A question that comes to my mind every time I close my eyes:
What is the value of life?
To what extent are we willing to fight for life?
Do people worship God because they want to go to Heaven, or because they don't want to go to Hell?
And what if Heaven is like a bribe? And Hell, a punishment or something more, a…
In a smaller universe, on the brink, a war was unfolding. Blood everywhere. Life was no more than a breath.
Heaven was destroyed. There were no more stars, no systems, no constellations; only fragments of dead stars and planets remained, spinning in delirium in the shattered void.
At the center of the chaos, she danced.
Her beautiful golden armor was covered in cracks, crimson splashes ran down the armor like dried tears—it was blood.
The sword in her right hand vibrated with a muffled roar, alive and hungry. Each strike traced a scar of fire through space; from her back, wings made of fire—one golden, the other purple—were not truly wings but fire taking their shape.
And then they unfurled as if bearing the weight of all the worlds that had crumbled under her fury.
— Come, all of you, — she murmured. — Let's burn together.
Demons as large as moons charged at her like maddened beasts, clad in black carapaces that eclipsed the light. But with a single spin or punch from her, one would explode in a cascade of bones and blood. Others rose behind her, opening a thousand mouths of darkness, only to be cleaved in two by a wave of condensed fire from the one who obliterated them down to the surrounding atoms.
The collision between the two armies made galaxies tremble. Planets shifted like stones, while others shattered into dust. Gravity screamed. Time tried to rupture—and spoke. She did not exist. Each step was a scream. Each flame, a death.
There, in that war, forgotten by gods and angels, she did not fight for redemption, much less for victory.
She fought because there was nothing more worthy than fighting and dying on her feet, like a damned warrior and a sinner.
The space between worlds trembled. A place that was neither Heaven nor Hell, but merely the threshold of the abyss between universes. Where smaller universes unraveled into cosmic fragments, and the main universes watched in indifferent silence.
There, alone, she stood.
Her skin bore the marks of centuries of war, her cells burned like decaying stars. Her flames flickered between sacred, celestial gold and an ancient, demonic dark purple. They burned slowly, like embers on a forgotten altar, heralding the presence of something that should never have existed.
She was a goddess without an altar. A sinner without forgiveness.
Before her, seven descended, one by one. Generals of Hell, each bearing a ruined universe as a trophy embedded in their bodies. Colossi of darkness forged from temptation, hatred, and pride. Their presence caused time itself to seep through the cracks of space; matter itself began to disintegrate.
Yet even so, she did not retreat.
— Finally, you've arrived—I was getting bored, — her voice rang out, neither loud nor soft, but enough to be heard.
— So, what do you think about dying here?
Her swords rested on the sterile ground, surrounded by living runes that pulsed with memories of forgotten ages. But the power leaking from her hands was something else—distorted arcana, impure rituals, flames fueled by sacrifices that should not be remembered. She was not merely a warrior but also a sorceress of the end times, conjuring destruction with every gesture.
She cast a golden circle, sliced by purple lines, spinning through the air. A whisper in a forgotten tongue burst from her lips.
And the general exploded from within, without even anticipating it, taking all the stars around him with him.
The silence that followed was denser than space itself. She did not smile. Nor did she hesitate. She simply walked, leaving behind trails of fire and incinerated bones, imposing and deadly. Her feet did not touch the ground—she floated like an omen, like death, like the last truth in a world of lies.
Even knowing she might die there, she fought as if the fight itself were the only truth in that space.
— I'll kill you, you whore! — the second General bellowed in rage.
— Strange—normally you don't care about the death of others, — the sinner remarked. "But how amusing to see you so sentimental."
This infuriated the second General, who couldn't even wait for the ashes of the first to settle. He roared—and the roar was not mere sound but an ancestral force that made the smaller universe collapse in silence. A nearby world vanished, swallowed by a nameless void.
She spun her sword to defend herself, runes exploding into screams.
The floor of space was etched with flaming scars. The blade touched the air, and space split into ribbons. She moved like smoke, compressed by millennia of pain and glory. Each step was a tear in the fabric of the universe.
When they collided, the impact made no sound but a vacuum—as if time itself declared a reset. Distant stars extinguished.
Her blade pierced the General's chest, but the demon did not scream; instead, he laughed.
He laughed with a thousand mouths, laughed with a thousand voices—and each laugh birthed a new demon around them. Shadow parasites that sought to sink sorrow into her back.
Her dark purple flames unfurled like wings. With a snap of her fingers, an explosion of purple fire erupted.
Dozens of lifeless, irredeemable monsters burned in a cruel flash. The smoke that lingered was black and thick, like the scent of death in a spring that never existed.
She fell to her knees, blood streaming from her mouth and eyes.
— Only… five, — she whispered, without anger, without fear.
The third came from above, piercing the space between two planes. A lord of the abyss, crafted from bones and dark tentacles.
She raised her arms and summoned shields of runes shaped like sacred circles—each one a sin, each one a curse. Their collision unleashed a storm that tore half the Limbo where they stood. Spirits wailed, smaller galaxies exploded in a cascade like cosmic dominoes.
And yet… she did not fall.
But she bled.
Her right arm burned, its flesh corroded by infernal energy.
The fourth and fifth attacked together. One was all metal and tentacles, the other a lesser fallen angel cloaked in silver nails and laments. They surrounded her, ripping through dimensions with chains and black prayers.
She dropped her sword, stretched out her bare hands, and called forth what remained of her—of her soul.
A colossal arcane circle bloomed beneath her feet—not forged of light or darkness, but of every memory: every choice, every life she'd taken, every death she'd harvested. The essence of a sinner transformed into a weapon.
She exploded with them, her blast reducing thousands of light-years to ashes.
Silence.
Shards of time spun around. Only two remained, and it would all end.
She reappeared, her body broken, her hair ablaze in dual colors, her eyes gleaming like two decaying suns. She was dying—yet she had never seemed so alive.
The last two exchanged a glance. For the first time, they hesitated.
She smiled faintly.
— Are you scared, huh? — she laughed, struggling. — Come dance with me to the end!
And they charged, and the end began.
While she danced with the Generals at the edge of reality, worlds below—still shackled by gravity and despair—shattered, the ground quaked.
A charred planet, its orbit unstable, its atmosphere woven of laments and cosmic dust. It was there her followers fought. Men and women warped by an abominable essence—exiles, heretics, aberrations—and yet, warriors.
The sky tore with each of her screams from the higher plane; shards of stars fell like living flames.
A boy with gray hair, his eyes shrouded by a blood-stained cloth, shouted:
— She's still alive! Fight!
A demon lunged at him. The boy snapped his fingers, and the ground trembled. A spear forged from his own shadow rose and impaled the creature. He was blind, but he saw through her essence.
In the distance, a woman with half her face burned raced through the wreckage, dragging three children behind her. She was no warrior, no saint—just a survivor.
— For her or for us! — someone yelled.
— For both! — another replied, spitting blood as he locked his blade against an ancient four-armed demon with eyes like black holes.
There were others.
A naked monk, his back etched with runes, spoke not a word—guiding all around him with prayers chanted in his mind. His faith was not in the Heavens but in their fall. A promise that if she prevailed… perhaps they might have a tomorrow.
From a cliff's edge, a young elf with a bow carved from bones loosed arrows that shredded the veil of space in their path. Each arrow was an unfulfilled wish.
And the bodies piled up.
Each fallen warrior spawned two more lesser demons—the world fed on suffering, and they knew it, yet they resisted.
Ash rained down, blood rained down, from no sky at all.
An old man, half his lung claimed by demonic poison, spat on the ground and rose one last time.
He wielded a war axe, her name etched into its blade.
— If she falls, we fall with her. But before that… let's take Hell with us!
They all shouted. And fought.
Some for her, others for themselves, and none for God.
And amid the fray, a weak human—born without talent or latent power—dared the unthinkable: to fight.
He fought not for glory, nor for her, nor for vengeance.
He simply… did not want to die.
His body was ruined. Bones shattered, organs crushed, a spear pierced through his chest, the wound nearly exiting his back. And yet, his empty, irritated eyes did not glow with power, did not thrum with essence—they were human eyes. Sick and weary, brimming with fear—but alive.
The demon before him cackled. A creature of fangs and muscle, with a forked tongue, razor claws, and an abdomen larger than its torso.
But the laughter ceased when the crack of the human's body rang out alone.
An elbow smashed into the creature's throat. The dry snap of a breaking trachea echoed. He didn't think to do it—he just did. His leg spun with raw force, snapping the enemy's knee in two places. His arm seized a foot, his other arm tore a fang from the jaw and drove it into the demon's eye with surgical precision.
And the most absurd part? He didn't even see what he was doing.
Without realizing it, he transcended concepts—combat, fighting styles, martial arts, and all that they entailed—reaching a level no angel, demon, god, or anything had ever attained.
As far as is known, the most perfect being, the embodiment of war, battle, and victory, had reached the pinnacle milestone: the 'battle instinct,' reacting at the speed of thought, his body moving autonomously in combat beyond mere instinct. His body acted alone, yet reliant on senses, and he elevated those senses to an entirely new plane.
But he—a mere mortal, devoid of talent or latent power—shattered that limit and achieved something no one ever had, nor ever would. He transcended all and arrived at what he self-named (as if his body had grown its own ego) the 'survival instinct.' His body moved on its own, faster than thought, surpassing what is called instinct. His body knew what to do, more agile than his mind by far. It had its own awareness, each cell seeming to gain consciousness in battle, sensing the faintest intent—especially threats to his life—and acting before he even noticed.
And yet, he didn't notice. Or if he did, he knew no one watched, no one would ever care.
No divine eyes marveled at his fury, no epic ballad sang his deeds.
The demons he felled didn't even cry his name. Indeed, he had no name worth remembering.
He was just another weakling, without talent or power.
Yet the ground beneath his feet was drenched in the blood of foes dozens of times stronger than him. How? He transcended combat and its very concept.
His arms quaked—not from fear, but because his muscles were torn apart within. His eyes stung—not from tears, but because his body refused to die, and his brain struggled to keep pace.
He glided through shadows, striking with the logic of the wild, wielding guts as weapons and his own wounds as diversions. A body that should have collapsed but refused. A body without magical energy, without lineage, without a useful curse—just him.
And still, he was killed. One, two… three.
Demons who mocked his weakness now fell silent, unable to comprehend what struck them.
And while the skies erupted in auroras from the war between the Goddess and the Seven, while worlds clashed and suns faded, that ant—ignored even by death itself—carved a path of corpses with his bare hands.
Not for heroism. But because all he had left was to keep fighting.
And in the end, that was all he knew.
He staggered.
Not from hesitation, but because his bones were pulverized. Each step defied logic—an insult to flesh. Blood poured from hundreds of cuts, from his eyes, his ears, even his exposed entrails. His weapons broke one by one, so he fought with anything—a shard, a tooth, the jaw of a slain foe. Even his bare hands when nothing remained.
And still, he pressed on.
Without crying to the heavens. Without begging for mercy. Without asking,
— Why me?
Because he knew.
He always knew.
He was never chosen. No divine voice whispered glory in his name. He had no lineage to uphold, no epic curse to conquer, no hidden talent waiting to burst forth.
It was just him.
A common man, both feet sunk in the mire of existence. A man who expected nothing from anyone and yet refused to fall.
The weak saw in him something terrifying—a mirror reflecting how far a true weakling could go, not by power, but by choice.
And in that field of cosmic war, amid the ruins of broken worlds and the collapse of reality, he moved as if he'd fought for millennia—alone, always alone.
Because, at his core, he was living proof that strength wasn't required to defy everything.
It took an unbreakable, untamable will—and the resolve to try one more time.
And then, the Goddess fell—not with a scream, not with despair, but with eyes ablaze, gold and purple fused in fury—piercing the two remaining Generals.
She gathered all that remained within her, offering her body, essence, and life as a sacrifice. With it came an explosion of golden-purple flames that reduced everything within millions of light-years to ashes—her warriors, the demons, all of them. And so they won the battle, but the cost was their lives.