it to it's source - eventually reaching the blackhole Galen was staying at.

Feeling his powerful presence from a distance, they stopped approaching him and decided to retreat - for now.

Soon, a celestial meeting was held between the gods - to discuss the presence of foreign mana, it's possible source and the implications.

The God of Deceit, as his name suggests, directed the meeting from behind the scenes and led all the gods into believing what he had wanted.

{ Mainly two things,

First - this foreign mana was what they urgently needed to raise their strength and step into a new realm of power.

Second - The First God / The Forgotten God, was monopolizing it's source for millions of years, depriving them of their opportunity to become as powerfull as him. }

The Gods, blinded by their greed for higher power, were easily led by their noses.

The result — except for the very few gods who cherished their current peace, all the others went to confront the Forgotten God, to force him into handing over the mana source, which they could use for their own benefit.

{ A/N : That was what most of them believed at least – except for the God of Deceit, the one who had orchestrated everything from behind the shadows, and some of his trusted underlings. }

Spurred on by their misplaced greed,

and the unspoken jealousy they harboured towards the Forgotten God's strength,

A grand lineup of gods, numbering in the thousands,

came together as a single fleet and soon surrounded the Forgotten God's castle.

Feeling some pesky insects buzzing around in his vicinity, the Forgotten God – Galen Vaelthorn – finally opened his eyes.

Even after being surrounded by them, he didn't have the slightest change in his expression.

Taking out his soul weapon from it's sheath - currently in it's sword form - he slowly stood.

Turning his head from side to side, Galen memorized all of their faces before falling into thought.

' Hmm... I see some new faces here. Newly ascended gods, perhaps? '

' Well, Whatever... '

Then addressing everyone, he voiced a question, his voice tinged with sarcasm.

"Why have you all decided to come here all of a sudden?"

"I don't remember being particularly chummy with any of you guys, to warrant a sudden visit like this."

Hearing his question, one of the representative gods, the Snake God, with his green pupils opening in slits and a lean physique that reeks of poison stepped forward and spoke.

"It's a pleasure to meet you again, Your excellency, Mr. Galen Vaethorn..."

"I hope we are not disturbing—"

"Just get to the point, you damned snake."

Galen interrupted him with irritation, his patience wearing thin. He was never one to exchange pleasantries with anyone. Especially if the one standing before him was this filthy snake.

Being called a snake all of a sudden, even if that was his original form, the representative nearly lost himself in his anger.

Never once in his life, had anyone insulted him with such blatant disregard.

But soon, he composed himself, recalling the main objective they had in coming here.

"All of us have noticed a new type of mana spreading in the universe in very small quantities for several millenia. After tracing it to it's origin, we suspect that you've been hiding that mana source from all of us, using it to strengthen yourself."

'So they don't know about the existence of the Aetherion Seal, nor its true purpose.' Galen inferred from his words.

Thinking about it, it was pretty obvious. Even he had only learned about those details after becoming the universe's guardian.

Letting the silence linger for a it, he finally asked.

"So, what if I have it? What are you going to do about it?" 

Seeing Galen admit to it so openly, the Snake God's eyes lit up with fervour.

"You should of course share it with us. Unlike you, we're going to use the power gained from that treasure for the betterment of this universe."

Picking his ear with his left pinky and blowing it sideways, Galen asked with a nonchalant expression, "And what if I refuse?"

A vein popped on the snake god's forehead.

"Don't push your luck too far, Galen." 

"You may be the strongest god, but…"

"You're just a lone a man, surrounded by thousands."

"Obediently hand over the treasure to us, if you don't want things to get ugly."

"Oh…?"

Galen questioned with a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Are you threatening me?"

"What do you think?" The Snake god retrorted with a smug face seeing his riled up expression.

Galen : "Haha... Hahaha... Hahahahahaha..."

"Just because I've been staying out of spotlight all these years,

You fools actually forgot what it means to fear me huh...?"

"Come... I'll help you remember... Why I am called The First God..."

"By burying you all,

Under my Blade..."

When he finished his sentence, his aura that was caged in his small frame for countless years, erupted like a massive tsunami sweeping over everything.

Upon sensing that Majestic Aura, all the gods were stupified, their bodies freezing in fear and disbelief. Comparing their meagre aura to his was like, comparing a small stream to the vast ocean.

Seeing all those gods standing there like idiots, The God of Deceit clicked his tongue in irritation and decided to take matters into his own hands.

He signaled to one of his subordinates with his eyes – who then shouted with a brave expression ,

"Everyone! He should have become this powerful only by using the higher energy. so we should get it's source for ourselves at all costs..."

Some other gods (his accomplices) also supported him, shouting,

"Yeah... Let's fight. He is just a single god, he can't defeat all of us. Let's just kill him and take the treasure."

"He should be honoured to die for us, because we will further develope our universe with that kind of power, unlike him..."

Hearing those voices, even those gods trembling in fear gritted their teeth and steeled their resolves, marching towards Galen...

Thus began the Great War, between One Man and thousands of Gods that'll last for centuries.

Millions of galaxies were destroyed in their battle, turning countless solar systems to dust...

After 800 years of constant fighting, not even a small wound could be seen on Galen's body. He was practically toying with the gods like they were mere toddlers.

When almost everyone thought there was no hope of defeating him, one of the subordinate Gods to the God of Deceit appeared behind him and plunged a dagger straight through his heart.

With Galen's power, it shouldn't have been possible for any weapon to penetrate his innate defence this easily.

So he had let his guard down and just tanked it like every other exchange he had with these gods over the years.

Which was a mistake because, the dagger was a creation from the higher universe, transported through the crack by the invaders. They had paid an enormous price to do so.

Only now did Galen remember the God of Deceit slipping in the middle of the fight and returning some time later.

' He should have gotten the dagger by somehow communicating with the other side. '

By the time Galen realised it, his life was already slipping through his fingers...

"So this is how I die,huh... Backstabbed by a coward..."

He laughed at himself.

Raising his head and looking directly into the remaining gods' eyes, focusing especially on the God of Deceit, Galen asked with a crazed smile,

"You guys want the universal Treasure right?"

"If so, you can go fuck yourselves...🖕🏻🖕🏻"

With that, he detonated his soul and used that power to break the Universal Treasure into 5 fragments and scattered it across the Universe.

The explosion was so dreadful that it killed nearly half of the remaining gods before subsiding.

***

When the aftermath had finally settled, The God of Deceit beaten and ragged due to the explosion, dragged his weary body and arrived at the site of Galen's death, to claim his awaited prize...

But when he reached there, he couldn't find a single thing.

The Universal Treasure,

his Subordinate God

or the forgotten God's body

Nothing...

Everything was gone like a puff of smoke.

When he realised that he had lost the treasure , there was silence for a moment followed by a heart wrenching scream,

"Noooooooo....."

***

What the Forgotten God hadn't forseen at the end of his life was...

When he detonated his soul, an infinitesimally small piece of it containing all his memories, got absorbed into one of the fragments of the Universal Treasure and started travelling the starry sky.

The remaining part of his soul got dragged into the cycle of reincarnation, to undergo nirvana and cleansing for its next life.

But since an essential piece of the soul was missing, every baby ever born with that soul ended up as a stillborn child.

Only on Earth, when the next rebirth was about to happen, the universal treasure fragment containing that piece of soul, finally reached the incomplete soul and fused with it, causing the baby to be born without any issues...

And after 25 years, on Earth...

[ System Restart completed ]

[ Synchronising Memories...

Synchronisation complete ]

[ Congratulations Galen Vaelthorn on your successful Reincarnation... ]

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