Joe's eyes snapped open as he gasped for breath and shot upright. He quickly examined his body for injuries and found none. A shaky sigh of relief escaped him as his shoulders dropped.

  “I see you're awake.” The Godess stood ten meters away with a faint smile on her face.

  “Yeah… how long was I out?” Joe asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Twelve hours, six minutes and three seconds,” the Godess replied with meticulous precision.

  “That long?” Joe exclaimed.

  “Why do you look so surprised?” she asked. “Soul damage is a serious injury that can take weeks or months to recover from. The fact that you're awake in half a day is extraordinary.”

  Souls were tied to one’s existence. They were at the core of what made an individual real. It made sense to Joe that if such an integral part of one’s life was damaged, it would take time to recover.

  “I'm the strongest God in the Universe and even I'm not capable of healing my soul that quickly,” the Godess admitted. “I'm also not stupid enough to devour more than a billion souls in succession.” She gave him a judgemental stare. “Seriously, what were you thinking? You could've destroyed yourself.”

  Goosebumps rose on Joe’s skin when she casually called herself the most powerful deity. There was something endearing about someone who held unbreakable faith in their own strength. It made him envious. That was the kind of confidence he wished he could possess one day.

  “If I hadn't consumed all those souls, I never would've possessed enough power to fight you,” Joe said. “I needed all the essence I could get my hands on to even stand a chance.”

  “That's true,” she conceded, “but was that chance at victory really worth dying over?”

  “Yes,” Joe said without hesitation. “Death is better than being stuck in this emptiness for eternity.” His gaze darted around the white void.

  “You know most people would be happy to spend an eternity with someone as beautiful as me.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder elegantly.

  “I wouldn't mind spending an hour or two with you, but no way in hell am I staying an eternity in this place. I don't care how gorgeous you are,” Joe replied with a determined expression.

  “It really wouldn't be so bad,” she said lightly. “I can tell you about all my adventures to pass the time, and we could battle for hours to keep each other satisfied.”

  “I want my life to have meaning,” Joe said firmly. “Spending the rest of it in this void without ever exploring the world outside would make it meaningless and leave me unfulfilled. Life is about making connections and forging lasting relationships. I know what it's like to be alone all the time, and that's an existence I never want to experience again. Being trapped here forever with you would be a fate worse than death because I'd have nothing to live for.”

  “You wouldn't be stuck here forever,” she said. “I only said that because I wanted to ensure you fought without restraints.”

  Joe's eyes widened. “Then how long would it be? And why were you so eager to battle me?”

  “It depended on how long it would take for me to devour your True Soul.” The Godess pointed to the giant orb of essence behind her. The large cracks on its surface had closed, leaving only a few small crevices.

  “Wait, that thing is my soul?” Joe exclaimed. He had expected a person’s spirit to be more detailed than a simple ball of energy.

  “It is,” the Godess confirmed. “My plan was to weaken it gradually and consume it. But I severely underestimated how powerful your soul was. I originally planned to take control of your consciousness the moment you appeared in Suveny, but your spirit turned out to be more resilient than I expected. In fact, it has begun siphoning some of my essence into itself in an effort to devour me.”

  “Is that why you said I should've enjoyed the first few months of my second life? Because you were trying to take over my consciousness?” Joe asked, recalling their earlier conversation.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “After I failed to consume your soul when you were reborn, I believed I could wear it down and devour it in a few months. But after what you've done by consuming all those souls, it would take me a couple of decades to even scratch it. If I put a generous estimate on it, I'd say it would take me three hundred years to devour it. So you wouldn't be stuck here forever.”

  “What would happen if you managed to devour it? Would I simply cease to exist?” Joe asked.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “You would suffer the same fate as the billion souls you devoured, and I would take over your body and become its host.”

  A chill ran down Joe's spine. “So your ultimate plan was to take over my consciousness?”

  “That's right. It was the only way out of this prison.”

  “Then what was the point of our fight?” Joe pressed. “You're the strongest in existence. Couldn't you just defeat me and spend the rest of your time trying to consume my soul?”

  “That was the plan originally,” she replied. “Which is why I gave you a chance to tell me your wish so I could grant it when you perished. But when I saw you break free from my oppressive aura, I knew you were no ordinary mortal. I wanted to test you and see how strong you were. I wasn't disappointed. I was correct in my assessment. You are an abnormal existence that will shake the entire Universe to its core if you reach your full potential. You still wouldn't be capable of beating me, but you could get close. It's been a long time since I've met someone who could pose a challenge to me, let alone a genuine threat.” An unhinged smile crossed her face. “You're an interesting mortal, and I want to see how powerful you can become. Maybe you could be the one who finally satisfies me.”

  “In our fight, did you get what you were looking for?” Joe asked. “The satisfaction of facing someone who could one day be strong enough to threaten you?”

  “I did,” she said softly. “In fact, I got more than that. For the first time in forever, I got to know what it was like to not be on the dominant side of an encounter. I actually had to entertain the idea of losing. Normally, when satisfying another person's desires, it is conventional to start slow and gradually increase the intensity. But you, mortal, chose not to adhere to that expectation. You went hard from the very start. That was the first time I've met someone so aggressive toward me, someone who wanted nothing more than to destroy me, and I have to say I liked it.” She clutched her chest. “My heart is still racing. I felt it before, but now I'm certain. I like you, mortal. You're a terrifying mortal, but I like you. You've made this heart yearn for something after so many years. Now I really want to see how powerful you will be when you reach your maximum potential. Maybe that will be the day this heart bursts in joy.”

  Joe's cheeks flushed. “How can you say stuff like that so casually?” he muttered.

  “Are you embarrassed?” she asked with a teasing smile. “You can't entice a girl and look away when she returns your affection. You need to take responsibility for your actions. My heart is addicted to your existence, so you need to make sure its desires are satiated.”

  “I never enticed you,” Joe protested. “You're the one who forced me to fight you when all I wanted was to return to the real world.”

  “Do you not get it? The very existence of your soul is alluring. I need to see how powerful it will be at its peak.”

  The Godess reminded Joe of the girl from his previous life who had been obsessed with being on his side, only she had not been as open about her emotions.

  He sighed. “So how did the fight go? I lost consciousness near the end.”

  “What do you think?” she asked with a soft smile.

  “I won,” Joe said without hesitation.

  The Godess erupted into laughter. “If you're so confident, then why bother asking?”

  “It's for confirmation. I believe in myself, but that doesn't mean I'm right.”

  “You lost,” she said plainly.

  Disappointment crossed Joe's face as he lowered his head, though a faint smile appeared. “I guess that makes sense. I was confident I had done enough with all the souls I devoured, but I guess it takes more than a billion souls to win against a God.”

  Seeing his reaction, the Godess grinned. “I'm just messing with you. You won.”

  Joe lifted his head, his expression brightening. “Are you serious?”

  The Godess pointed to the side of her face where thick streams continued to leak from a shallow wound. “It was a glancing blow, but you landed a strike that I could neither block nor dodge. You accomplished the task I set for you. Victory is yours.”

  “I did it…” Joe muttered. Then he looked up at the blank expanse and shouted at the top of his lungs, “I did it!”

  Tears streaked down his cheeks. He wiped his face as he sobbed in happiness, a bright smile breaking through.

  The Godess watched him with a small smile.

  A few moments later, after regaining his composure, Joe asked, “Wait. Why did you keep that wound for twelve hours? You could've restored your soul and pretended you won.”

  “First of all, that's disrespectful,” she said. “I'm a Godess. I'd never lie about the outcome of a battle, regardless of the result. Also, I couldn't heal this wound even if I wanted to. I told you earlier that soul damage is hard to repair.”

  “But it's a small wound,” Joe argued. “Surely you don't need weeks to heal something that negligible.”

  “You would be correct,” she replied. “But your strike, despite being a glancing blow, managed to scratch my True Soul. That made it far more serious than it appears. Your spirit also possesses a rare trait that allows it to devour the essence of any soul it makes contact with. It's eating away at my soul at this moment, which makes it quite difficult to heal. It's honestly annoying.”

  Joe knew his soul could devour the essence of others, but he had not expected it to leave such a lasting effect. He could not help imagining how much damage he could have dealt if his strike had connected perfectly.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked.

  “Are you worried about me?”

  “Since the fight is over, I don't think it's necessary for my essence to keep eating away at yours.”

  “I appreciate the thought, dear, but my soul will recover. It will take longer than I expected, but it will.”

  “Don't call me that,” Joe said, flushing.

  “Isn't this how mortals refer to the one they love?”

  “Yeah, but we're not in love.”

  “Maybe you're not, but I am. I need to show it to you so you don't run off to another girl.”

  Joe's heart pounded. ‘Dammit. I need to get a grip. She's teasing me and I'm falling for it.’

  He quickly changed the subject. “Now that I won the fight, you'll show me the exit to this place, right?”

  “You want to leave already? But you just woke up,” the Godess pouted.

  “I need to go back to my body and see how it's doing.”

  “Don't you want to know how you ended up in Suveny?”

  Joe's eyes dilated. He only now rembered that she had promised to give him more information about his rebirth if he beat her.

  He cleared his throat. “Alright, Godess. Tell me why I was reborn into this world.”