Chapter VI: Baptism by Bone and Water – The First Shattering of Death
In the fractured silence of the abyssal veil, the entity known to some as the Harbinger of Ends—an avatar the living dared call the Grim Reaper—tightened its skeletal will. It had watched. It had waited. And now, it had decided.
Lucifer McKenzie would be assisted.
"O Scion of the Void-Monarch," the voice slithered like a knife over silk, "your tether to the Shadowed Lands shall remain intact for three more cycles. But heed this—after each rebirth, you must slumber for no less than three rotations of Gaia's breath."
Its ethereal tone vibrated the air, like a drum of black lightning beneath a frozen sea.
"We shall cast you back to flesh. Should your thirst for torment still remain, return. This gateway shall stay ajar."
Lucifer's lips curled into a faint smile, raw and broken. "Then I'll return," he whispered, words trembling but resolute.
The void tore. His essence unraveled.
And his soul was hurled—again—into the theatre of the living.
When the veil split and his senses returned, Lucifer found himself in that half-lit realm of submerged silence. The cavern of sacred pain—the underwater temple carved from bedrock and myth.
Experience points surged like static in his marrow.
He didn't even flinch.
Instead, he made a decision rooted in madness and obsession: to drain every drop of benefit from this place before surrendering to rest. The command of the Reaper rang in his bones, but he chose to defy time a little longer.
Elsewhere: Underworld
The moment Lucifer's soul escaped the plane of death, three colossal eyes uncoiled above the twisted firmament of the Underworld. Suspended like dying stars, they blinked. A soundless ripple passed through the ink-black sky.
And then... the void smiled.
It was not a mortal expression. This smile stretched across reality like a blade of ancient silk. The great Will of Death had observed all—from the boy's first descent, to the verbal fencing with the Reaper, to the macabre resolve that allowed him to perish repeatedly for progress.
Death, contrary to human delusion, was no simple veil to cross.
Most minds that touched the threshold of mortality once were ruined forever, splintered into howling madness. Yet Lucifer McKenzie... stood undiminished after two baptisms.
And the sky whispered of him—of the one who might succeed Him.
With a grin etched into the undercurrent of existence, Death waited.
Underwater Cave: The Divine Baptistery
"Achoo! Fuck—Achoo!"
Lucifer's sneeze cracked the stillness like a gunshot.
Though the Divine Water boiled with strength-giving primordial energy, his mortal frame was still fragile. Fragile enough to catch a chill while bathing in liquid godhood.
His skin prickled with frost. His lips were tinged blue.
"Hellfire... this body's pathetic," he grumbled, wrapping himself in a coarse linen robe. "I'm practically freezing in god juice."
He perched at the pond's jagged lip, towel still dripping. His breath steamed in the chilled air.
After a few shivers and a string of whispered curses, he cast off his robe again and stepped back into the glowing water.
He had no choice. If he didn't push forward now, he'd always lag behind. Time was his enemy—and this pond was a rare blessing of providence. Entire empires bled gold to procure even a single vial of this miraculous water. And here he was, submerged in a fabled relic—his own private crucible of ascension.
Only five mortals in history had ever bathed in Divine Water and returned from the Underworld.
He was the sixth.
And he wasn't done yet.
Lucifer slipped beneath the surface and activated his forbidden skill: Death.
The sensation hit him instantly—disembodiment, weightlessness, the unraveling of nerves.
Then the world inverted.
And he stood once more beneath the eyes of Death.
"We return you to suffering," the Reaper said without emotion.
Before Lucifer could respond, a swarm of oily black mist encased him. He convulsed.
His vision warped.
Back in the cave, he awoke submerged. His body convulsed. His jaw locked. Blood burst from his throat.
"Urk—blergh..."
He vomited crimson, body hunched and trembling.
Vision fractured.
He couldn't feel his arms.
'Don't pass out. Don't fucking sleep.'
He bit into his tongue until iron stung his teeth. Red droplets splattered into the holy water.
He activated the skill again.
The Underworld greeted him with a suffocating silence.
He looked like death incarnate—his skin snow-white, veins ink-dark beneath the surface.
Even standing required titanic will.
No words. The Reaper stared in silence.
Then he was gone.
Back in the pond, he collapsed again. Blood ran from his eyes.
Still, he smiled.
A man on the edge of obliteration, amused by his own torment.
He could have stopped. Could have rested.
But he hadn't.
And the World acknowledged it.
[Unique Skill Exp +4]
[Unique Skill: Death (10/10)]
Then... blackness.
He didn't see the final screen.
[Unique Skill has been mastered.]
[Evolution Initiating…]
[Unique Skill 'Death' has evolved into 'Immortal'.]
His body ignited from within. Energy—raw and sacred—poured through his every cell. His wounds sealed. Flesh tightened. Blood renewed itself.
He thinned. Muscle stripped. Fat vaporized.
Then something deeper awoke.
The air thickened with primordial energy as the very pond began to steam. It turned to mist—an ethereal fog swirling around him.
The Divine Water evaporated into the cave.
He drank it in with every breath.
Bones hardened like volcanic glass. Muscles reformed with precision. And his blood—his sacred ichor—glimmered faintly gold beneath his skin.
[Rank Ascension: Mortal → Awakened]
The pond, exhausted, returned to stillness.
Lucifer, unaware of his transfiguration, fell into unconscious bliss.
Moments Later... At the Mouth of the Cave
Footsteps disturbed the silence.
"Are you sure it's here?" asked a voice, soft but edged with urgency.
"Yes," said another. "I saw the pool—clear as day. If we can secure it, our people might finally break the drought."
Two women stepped into the chamber. Their steps echoed softly against wet stone.
Bernice Williams halted mid-step.
Her eyes widened.
There—by the pond's edge—lay a boy.
A boy asleep.
A boy naked.
A boy glowing.
Author's Sigil:
Wanna keep this lunatic tale going? Slam that Power Stone and hurl a Golden Ticket at this bastard of a novel. I'm little LYTA, and I'm chronically possessed by caffeine, divine metaphors, and unreasonable deadlines. Over and gloriously out.