Chapter 40: Star of Love

  Whoosh. Whoosh. I was cutting. But one day, in a moment of silence between two cuts, I stopped. "Why...?" The black sword froze in my hand. "Why... am I cutting?" I tried to remember. There was a reason.

  A reason. Wasn't there? There was pain... longing... sorrow... I forgot. I forgot why. I looked at the black void I built. "But... I cut because I cut. Nothing more." I raised the sword. Whoosh. Cutting became breathing. It became existence.

  With this emptiness, my dreams changed. They were no longer those horrific bloody nightmares. No. They became... beautiful. I would sometimes find myself standing on a sea of clouds, the sun warm.

  There was no darkness, no starless sky. We were grilling meat, and laughing. And "Bon Bon" was there, that little seed, glowing gently. And above all, there was her... "Son Son." There were no severed heads, only whole, warm bodies.

  I felt her love as if it were a physical reality. She wore a simple dress, and her hair... was blue. Yes, beautiful blue hair like the sky, and eyes green like grass. She was my wife. And she was everything. This dream was my only star in this long night.

  Whoosh. Whoosh. ... A sound. A different sound. Not the whoosh of my sword. Nor the braying of the Deer. The sound of heartbeats. I stopped cutting. A pulse. I felt it. A flood. Pulses of strong, violent, and real emotions. Crashing against the metallic hardness of my body like projectiles. Despair, love, loss, regret, and slowly burning hope... everything was pulsing, and pulsing, and pulsing.

  "Aaah!" I screamed, not a scream of sorrow, but a scream of pain. This emotional noise hurt me. It was burning my cold circuits. Two new guests entered the stage. A man with red hair, and a giant three meters tall. I wanted to kill them immediately.

  I wanted to stop this flood. I raised my black sword and left my void, heading toward the source of this disturbance. My robotic body wanted to cut down this new threat that endangered my dead silence. But every step I took was heavier than the last.

  The pulsing emotions were so strong they gradually paralyzed me. I couldn't reach them. I couldn't cut this flood. I froze on the threshold of the Throne Room. The pulsing emotions were drowning me, binding me, and my metallic body could no longer move.

  "You are tired, Dio." The Deer's voice whispered in my mind. "Your soul is screaming from exhaustion. Can't you hear it?" I stopped. My hand holding the sword trembled for a moment. "I am also tired," the voice said. "Tired of this prison.

  Tired of this sorrow. I am not asking you to stop cutting. I know you can't. But... don't you want to rest while you do it?" Rest. The word touched something deep and forgotten inside me. "But... I must cut... I must cut... why must I cut?" "Listen to me, Dio.

  I am Zivon Ananasi, servant of Gluttony, a forced servant. This machine you inhabit... this metal body will continue to cut and mourn on your behalf, because it knows nothing else. But your soul... your pure soul deserves to go somewhere else. Let it rest with him."

  I looked at my black sword. I looked at the endless void before me. I was tired. So very tired. Maybe... just for one moment. "Yes," I whispered. I felt him enter my mind, not as a violent invasion, but as a cold, comforting whisper.

  "Open your eyes now," his voice said in my mind. "This cursed body will not follow you, but your soul will go to him."

  I opened my eyes. I was just a soul. Without that metal body they made for me. I was no longer in the void. I was in the Eternal Museum of Gluttony. The library of souls he devoured. Around me were not just stars, but frozen memories, every constellation a stolen life, every nebula a swallowed dream.

  It was a place disgustingly beautiful, quiet as a cosmic grave. And amidst this silence, sat Gluttony. He wasn't just an ugly being; he was the embodiment of hungry emptiness. A black hole wearing a mask of flesh, his gravity pulling not matter, but meaning.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  "I don't believe this!" he screamed, his voice not just a sound, but the noise of millions of libraries burning, the echo of forgotten histories. "After all these eons, my obedient servant brings me the most beautiful meal in existence! I am Gluttony! Welcome to my world."

  The most beautiful meal in existence? But I am just memories, not a real soul. Then... I looked at the stars around me. They were real. That meant life still existed. That meant hope hadn't died completely.

  I looked at Gluttony, and for the first time in immeasurable time, I smiled. A true, pure smile, born of love. "I remembered..." I said, my voice echoing in the silent space. "I remembered... How could I forget something so important?I... I am the Star of Love.My love will reach the heavens.

  Therefore, I cannot die here. I must reach everyone with my love. That is what 'Son Son' would have wanted. She didn't want me to cut or be eaten, but to love."

  Gluttony burst out laughing, shaking the universe around us. "Love?!" He didn't attack. He opened his mouth. It wasn't an ordinary mouth, but a crack in the fabric of reality, a gateway to absolute nothingness. It began to absorb.

  It wasn't a suction force, but an inevitable end to which all things are drawn. I saw the constellations, the memories of warriors and kings he had swallowed, being pulled toward his mouth like threads of light. With every constellation disappearing, I felt a stab in my soul. Zoom.

  A constellation shaped like a mockingly laughing face disappeared... and Cairo's face faded from my memory, leaving nothing but a warm sense of friendship with no source. I clutched my head, trying to hold onto an image that had become blurry. Zoom. A nebula glowing like red fire disappeared...

  and I forgot Isabella's burning eyes. Zoom. A star named "Bon Bon" disappeared... and nothing remained but a vague feeling of a seed of love between me and "Son Son." He was erasing me. He wasn't killing me; he was dismantling my history, turning me into a blank page.

  ...But someone, in some time, remembers... for some reason I felt that someone remembers... ...But I was forgetting... One star, in the farthest place of my soul, refused to be pulled in. It shone with a calm blue and green light. It wasn't screaming; it was singing. The song of my dream. The memory of "Son Son." When Gluttony's void tried to touch it, it recoiled. It shrank. The absolute concept of taking cannot touch the absolute concept of giving.

  And here, I understood everything. You cannot fight hunger with force. You cannot cut the void. You cannot destroy nothingness. The only thing you can do... is fill it. "Thank you, Gluttony," I said quietly. "You reminded me." I raised my hand. And my soul manifested.

  I was no longer just light; I became a body of love, transparent and glowing with pure gold, with features clear and calm like an angelic sculpture. And from the void, I summoned my sword. It was no longer black.

  It had transformed. Its blade was made of pure starlight, white and bright, not reflecting light, but emitting it. It was warm in my hand. "Blade of Love." My friend, who cut with me, and loved with me, was still here.

  Gluttony roared, feeling threatened for the first time. I didn't attack him. I opened my arms, and pointed the Blade of Love toward him. I spoke, my voice becoming a song. "I am Dio! The Star of Love!" And from the sword's blade, and from my heart, and from my entire being, a river of warm golden light flowed. My endless love.

  It wasn't an attack, but an offering. An eternal feast. I saw the gluttony in Gluttony's eyes. He couldn't resist. His nature forced him to eat. He opened his mouth and swallowed the river of love whole. At first, he was laughing triumphantly. He ate and ate, and the light flowed into him ceaselessly. Then his laughter changed. It became confused.

  Then anxious. He was eating, but the river didn't end. His cosmic body began to glow from the inside. He was swelling, not in size, but in light. "Stop..." he whispered for the first time, but he couldn't close his mouth. He couldn't stop eating. For the first time in his eternal existence, Gluttony felt something he had never felt before. Satiety.

  He screamed. It wasn't a scream of pain, but a scream of love. Then he was full, and he vanished... perhaps to a paradise of love.

  I began to fall. I fell through shards of sparkling stars, a gentle descent. I landed on cold, wet grass. I opened my eyes. I wasn't in a cave, I wasn't in a void. I was in an endless blue field. I looked up. And my breath stopped. The sky was an impossible masterpiece.

  To my left, the sun was rising, its warm golden rays caressing my face. To my right, the moon was full, casting a dreamy silver light on the grass. And between them, above them, and below them, the sky was studded with billions of bright stars, constellations I had never seen before, twinkling with painful clarity.

  Then, from this impossible sky, rain began to fall. Warm, clean drops, washing the dust and blood from my face. I stretched out on the grass, looking at the sun, the moon, the stars, and the rain, my breath mixing with the steam of the earth. I have returned. I am no longer a thing cutting in the darkness.

  I am Dio. The Star of Love. Right? I didn't feel anything wrong?

  I turned slowly, as if speaking to someone standing behind me, in the absolute void that had now become a world. "Did you like my life, my soul, and my memories?"

  ...Error. Error. External interference... ...Error. Error. Stopping soul resonance... ...Deleting memories to protect user from external interference... ...Time deleted from memories: Two thousand five hundred and sixty-three years, four months, and seven days...