Damien never dreamed of the afterlife.
The concept of eternal life was never appealing to him, but doing so after death, giving himself a false sense of security, wasn't his desire.
If he could do something impossible, he would want regression, so he could try again and avoid the mistakes that killed him.
But since that was nothing more than fantasy, he only wanted one thing.
He wanted his ego erased, so his soul could enter the reincarnation cycle and live again in a new form.
He had no greed for life beyond life, and no desire to hold onto life by sacrificing anything and everything.
The life he lived was the only thing that truly belonged to him.
The memories engraved in his soul, the experiences and relationships that forged him into the person he was, he wanted to selfishly keep all those things for himself and take them with him when he disappeared into the void.
He wasn't asking for too much.
In fact, his thoughts about death were quite realistic, because ever since he was a teenager, he'd been facing it directly.
At some point, he developed a warm relationship with death that made him embrace it tightly, and even after he healed from that state, he never feared or revered death.
Nor did he regard life as anything more than it was.
If he was fated for death, then he wanted to die properly.
It was that simple.
And it seemed he was granted his wish.
Everything was dark, but it was not black, for color did not exist.
Nothing existed.
He didn't have a body, nor did he have a mind. He was in the form of his soul in this place on the boundary of life and death, and it seemed his ego would be erased soon enough.
His thoughts were…
Well, they weren't necessarily thoughts.
Perhaps these were just the marks engraved in his soul naturally responding to external stimuli.
Perhaps "Damien Void" didn't even exist anymore, and was only a remnant formed by these Legends.
But that was fine.
Because before he left the world, he paved the way for those people to live.
The people who mattered, the ones who were the basis of every regret he had, they would be fine without him.
…at least, they should've been.
But was that really the case?
Even if they moved on and continued their lives, was he satisfied with dying like this?
He didn't have sentience anymore. That sentience was broken down by the wheel of samsara as his soul was cleansed before rebirth.
But the base instincts that he developed through his life vehemently rejected the idea of an easy death.
Everyone who loved him had the thought before it even occurred to him.
Damien Void was not someone who would die so easily.
Hadn't it been repeated so many times?
He didn't even have the opportunity to fight.
He sat there and watched as his life was taken, unable to make a single move.
He even bent to the will of the Saint Emperor. He followed that man's words like some common pedestrian on the side of the street.
Since when was he that type of person?
Since when was he someone who cared for such things as inevitability?
For the past decade, he'd been fighting against exactly that, and he'd never given up once in his pursuit of achieving the impossible.
So, was death enough to hold him?
He comprehended Death before he even grew into his own.
He comprehended Samsara and took control of the forces that were trying to break him down before he had even a fraction of the power required to truly understand it.
So, here, in this place, as his ego was erased…
Even without sentience, would his soul allow itself to be purified so easily?
[Condition Achieved: True Death.]
His soul remembered the notification that appeared before him in the final seconds of his life.
Burning desire, something a soul should have never possessed, appeared inside of it.
But it didn't care.
All it needed was a reminder.
A reminder of who it really was.
A spark lit up the darkness.
No, it was better to say darkness appeared in this colorless existence.
A small black dot that once existed in Damien's spiritual world transferred to his soul.
That ethereal construct without defined shape or size due to his status as a lower existence was suddenly defined against its will.
It was dyed black, a blackness that represented the space beyond all known concepts.
The Wheel of Samsara lost its grip on his soul.
This space was empty of all concepts aside from Samsara, so it was difficult to describe the process itself, but if it had to be related to something, it was like a planet being thrown out of its natural orbit.
The blackened soul rushed away from the cycle at high speeds and forced its way out of the space, but as there was nowhere to go, the blackness formed a separated pocket for it to reside in so as to not completely shatter the Wheel of Samsara.
And there, it went through a metamorphosis.
This change…
This change couldn't possibly be described in words that existed.
It was far above the plane of understanding that even the greatest divine beings stood on, a place where nothing but a single entity could exist.
But that soul was changing.
It was being reformed.
A spark of consciousness appeared slowly before growing further and further.
The Legends that defined the soul, that imprinted "Damien Void" onto every piece of its existence, bloomed into a consciousness that imitated the one that originally resided in this body.
But that was nothing more than an imitation.
If this continued, the end product could only be called a clone.
Yet…
As if impossibility was just a word and not an absolute truth, the budding consciousness screamed out in pain.
A small seed, hidden deep within the soul, was awoken by the occupation of its abode, and furious at the attempt, it began devouring the secondary conscious until it became a part of that seed.
The Void's energy fed into it, and the Legends the secondary consciousness tried to plunder were returned to their original owner.
Cracks formed on its surface.
"Something" was blooming.
But it could no longer be seen.
After all, that rogue soul was no longer just a soul.
As its consciousness returned, as its ego forced its way back into existence, as it transformed into something greater than itself…
It truly achieved the impossible.
It formed a connection to something "real."
It formed a connection to its body.
And from there, it was only a matter of time.
"Damien Void" would be reborn.
No matter what the universe thought, no matter what the heavens deemed possible, he would return.
Because that was who he was.
Whether it was life, death, or even existence itself, nothing could hold him.
Not even the Void could establish control.
It was just a matter of time.
Those people who forced him to experience death, the inevitability that prevented him from doing what he wanted…
Everything that stood against him would be crushed.
And only he would reign supreme.
