The creature stood before us, still and composed, its presence alone enough to make the air feel like it was crushing in on itself. It wasn't like the twisted Servant we had faced before—this one had clarity in its eyes. It knew what it was. It remembered.
And worse…
It remembered me.
"Let us see if Valec remembers how to die."
My grip tightened around my dagger. Kieran stood at my side, blade raised, his golden eyes fixed on the Servant with unwavering focus. We didn't exchange words—we didn't need to. We both understood that this wasn't just a fight.
It was a test.
One that the Forsaken had sent deliberately.
An Enemy From Another Life
The Servant began to step forward, each movement too smooth for a creature made of rusted armor and pale, cracked flesh. Its voice was calm—too calm.
"You held dominion over death once. You stood atop the Broken Spire and cast judgment upon gods and kings alike."
The name stirred something deep inside me. The Broken Spire… I saw flashes again—fire raining from the skies, towers crumbling, armies screaming.
The creature's tone became colder.
"You should have stayed dead."
Then it attacked.
The Clash of Divin and Mana
It moved faster than any creature I had ever faced. Not blindingly fast, but precise, as if the battle had already been played out in its mind and it was simply moving through the motions.
The sword it carried shifted between states—one moment solid, the next a vibrating hum of energy, phasing in and out of existence.
Kieran blinked out of its way, reappearing behind it with a perfectly angled strike. His blade landed—then passed through the Servant's form as if it were air.
Again.
It was shifting the same way Kieran did.
"I can't touch it," he growled, stepping back beside me.
I activated the device from the forgotten continent, letting the strange hum of Divin Force flow into my limbs. The space around me pulsed, distorting slightly as I took a careful step forward.
"I'll draw its attention," I said. "You find a weakness."
Kieran gave a slight nod, then vanished.
Meeting the Blade
The Servant lunged, and I met it halfway. My dagger clashed with its sword—not with sparks, but with a warping scream of bending reality. For a second, the world blurred, and I saw two versions of us clashing—one in this world, one in a mirror of it.
Then the vision collapsed, and I was slammed backward into the temple wall.
I coughed blood, rolling to my feet just in time to avoid a downward strike that split the stone floor open like paper.
"You are weaker," the Servant hissed. "Incomplete. A ghost wearing the skin of a boy."
"Maybe," I snarled, flipping the dagger in my grip. "But I'm still standing."
I shifted—stepping through the displacement technique Kieran had taught me, and reappeared behind it.
This time, I didn't aim for its body.
I struck the space around it—where the distortion was anchored.
The dagger dug into nothing—and hit something solid.
The creature reeled back, shrieking in static.
Kieran struck in the same moment from the other side, and this time, his blade bit deep into its shoulder. Black ichor sprayed across the ground, hissing like acid where it landed.
It turned on us both now, moving erratically.
It was angry.
The Memory Awakens
The longer I fought, the more the world blurred. Each time I locked eyes with the Servant, I saw snippets of another life—my life as Valec. The commanding voice I once used. The thousands who bowed before me. The destruction I unleashed.
And above all…
The gate. A massive, golden gate sealed with chains of light and shadow. My past self had been standing before it, hand outstretched. Trying to open it.
Why?
The memory slammed into me like a crashing wave.
"You didn't seal them," the Servant whispered. "You tried to free them."
My eyes widened.
The Servant knew.
And now… so did I.
Divin Force: The Surge
Something inside me snapped—not in fear, but in understanding.
I had spent so long trying to fight like a mage, like a warrior. Trying to overcome with skill and precision. But the truth was, Divin Force was not a weapon.
It was a language—the language of the world itself.
I reached inward, not to pull energy, but to listen. To the folds of space. The rhythms of existence.
And for the first time… the world whispered back.
My form blurred as I stepped again—not just through space, but through intent. I didn't move to dodge.
I moved to never have been there at all.
The Servant's blade passed through an illusion of me, and I struck from the side—dagger slicing through the core of its warping aura.
The sound that followed wasn't a scream. It was a chime, like a bell echoing from a place far beyond the temple walls.
The Servant fell to one knee, ichor spilling like ink across the stone.
Kieran appeared beside me, breath heavy.
"You broke its anchor."
"Almost," I muttered. "One more."
The End of the Servant
The Servant rose, though barely, its body flickering like a dying fire.
"I remember now," it rasped. "You weren't the worst of us, Valec. You were… the first."
Before I could ask what that meant, it hurled its sword into the ground—and a blast of anti-energy erupted, knocking Kieran and me backward.
I landed hard, skidding near the broken altar behind us.
When I looked up, the Servant was gone.
Only its blade remained—half-embedded in the stone, humming faintly.
Kieran knelt beside it, inspecting the hilt. "It's… still alive."
I approached, feeling the thrum of power. "Or waiting."
We exchanged a glance.
Then I picked up the blade.
The moment my fingers touched the hilt, my vision exploded—not a memory this time, but a warning.
A symbol. One I had seen in the Archives.
And a name.
A voice—my own, yet older—whispered it.
"The Harbinger is coming."
Aftermath
We left the ruins in silence.
Neither of us spoke until the trees of the forest swallowed the cursed sky behind us. The Servant was gone—for now. But the truth it had left behind still burned in my chest.
I wasn't just a warrior.
I wasn't just reincarnated.
I had once stood at the gates of the world—and I had tried to open them.
Why?
I didn't know.
But whatever reason I had back then, I could feel it clashing with the person I was now.
Kieran finally broke the silence. "You did well back there."
I didn't respond.
He kept walking beside me. "You're not that person anymore. I see that."
"You sure?" I asked, voice hoarse.
He nodded. "Because if you were, I wouldn't be standing here."
I looked down at the sword in my hand.
The Servant had said it.
"You were the first."
But first of what?
That answer… I feared.
But I would find it.
Even if it meant facing the worst version of myself to stop what was coming.