Mad God – Reborn

The sun was out in full force, dousing the Kingdom of Muhan with a merciless and unrelenting heatwave for a week now. It burned the land so hard that the rivers had already shrunk by half, and if it was to keep up... nobody wanted to think about that. The earth was cracking, and what wind was there just blew the heat from one end of the land to the other, instead of relieving the people of it.

Yet... Somewhere at the eastern edge of the kingdom, there was snow.

At first, it had been dismissed as a rumor, who would believe that a patch of land turned to frost in the middle of summer? It had to be bullshit, that a river got locked in ice, unmoving for weeks... Hogwash!

But... when people did go to check, they found a village frozen, its people preserved in crystal-like ice; even their expressions were frozen between one blink and a sigh… They looked like... As if they didn't even realize they were dead. No matter what people tried, they couldn't melt them, and soon the news exploded across the kingdom, panic spreading. Something wasn't right.

And that 'something' had shown up just a week later. Now, it faced an army of two hundred thousand men, all alone, surrounded by armored figures and horses. While above them the sky was clear, the sun still radiating unbelievable heat, the ground below him and everyone else was icy and had already frosted over. To everyone's shock, that thing... the origin of the coldness was just one, single man. Nobody knew who he was or where he came from, and even when scouts tried to make contact, they couldn't get close. No matter what they did, the figure never acknowledged them at all, and he simply walked forward even as he faced the army now, turning the summer heatwave into the coldest of winters.

"Prepare!" the army's commander yelled as bowmen took their arrows, set their oil-tipped ends ablaze, and notched them in place. At the same time, the foot soldiers began taking up defensive positions, the cavalry preparing for a charge.

The owner of the yell was someone who went by the name 'The Lord of Fire,' the unmatched warrior general who directed the army for decades, fighting countless battles... He had been one of the greatest assets of the kingdom for ninety years... because he was the only cultivator within their ranks. The ultimate weapon.

Yet, even his teeth chattered despite the layers of fur coats wrapped around him. His fingers tightened around the reins of his warhorse as he stared ahead, eyes straining to focus.

"I want to go home…" he whispered, barely audible, because somehow... the fact that the figure in the distance didn't even flinch, the coldness emanating from him drilling into his bones made him afraid.

"Then go."

He didn't know who answered him in that moment, but he could hear it so clearly. He looked forward again and, to his horror, even if the figure was still far away, he could look at him... He was watching him, as if he was standing just an arm's length before him.

He was white as the snow... Everything about him was white. Whitish hair, long and loosely tied, with whitened clothes, thin and unfit for any season, really, and they were only there to cover what had to be covered. Then his skin... it was pale, like a dead body that was already frozen over, more blueish than white. The only color he could see, after trying to blink and draw his sight back, was the foreigner's eyes... those damn... crimson, blood-colored eyes.

It made him shiver, and as he blinked, the figure was now back in the distance... yet his voice was still in the Lord of Fire's ears.

"If you want to live," the man said calmly, "leave. I am not going to pursue any of you." His voice was emotionless while speaking, without stopping once, making the general shiver. "If you want to die…" He added while he took another step. "Just stay there. And I would make my decision quick, if I were you."

The Lord of Fire swallowed, not knowing what to say, or even if he was indeed hearing him. His throat felt dry, and his mind screamed at him to act: run. Flee! You can't win... Heed his advice! He was torn, for the first time in decades, undecided what to do.

"I…" he began as his voice cracked. "I—"

"Too late."

By then, the man had reached the army. Although he was walking at the same rhythm from start to finish, seemingly like any other man would, the distance he was covering with one step was faster than a sprinting horse. Ice was already spreading everywhere from under his naked feet, enveloping the soldiers, their boots, their horses' hooves, and soon, all their bodies. The Lord of Fire never even raised his hand; he remained turned halfway in his saddle, looking back at his army…

Just a few minutes later, two hundred thousand ice statues stood beneath the summer sun, perfectly preserved, unmoving, glittering in a blue hue. Horses, weapons, armors, fur coats, and even the burning fire, everything was encased in ice. The only thing that remained moving was the same, single person who was already away, walking at the same speed, without looking back. In his calm, red eyes, they were neither enemies nor his victims. They were not even people, as his mind and feelings long froze over, considering everything by simple equations: pros and cons. It was all about energy. He needed... energy, so he was taking more than he was exerting. Yet, that was becoming more and more impossible as that damned core in him wanted more, always so hungry and never getting satisfied... He had to fill it; he knew that was the only thing that mattered by now. Everything else? Everything and everybody? They were just the fuel.

"Not enough..." He muttered, "Still not enough..."

The Demigod Crystal within his chest pulsed the same way, making his mind try to work out a solution. He needed more energy. More! Since reaching this stage, he had tried everything. He started with absorbing energy from the land, then, from the air, turning to sap it from life itself. Cities? Consumed. Forests? Turned into frozen wastes. Rivers? They were turned into glaciers. And... Armies? Icesculptures... Yet nothing worked.

He needed... Completion. But his core was refusing to fill up, and he was running out of calculations. There were no other demigods, either; he had already killed and consumed any he knew about. Something... had to be done, because soon, the whole world will freeze over, and he will still not step into the next realm. Just then, his head turned slowly, a new idea forming in his mind.

"I see."

Continuing to walk, his mind kept running through his sudden idea, calculating probabilities and success percentages... Then... It came to a conclusion. It was the only way forward. By the time the decision was made, he was at the other end of the kingdom, standing at the bank of a massive river. He didn't mean to come here, but he didn't care where he was; the days of walking were going past him by a moment anyway. The calculations confirmed his idea, and when they did, his decision was made, and his hand moved without hesitation, and then it pierced his own chest, but no blood flowed out. Instead, it was like tiny rubies, rolling out of the wound, loudly pattering on the frozen ground like gemstones.

"My Demigod Crystal." He said simply, pulling it out, watching it hover above his palm, half blue, half red in color, spinning slowly. "Yes... This body is the problem." He nodded, scanning his own feelings and then... He flicked it upward, and just... let go of it.

The moment the crystal he had nurtured for countless years floated up, his body began faltering, about to crumble... but then, he closed his eyes, and a thin strand, made of ice, flashed, getting connected to the crystal like a chain. It was transferring... something. And that something was his own soul, because suddenly, as the crystal got higher and higher, it pulled it out of his body.

When it was high enough to yank his flickering soul out completely, it kept reeling it in, like a fisherman, right until it entered the crystal, which was now spinning like crazy. The moment he was gone, the crystal swallowed him, and a new body began to form around it, with it as its heart. A second later came the nerves from the crystal itself, growing bones, muscles, and flesh, before, finally, the same white-haired body floated in the air, his red eyes opening, coming back to life... He raised his hand in disbelief, then he just... screamed.

It was more of a howl, one that for a brief second could be heard everywhere as he collapsed onto the frozen ground. He kept groaning, howling, crying, and laughing at the same time, taking long minutes to finally say something coherent.

"I... I can feel…" His hands trembled as he looked at them, touching his chest, feeling his new heart racing... "I hate you…" He whispered, looking at his old body that was now just standing there, eyes empty, with a hole in his chest. Without the crystal, its powers were now weakened considerably, no longer trying to consume everything. But... it wasn't dead either. It was just, simply put: empty. "I hate you!" He stood up and then stumbled toward it, struck it, again and again, seeing how cracks were forming on it with every punch, "You monster!"

However, in the end, he didn't destroy it. He couldn't... It was a monster, yes, but it was him. And no matter how hard he hated himself, what he had become, he couldn't destroy it. What he didn't notice in that moment was that people were watching him since he ripped the crystal out of his chest, appearing above him by the time his body had been reformed.

"..." the man who stood further amongst them, his head bald and shining, had his grip tighten around his sword, knowing that it was too late to bring it down, "Impossible..."

He was the first to arrive when he sensed the fluctuations, and he was shocked by what he saw. Just then, others had materialized from nowhere, as they were the Gods of the Realm themselves. The woman standing next to him, wearing all green, had her eyes open just as wide, gazing down at the white-haired man.

"Is that… The demigod the twins mentioned? He did it?" She asked, sounding shocked and amazed.

"We told you he had dabbled in souls and may figure things out." The twin gods appeared and stood together as they spoke up, looking identical, "Now what? He made it by himself! You said," they continued as the two of them glanced at the bald one angrily, "That he wouldn't be able to do it! Yet... here we are. What now? Kill him? We don't even know if we can... He is..."

"Don't say it!" the man scoffed at them, growling, while a newfound hatred began burning in his eyes, "We did it once, we can do it again! Shut up!"

"Kai was old." Aflina added, refusing to leave the issue alone, while Oynega shook his head, joining in, "And he let us do it. You know that!"

"There will be an opportunity," Skoorn muttered, his fingers squeezing tightly around his sword's handle, "We just need... preparation. And time."

The only one who didn't speak again was Nilier, because her gaze remained fixed on the man below... On the man who was laughing and crying in the dirt, clutching the legs of his old body. Why was he crying so hard... and so much? She wanted to know... She wanted to know what a man, who became a God on his own, felt. How did he do it? She wanted... to know... everything.