Lazy Salvation

Cornelia watched their postures subtly shift.

The woman with the precise bearing, the one with the bright, restless energy, the man whose silhouette belonged to someone very tired and very careful not to let it show.

One by one, their attention drifted upward toward the tiger.

The tiger slowly opened one golden eye.

It regarded the clearing for a long moment before shifting its gaze to the armored man seated beside it.

"Guardian."

The voice arrived from everywhere and nowhere, unhurried, carrying that warmth she still hadn't fully grown accustomed to after five meetings.

"Explain it."

The man rested his spear across his shoulders and looked at Cornelia with an unreadable gaze.

She tensed instinctively, barely stopping her fire from erupting on its own.

She didn't even know whether that would work in this dreamscape.

"There are two Outer Gods currently attacking the great Human Theaters. I assume you're already aware of that?"

She nodded once.

"The first," he said, "is the one the army has been calling the flesh monster. Her true designation is the Outer God of Twisted Communion."

He spoke without preamble.

"Her primary abilities are twofold. The first is flesh manipulation, modification, regeneration, and incorporation. She can reshape a host's body in real time and sustain it through damage that would kill anything with conventional biology. What the army witnessed during her last major attack was not her limit; it was merely an early demonstration."

He let the words settle before continuing.

"A willing host who has received her full blessing can incorporate the bodies of other beings into their own. Not metaphorically. The faces embedded within that flesh belong to people who were absorbed alive."

Cornelia's jaw tightened.

"The second ability is possession, though that term is technically inaccurate. She cannot simply enter any body she chooses. She requires compatibility, as in a host whose understanding of love already resembles her own. She finds those people, then cultivates that resemblance until the gap becomes small enough to bridge. By the time she formally inhabits a host, they've already become one of her most devoted."

"So the cult members," the woman with the precise bearing said quietly.

"Exactly. Every cultist is a potential vessel. Kill one, and she resurfaces through another. She does not die with her hosts; she simply withdraws and reassigns."

He paused briefly.

"This means she cannot be eliminated through attrition alone. Killing cultists removes individual vessels but leaves the god intact. To destroy her permanently, you must kill her true form, and she is unlikely to reveal it unless cornered by something she cannot simply outrun."

Cornelia absorbed the explanation without comment. It confirmed several things she had suspected and clarified one she hadn't.

"The second," the Guardian continued.

Then he paused.

It was the first hesitation she had ever heard from him, and because of that, it felt ominous enough that the clearing itself seemed to grow quieter, as though even the rain had adjusted its rhythm to make room for what came next.

"His abilities are harder to describe directly."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Another brief silence.

"So I'll tell you a story instead."

Cornelia straightened.

He did not look at her specifically. Instead, he looked at a point just beyond the fire, his voice arriving quieter now.

"There was once a girl who attempted to take her own life... not once, but many times."

"No one around her knew. Her family did not know. Her friends did not know. Of course, the strangers she passed on the street were also none the wiser. She had no obvious reason people could point to. She simply wanted to die, and she was very good at keeping that private."

"Her attempts kept failing, not because she lacked conviction, but because there was a boy."

"He had seen her once, the first time she'd almost succeeded, and saved her without ever knowing her name. He was a stranger who had simply happened to be there, and what he did was ordinary. He caught her. He stayed with her until the worst had passed. Then he asked why she'd done it."

"She told him the truth, because she was tired of lying and because she assumed he'd leave once he knew."

"The girl revealed that she suffered from Thanatos' illness."

"The boy knew of that illness. Those ruled by it would always long for death. The reason he knew was that he suffered from its opposite: Eros."

"Those ruled by Eros desired life. They found living almost instinctively worthwhile. Every living being carried traces of that illness, so there was nothing unusual about them. But those afflicted with Thanatos gained the ability to perceive their own Grim Reaper."

"Despite knowing this, the boy chose to stay."

"The reason he didn't leave was simple. He had fallen in love with her at first sight."

"He was, by nature, the kind of person who loved life with all his heart. So he remained by her side. He followed her. Again and again, he intercepted her attempts, each time pulling her back from the edge."

"At first, his interference annoyed her. Then it became something she anticipated. She knew that whenever she reached for death, he would appear unfailingly, as though he'd been assigned to her."

"Eventually, that anticipation became something warmer, and she stopped being annoyed."

"With time, what he felt became mutual. She, who had been quietly abandoned by most of the people who'd learned of her illness, found that he was the only one who remained."

"That meant something."

"More than she'd ever intended it to."

"But she was not foolish. She understood what she was. She understood that he could not stop every attempt forever, and that the longer she allowed this to continue, the greater his pain would be when the inevitable finally arrived."

"So, out of love for him, she decided to end it before he became any more deeply attached."

"He found her waiting on a rooftop. She wasn't preparing to jump."

“...She was waiting for him."

"The moment he arrived, she broke up with him."

"She told him she was setting him free. That he had given her something she had never expected, and that she would always be grateful for it."

"But now, he had to leave and live under his own terms."

"He listened."

"But instead of leaving as she asked, he stepped onto the ledge beside her."

"He told her that if she was going to die, then he had no interest in a world that didn't have her in it. That he'd always been the kind of person who found life worth living, but he could no longer find that feeling without her specifically inside the world."

"She tried to argue."

"But she had never been equipped to win that argument, because she embodied the very reason he was using."

"In the end, they held hands."

"They smiled at each other."

"And they jumped."

The fire crackled.

The rain continued to fall.

"The boy died."

"The girl… did not."

The Guardian fell silent for a moment before speaking again, his voice carrying a touch more melancholy.

"Because there was no girl."

"There never had been."

"The boy was the one afflicted with Thanatos' illness from the very beginning. The girl was his Grim Reaper. She had been leading him, in her own way, toward the end she had always been destined to collect him at."

"And by the time he understood what she truly was..."

"...he had already decided it didn't matter."

He lowered his gaze from the point above the fire.

"That is how this Outer God operates."

Silence spread across the clearing. The rain worked steadily against the canopy overhead.

Cornelia replayed the story in her mind once.

‘After Greed's experience, we concluded that the creature couldn't easily entice someone who valued their own life above all else. That a strong enough survival instinct would serve as a defense.’

Her expression grew graver.

‘But that's wrong. The boy valued his life. The creature simply gave him something he valued more. And then that thing became the instrument.’

The implications became crystal clear.

‘The survival instinct becomes irrelevant if the creature can offer a reason to die that feels more important than the reason to live.’

"Do you understand?" he asked after giving her enough time to digest it.

"Yes..." she replied quietly. "What is this Outer God called?"

"The Outer God of False Mercy."

Cornelia's eyes drifted upward for a brief moment, toward the being who had also called himself ‘Mercy’ with complete sincerity.

‘Lady... no need to look over here... it's a coincidence!’ Ashen grumbled inwardly.

"His abilities are two. Thanatos... the capacity to infuse a target with the desire for death, shaping it into a specific, deeply personal longing rather than a mere suicidal impulse." Old Ashen continued.

"The second is Eros; the desire to live, amplified beyond its natural intensity. He uses that one on himself consistently so he doesn't accidentally fall prey to his own Thanatos."

"And the story was an illustration of both."

"Thanatos upon the boy."

"Eros embodied by the Reaper..."

"...a reason to live that ultimately became a reason to die."