Pressure. The water sinks my chest and crushes me against the depths. I intensify the strength of my bones and force the rest to follow suit to maintain the shape of my flesh. I increase the speed of growth so that the calcium solidifies outside my skin and hardens like titanium before even reinforcing it. But with the accumulation of protection, its weight also increases, and I am pulled even harder into the abyss below me. It talks to me. It enters my mind as if it were alive, facing with unknown charm the tragedies that shaped me. He calls me a hypocrite for blaming Sieghart for not noticing his soldiers, when I myself avoided having them as companions because I knew they would die someday. He places the crown of a coward upon me, for perhaps, if I had tried harder, they would still be alive.

  And at the end of it all, despite all the prayers and tears, after all the pain and suffering, I am alone.

  The cocoon of bones falls like a comet and crashes into the radiant multicolor below the darkness. An eye shines below me, terrible and giant, sealed inside the carcass of what was once a glorious titan. Behind the vibrations, I recognize the heavy, clumsy, yet calibrated footsteps of Marduk. He prepares himself without a word or tact, his skin peeling away from his flesh and his instincts realizing his desire to become the embodiment of violence. A small point adrift, without purpose or heritage, always wandering toward the strongest.

  There is no strength trapped in this cocoon. He refuses to believe it, and as he approaches, he roars and swings his sword at the protection. The impact sends me rolling like a shell across the floor, and the troglodyte strikes with his sword again and again until the calcium plates break. I regenerate them, but it's useless. Marduk can destroy them faster than I can defend myself. One impact makes my feet tremble, and the next makes my teeth grind.

  I have decided to save them, even if it costs me my life. It's okay. Sacrifice is noble. Even if Marduk kills me, he won't be able to return to the surface anytime soon. I can let it all end here. My destiny as a soldier is to fight and trust that the Light will take care of the rest. Sieghart will be its instrument for that. Doing my best will surely bring me some reward.

  I am happy.

  Do you believe that?

  “…”

  The shrill sound of the last impact pulsed through my ears and its force threw me to the ground. I apply the concept of death to my aura and throw the putrid green at the warrior. Marduk takes a defensive stance and notices the bones of his sword deteriorating, so he sharpens his remaining eye, turns to the side, and advances.

  I roll across the floor, narrowly avoiding the sword, and make a shield sprout from my forearm to defend myself, but it breaks along with my limb on the next blow. I grit my teeth, and faster than I can react, the second attack throws me again. I roll across the floor and, disoriented, I neglect the force of the ocean's pressure and am almost crushed. Blood surrounds me as my vision blurs.

  Do you believe that?

  I have to. It's my duty. It's the best thing that can happen.

  I get up. I rebuild my arm and turn the bones into spiky armor, mold the aura into a solid shape and turn it into a scythe. Marduk advances and I spin to the right, waiting for the blade to hit the ground and counterattack with a lucky blow to the creature's neck. He doesn't seem to feel it, grabbing my neck and throwing me to the ground. My back burns and cracks, and for a few seconds, I float as if I had died, only to be pressed down again by the ocean. Marduk regenerates the wound, changes his stance, and advances.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Osteoflora. I conjure thorns from the ground that pierce the warrior's weakened flesh.

  I can win. I can delay him. That is my role.

  I take advantage of the slowdown and maximize the emission to strike his blade and, through the property of death…

  I am a soldier—

  Nothing happens. Metamagic can only be overcome by one of equal authority. Without it, the barbarian ignores the attack, and this time, the bones are unable to overcome it.

  The blade pierces my torso. Red blood floats and is crushed. Invisible tears fall against the icy darkness. Marduk pulls out the sword and lets my guts spill out, then stares at me and then looks at the surface to return.

  A few minutes. That's all my life was worth.

  This is good.

  I am a soldier.

  “…”

  I fall onto the eye of the imprisoned demon.

  Do you believe that?

  “…”

  Do you believe that?

  I feel something leave my body, and I see it staring at me from the bottom of the water as I fall before the delirious colors.

  Do you believe that?

  “No.”

  The voice echoes even though it has no way to propagate. Marduk stops and turns to me, his eyes staring at me with an unreadable expression. Magic is the process of using the mental faculties imbued in the spirit to create material effects. Using the concept engraved in my soul to prevent it from corrupting me, I force my own corpse upward. The pain ceases, and as if moving a puppet possessed by myself, I rise.

  Sieghart did what he had to do, even though he didn't believe he could transcend. For a long time, I also thought it was like that, hiding behind the cowardly face of a healer who tried to rid the world of suffering, knowing full well that I was just looking for an excuse to ease my next crisis. Then I internalized that if I resisted long enough, the heavens would look down on me with pity as I destroyed their creation. It wouldn't happen. They owe me nothing. How can I ask for pity when I've lived my whole life with a roof over my head? Why would I be special? Would the cries of those I treated matter more than my own?

  “I am a doctor,” I say. “A perfect world. A world without suffering. Untouched by death. As I wished.”

  Marduk frowns and responds with grunts.

  “But I am also a soldier, who wished for the destruction of the vermin that cause it. How can I kill and save at the same time? If I kill you, wouldn't I be contributing to the world of vermin that I have always hated?” I wander my gaze, and then heal my wound. “No.”

  I continue. “Sieghart was chosen by the Light to play an important role. I don't know what to do. I didn't have his courage to take the leap. I don't know what I believe in. No matter how much I heal or hide, the suffering will remain. Victory, death, or corruption are the three options for all creatures in this world, and it is the destiny of men to become gods. I don't know what I believe in, but I'm curious to find out.”

  I hold my hands together in a symbol.

  “What do you think, Marduk? Which god will I become?”

  Temptations move the gears and whisper in my ears, just like last time. Andreas' voice tells me to use this power again, to hate reality so I can change it in my image. But that wouldn't work. The ability you possess is a mere imitation. Your knowledge is just deception. Death will continue. If this is the truth, then the soldier's path is correct. Only I can stretch out over billions of bodies. Only I can take on the weight of death and then tear out its spirit. A soldier is made to destroy invaders, and I will punish the vermin that infest this world with death. A doctor saves the innocent, and I will prevent them from being infected. Blessing and curse, I will use the power against itself.

  With death, I will kill death.

  “Gates of Death…” I say.

  Marduk advances. He crosses the distance in less than a second, but the words had already been eternalized before they left my mouth.

  “Open.”

  Darkness.

  The blade falls against the shoulder covered by a black cloak and tears it off. A normal man would die. But “death” no longer applies to me.

  Marduk's metamagic depends on strength. With strength, he can overcome enemy effects. But weakened by his fight against Sieghart, and with his will broken by no longer being able to ignore the abomination he had become in pursuing his misguided destiny, his strength succumbed.

  In one second, he attacks. In the next, Marduk is on the ground, dead.

  The seas explode. The earth shakes. I rise from the depths in a tornado of putrid, sickly green, bright and emerald, bringing with me the darkness of suffering and salvation.

  A new era has arrived.