Summer had begun, but for him there was no difference between seasons. Days blurred into work, and work blurred into endurance. The company paid well—too well—but it was a shell, a hollow structure built to launder sins with paperwork. The workload was never reasonable. One and a half times what any normal human could sustain. That was the expectation.
He met it anyway.
Not because he cared.
Not because he believed in effort.
He worked because emotions had long since burned out.
His parents had died years ago—victims of a government “anti-terror” operation that later turned out to be nothing more than a cover for corruption. He knew the truth. Evidence existed. Patterns were clear. But knowledge without power was just another form of suffering.
So he became a machine.
That night, he shut down his terminal, left the office, and headed toward the parking lot like every other night.
Then the gunshots rang out.
Sharp. Close.
His body reacted before thought did. He turned, moved, tried to find cover—but fate didn’t bother negotiating.
The bullet took his head.
There was no pain. No final words. Just silence.
________________________________________
He awoke as a flame.
Not fire—a soul, burning without heat, drifting in an endless, soundless cosmos. No up. No down. No sense of time. Only existence.
He didn’t panic.
Instead, he observed.
If this is death, he thought, there must be a boundary. And boundaries can be tested.
The moment he tried to move, reality folded.
The cosmos vanished.
He stood in a garden.
Green stretched endlessly, unreal in its perfection. A soft breeze carried a scent he hadn’t felt in years—coffee. Warm. Fragrant.
At a small table sat a middle-aged man, calmly sipping from a porcelain cup.
The moment their eyes met, pressure crashed down on him.
Invisible. Absolute.
His knees slammed into the ground. His vision blurred. Every instinct screamed to submit.
He didn’t.
Teeth clenched. Muscles screamed. Something inside him—something long buried—refused to bend.
He forced himself upward.
Halfway.
That alone was enough to make the man at the table raise an eyebrow.
The pressure vanished.
“You’re a quiet man,” the stranger said, voice calm, almost amused. “You’ve lost your emotions, yet your spirit remains intact. Tell me—why did you resist something you didn’t understand?”
The world didn’t move. Only the table remained constant.
“I’ll give you time to answer,” the man continued. “Before we get to business.”
He poured another cup of coffee and slid it across the table.
The man accepted it.
The first sip nearly broke him.
Warmth spread through his chest—not power, not magic—relief. Something he hadn’t felt since before his parents died.
When the cup emptied, he exhaled slowly.
“Before I met your eyes,” he said, steady, “there was no pressure. Only when I looked at you did it begin. I’ve lived without control my entire life. If I was going to disappear anyway, resisting—once—seemed appropriate.”
A smile appeared on the man’s face. Genuine. Approved.
With a light tap of his finger on the table, the garden dissolved back into the vast cosmos. Only now, the man across from him wore a human form instead of something far more abstract.
“As a reward,” the stranger said, “I’ll explain who I am, why you’re here, and what comes next. Ask your first question.”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Is this reincarnation?” he asked. “And are you a god of birth and death—or something else? Also… did you cause my parents’ deaths?”
The man’s eyes sharpened.
“I oversee all gods,” he said. “I am the Creation God. Your parents’ deaths were not my doing. Yours, however, was.”
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Silence.
“I intervened,” the god continued. “Because I noticed you. Your refusal to break—then and now.”
He leaned back.
“One more question.”
The man relaxed fully for the first time.
“So,” he said plainly, “what role do you want me to play? Which world do I save before you discard me?”
The god laughed.
“You’ve read too many stories. I don’t discard tools without reason.” He slid a slip of paper across the table. “Ten to fifteen wishes. Don’t ask for love—I’m terrible at that.”
Before writing, the man looked up.
“Promise me something,” he said. “That only you will have the right to end my life. Not desire—authority. Like a parent.”
The god said nothing.
That silence was enough.
He wrote five wishes.
- To stand at the pinnacle of True Dragons.
- Knowledge of the cosmos that grows with me.
- Your guidance at critical moments.
- A calm mind that exposes falsehood.
- Eyes that perceive truth beyond form.
When the god finished reading, he frowned.
The god read the list in silence.
Once.
Twice.
The cosmos around them trembled—not violently, but enough for him to notice. Stars warped. Distance bent.
“Why only five?” the god asked, voice still calm—but no longer light. “I told you ten to fifteen.”
“Too many wishes rot the mind,” the man replied evenly. “And nothing in this universe is free. With effort, these are enough.”
For a moment, the pressure returned.
Not crushing.
Warning.
Then the god laughed—short, sharp.
“Very well,” he said. “I grant them all—except one.”
The cosmos darkened.
“I want you as a human hero.”
The man didn’t hesitate.
“No.”
The word echoed.
The pressure exploded.
This time, it was rage.
The space around them fractured. Light screamed. Even the table beneath their hands cracked—not physically, but conceptually, as if reality itself recoiled.
The god stood.
“You reject my design?” he asked, voice low. “Do you understand what you’re denying?”
The man rose slowly despite the pressure, blood at the corner of his lips.
“I do,” he said. “And I still refuse.”
Silence.
Then—
A single tap of the god’s finger.
The cosmos collapsed inward.
They were back in the garden.
Birdsong. Wind. The scent of coffee.
The god sat again, expression unreadable.
“You are either brave,” he said, “or profoundly troublesome.”
After a long pause, the man spoke again.
“Make me a Draconoid,” he said. “A true dragon king… and a perfect human.”
The god stared at him.
Then nodded.
“You negotiate even after angering a creator,” he said. “Very well.”
His gaze sharpened.
“Complete your task, and you will ascend as the Dragon God of Nemesis.”
The man did not react immediately.
Then he asked the only question that mattered.
“Why,” he said, meeting Creation’s gaze, “would I ascend as a god at all?”
Creation’s expression shifted—not surprised, but… satisfied.
“Because the cosmos lacks destruction,” he replied. “Not chaos. Not ruin. Finality with judgment.”
He gestured, and the garden thinned, revealing the endless structure beneath reality—worlds layered atop worlds, systems feeding systems.
“I am Creation,” he continued. “I build. I preserve. I correct decay when it appears too early. But a system that only maintains eventually rots from excess.”
The image changed.
Civilizations overstaying their purpose. Gods clinging to relevance. Heroes preserving systems long past justification.
“There must be an endpoint,” Creation said. “Not one that can be commanded. Not one that can be worshipped. An equal that exists to say enough.”
The man listened without interruption.
“You noticed something important earlier,” Creation went on. “You asked that only I be permitted to end your life. Not out of fear—but definition. You understood authority before power.”
Creation’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“That question solved a problem I have had since the beginning.”
He paused.
“Long ago, I ordered the highest tier of gods to search for candidates. There are only three at that level.”
The garden shifted again.
Three distant presences became perceptible—not seen, but felt.
“The God of War and Battle,” Creation said.
“The God of Weapons and Knowledge.”
“And the God of Magic and Nature.”
Each presence carried weight. Purpose. Certainty.
“They have chosen candidates,” Creation continued. “Heroes.”
The word carried weight.
“Not all heroes are just,” Creation said calmly. “Some are arrogant. Some decide who deserves saving based on personal judgment. They cooperate only with what aligns with their sense of good.”
The man understood immediately.
“They preserve systems,” he said. “Even broken ones.”
“Yes,” Creation replied. “You must neither fight them nor cooperate with them. Conflict exposes you. Cooperation binds you.”
A pause.
“I grant you the abyssal attribute,” Creation said. “It will tempt you. It will justify cruelty. Do not cross the lines you already understand.”
Creation lifted his cup.
“I give you time. Growth without acceleration. Existence without narrative.”
“What do you say?”
There was no hesitation.
No bargaining.
No dramatic pause.
The man smiled.
“I accept.”
The garden was quiet again.
Creation stood, the cup of coffee already gone cold in his hand. For the first time since they met, his gaze carried something other than calm authority.
A warmth Memory.
“You asked why you would ascend as a god,” Creation said.
“There is another answer I did not give you.”
The man waited.
Creation looked upward—not to the sky of the garden, but beyond it.
“There was a time,” he said, “when I did not maintain. When I did not preserve. When I did not correct gently.”
The garden thinned.
For a fraction of a moment, the man saw something else layered beneath reality—worlds ending cleanly, systems collapsing without chaos, stars dimming without resistance.
Creation continued, voice steady.
“Before I became what you now call the Creation God, I held another position.”
The man’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Nemesis.”
Creation nodded once.
“I did not disappear from it,” he said. “I moved.”
Silence followed—not heavy, but exact.
“Positions do not vanish,” Creation went on. “They wait. The cosmos does not tolerate imbalance forever.”
He turned back to the man.
“You have no parents in this existence,” Creation said. “No lineage. No inheritance. But you understand something instinctively.”
He paused.
“That names are not decorations.”
Creation raised a hand.
“When a parent names a child, they are not claiming ownership,” he said.
“They are recognizing existence.”
The air tightened.
“This,” Creation said quietly, “was the name by which the cosmos recognized me when I held that role.”
He spoke it once.
Not loudly.
Not ceremonially.
The sound did not echo.
It settled.
The man felt it—not as power, but as alignment. Like a key sliding into a lock that had always existed.
Creation lowered his hand.
“This is not authority,” he said. “It will not grant you the role. It will not act for you.”
He met the man’s eyes.
“But when it is spoken, reality will not pretend it does not understand what you are.”
The man swallowed slowly. “And ASHRAK’TEM?”
Creation’s expression sharpened.
“That,” he said, “is not a name.”
A pause.
“It is what the cosmos does through that recognition when continuation has exhausted its justification.”
The garden trembled faintly.
Creation exhaled.
“Do not speak the name casually,” he added. “You felt what happened just moments ago. Recognition precedes judgment.”
He stepped back.
“We will speak again,” Creation said. “When you no longer need explanations.”
Then, with the faintest hint of something almost human—
“Have a pleasant journey,” he said. “To your next life.”