In the ruins of the Reaper's Realm, the wind sounded like the last laugh of a comedy show gone too long—skittering across collapsed temples, past charred soul-steles, before whistling down into a wide crater.That crater had once been the Void Gate. Now it was just a gap, like the universe lost a tooth while laughing too hard.
Irene sat on a pile of rubble, a battered dossier on her lap.It was the only thing Ethan had left behind.The pages were scorched by black fire, edges curled like overcooked popcorn.She opened to the first page, and there was only one line:
"If I disappear, you'd better damn well remember me. Otherwise, I died for nothing."
Irene stared at the words, then burst out laughing.The sound was sharp as nails on glass. The few survivors around her shrank back instinctively.
"Yeah. That's him," she sneered. "Even on his deathbed, he had to mock us."
Someone tried to comfort her:"At least he saved both worlds."
"Saved my ass," Irene rolled her eyes and tossed the dossier at their feet."He just didn't want to die unremembered. Humanity doesn't give a damn how many chunks of the Reaper's Realm collapsed. Governments and bureaus? All ash. What's left is garbage. He did it to leave us a joke."
Silence fell.
Then someone asked, timidly: "So… what do we do now?"
Irene stood, brushing dust from her clothes.Her expression was like an actress just offstage from an absurdist play—cold, and ready to mock again at any moment.
"What do we do? We make up stories. We hype him to the skies—bigger than gods, deeper than the Void. Otherwise, who'd know that the last thing he said was a laugh?"
The survivors exchanged uneasy glances.Exaggerating felt like betrayal—yet somehow, it also felt exactly like what Ethan would've wanted.
And so, the legends began.
Some said he was the sole heir of the Nightmare Key, who willingly became the final seal.Some said he laughed as he dragged the Void down with him, that his laugh shattered the heavens.Others claimed he never died at all—he just became the wind, knocking on human dreams at night.
Irene listened to every version and cackled:"Perfect! More exaggeration! Make him the universe's biggest punchline!"
After all, the line between laughingstock and hero depends only on the audience.
—
Decades later, human society had rebuilt.History textbooks carried a new section: The Sealing of the Void.
It read:"The nameless hero, with laughter as his weapon and himself as the key, sealed the Void and saved both worlds."
Students always snickered at that line. Teachers never stopped them. Sometimes, they'd even add:"He laughed because we humans take nightmares too seriously—mistaking them for truth."
And so, a cold laugh became a symbol, even a strange kind of faith.Some engraved it on tombstones. Others raised glasses to the night sky and said:"To the bastard who was still laughing at the end."
—
By then, Irene was old.She often sat alone on cracked stone steps, gazing at the patched-up sky.She knew full well half the legends were lies she herself had made up.But as long as people remembered, it was enough.
"You bastard," she muttered with a weary grin."In the end, you really won. You didn't just live on in history—you became humanity's biggest joke. And the funny part? People turned the joke into faith."
The wind swept past, like someone softly chuckling behind her.
Irene didn't look back. She closed her eyes, and in the dark she saw him again—Ethan, dissolving into the Void with that last cold laugh.
—
Ethan had been swallowed whole, erased.Yet he wasn't gone.
What he left behind wasn't salvation, nor absolute truth.It was a legacy forever tinged with irony—
A single laugh.Enough to make the world remember him.