The pain was unlike anything Damon had felt before.
Despite the golden sword clearly missing him, something tore loose inside him with a sensation he had no reference or words for. As if something incorporeal but at the same time clearly physical tore in half, as if a presence he had never consciously registered until now had ceased to exist.
He lingered in that feeling for only a short moment before the voice spoke again.
"In accordance with the Celestial Mandate 1.2B7008C, the defendant’s connection to the System has been severed."
Damon’s eyes widened.
The System.
The interface that had arrived on Earth at the same time Mana did. Now, it seemed so long ago that he had long forgotten what it had truly been like before it.
And now, as the words of the entity struck him, and as he followed the source of the pain in his abdomen, the details finally connected.
’It’s... gone.’
Before he could even have a second to process what had just happened, the figure moved again.
This time, it was even faster.
Dimensional Step fired before the thought fully formed, and the world blurred around Damon in an instant. He arrived a dozen meters behind it, far from the weapon’s reach and yet, as the golden sword passed through the air where he just stood, another sensation of pain erupted through his abdomen.
The pain was different this time.
It was just as sharp but somehow less total, as if whatever the strike was designed to sever was smaller.
He hit the ground on one knee, caught himself, then slowly rose upright through gritted teeth.
The mechanical voice returned a second later.
"In accordance with the Celestial Mandate 2.003H27J, the defendant’s existence has been erased."
Damon froze at the words.
Just as it did when his connection with the system had been severed, the entity now announced that his very existence had been removed.
His mind raced, trying to put together what exactly that meant.
He was still breathing, every bit as present as he had been a second ago.
So then what exactly had just been erased?
The figure hadn’t moved since the last strike. It simply hovered, wings spread, greathelm angled toward him with that absolute, eyeless attention.
Then, for the first time since the execution began, it spoke before it acted.
"In accordance with the Celestial Mandate 1A, the defendant shall now be executed."
There was a different weight to its words now. It spoke with the exact same mechanical tone, but this time there was a hint of finality to it, as though it was the last time it had spoken.
The figure vanished.
Fast was the wrong word to use to describe the speed at which the entity moved. There was no interval between its presence and its absence, no blur or displacement of air. There was no tell of any kind that it had moved at all, only the change of location, which was as instant as instant can be.
Damon saw the golden blade stick through his chest long before the pain hit him. Even his blood seemed a second delayed before it finally started to pour, and the figure pulled its weapon free.
His body swayed almost immediately. He had survived wounds this severe before, but something about this golden blade made the wound impossible to handle, as though it erased rather than simply cut.
The last thing he saw was a blur of shapes and colours around him before a darkness suddenly claimed him.
In some distant and almost nonfunctional part of his mind, Damon knew that he was dead. Ivy had only permitted him to use her technique once, and far from here, in a world she had no chance of reaching, there was no way her technique could save him from death for the second time.
Though it was still odd.
Surprisingly, Damon didn’t feel any surge of resistance or panic. He felt a strange sense of acceptance, which, for someone who had been facing and avoiding death for months, was rather unexpected.
The darkness shifted.
Floor, walls and ceiling slowly materialised around him, the same ones he had seen before.
Damon’s gaze immediately moved toward the figure sitting on the massive throne on the end of the hall, its greathelm already locked onto him.
A moment of silence passed between them before the figure suddenly spoke, with something almost resembling amusement woven in its tone.
"I must say, I did not expect your return to be so..."
It paused, letting the words hang on purpose before continuing.
"...swift."
"Yeah," Damon said, after a moment. "Neither did I."
"So. Did meeting a Celestial Guard change your answer to my earlier proposal?"
Damon paused. "Celestial Guard. Is that what that thing is called?"
"Yes. Although some refer to them as Balance Keepers."
"And what do they call you?"
The figure’s helm tilted slightly. "I am Death. Its creator, its embodiment, and its harbinger."
He should’ve figured that much. He had arrived in its domain twice now, after all.
"This is your final chance," Death continued, its tone shifting into something quieter and more absolute. "Unlike last time, the next stop from here is nothingness. So think carefully before you answer."
Damon was quiet.
The chamber had a way of stretching silence, something in the quality of the dark made time feel different inside it. He had refused once already, standing in this exact spot, and walked away intact.
Things were different now.
He thought about Ivy, the smile she’d worn on the battlefield when the voices finally went quiet. Then, he thought about Nyla and her erratic nature and all the trouble that came with it.
He also thought about the others, Ning Xiaoyu, Victor, Eve and others from their citadel, those who had been alongside him for long enough to matter.
And then, quieter than the rest, he thought about Ayame.
Despite how bittersweet those memories running through his mind tasted, the corner of his mouth curved into a smile so ridiculous, Death visibly shifted.
Staring death right in the face, Damon spoke without a sliver of hesitation.
"Go to hell."
[The End]