Reborn as the First Boss, Book 6 Epilogue

Epilogue – Elsewhere

The gods did not live in the mortal realm. They couldn’t, for their nature was that of belief given form and ideas canonized into shape. Even when they descended to the mortal plane as an avatar, it was still only a manifestation, a fraction of their power.

There were whispers, of course. Whispers of ways that a god could descend into the mortal realm with all their power intact. However, those ways always came with a cost, and the god could not remain too long, or their essence began warping, and changing. Their power in a full descent was so great that they would change their followers just by being in the same country, and the changes would flow back into the god.

That cycle of the god and their followers affecting each other was usually slow, and usually served to reinforce the god’s nature, and uphold their tenets in their worshippers. Normally, it would take generations of gradual change to make a noticeable difference in a god, or their worshippers, typically through some heretical sect rising to power, and influencing the entire faith. When a god descended, however, the cycle moved too quickly, and changes began to happen almost immediately, and were far too difficult to stop.

If one wanted to stop them, that is. Once, Eztar had been Tarez, God of Death and Undeath, and he had pursued Zevlo. But the God of Life had spurned him, for Life and Undeath were antithetical to each other. And so, Tarez had descended, and used the changes that brought to rip Undeath from his nature, and become the God of Death alone.

“For all the good it did me,” Eztar sighed as he sat in his pavilion of marble, looking out upon the sorting houses where new souls of the different races and pantheons were brought to the netherworld, before being counted and sorted and sent off to the afterlife that their worship and actions deserved. Zevlo had not been pleased, as he had hoped, had not welcomed the newformed Eztar with open arms and a waiting bed. No, things had not gone that well, at all.

Instead, Zevlo had spurned him utterly, refusing to even look upon his divine face for over two hundred years. The God of Life called him an abomination, for ripping apart his essence as he had, and a monster, for what he had done to his loyal followers in order to accomplish the deed. And then, he laid down the most devastating of judgements. There was nothing about either Tarez or Eztar that Zevlo could love, as Eztar wanted to be loved. Even as God of Death, Eztar was still antithetical to Life. More importantly, Zevlo was a male, and sought only to sow new life with women. The thought of lying with a man was disgusting to him, and he told Eztar that directly, before casting the God of Death out of his living divine realm.

For two hundred years, Zevlo would not even see him, or speak to him. Even now, the god was cold and callous to him. They only met or spoke the bare minimum needed to do their jobs, all while Zevlo continued going from one willing paramour to another, sowing life everywhere he went.

The ivory-skinned god sighed once more as he shook his head. It just wasn’t fair. He was perfection in form. He had made certain of it when he recrafted himself upon shedding Undeath. It should have worked, and yet he was rejected. It just wasn’t fair.

Global Announcement:

Zerat, God of Undeath, has been freed! Let all those who seek the power of the undead pay homage to him! Let the followers of the God of Death, who forsook himself, quake in fear!

His marble pavilion shook as the System issued its alert. Cracks began to form in the perfect stonework, black seething along the walls like an infection. Eztar shuddered, and found himself leaning heavily upon the arm of his throne, barely avoiding falling to the floor as half his divine power was ripped away all in an instant.

“Zerat? What is this? Who goes there?” He called, infusing divine power into his voice, trying to cover his sudden weakness. It didn’t make any sense. There should be no ‘Zerat’. No god of Undeath.

“Come now, ‘brother’,” a voice called out from the growing shadows, sounding like a distorted version of his own divine tenor. “Surely you aren’t so dim that you cannot guess? Or perhaps, when you tore yourself apart, I was the one who got all the brains? It would explain why you look like such a vapid fool.”

From the shadows, a monstrous divinity stepped out. Decay spread from its footsteps, warping the perfect marble of the pavilion into bone. The being was a skeletal undead, like a lich, clad in black robes and holding a wicked two-handed blade in one hand, resting against his shoulder. The creature’s eyes were blue flames that glowed with unnatural light and terrible hatred.

“No! This cannot be!” Eztar gasped, as he summoned to his hand Silence, his divine dagger which cut the tethers of the living, allowing them to proceed to the netherworld without attachments. Bringing the dagger up before him, he said, “You should not be here! You should not even exist!”

“Foolish brother. Tarez may have ripped himself in twain and sealed away half his essence to form you, but that essence was only sealed, not destroyed. And what is sealed can be released.”

The God of Undeath stalked forward, his sword now held at the ready, in both hands. “As for my being here? I am you, and you are me. We are both parts of the same whole. How else do you think I was able to take half your power upon emerging from my seal?”

The God of Death uttered a curse in anger, causing a nearby marble column to shatter from the mere word. He reached out with his free hand, grasping at the strands of power connecting them, and pulled. “Then I will simply take it back. And this time, I will destroy you, once and for all!”

Except the power did not move. No, it moved, but slowly, and there was always more on the other side, so he made no progress. For the first time in a thousand years, Eztar began to know fear.

Zerat laughed, a cruel, mocking laugh. “Did you forget who I am and where we are, brother?” Zerat raised a hand, and the souls of ten thousand mortals, still in line for sorting and judgement, rose to the white pavilion, and were clad in shadows, becoming wraiths. The God of Undeath was calling the souls of the dead into his service!

“The death gods of the other races will never let you get away with this!”

“Poor, foolish brother,” the God of Undeath mocked. With a wave of his hand, the wraiths surged forward like a tide. Eztar tried to fight, but there were too many. Every one he cast down was replaced by ten more, and each wound sapped his remaining strength and divinity. “I did not randomly pick these souls. These are all human souls, of the pantheon worshipped by that decadent Theocracy of yours. The death gods of the other races have no say over these souls.”

Eztar screamed in rage, but his voice no longer held enough divinity to drive back a single wraith, let alone the horde. His strikes weakened, and he remembered something he had long forgotten. There was a reason that, when gods fought, they avoided fighting in their opponent’s realm. And this realm was not really Eztar’s, but that of Tarez. Before, that distinction was meaningless. But now he fought with one who had equal claim to this space, and could use the souls here against him. All that, on top of already stripping half his power.

Eztar knew that he could not fight against such a foe on his own. He needed help, needed allies to defend him. He tried to flee, but the paths to the realms of the other Gods of Death were blocked. He turned to the portal connecting this realm to those of the other gods of the Human Pantheon, and found Zetar standing there, sword in hand. And so, he did the only thing he could do. He ran, descending into the mortal realm, hoping to find shelter there.