As I stood on a desolate land, my tattered gray robes fluttered against the ash-filled wind. Life was no longer recognizable in this place, but I was an exception to that observation.

“You…” a voice resonated across the empty black fields. A winged figure dominated the sky with his aura of death and authority. Despite his mostly shadowed figure, I could see a pair of red glowing eyes gazing through me. Once again, with his powerful and malice-filled voice, he shouted, “You stand before the God of Death, Extinguisher of Flames, Administrator of the Cycle, Bringer of the End, and Unconquered Foe of the Greatest.”

I swept my hood back, revealing my pale, bearded face. My hollow yet still-present eyes looked back at the figure as if he was just a piece of art against an old decaying wall. “Hi, people call me Boss.”

The God of Death stared at me for a minute then pulled his head back in confusion. “What? That’s all?”

I squinted at him in bemusement. “Yes? What do you want? That’s me.”

“Don’t you have titles?”

“Boss?”

“Any other?”

“No. I didn’t really think this through. Should I come back another day?”

“No, my schedules are overfilled. I don’t even have time for break.”

I nodded my head with empathy. “A man should have a day off or two once in a while. It isn’t good to overwork yourself.”

The God of Death crossed his arms then replied, “Thank you. But now that we are on a schedule, we should get back to the business at hand - destroying you.”

The winged god slowly flew downwards and landed in front of me moments later, towering over me with his overwhelming size. He had the head of a rotting boar, a body made out of dead plants, two pale human-like arms and two yellowish marble legs. In essence, he was a walking graveyard.

Quite fitting for someone that stylized himself as the God of Death.

The God of Death pushed his head towards me. Maggots and goo dripped down onto the ground around me, but I remained untouched; a circle of slithering flesh-eating grub and liquified rotted flesh formed around me, like they were deliberately avoiding me.

“You’ve escaped the Cycle, I can sense it. As you might have already guessed, I am the Final Judge,” The God of Death said.

“No, I didn’t guess. ‘Final Judge’ wasn’t part of your titles,” I pointed out.

“I didn’t? I have a lot of titles, I must’ve omitted a few.”

I crossed my arms then replied with a smug tone, “Perhaps I also omitted my titles.”

“So you do have titles?!” The God of Death retorted.

“What makes you say that? I said that perhaps I do.” I shrugged.

The God of Death kneaded his forehead then clapped his hands together. “Listen. Let’s focus on the main subject, and I’ll get to the point. You need to die. You’ve gone off the Cycle.”

I raised my finger and said, “I don’t share your bicycle fetish.”

“It’s not about the bicycles!” The God of Death stopped himself then raised a hand. “No. I won’t be distracted. Boss, you should’ve already seen this coming the moment you rejected Death and embraced immortality. You will die at my hands.”

I looked up at the cloudless gray sky, seemingly ignoring the behemoth standing in front of me. Without looking back at him, I declared, “God of Death, you are too late. I am more powerful than you could imagine.”

“Fool. Nobody is too strong for me. What kind of ego would let you believe that you could even overpower Death itself?”

I looked back at the god, blurring the realms of mortals and divine beings. Without saying a word, I pulled out a large fish from robes and shoved it into the God of Death’s face.

“What is this?” The God of Death asked.

I cracked my neck side by side, then answered confidently, “It’s an ocean bass.”

“So?”

“I caught it... “ I paused for effect then leaned closer before continuing, “in a river.”

The God of Death looked to the side then back at me. “Is… there a punchline to this joke?”

“No, this is a demonstration of true, unperverted power,” I declared.

“Nonsense! I can destroy continents with a snap and kill with only a stare! What is that compared to catching a measly fish from a river?!” The God of Death shouted with fury.

“Yes, but can you catch an ocean bass in a river? No? Don’t ever talk to me or my beautiful beard ever again,” I harrumphed. “You may destroy me, but know that I am the one that threw you off your throne, God of Death. The victory is mine, and mine alone.”

“Very well! I shall show you my infinite power!” The God of Death bellowed in anger. “Come!”

The God of Death spread his wings and started flying up. At his request, I followed behind him to another greener and more lush region, and it didn’t take us too long to find a river.

Upon landing by the river, The God of Death started to shed parts of his body. Like a snake molting out of its skin, The God of Death lost most of his mass as rotted plants and decayed flesh squirmed their way out until he was close to my size.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“We are going to go fishing,” The God of Death declared as he conjured a boat with two fishing poles on it.

I threw my ocean bass over my shoulder then shrugged. “Listen, you’re not going to catch an ocean bass like me.”

The God of Death balled his hand into a fist and gritted his teeth. “Foolish mortal! I shall show you true power!”

With that, The God of Death and I spent much of the afternoon fishing on a boat. We used the maggots from his head as bait, and we had set a rule so that we weren’t allowed to us magic to get an advantage over the other.

“I caught another ocean bass,” I said as I unhooked a large fish from my rod.

“Again?!” The God of Death retorted out loud. It was easy to tell that the puny god was getting nervous. Not even fifteen minutes into the fishing trip and I had already caught three ocean bass. The God of Death pulled his fishing line and shouted, “I got something!”

“It’s a… what is that?”

The God of Death raised a five meter long fish made out of spikes then grunted, “It’s just a legendary river demon.”

“Throw it away, that tastes horrible,” I suggested.

The God of Death clicked his tongue, or at least I thought it was his tongue, then looked around. He waved his hands around then sighed after he felt that I hadn’t used magic at all. Temporarily defeated, he exhaustedly sat back down and threw his fishing line back into the water.

Minutes of silence had turned into hours, the sun rose and set, and the boat drifted along the river. This tranquil was nothing more than an intermission between the chaotic raging fire known as life, but it was a kind of silence I welcomed.

“Hey, have you caught anything yet?” The God of Death called out.

“What did you say-” As I turned, I accidentally knocked over my tower of ocean bass. “Damn it! I worked hard to stack that neatly!”

“You caught enough to make a tower?!” The God of Death retorted.

“I’m trying to make a castle out of fish, you see…”

The God of Death raised his hand then covered his face with his other hand. “Enough. I will not be mocked by you any longer.”

The God of Death stood up from the boat then started spreading his wings.

“Wait, where are you going?! You haven’t caught an ocean bass yet!” I shouted angrily while waving a bundle of ocean bass at him.

“I must admit defeat for now. The next time we meet, mortal, my fishing skills will astound your fleshy body,” The God of Death declared then flew away. I looked around to find out that the entire region had died out, but as soon as the God of Death left, life started springing back up.

“Oh, I’m sure,” I muttered while running my hand against my slowly shedding beard. Soon, my flesh will wither away, and my beard, the only witness to this glorious fight, will also be gone.

*

*

*

“And that’s how I declared myself the best fisherman in the world,” I concluded as I pulled my fishing line. Unfortunately, I managed to get a whole lot of nothing even though something tugged my fishing line multiple times. “I swear, some bastard is playing a trick on me…”

I checked over my conversation partner if she got something. There was a little girl with a slowly-growing messy hairstyle sitting on a chair next to me, and of course, she also had a fishing pole. However, compared to me, she wasn’t as enthusiastic about fishing as me. Her brown hair covered her eyes, but I could see that she was pondering about something deeply.

At last, she finally broke the silence and asked, “Wait, so… what’s the moral of the story?”

“Moral?” I scratched my head. “There’s a moral in proving that I am the best fisherman in the world?”

The little girl mechanically turned her head at me and tilted it. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

I leaned back on my own chair and placed my legs over the ship’s railings. “Kendra, you’re starting to learn well, but really, should there really be a lesson to everything I tell you?”

“So there’s no knowledge hidden within that story?”

I shrugged and replied, “I don’t know. Is there?”

Kendra turned her head to the side and stared at nothing.

No, to anyone else, she was just blankly looking at the air. But for us, who had a slightly unique vision of the real world, she was probably looking at—if I could remember—floating faceless puppet clowns.

“You really didn’t use magic, right?”

“Nope. I don’t need magic because I am the best fisherman in the world.”

Kendra’s eyes wandered around, as if looking for an answer on the ship’s wooden floor. “Wait, in the first place, you’re no longer fleshy?”

“Oh, I never told you?” I pulled my emotionless metal mask slightly up, then said, “I’m a skeleton.”

It was almost as if Kendra’s breathing had stopped. Not from fear, but from astonishment. She took a deep gulp then slowly raised a finger toward me. What could her curiosity be telling her? What did she thought of this - that her master was actually a thousand year old Archlich?

“OW!”

Unexpected, she jabbed my eye socket with her finger, which caused me to pull my head back out of pain. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT, YOU DUMB BRAT?!”

“I’m so sorry! I was just curious!” Kendra cried. “How in the name of the Goddess did you even feel that?!”

After rubbing my eyes unconsciously, I raised my head up. “Phantom pain even centuries of losing my own flesh!”

Kendra groaned then sat back down after hearing my explanation. With a slightly annoyed tone, she said, “The fish. That ocean bass thing. You knew about it, but the God of Death clearly didn’t.”

“So? Not a lot of people know about it.”

Kendra raised a finger then continued, “You studied the God of Death. You knew all about him. So you went so far as to research everything that could pull him down without shedding a drop of blood. I know all of that. However, what I don’t know is what was it that you knew but not the God of Death?”

I grabbed Kendra’s unattended pole and hoisted it up. At the end of her line was the thing that brought down the God of Death - an ocean bass. “Did you know that ocean bass don’t spawn in the ocean?”

“Huh?” Kendra muttered.

“They swim up one specific river which seems to change every seasonal cycle. Funny how these weird things could tell which random river to go to every year,” I added as I passed the ocean bass to my apprentice. “Sad that most of the parents will never return to the ocean, as the trip is one way.”

Kendra looked at the eye of the dying ocean bass on her hands and murmured, “I see…”

“Magic isn’t always required to solve your problems, Kendra. Sometimes, all you need is knowledge and a lot of luck,” I said.

Kendra closed her eyes to contemplate upon what I said but stopped when I added, “This could also all be nonsense and I really am just the best damned fisher in the entire world, you know?”

“WHY YOU-”

Before Kendra could strangle me, the ship’s bell started ringing. At the observation deck, there was a one-eyed pirate shouting, “The sub’s ‘eard sumfing!”

The pirates on the ship we were sailing on started panicking. They were dumping goods off the ships and were preparing to sail away. Away from who?

The answer to my question rose up from the deep ocean covered in algae, seaweed, and seashells. A large decaying ship surfaced onto the water, and it started sailing towards us.

“Attention you still-living pirate scum! You are trespassing Republican waters! By the order of the Undead Republican Navy, you are to halt your ship and not resist boarding attempts!” a lich in an admiral’s uniform announced loudly using magic, and the pirates responded by arming themselves.

Oh boy. Here we go again.