The bulb didn't flicker again.
It stayed dim and steady, humming a rhythm that somehow sounded... expectant.
Miz sat on the mattress, unmoving, feeling the quiet shift around him. His chest no longer burned—but something deeper did. Like an echo of pain buried in bone.
And then the shadows returned.
The corner of the room darkened unnaturally, and from it emerged the same cloaked figure—tall, silent, a void in the shape of a being.
Judge Of Death had returned.
"You are ready," the Judge said, stepping forward. "It begins now."
Miz looked up. "The memory?"
JOD nodded slowly. "Yes. Be ready."
The world around them cracked.
It didn't feel like teleportation. It felt like falling inward, into something ancient. The room faded, and the sky turned violet.
Crimson suns hung above a world that convulsed in its death throes. Forests were ash. Oceans hissed into steam. Mountains bled rivers of molten stone.
And in the center stood a creature of legend and sin.
A Saptoer.
Towering. Alien. Armored in calcified bones. His maw stretched in joy as he dragged the corpses of a dozen species behind him.
He hunted for extinction. He lived to end life.
JOD stood beside Miz, hovering above the doomed world. Time didn't flow here—it cracked and echoed, like glass under strain.
"This is the first life I ever took," JOD said. "Saptoer, its a destroyer of his world. His kind is the one that hunts for joy, not survival. And so, It had to be judged."
Below, Saptoers looked up, sensing a presence beyond comprehension.
JOD raised a hand, shadows warping like gravity around his form.
Miz's breath caught. The power wasn't just raw—it was final. A force that had no equal, only purpose.
"You have exceeded your right to exist," JOD spoke, voice carrying across reality.
And then—it happened.
The sky shattered. Sound ceased. Saptoers screamed as his essence, not just his flesh, began to unravel. He tried to run, to scream, to beg—
But death is not a negotiator.
The memory hit Miz like a thousand blades at once.
He felt himself pulled into both roles—judge and judged. He saw through JOD's eyes. He felt the fear of Saptoers. He endured the guilt, the necessity, the overwhelming silence that followed annihilation.
And then—
Darkness.
Miz woke with a gasp, body soaked in sweat. He collapsed off the mattress, chest heaving, as though he'd just returned from drowning.
JOD stood over him, silent.
"The agony of the vessel is not in the power gained... but in what is remembered."
Miz groaned, clutching his skull. "It felt like I died."
"You did," JOD answered. "A part of you will die with every memory. That is how power is passed—from one soul scarred to another."
Then, something shifted inside Miz.
A tingle in his limbs. A lightness. A strange clarity.
He reached for a glass bottle beside him—it flew into his hand without touch.
"What the...?"
JOD watched. "The first gift. The Arts of a Deity. You now move yourself and things around with the will of the dieties. You will feel lighter. Stronger. Sharper. But your body is still mortal. Pain will remind you of that."
Text shimmered in the air for a brief second, burning into Miz's awareness.
Ability Unlocked: The Arts of a Deity
State: Unstable
Miz stood, wobbling. His knees threatened to give way again.
"Will every memory result in pain?" he asked.
"Yes," JOD replied without pause. "And it will grow worse. But so too will your strength."
Miz looked down at his hands—shaking, aching—but alive. Changed.
"I know now, what you are." he whispered. "I felt your judgement."
"You will feel much more," JOD said. "This was only the first."
And then, he was gone.
The shadows retreated. The room returned to silence. But Miz knew it wasn't the same.
He blinked—and saw violet skies behind his eyelids.
He coughed—and tasted ash from a world long gone.
He breathed—and felt death breathing with him.
He didn't cry. He didn't scream.
He simply sat there, hands on his knees, whispering into the void:
"I don't know why, but I feel nothing, it's like, seeing others die and dying myself means nothing…"
He said in confusion and maybe… amusement.