A breath spanning over five years

After finally returning to the lands of Loss, Seth stopped teleporting and allowed himself to fall on the soft grass underneath, sighing in relief.

Looking at the dark green sun above, he asked: “He can’t reach me now, can he?”

<Affirmative. You are out of his influence range.>

Seth smiled and closed his eyes. “Are the takeovers going as planned?”

<Affirmative.>

“What is Pearl doing?”

<Living with the Knight of Sun.>

“Olivia?”

<She has successfully run away from the palace in Pain. She’s searching for the Guardian of Darkness>

“Alice’s group?”

<They had made their way towards Oath and are still in the territory of Hope, but Thanatos has been busy chasing after you, so they will be fine.>

“Then I guess it’s fine for me to rest.” Said Seth, closing his eyes and allowing the bliss of unconsciousness to take him. The last few months, he had been in a constant rush, and he felt the tiredness of all that running finally catching up to him.

<Host stop.> Even the system’s warning fell on deaf ears.

——

“Wake up, master. Wake up.” A timid voice attracted Seth’s attention, and he opened his eyes to see a small child looking at him with a curious gaze.

Seth frowned, not recognizing the little girl at all. ‘System? What happened? Where am I?’

After receiving no answer from the system, he quickly realized he was not in the material world. Standing up and looking at the child, Seth asked: “Who are you?”

“I’m your humble servant, master. You don’t recognize me?”

Seth shook his head: “I can’t say that I do. What’s your name?”

The girl looked into Seth’s eyes and shook his head: “I don’t remember.”

“Then how do you know that I am your master?”

“Because master is master.” Replied the little girl, making Seth chuckle.

Seth tried to feel the space around him and was sure he was inside his soul, at least inside a part of it, but as to who that girl was, he had no idea. From the feeling the girl gave him, Seth figured it must be his perception will’s manifestation.

Seth rubbed the girl’s head and asked: “Do you know how long I’ve been asleep and how we got here?”

Shaking his head, the girl said: “Master was already asleep when I woke up.”

“You said that you don’t remember your name? What can you remember then?”

Lowering his head, the girl muttered: “I don’t know. Darkness… I was in a cold and dark place until my master took me from there. Master was warm and full of light. Master also pushed away the voices.”

Chuckling, Seth rubbed the girl’s head some more: “Then you must have had a horrible dream. What did those voices say?”

“I don’t remember, but they seem sad… lost.”

Seth looked at the girl with a sigh before turning around to walk away: “Come on.”

The girl started following after him and asked: “Where are we going, master?”

“Out.” Said Seth, the space around him disappearing with his words.

He was once more in the open field he had fallen asleep on, but if he were to notice a change, it was the dried-up grass all around and the saggy and wet clothes on his body. His body also seemed to have been pulled into the soft ground.

“You finally woke up.” A tired voice rang behind Seth, making him turn around to look at a small worm floating behind him.

“How long was I out?” asked Seth, ignoring the flying worm while sitting up, but the worm’s words made Seth’s face twitch. “Five years and change.”

‘System?’

<Affirmative. Your soul was in hibernation for five years.>

<Our link to past records has also returned>

Seth immediately thought about something and reached into his pocket, but nothing was there anymore.

Frowning, he turned towards the worm: “Don’t tell me that thing fused with me?”

“It did.”

“Fuck.” Swore Seth. “I know I had to destroy it.”

“Haha,” the worm laughed as he floated around Seth. “I never thought I’ll see a god lose his composure like this.”

“Fuck you too.” Said Seth.

The work kept laughing as he disappeared in front of Seth’s eyes, his words drifting around even after he was long gone.

“Curse all you want, Seat of destruction. You are the only hope the human race has now.”

“Annoying worm.”

‘System, what happened with the hope seed?’

<As the treasure of hope has left its binding place, the seal created by the Guardian of Water weakened, and the hope of the human race fused completely with your soul in an attempt to survive.>

‘I should have destroyed it when I had the chance. I didn’t need a collective will polluting my soul even more.’

<Why is host so against it? A way of killing horrors without using your divinity is not a bad thing.>

‘Not a bad thing? It’s fine if the host is a human or ascended, but I also have a divinity. Adding a collective human will to all that mess is not something I wanted or needed. The sensible balance I create is now in danger. It will be a pain in the ass when I break the sixth shell...’

Without a way to change what was already out of his control, Seth could only accept it and move on. What mattered most was the time he was unconscious.

‘Is everyone alright?’

<Affirmative. All the girls had succeeded in their missions. Maya united all the Kingdoms under your control and formed the Endora Empire. Also, they’ve been recruiting ascended as fast as possible, planning to launch a full-on attack on the Death Kingdom, which has already annexed Hope’s territory.>

Seth heaved a sigh of relief: ‘As long as they are fine... I was afraid they marched on Death."

<Maya wanted to do it, but she gave up under Hollie and Alice’s insistence. She has been training and having mock battles with Tarquin, who was one of Thanatos’s disciples, but since Maya couldn’t do anything against him, she decided she would only move when she could fight Tarquin to a draw.>

‘Where is Maya right now?’

<Still in the capital of Endora, not wishing to be somehow missing if you return.>

‘What about the others?’

< They’ve been managing the rest of the Empire. Except Katy, who is currently also living in Endora.>

Seth’s face paled as he asked: “Living? Is she fine?”

<Yes, Hollie had used the information from the future she saw in your memories and worked with Maya to place her in cryogenic sleep.>

Seth sighed and started rushing south: “These two picked up the slack this time. I need to see Maya….”

---

When he finally arrived at Endora’s capital, Seth barely recognized the place. The houses had turned into full-blown apartment buildings, wide asphalted streets had replaced the most stone and marble paths from before, and he had to teleport for ten minutes until he could pass all the crop fields surrounding the capital.

“It looks like they did just fine without me.” Muttered Seth with a chuckle.

<Human technology is still not up to par, but creation ascended had been working full time in raising the city you see now. The other Kingdoms are also slowly catching up, but Maya has requested Endora to become the development priority.>

Seth didn’t ask anything else and started teleporting toward the city’s center, where the only two buildings that had not changed were. Those were Asteria and the Imperial Palace.

After a few more blinks, he arrived inside the palace’s back garden, where the system had informed him Maya was.

Taking a deep breath, he changed his clothes to a more casual look and slowly walked towards a small table at the center of the garden.

As he got closer, Seth saw two women staring back at him with mixed expressions on their faces.

From the moment Seth had arrived in the garden, Iris had heard his footsteps and turned to look towards him with an ashen face while Maya had followed her gaze of curiosity.

The familiar rhythm of those footsteps, a sight Maya had dreamed of seeing for the last five years, was now entering her eyes again. Even from a distance, she already knew who it was, and now that her dreams and hopes were slowly walking towards her, Maya could only stay there, frozen.

As Seth got closer, she could see the face that would appear whenever she closed her eyes. His symmetrical face, high cheekbones, and hazel eyes she used to lose herself in were filled with love, regret, and guilt.

It was him. It was Seth. He was back.

Maya wanted to rush up to him, to kiss him, to love him, to hit him, to yell at him, to have him pay and make up for all those tears that had comforted her to sleep every lonely night. But, alas, her body didn’t move. She felt like her own source had betrayed her, freezing her into that cursed bench, not allowing her to move a single muscle.

She felt her cheeks getting moist as she stared unblinkingly at the man walking closer to her.

Seth arrived in front of her, not sparing Iris a single glance, and parted his lips to speak, but out of all the words he thought about on the road, none came out. A few months had passed for him, but he knew how much those five years had hurt Maya.

He didn’t need the records or the system to know her heart must have been in pain every moment she knew nothing about him, and he knew that no words would be able to make up for all that.

Maya also opened her mouth to speak, her face already contorted in a mix between pain and relief, but words also failed her.

The two just stayed there, staring into each other’s eyes, the words they wanted to say to the other too heavy for their lips to speak.

After a long time, Seth moved forward again, breaking the ice holding Maya captive by pulling her into her arms, hugging her body hard in his arms.

“I love you.” He muttered in her ear. “I’m sorry.” “I’m back.”

It was all he could say. It was the best way he knew to express what he was feeling.

Maya’s body jerked, and her hands started shaking as she clasped onto the opening of his jacket, a soft wail of sorrow leaving her throat. Her cry broke Seth’s heart, his eyes reddening as he strengthened his hold over Maya.

The garden’s serenity was broken as Maya cried five years of sorrow away into her lover’s arms. The fear, uncertainty, desire, melancholy, and yearning all broke free from her soul, drenching Seth’s shoulder in a torrent of tears.

Seth’s eyes also couldn’t hold back the tears forming inside, silently holding his lover in his arms, cursing the day he decided to try to save hope, wishing he would have just destroyed it and be done with it.

Iris had silently flown away, leaving the Emperor and Empress of Endora to cry their woes in the Imperial Garden.