181 With Everything I Had

The city without a name lay in ruins.

It had once been full of light and noise—migrants chasing dreams, hammers striking stone, laughter echoing through alleys, and the scent of hope drifting from street stalls and newly built shrines. Now there was only silence, dust, and craters. Broken stone replaced architecture. Mangled banners fluttered from shattered towers. The angels' descent and our battle had reduced everything to rubble.

I cradled Joan in my arms as though she were something both fragile and sacred. She was heavier than she looked, limp but still breathing. Barely, but breathing. I brushed the matted strands of blonde hair from her face, searching for something I wasn't sure I'd recognize.

Her face stirred a memory. It was not mine, not entirely.

It came from him. David_69. That dumb username and even dumber character. In a way, that had once been me.

The memories flowed in with his thoughts and emotions. Joan had been important to him. No, more than important. He was smitten.

Back in Lost Legends Online, there had been a stupid "lovemaking" button. Married players could use it for buffs. I pressed it because it worked. For Dave, though, it meant something else. He believed it mattered.

I didn't share that connection. To me, Joan felt more like a daughter-in-law than a lover. Strange, but accurate. She mattered because he loved her, because some part of him still lingered inside me. Maybe that part wouldn't rest until she was safe.

I reached the Summit Hall or what remained of it. The thrones were broken. The roof was gone. Light poured through the open sky as though the heavens themselves wanted to witness this quiet failure.

I laid Joan gently on a cracked stone table at the center. She looked peaceful despite the forced sleep. Her chest rose and fell unevenly, but she was alive.

My gaze drifted to my arm.

Black stone crawled over it like vines, wrapping around bone and sinew. Petrification. The Punishment of the Wicked Who Pretends to Be Good. Aixin's final gift. The curse pulsed and shifted as though deciding whether I deserved to be consumed. I had rid myself of the Never Ending Bond of Regrets, but this one still had teeth.

Without warning, my left arm burst into motes of light.

Gone.

The curse vanished with it.

I flexed fingers that no longer existed. Pain lingered in the emptiness, but I didn't complain. One less problem, I guessed.

Above the city, the angels still hovered. Low-tier winged automatons of judgment. They didn't attack. They simply drifted without purpose now that their master was gone. Dormant for the moment, but still dangerous. To the people of this world, they would become nightmares waiting to happen.

I looked up at the sky, still scarred by the divine rift.

"Let's fix that."

I unleashed Heavenly Punishment through Silver Steel. The weapon's core pulsed with righteous wrath, erupting into a massive golden blade. I swung upward.

The divine tear split apart.

The rift shattered like glass, raining fragments of glowing starlight across the ruined city.

I walked down the aisle of the broken hall. Columns stood with nothing left to support. The air felt heavy with the aftermath of a battle no one had truly won.

Reaching into my Item Box, I pulled out the head. It was my head. It still looked fresh, preserved by the Item Box. Staring at your own severed head was strange enough. The smile made it worse. Shenyuan had done a remarkably clean job.

"You'd think I'd be more disturbed," I muttered.

But I wasn't.

I was just tired.

I placed the head on the stone floor a few feet from Joan. Not close enough to frighten her if she woke, but close enough to matter.

As far as demi-god physiology was concerned, I wasn't worried about decay. This wasn't about function. It was about presence. The head was a contingency, a marker. Something to draw the angels' attention and keep them occupied.

And maybe something Dave could use if he ever found his way back.

I looked at Joan again.

"I'm sorry," I said softly. "Dave. David_69. I did what I could, man. This is the best I had in me."

It didn't feel like enough.

Part of me hoped he would return to this place. That he'd regain his strength and find her. That the dumb, earnest fool with his buffs and game romance would walk through these ruined gates and wake her with a kiss like some fairy-tale prince.

But me?

I was no prince.

Just the husk left behind.

I glanced up at the angels once more.

"Well." I cracked my neck. "Guess it's time to make use of this head."

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I thought about it. Having only one hand sucked. Everything took twice the effort and half the grace.

I eyed my remaining arm and muttered, "You better not go kapooch on me too."

No reply, obviously. I wasn't that far gone.

Still, there was a real chance it would vanish soon, and I needed to finish this before it did.

I picked up Silver Steel with my remaining hand and drove it into the stone before what had once been the gates of the Summit Hall. Not that much remained. It was just two broken arches stubbornly refusing to collapse. The blade sank deep into the wreckage, standing upright.

I took my severed head and set it atop the hilt.

"Artistic," I muttered, stepping back. "Functional, disturbing, and a little poetic. If this doesn't scream 'do not touch,' I don't know what will."

I sighed.

"Gods, this is pathetic."

But it had to be done.

I closed my eyes and adjusted the bindings of Divine Possession, a spell I could only modify thanks to the absurd knowledge gifted to me by that self-proclaimed Most Handsome Man in the Universe. Eccentric old bastard.

Normally, Divine Possession required a Spell Slot to activate. With a few alterations, though, I could cast a lesser version through the head instead. The head would serve as a proxy for the next spell.

I gathered divine power into my palm. Symbols etched themselves into the air as I wrapped the energy around the severed head, weaving it into the crude totem.

"Divine Mandate of Proximity."

The words rang through the ruins like a great bell.

The spell activated, consuming a Spell Slot as payment. It was an Ultimate Skill, one of the old man's parting gifts. Its effect was simple and merciless: anyone caught under the Mandate would find their strength tied to their distance from the caster. Or, in this case, the totem. The farther they moved away, the weaker they became. Try to flee far enough, and your stats would collapse to nearly nothing.

No invader could snatch a hostage and escape.

In other words, the Ultimate Skill version of Righteous Challenge.

It was my way of protecting this broken world and Joan.

I looked skyward. The angels still hovered there, pale silhouettes against the wounded sun. Weak by divine standards, devastating by mortal ones. I remembered their behavior. They ignored the inanimate, the mindless, and the dead. The head-totem shouldn't attract their attention.

When I looked at my own severed face staring back at me, a chill crawled up my spine. I reached over and gently closed its eyes.

"There," I muttered. "That's better."

Then I knelt and clasped my hands.

"Dave. David_69. If you're still in there somewhere... I don't know, maybe steal Mao Xian's body for real or something. I just hope you find your way back. Joan's waiting."

I thought about Joan. About Dave. About how stupid and beautiful this entire journey had been.

On impulse, I cast another weakened version of Divine Possession. No tricks this time. Just a wish, a fragment of my memories, emotions, and regrets etched into the head like a message left behind in the ruins.

"Just in case."

Soon, my right arm burst into motes of light.

"Oh, come on!"

I stared as my shoulder dissolved into drifting embers.

"Couldn't it at least be stylish? One big flash of light, heroic sacrifice, dramatic music? Xin Yune gets a poetic ending. I get patchy light-spots. Typical."

There wasn't much left to do. I stepped through the ruined entrance of the Summit Hall and lowered myself onto the broad stone stairs outside. The cracked stone was warm beneath me. Leaning back, I stared up at the fractured sky.

The sun hung high overhead, casting gold across the rubble. A breeze stirred the dust.

I thought of Xin Yune, the woman who smiled when she didn't have to. The woman who stayed beside me when I didn't deserve it.

"Maybe I'll see you again," I whispered to the wind. "One of these days."

I waited. The world was quiet. There was only the warmth of the sun and the faint hum of divine power holding me together. A sudden thought crossed my mind. I remembered Nongmin. That lunatic. I remembered him trying to reach the sun by literally flying at it like some divine moth with a death wish. The memory drew a chuckle from me.

What was that Emperor doing now, anyway?

He'd mellowed out lately, sure.

I'd still deck him if he started another one of those genocidal campaigns against the migrating realms.

Still, I worried about him. If the Heavenly Temple came for Nongmin next... well, that would be messy.

But I shook my head.

It was not my problem anymore.

I had enough on my plate. Or rather, enough off my plate now that I barely had any limbs left. Maybe this whole death thing could be my final prank on the Emperor. A petty little gotcha from beyond the grave. Congratulations. I'm dying. The mess is yours now.

Yeah. That didn't help.

The ache in my chest remained.

"...I'm gonna miss that guy."

I pushed myself upright and cast Zealot's Stride one last time. Golden flashes bloomed beneath me like divine fireworks, launching me skyward hard enough to crack the air. Exalted Renewal still lingered in my system, feeding me borrowed strength.

Maybe I could make it and reach the sun.

Nongmin once claimed the Hollowed World was something like a Dyson Sphere. Not his exact words, but close enough. A false sky wrapped around something hidden at the center. He'd always wanted to know what was there.

I never cared, until now.

I cast Flash Step.

Again.

Again.

The clouds exploded behind me. The heavens stretched endlessly overhead, pretending there was no end to them.

I pushed higher.

Divine Sense flooded outward, farther than ever before. It pierced the illusions above and slipped through formation arrays designed to distort perception. If this were Earth, I would've blasted through the stratosphere already.

Yet my thoughts weren't on the sun.

They were on the people I was leaving behind.

Ren Xun. Not technically my disciple, but close enough.

Gu Jie. Always carrying burdens that weren't hers.

Lu Gao. Bright-eyed and stubborn. He'd be fine.

Hei Mao.

Damn it.

I still hadn't found a way to bring that kid back.

And Ren Jingyi.

My little goldfish. She wouldn't be sad when she found out. She'd be furious. Man. I really was a terrible master. Soon, the sky fought back. Formation lines ignited across the heavens. Cosmic glyphs locked into place, forming a celestial barrier. Starfire surged toward me like divine judgment.

The Hollowed World didn't want me going any higher.

I weaved through the blazing trails.

By then, my legs were gone, dissolved into drifting motes of light behind me.

I kept going.

I had to know what waited at the center of this hollow world.

My body flickered with every step. My Divine Sense sputtered and frayed. Even my sense of self felt unstable, as though I could no longer remember where I ended and the light began. And still, I thought of Alice. She'd threatened to turn me into a thrall if I died before honoring our deal.

Sorry, Alice.

Looks like I scammed you after all.

A single tear slipped from my eye.

It evaporated almost instantly.

Slowly, I ceased to be.

...

..

.

But that wasn't the end.

Because I lived.

That was what mattered.

Not how I died.

Not how I disappeared.

I lived.

With my regrets and my victories. With my stupid jokes and broken promises. With my friends, my disciples, and that oversized heart that never learned when to quit. That was the legacy I left behind. Not my body. Not my power.

Just that simple truth.

I lived.

If some gatekeeper of the afterlife asked me how I died, I'd argue with him. Maybe throw a punch for good measure.

"I didn't die," I'd say.

"I lived."

There's a difference.

A big one.

People talk about immortality like it's about defeating death.

I don't think that's true.

Immortality is living so completely that your days refuse to disappear. Carrying every joy, every mistake, every person you loved forward until they become part of you.

I didn't beat death.

I didn't escape karma.

I just lived.

Burned bright. Failed spectacularly. Loved, lost, fought, wept, and laughed at all the wrong moments.

So when they meet me on the other side, I don't want them asking how I died.

I want them to ask:

"How did you live?"

And I'll smile and answer:

"With everything I had."