What was left after this?

He had finally claimed the revenge he had desired for an entire lifetime. The kingdom that had broken him, the people who had tortured him since childhood, no longer existed.

Maguay spared no one. Not the women. Not the children.

With the physical prowess granted by the gods, he burned the nation to ash. Stone melted, screams vanished into smoke, and history ended in flame. His vengeance was complete. There was no need for this power anymore, but power given by gods is never without consequence.

His mortality was taken.

As punishment, Maguay was condemned to walk the earth forever. When the earth crumbled, he would drift through the void as a speck of dust, conscious and unending. Immortal, but never whole. Forever torn, forever aware.

That was his sentence.

He pulled his sword from his father’s body and left the palace with dragging steps. Corpses littered every corridor, red staining the walls and pooling across marble floors like spilled ink. Flames roared as they touched the open air, climbing toward the heavens as if even the sky wished to burn.

Outside, he walked onto streets soaked in blood, dragging his blade against the stone. His expression was numb. Their blood would stain him forever, and he had accepted that.

He vanished into the forest, leaving a nation in ruins.

Two hundred years passed. Everyone who remembered him died. The land he destroyed was claimed by another kingdom, rebuilt under new rule. That was inevitable. He only hoped they would be better than the one that came before.

He never wanted history to repeat itself.

Now he walked through the bustling streets of the new kingdom, studying the vendors and laughing citizens. It was better. Just as he reached for food, the air shifted.

He froze.

His gaze snapped toward a dark alley.

Abandoning the vendor, he stepped into the shadows and saw a young man, barely in his twenties, wielding a weapon with divine force.

Maguay’s eyes widened.

Another chosen one. Another cursed with immortality.

Memories of fire, blood, and screams flooded him. Without thinking, he lunged forward and seized the man’s wrist, stopping the strike mid-motion.

“Don’t,” Maguay said, his voice stern, but beneath it, something fractured. Something almost desperate. “Revenge isn’t worth the emptiness that follows. Trust me. I know.”

He tightened his grip, eyes dark with centuries of regret.

“I’m the only one who understands what comes after.”