Chapter 157: Death
That... that was more than his lives and his deaths.
It was more than just a reminder of what Malik had gone through...
A reminder of how he became the way he is.
Of how he became a Sultan.
No, this was a nightmare made real.
And this time...
He could not hide from it.
Malik was forced to see it.
See what very much could be a possibility.
A world where Malik was moved on from.
It was inconceivable to him, too sudden and insane considering that he had just learned of his past Divine Kingdom, but...
He could not completely deny these alternative realities, no matter how much he wanted to.
Realities where he didn't go back in the past but simply switched to a different world.
A world where he could avoid a Fate most insistent on his death.
He was losing it again.
His throat dried up, and his fingers trembled.
Malik had heard Huda's tiny self... scream.
Why did she scream?
It was obvious why, but... he didn't want to...
He didn't want to acknowledge what might have happened.
Neither did he want to acknowledge anything else.
Their crushed splattering.
His family being kidnapped... twice.
Malik now felt all types of emotions, nearly making him unable to breathe.
His young face—that small, terrified face—haunted him.
But the worst wasn't their deaths or his own.
It was realizing how... normal it became.
Seeing his small self devoured by the Roc, watching himself getting kicked by that rat Rafiq, watching his head roll across the ground, popping... being used as a nest for bugs.
It was so very normal, quick, making life seem... meaningless; too worthless to matter.
His stomach churned, but no tears came.
Malik didn't have any more to give.
Sinbad.
A boy no longer, but a massive Crimson Owl.
His small self was devoured, kidnapped, killed, and abandoned.
The scene where he bit Malik's neck clean off.
A scene revealing how well he knew of his brother's secrets.
His owl self was trying to force him back, trying to have him reset, blink.
To undo the spiral and push Malik and Layla together...
He was trying to fix something that couldn't be fixed.
Sinbad failed.
That memory hit him hard.
But nothing was more difficult than Jasmine.
His beautiful flower that bloomed far too soon.
"I'm..."
He whispered under his breath.
"...I'm sorry."
That scene just at the cave's entrance was heartbreaking...
Those little ones shaking Malik's blood-covered body...
Sobbing and screaming his name...
Hoping—begging—he would wake up...
They didn't know that he was gone.
That he killed himself to go back.
To redo and fix his failure.
...It was heartbreaking.
So very heartbreaking, playing in his mind over and over.
It was all made worse by Jasmine's final moments.
The one he already knew, yet not well enough.
Now he saw the context.
The number of times he blinked to save her.
The number of times he failed to save her.
And so, there she was, in a forest, alone with his dead body, crying.
Calling him a coward for leaving her.
Her implied kiss, even as she...
Even as Corruption took her.
That took what remained of his heart and tore it apart.
But, so very unfortunately, it didn't stop there; it never did.
That day when Malik killed himself in Rehan's tent, that night that confirmed what Layla's father secretly knew, and, of course, that accursed moment when Layla's first love made her kill him, ending his Corruption.
Where Malik Fell, forever dooming himself, and broke her father.
Blood was on her hands, his body... hers... Rehans, all lying down afterwards.
Side by side, in that cold, cursed field.
A night that broke her.
He saw the aftermath of that.
Malik losing himself in saving them.
The first moment, both their corpses...
Lying next to each other after victory.
It was too cruel.
Showing him this was too cruel.
Dead bodies in a wedding hall, leaving only Malik standing.
A Malik who, ever so casually, slit his own throat.
A so tragically... lonely scene.
As was his lone moment in that canyon.
The one where his jaw had snapped off, his teeth hung loose, with one of his eyeballs ripped out by some damned bandit.
Yet it got worse, as he was slowly eaten alive, worms in his brain, ants in his lungs, and leeches drinking his blood, until finally, a bug laid eggs inside his eyes, blinding him.
'How could I?'
Malik could not forget those words.
His punishment.
One that almost repeated.
Yes, even in his final life, those same bugs nearly had him once more.
It was only thanks to his disciple Safira that Fate did not repeat itself.
Arguably, however, there was an even worse scene.
Tragic was too weak a word to describe it.
That last scene.
...The Hollow King.
A Malik who'd failed.
Who'd Fallen into Corruption.
This was a version of him that accepted his failure.
A version so very much like his present, for he too had no second chance.
And that version was sitting on that throne of Zaqqum.
Staring with his endless eyes...
And it was not at nothing.
It was at himself.
His present self.
Staring without blinking.
For so, so long... that time itself blinked.
Existence itself had died before he did.
It was a scene beyond anything.
Upon watching it...
Every man, woman, child...
Every single Soul, no matter the age...
They would all think this one thing.
Or at least a variation of it.
'Oh... what a life... huh?'
Because yes, this was Malik's life.
Those were his many millions of lives.
The microscopic stitches he felt upon unlocking his tenth class.
His past self knew that IT would involve itself.
Thus, he prepared his future self in multiple ways.
Slowly, he reeled him in with power while teaching him his own past.
Jasmine was the final lesson, a test to ready him for... this.
His unimaginable past now imaginable.
Death.