~ Cough! ~ Cough! ~ Cough!
"Damn it! What the hell is happening?!" the dark-haired young man rasped, wincing as he touched his neck. Feeling something strange there, he froze. "A noose...? I don't remember anything like that. I wouldn't hang myself at such a young age; I'm only forty-seven! Wait! My voice, what's wrong with my voice?!" He suddenly began to feel himself over, touching his long black hair, his tender skin... "WHAT?! HAVE I BECOME A WOMAN?! ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME?!" He grabbed his groin sharply and froze, then exhaled in relief. "It's there. Otherwise, I really would go hang myself."
Removing the rope from his neck, he examined his black robe with interest. Underneath it was a classic gray suit with a green tie. Then he approached the mirror, where he saw a young guy with black, shoulder-length greasy hair, a hooked nose, and black "cold" eyes that brought a nostalgic smile to his face.
"Not a bad gaze. It reminds me of mine before I wiped out the entire Magistracy. Oh... those looks full of hatred and despair... How magnificent that was!" A small smirk appeared on his face, and his gaze became comparable to ice as he recalled it. "I remember..." The smile turned a bit sad. "I died. How sad that is, you damned old fart!"
A lone man, wrapped in a black cloak, stood in the middle of a ruined building. His long black hair was tousled by the autumn wind... This scene might have been ordinary if not for the corpses of people dressed in similar dark cloaks scattered around him. Some were missing eyes, others limbs; there were even those lacking everything: eyes, nose, ears, tongue, skin...
For any ordinary person, this scene would be a nightmare, a real hell on earth. But the man standing in the center of the ruined building felt only one thing: relief...
He hadn't moved from this spot for hours. His black eyes stared at the sky... It was as if life was absent from them... But a moment later, his eyes flared again with bloodlust as he looked at the appearing figure. It was an old man in a gray cloak, but since the hood had fallen, one could easily see long gray hair, deep wrinkles on his face, and black eyes filled with disbelief and hatred.
"ALAN! YOU BASTARD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" the elderly man shouted in fury, and darkness descended over the entire clearing. Black fog swirled around him, and his eyes burned with a red, ominous hue...
"Old man, you're back early," Alan greeted him with a light smile. The young man's voice was calm, even... even slightly monotonous, but one could still hear notes of sarcasm in it. "I thought you'd be here tomorrow, so I entertained myself with your students and was preparing a trap for yo... Kh..." But he didn't finish, as only a rasp escaped his throat, and a smile bloomed on his face when he looked at the wrinkled hand closing around his neck, then at the old man's contorted face.
"ALAN! I WON'T KILL YOU!" His voice chilled to the bone. "I won't let you die. You'll go through all the torments my students endured. You'll feel everything they felt, but a hundred times worse!" The old man, seeing that the other wanted to say something, slightly loosened his grip.
"Really? I'm flattered. Tell me, old man, do you remember the city of Romalia?"
For a moment, the old man froze and began to peer into the man's face with surprise. With each second, his eyes grew wider and wider.
"You... That child?!" the old man exclaimed in astonishment. "How did you survive?!"
"Do you remember what you said to me after you completely destroyed my home, killed my entire family and friends, leaving only me to drag out my existence, deprived of both arms and legs?" The smile didn't leave Alan's face, which made the old man feel an unpleasant sensation. "'I won't kill you. Live. I want to see how you'll live and take revenge...' Those words sank deep into my heart, and as you can see, I survived. In thirty-seven years, I achieved the rank of Archmage, all just to take revenge. And as you can see, I succee... Kh..." The hand on his neck squeezed again.
"A genius. I only reached that title after nearly five hundred years, but you rushed," the head of the Magistracy drawled with a grimace. "Perhaps in a couple hundred more years, you would have become a Great Archmage. Then you might have had a chance of victory. But you decided to carry out your revenge now and try to kill a mage who has long reached the peak."
"You were planning to attempt advancing to 'Creator' this month, and I realized that if I didn't kill you now, I wouldn't have a chance later. After all, once you achieve that, you could easily recognize me."
"So that's it. You're right, but it's too late..."
"Why do you think that? And isn't it strange that I can speak?" Alan, grabbing the old man's hand, easily freed himself and looked into his face. "I tricked you. I managed to set the trap." A small dagger appeared in his hand. "I have only a minute: that's how long this spell will last." The unwavering smile remained on his face, but when he saw fear in the old man's eyes, it grew even wider.
Slicing his finger, Alan began to inscribe some words on the dagger, while his enemy peered at the hilt with genuine horror.
"I see you recognize what I'm about to do."
"You'll die. You understand that, right?" The old man tried to scare Alan, thinking he didn't know what using 'this' could do.
"Something worse than death for you." In the next moment, he plunged it into the old man's chest. The runes on the hilt glowed and absorbed into his body, and the dagger crumbled and vanished.
The wound from the dagger healed quickly, and the old man could move again.
"That's it." The gleam slowly faded from the young man's eyes. Instead, two solitary tears rolled down his cheek. "Mom, Dad, brother, Din, Rudi, Clea... and the others, I did it... Just wait for me. I'll come to you soon. Just a little longer." Black blood spurted from his mouth...
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" the old man exclaimed in horror. "MY POWER, MY POWER! HOW COULD YOU?! YOU BASTARD! I'LL KILL YOU!"
"You're too late, but..." Alan, looking into eyes filled with hatred and horror, couldn't hold back a malicious smile. After all, those eyes were so similar to his on that day. "You only lost your powers, that's all." Swaying, he approached the old man and grabbed his arm. The latter could do nothing; he simply lacked the strength to resist an Archmage. "But you have too many advantages, a whole four. That needs to be fixed."
"NO!"
~ CRACK!
The old man's arm hung limp, and tears flowed from his eyes. He had felt such pain only once, one and a half thousand years ago, when he was an ordinary Magister. Back then, his arm was broken for touching something he shouldn't have.
~ CRACK!
The old man lost his second arm; his scream grew even louder, as did the tears. In the next moment, he lost a leg, then the second. He lay on the ground, his eyes filled only with despair.
"You could be quieter..." the man reproached him. "Wolves often roam here in packs. Have you forgotten?" But the old man seemed not to hear his words, for in one instant, he had lost everything he had achieved over several millennia, all at the hands of a mere 'Archmage'.
Alan looked sadly at his hands, which began to blacken and disintegrate right before his eyes.
"So this is death... I hope before I go to hell, I'll see them all, at least one last time..." A moment before his death, it seemed to him that he heard someone's scream. From beyond the horizon, toward the site of the final battle between Archmage Alan Ilius and Great Archmage Avalon, a bright green light approached, in which one could barely make out a human silhouette...
"If I don't remember anything, then I probably didn't meet anyone. And it's the first time I've heard that after using the 'Cursed God's Seal,' one reincarnates... Though where could I have heard that?" Alan peered into the mirror again. "With a face like this, it's unlikely anyone will give me... for free. But whatever." Sniffing his clothes and touching his hair, he automatically grimaced. "Wash up and launder all the clothes. That needs to be done first!" Closing his eyes, Alan tried to sense the magical power flowing in his body... "This...?!"
There was magic, but it was slightly different, and its density was about a hundred times less than in his world, making control much harder.
"What's happening...?" Alan didn't panic right away. Instead, he decided to look around first.
The room was magnificent; he felt as if he had ended up in some nobleman's bedroom. The first thing that caught his eye was a large bed with a canopy. It was wooden, with beautiful patterns; it was magnificent handmade work. On the bed was a soft mattress, and on it a silk sheet, which couldn't help but shock him, for silk was a very expensive material. Even high nobles couldn't afford such a thing.
To the right of the bed was a nightstand, to the left in the right corner a wardrobe, and directly in front of the wardrobe another nightstand, but larger, with a big mirror above it. What surprised him was that all of this was made by a true master of their craft.
"Who was the previous owner of this body?" Alan thought in surprise. In the next moment, he suddenly clutched his head and fell to his knees. "DAMN! HEAD! WHAT THE HELL?! IT HURTS, DAMN IT!" The Archmage clenched his teeth and, sitting on the floor, closed his eyes and tried to calm down, allowing the new memories to settle in his head...
Only after twenty minutes did the young man open his eyes, after a superficial examination of the previous owner's memories and blocking them. After all, if such a huge amount of knowledge flooded his head in one second, anyone would go mad, and Alan was no exception.
"Damn, my head is splitting... They should warn about something like that..." But still, taking a deep breath, he looked up with a sad smile, toward the remnant of the rope on the beam. Closing his eyes, he shook his head. "...But the kid's life was tough. However... so be it. For a second life, I'll help you a little, and then I'll continue living for both of us. I promise, your name will be remembered for a long time, whether in a good or bad way, depending on how fate turns out..."