Splat!
Splat!
Blood sprayed from my mouth, warm and metallic. The force of the blow sent me crashing into the ground, a crater forming beneath my crumpled body.
"Hahaha..." I laughed through the pain, the taste of iron thick on my tongue. It had been a long time since I last saw my own blood. Somehow, that sight thrilled me. But even I couldn't deny the truth anymore: I had severely underestimated my opponent.
Of course I did. He was a god.
A being of divine origin, the golden-haired deity hovered above me like a vengeful sun, radiant and merciless. I had challenged him, believing myself capable—no, certain—of victory. After all, I was one of the five Demon Lords, and not just any one of them—I was Kana the Infernal, ruler of the largest demon kingdom.
Yet here I was. Broken. Bleeding. Powerless.
"Your reign of terror ends here!" the god thundered from above, his voice echoing through the heavens like a decree from fate itself. As if to punctuate his statement, another brilliant magic circle bloomed in the sky behind him, spinning with divine energy. The air trembled, saturated with impending doom. I could feel it in my bones—this spell would be the final blow.
So this was how it ended. Not with glory. Not with fanfare. But with the raw, brutal reality of defeat.
Funny. I always imagined it differently. I thought I'd fall to betrayal perhaps, or in battle against a rival Demon Lord—not vaporized by a god. Still, I couldn't deny it: his strength was overwhelming. Even in my prime, I would have struggled. Right now, in this battered state, I was simply no match.
I spat out another mouthful of blood, the crimson droplets steaming on the scorched earth. My limbs trembled. My muscles ached beyond measure. I could barely move. Not even my demonic regeneration could keep up with this.
And yet... there might still be a way.
A sliver of hope.
One spell.
A forbidden one, that allowed one to reincarnate a thousand years into the future. No one had dared attempt it. Even the other Demon Lords considered it taboo.
But right now, taboo meant nothing. Survival meant everything.
My thoughts steadied, and I began to channel what little mana I had left. Every breath was agony. Every movement sent shockwaves of pain across my already torn body. But I pushed forward. I had to.
This was my only chance.
The circle beneath me flickered to life, ancient runes glowing with dim violet light. The mana cost was immense—it felt like my entire being was being drained—but I pressed on.
"Any last words, Demon Lord Kana?" the god asked mockingly, descending slowly. His golden eyes shone with a cold satisfaction. Relief.
He actually believes it is over.
"Ha...haha..." I coughed, blood trickling from the corner of my mouth. "You think this is it? The end of Kana the Infernal? No... I shall return."
For a moment, the god faltered, just slightly. His gaze dropped to the forming circle beneath me. Suspicion darkened his expression. But it was too late now. The spell was nearly ready. All I needed to do was say the incantation.
I took a breath, steeling myself, and began: "Threads of time, hear my request..."
As soon as the first words left my lips, the god reacted.
He raised his hand, and his divine circle intensified, the spell within it roaring to life. The sky darkened as golden lightning arced around him. He was accelerating the attack. Trying to strike me down before I could finish.
But I would not stop.
"Another chance is what I desire. So reincarnate me i—"
I never finish the sentence.
A searing light engulfed me as the god's spell struck.
Pain—beyond description—ripped through me. My vision shattered. My senses vanished. I didn't scream. I couldn't. There was nothing left to scream with.
And then... darkness.
But just as the last flicker of consciousness began to fade...
The circle beneath me ignited.
I saw it, even through the void. A brilliant purple light—a blinding beacon. How? I hadn't finished the incantation. It wasn't complete. The spell shouldn't have worked.
And yet, it did.
I felt something tug at my soul. A pull. A shift. Reality tore apart at the seams around me, folding inward like paper.
It's working...!
Or at least, I think it is.
No one really knows what that spell does. Few even believe it exists. Fewer still have ever dared speak its name. And here I am—half-dead, soul unraveling—caught in the wake of a forbidden spell's activation.
It doesn't matter.
Whether it worked properly or not, I will return.
And when I do, I will rebuild. Not just a kingdom—but an empire. An unshakable dominion.
I will rule again.
[Zenney's POV]
"It seems your luck has run out."
The words echoed through the divine hall like a verdict carved into stone. Cold. Final. One of the council members sneered as he delivered the statement, clearly savoring the irony.
I, Zenney—the god of luck—was now being judged by my peers. The very ones who once praised my foresight and intervention now sat in condemnation. Their eyes burned with disappointment, anger, and above all, judgment.
Why? Because I broke the divine laws.
Twenty heroes. Twenty chosen souls I summoned from other worlds. All dead.
All failed.
And it was my fault—or so they claim. I had overstepped, intervening directly in the mortal world. A forbidden act, even for gods. But what else was I supposed to do? They didn't understand what we were up against.
Demon Lord Kana.
He was no ordinary villain. He was a force of chaos that grew stronger with every passing day. Every hero I sent against him fell, one after another. It wasn't incompetence—it was his overwhelming power. I watched him grow, his armies swelling, his influence spreading like a plague.
He annihilated cities.
He crushed resistance.
He laughed at our attempts to contain him.
Sooner or later, he would have reached the major human settlements—the core of civilization in the mortal world. Billions would have died. Entire races erased. And so, I made a choice.
I descended.
I left the divine realm and entered the human world myself.
I broke the law.
I stood before Kana and fought him myself. It wasn't just desperation—it was necessity. And I succeeded. Or so I thought.
"Even though you interfered and caused a commotion," another council member added, her voice laced with disdain, "you still failed to eliminate Demon Lord Kana."
I blinked, stunned.
"That's impossible," I said, trying to remain composed. "I killed him. I saw him die with my own eyes."
A pause followed.
Another god, this one older and shrouded in divine authority, spoke next. "Whatever magic he used before the final blow... it allowed his soul to remain intact. He is not entirely gone."
No...
My mind reeled.
That circle... the one that appeared beneath him just before he was struck down... Could that have been it?
Somehow, even in defeat, Kana had found a way to escape his fate. He was clever—dangerously so. A cornered beast with nothing to lose.
"We have debated your punishment," the Head of the Council finally declared. His voice was thunder—irrefutable and echoing with divine weight. "As a mere fragment of the god you once were, it is the judgment of this council to strip you of your divine status and banish you to the mortal realm."
I staggered back.
"No! You can't do this!" I protested, anger and disbelief rising in my chest. "Everything I did—everything—was to protect that world! You sit here on your golden thrones and judge, but I—"
"We do not need justification from a god who has lost his place," the Head cut in.
And with that, the sentence was passed.
I felt it immediately.
The power that coursed through me—divine, eternal—began to wane. My form trembled, weakening as energy was drained away. My connection to the heavens was severed, strand by strand. My vessel crumbled, and my consciousness dimmed.
And then—nothing.
...
..
.
Fruu.
Fruu.
My feet dragged against the gravel, kicking up dust with every sluggish step. The sound was rhythmic—soft, steady, and soaked in despair.
Two days.
Two endless, torturous days since I had been cast out of the divine plane. Since the Council stripped me of my power, of my name, of my place among the gods. Since I had fallen—literally—into the mortal realm with nothing but the ragged clothes on my back and the fragile, weak body of a young man.
But it wasn't the fall that humbled me.
It was hunger.
Gods don't need to eat. Mortals, I now understood all too clearly, do. Viciously. Constantly. Hunger gnawed at me like a starving animal. My stomach had long since stopped growling—it had surrendered. It simply hurt now. An empty, aching void that grew heavier with each step.
I stumbled once more. My vision blurred from dehydration. My lips cracked, bleeding slightly. I considered collapsing there—letting the world take me.
Then I saw them.
Walls.
My heart surged with hope.
High, worn stone rising in the distance. Roughly constructed but sturdy. Signs of civilization. Signs of life. Signs of food. My cracked lips curled into a weak grin. A city. A town. Anything was better than this endless wilderness.
With a desperate burst of energy, I pushed forward. My legs screamed with every step, but I kept moving. I focused on the walls, refusing to take my eyes off them.
As I drew closer, the scent of smoke and cooked meat teased my senses—mocking me, luring me forward.
Finally, I reached the gates.
Two guards stood watch. Neither looked particularly alert. They leaned against their spears, one chewing a piece of dried jerky while the other lazily scanned the road. Their armor was dull, mismatched, more like scavenged scrap than military gear.
This was no royal capital. Just a border town clinging to relevance.
Still, it was hope.
One of the guards, a bald man with a crooked nose, straightened as I approached. He gave me a once-over—probably noting the dirt on my clothes, the hollow look in my eyes, and the fact that I looked like I'd crawled out of a grave.
"You look like you got dragged through hell," he said.
I gave a tired shrug. "You're not far off."
He smirked. "We don't get many wanderers this far out. What's your business in Greathollow?"
"I just need food," I replied honestly. "Rest. I won't cause trouble."
The other guard, a younger man with a patchy beard, frowned. "Do you have any form of identification? Guild card? Token?"
I blinked.
Of course. Mortals need paperwork.
"I… lost everything," I said quickly. "Bandits."
The bald one exchanged a glance with his companion, then shrugged. "Well, we don't usually let in folks without some kind of ID, but Greathollow's not exactly crawling with visitors. Just don't cause any trouble."
I bowed slightly. "Thank you."
"Oh, and if you're planning on moving around the region," the younger one added, "you'll need to register with the Guild or the city clerk eventually. Other towns won't be so lenient."
"I understand."
They stepped aside and let me pass.
I was in.
Greathollow was… modest.
Dirt roads lined with crooked buildings. Stalls with half-rotten vegetables. Children chasing each other barefoot through alleys. Dogs barked in the distance. A pungent mix of sweat, smoke, and horse dung hung in the air.
Still, it was paradise compared to the wilderness.
And it smelled divine.
Bakeries. Meat skewers. Stew. Somewhere, someone was roasting something so tender and aromatic I nearly wept.
But reality returned quickly.
I had no money.
No coin. No favor. No power.
My former worshippers would have showered me with offerings. Now, I couldn't even afford a stale crust of bread.
My pride screamed in protest. But my stomach was louder.
So I swallowed what little dignity I had left…
And begged.
It started simple.
"Please," I asked a man passing by, dressed in a heavy cloak. "Anything. A copper. Even a scrap of bread."
He glanced at me, disgust curling his lip, and walked faster.
Next, a woman in a faded apron.
"Miss, I haven't eaten in two days. Please—"
"No handouts," she snapped. "Go to the temple, if you're desperate."
A pair of children laughed as they skipped past. "Look at the beggar!" one shouted.
I sat down near a tavern and held out a trembling hand. People walked past as though I were invisible. A few sneered. One man threw me a rotten apple. I tried to eat it anyway, but the mold and worms made me gag.
I leaned back against the wall, hand shaking. My throat was parched. My pride was shattered. And yet, somewhere deep inside, the ember of my identity still burned.
I was Zenney.
A god.
Reduced to begging in a slum.
...
..
.
Life is hard when you don't have money.
It's more than hunger. More than thirst. It's the quiet violence of being invisible. When people don't meet your gaze. When your voice is ignored, like wind brushing past the ears. You become… less. A smudge on the side of the road, something people step around or toss scraps toward when their conscience aches.
I arrived here yesterday.
No one has given me the light of day.
No one saw me—not truly. Not the god I once was. Not the one who sacrificed his own station to protect this world. No, all they saw was another drifter, another wretch looking for sympathy in a city that had long since lost the capacity to care.
I sat on the edge of a stone step, arms limp at my sides, knees pulled up, trying to look smaller than I already felt. My head throbbed. My stomach was a snarling void. My throat had gone too dry to speak, and even if I could, I no longer had the energy to ask again. For food. For water. For mercy.
"How far I have fallen," I whispered to no one. The wind answered with a cold breath. I could almost hear it laugh.
I was nothing.
I'd thought there could be redemption in this world—perhaps even some nobility in walking among mortals. But this? This was suffering without meaning.
I shut my eyes, ready to slip into whatever half-sleep hunger would allow, when a shadow fell over me.
"You hungry?"
My eyes fluttered open.
A man stood before me. Middle-aged, stocky, sun-worn skin, dressed in rough cottons and a straw hat. He held a small cloth bundle in one hand, from which the scent of bread and dried meat wafted faintly.
I blinked. "What?"
"I asked if you were hungry," he repeated, squinting down at me. "You've been sitting here all morning, haven't you? You don't look like you've eaten."
"I… haven't," I managed.
"Well, I got some food. Not much, but I'll share. If you're willing to work for it."
That caught my attention.
He wasn't offering charity.
He was offering exchange.
My pride, shredded though it was, responded to that.
"What kind of work?" I asked, slowly rising to my feet. My knees wobbled.
"Farmhand. Nothing too difficult. You help me on my farm—clearing brush, lifting feed, that sort of thing—and I'll make sure you're fed. Maybe even give you a bed."
His eyes, brown and creased with sun and time, showed no deceit. Just a firm practicality.
"My name's Zillow," he added, extending his hand.
I hesitated. Then, slowly, I took it.
"…Zenney."
Zillow led the way out of Greathollow, heading down a narrow dirt path that twisted between thinning woods and yellowed fields. The sun dipped lower in the sky as we walked, stretching shadows across the earth. I struggled to keep up. The hunger had drained what little strength I had, and even this moderate pace felt like climbing a mountain.
But the thought of a real meal—a bed—pulled me onward.
We passed small farms and cottages along the way. Most were falling apart. Some looked abandoned. Others had people outside, working with dull expressions and lifeless eyes. The soil here looked brittle. Tired. Like the earth itself had given up.
"This place used to be better," Zillow said after a while, noticing me eyeing the desolate land. "Before the wars. Before the nobles squeezed everything dry. Now it's just hard living."
I didn't respond. I couldn't.
But I understood.
Mortals had always lived on the edge of hardship. Even in my divine days, I knew this. But knowing it and living it are two very different things.
Eventually, we crested a hill, and there it was—Zillow's farm.
A modest plot. Two fenced fields, an old barn, and a weathered two-story house with chipped paint and a slanted roof. Smoke drifted lazily from the chimney. A tired dog barked once from the porch, then laid its head back down with a sigh.
It wasn't much. If anything, it was better than the other lands.
We reached the wooden gate, and Zillow stopped.
"Wait here a moment," he said. "Need to grab something."
I nodded, grateful for the chance to rest. My legs felt like lead.
He disappeared into the house.
When Zillow returned, he held something unexpected in his hands—not food. Not a tool. But a scroll. Thick parchment bound with twine, glowing faintly at the edges with subtle enchantment.
He unrolled it in front of me.
A soul contract.
My heart skipped.
These weren't common.
I knew them well from the divine realm. Sacred pacts woven with the essence of fate itself. They were immutable, unbreakable. If either party betrayed the terms, their soul would be forfeit—burned to nothing in the nether beyond.
Death of the deepest kind.
"I don't take freeloaders," Zillow said, eyes serious now. "And I don't take liars. This is to protect us both. You sign this, and I feed you. Give you a roof. You help me work this land. That's all."
He gestured to the parchment. "Read the terms. I don't hide anything."
I bent over the scroll.
「Parties: Zillow of Greathollow (hereby known as Contractor) & Zenney (hereby known as Contracted)
1. The Contracted shall labor on the farm in exchange for food.
2. The Contractor shall provide food and shelter for the Contracted.
3. This contract is inviolable and may only be broken by mutual consent or by the payment of one (1) gold coin to the other party.
4. Neither party shall bring harm upon the other under penalty of soul erasure.」
The language was clear.
No hidden tricks. No clauses designed to entrap. Just blunt, binding truth.
He was giving me a choice.
If I refused, I could walk away. If I accepted, I'd have security. Food. A bed.
And protection.
Neither of us could hurt the other, and the exit clause, though steep, was there.
In my divine life, I had seen contracts that bound people into slavery. This was not that. This was… fair.
Still, to bind my soul? Even now, stripped of divinity, I felt the weight of that risk.
But what was my alternative?
Starve?
Beg?
Freeze?
I looked at Zillow. He didn't rush me. He simply waited, patient.
The choice was mine.
And so, with a quiet breath, I pricked my finger on a thorn, letting a drop of blood fall onto the parchment. It shimmered briefly.
My name wrote itself in crimson.
Zillow nodded and took the contract, rolling it up. "Good," he said. "Now, let me show you your new home."
...
..
.
Zillow led me along a narrow dirt path behind the main house, the fading light casting long shadows over the farm. My legs were sore, my body still faint from hunger and exhaustion, but the thought of rest—and perhaps warmth—kept me going.
"You'll be sharing the cottage," Zillow said, gesturing ahead. "Another young man arrived yesterday. Lost his way, same as you."
I tensed slightly. Sharing?
As the cottage came into view, a wave of unease settled over me.
It wasn't much. Just four walls of weathered wood and a sagging roof. The windows were little more than square holes covered with thin cloth, and the door leaned visibly on its hinges. It didn't inspire confidence. In fact, it looked like it might collapse in a strong breeze.
And now I had to share it?
Zillow must have sensed my hesitation because he gave me a reassuring nod. "There are blankets inside. Some food in the basket near the stove. It's not much, but it'll keep you alive through the night."
I forced a tight smile. "Thank you."
He paused, then added, "Be good to each other," before turning back and disappearing into the gloom.
I took a breath and stepped toward the door, hand on the rusted handle. It creaked open with a loud groan.
The scent inside was earthy—damp wood and old fabric. A small stove stood in the corner, a modest bedroll already laid out on one side of the room. By the dim glow of a single lantern on a wooden crate, I saw him.
A boy.
He looked around eighteen or nineteen, with unruly gray-white hair that hung over his brow and piercing blue eyes that flicked up to meet mine the moment I stepped in.
And the moment I saw him, the world seemed to stop.
No breath.
No thought.
Him.
That aura—even dulled by mortality—was unmistakable. I'd felt it before. On the battlefield. In the heavens.
He sat casually, knees drawn up, one hand resting loosely near a chunk of bread. His eyes didn't widen. He didn't gasp in surprise.
He simply looked at me.
Because he knew, too.
I didn't need words. I didn't need confirmation.
I knew exactly who he was.