‘Ah, peaceful times.’

Was what Arun thought, as he enjoyed the scenery in front of him.

‘The Divine Peaks’, as he’d named them, were getting closer by the moment. And when finally, they reached as close as possible, they stopped.

“Can’t you be a little secretive with your gaze?”

His secretary spoke with disgust, to the man lazily sprawled on the bed he’d wantonly installed in his court office. The Devil of The Courtroom they called him. He hadn’t lost a single criminal case since he started, becoming a mini legend of sorts. But, that didn’t earn him a shred of respect from his secretary, who was the third this year. And he too, made all efforts to, uphold his image that his secretary had formed.

“Lovers must be brave, and brave people don’t hide. I have lots of bravery, and a big big love.”

He replied in a lazy tone, which only served to further increase the nose scrunching his secretary was currently doing.

“Justice Shah wants you to take the prosecution of Munna Michael.”

She said in a stiff voice, and with professional but forced movement, kept the files on the desk that was void of any professional material, and left in a bad mood. She’d have never taken this job if she knew that the boss was a sexist.

Arun watched her leave, unperturbed by her aggressive gait. The mask of vanity had served him well till now. It felt very peaceful when the public opinion about you was already at its worst, thus destroying the need for any pretenses. And it wasn’t like being evil stopped anyone from being successful. So, as he watched her go, his only thoughts were,

‘A double D. Good haul this time.’

And then his thoughts turned to the papers she had left,

‘Munna Michael huh! Shah is a bitch.’

He decided that he would skip his siesta time, and get this done with quickly, but fate had other plans. When he’d just decided to get up, and read the files, he froze. Not freezing due to cold or ice, but stuck. He was stuck, then everything around him started vibrating, tremors running through the space. Then the ground under his feet vanished, to be replaced by darkness which further swallowed him.

****

He woke up to the dazzling rays of the sky? He opened his eyes to a brightly shining white ceiling. He got up, and looked around. And what he saw, left him baffled.

He saw that he was in an infinitely stretching white space, with indefinitely high white ceiling, and white marble floor stretching to the horizon. But this was not the only contributor to his shock, for he saw, as far as his eyes could see, people. Literally, thousands of people, in the horizon, and they all seemed to have been picked from whatever they were doing. He saw the secretary who’d just left the room, he saw Justice Shah who’d just sent him the case. He saw the janitor of the complex, and he saw random people who’d been visiting the court for all kinds of jobs. He knew it wasn’t a dream when he saw a man half naked with his pants down, who was probably shitting when he got teleported. And he knew it wasn’t a dream because he couldn’t possibly dream of another man’s banana. So, when he saw numerous people stretching out the horizon, a sense of foreboding, accompanied with a strange excitement rose in his heart.

He was an orphan, and with how easily he’d succeeded very young in his life, he never had faced much of a challenge or had any sort of attachment to his current life. Thus, faced with the boring monotony of his life, he would often fantasize about these kinds of scenarios from light novels, or wuxia, xianxian. Thus, when he saw that something beyond logic was happening, feeling excited was certain. But, slight fear was unavoidable as well, the fear of the unknown future.

‘Greetings, beings of the lower world. Feel honored, for you have been selected to serve the Heavenly Demon of Decay, a mighty ascended dignitary, a being of unfathomable powers. Whose name shakes the mountains, whose gaze parts the sea. His aura is eternal, as is transcends the heavens. You have all now come under his merciful gaze, and shall be gifted, before you embark on your mission.’

An apathetic female voice sounded. But, despite being apathetic, one could feel arrogance from her. And none of the humans present, including Arun, thought that her arrogance was unjustified. It felt to them, as if her arrogance was the most justifiable thing in existence. What they focused on, was meeting each other and discussing how unbelievable what was happening, was. And how they could all be sharing a dream. Arun, refrained from all of this.

“Oh, so a generic god gives gift and sends on mission setting, huh! Welp, still better than an office life.”

Was what he thought. Little did he know that he’ll beg for the office life soon.

“System initiate.”

“Say what?”

“What is happening?”

Arun suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head, which then turned to a sweet gentleness, as he felt his head sway. For what felt like an eternity, but was only a moment he felt like he was floating. When he came back to his senses, he felt something about him had changed. But he couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Before he could introspect any further, the voice intoned again,

“Choose Weapon. Soul weapon formation.”

“Choose Enhancement. Soul body formation.”

With that a ball of white gooey substance appeared in front of Arun, as it did in front of all the people present. Half of which split and covered their body, while the other half remained floating in the air, constantly changing shape.

The people present instinctively knew, that the white substance came from themselves and was supposed to enhance them and make their weapon. But despite the almighty voice asking them to make a weapon, they couldn’t. As soon as they tried to make a weapon, their innards felt like they were tearing apart.

The body enhancement was easy. The information was directly imprinted upon them that they had to with the limited amount of energy they had, improve one or many aspect of their physique, such as speed or strength or intelligence. The could improve one, or they could improve many, but the total improvement would depend on the white substance they had.

Arun too was currently under the same situation. He had already selected improving strength and intelligence for his body. Now all that was left was to make a weapon, so that he could serve the Almighty, Heavenly Demon of Decay with his all. He felt that something was wrong with this thought, but then he dismissed it as him being paranoid.

‘The Heavenly Demon will fix it all.’

Was what he thought when he found himself being paranoid. Right now, he focused on his soul weapon, he had to make his best soul weapon for the Almighty Dignitary of Decay.

But as he tried to stretch the blob of white floating in front of him, he felt immense pain originating from the depth of his soul. He already knew that the method of making a soul weapon was to will the origin energy fused with the soul, to change shape so that it may heed to the users call. Everybody knows that, it was common knowledge after all. But was it? Common Knowledge?

Of course, it was. He’s always known that. Ever since he’d existed to serve the Heavenly Demon, he’d known that. And now he’d make a sword to serve that great master of his.

‘Wait a minute. I haven’t always known that. I do not serve the Demon. What the hell is happening?’

Fear gripped Arun. This was not what he’d been fantasizing about. This was not the adventure he was hoping to embark on. He suddenly became conscious of what was happening.

He looked around to see that most people had an intoxicated look on their faces. Nearly all of them. He was the only one who was looking around. Many of them had completed their enhancements and weapons, although calling them weapons would be inaccurate. As the difficulty of a proper soul weapon was too high, many of them had ended up with paper, pen, spoon, table knife etc. Few of them had clubs or bats, even fewer had swords or legible knifes. Very rare had spears and 1 out of 1000 had a bow. No one as far as Arun could see had a gun, and no one he saw had any sort of lucidity in their eyes, everyone looked like they were in a trance.

Then he too thought, that why was he wasting time. Shouldn’t he be making his best weapon so that he could serve the Heavenly Demon to the best of his abilities.

Arun fluctuated in and out of lucidity, before he finally managed to acquire for himself a gun as his soul weapon. But that was not without price, as the amount of pain he had to go through was a thousand-fold that of the others, but it was also this pain that had allowed him regain control of his consciousness at the moment when the voice had intoned,

“Activate Bloodlust. Commence Slaughter.”

At first nothing happened. But after a moment one of the people, the man who still had his pants down, with his soul weapon, which was a baseball bat, bashed the head of a woman nearby and gave a war cry. As if on a cue, pandemonium broke out. Everyone started to slaughter each other. Even Justice Shah, whose soul weapon was a wooden hammer, tried to bash the secretary’s head, only to be stabbed by her in the neck.

Arun watched all of this happened, and praised the almighty dignitary for his miracles. When he’d regained lucidity, it was a very small part of him that could only watch, as most of him was completely dedicated to the dignitary. Thus, his body moved like a blur, fully utilizing the advantage in weapon he had, disposing of every competitor he had with his pistol with infinite bullets. Blood red energy flowing into him and strengthening him with every kill he made.

Soon the carnage ended, and Arun and 9999 other surviving humans were sent to the next round, the others capable of doing nothing more.

****

Arun now appeared in a jungle, an orc with a battle axe and loin cloth in front of him. By instinct he knew that this was an enemy. He shot him in the head, and the orc died on spot. Blood red energy flowing from the orc into him. This happened numerous times, he faced off against many different opponents, orcs, elves, dwarves and humans. Sometimes individual, sometimes in groups.

After hundred battles, he was given more origin energy which he used to create another gun. Using which he continued to fight.

After what could said to be the millionth battle, Arun had gone to sleep. In fact he had went to sleep very early on, the time he would wake was unknown even to him. For, being a prisoner in his own body was the worst kind of agony one could feel. And to protect what had been Arun All that remained was this husk, which knew nothing but killing.

Now, after having passed the million landmark, Arun now held two gattling guns and a scale armor as his soul weapons.

In his 1000001st battle, he was grouped with others. This time the goal not being a battle royal but, a team hunt. His group included a Drow Mage, A Human Knight, an Orc Blader, and to his surprise a Rooster Sniper. Well, calling it a Rooster would be injustice as he didn’t know the name of his race, but they were bird like, flightless, quick in their moment and accurate, with quite a few of them having guns as soul weapons.

This time, they had to band together to complete a single mission for the Heavenly Demon, it was,

“Heavenly Demon! We do not care that your Abyssal Decay sect has jumped through the dragon gate (1) to rule two major worlds. Thou wishes to subordinate us, the Sovereign of Ash ? That too, in a campaign against our own brother The Everglades Monarch? Dream on!”

A gigantic crimson scaled, golden laced and leather winged Dragon stood on a barren field. A chained dragon, who had just spoken those prideful words, in a deafening roar. Their mission, was to slay it.

For it denied the supremacy of Heavenly Demon, thus they would slay it. And they were not alone. Arun could see a thousand groups like them, all with a single objective. Slay the heretic dragon. But as soon as they made their move, the dragon snorted.

“I may not be as strong as your owner, but I’m not too far off either. Tell Heavenly Demon to come face me if he dares.”

At the end of that booming sentence, they all died.

It was in this fleeting moment that the real Arun, his original consciousness returned as he felt that he could now rest. Finally, rest in peace. But as he thought of rest, he felt a terrible pain yet again. His consciousness was being ripped, his soul being divided and the blood red energy that had been gathering in his body till now, exploded. It sweeped over his soul, or atleast the part which was under the Heavenly Demons control, and fused it with his bone, destroying any inkling of personality. Had Arun not kept a part of himself separate at the time of first Soul Weapon and Body Formation, today he would have died a true death. His soul dissipating, making it impossible to reincarnate. Even as he saw a part of him dissipating, a bright red fire burned in front of him.

The fire was burning in his soul space, blood red. It emanated a cold air, of slaughter, of Rust. Arun’s body, which was supposed to have died, was now standing up. A blood red fire, burning on its body, burning away flesh, leaving only bone. An ash black, rusted bone. As the figure that used to be Arun stood up, its body had no accessories it used to have, no clothing, only the soul weapon it used to weild was intact. For now, instead of a man, stood there a skeleton. A skeleton that was growing taller till it resembled a giant. 10 meters tall, and wielding the gattling guns, which had now a black metal body and red runic lines on them. The skeleton wielding them too, had a black metallic luster and red, pulsing runes on its body.

But this didn’t happen to Arun’s body only. It was happening with everyone that had fell on the battlefield. The knights, the bladers, the mages. The orcs, the humans, the elves. Everyone, had revived as skeletons and now had a sinister feel to them. Each of varying shapes and sizes, yet equally sinister.

Seeing the skeletons, the crimson dragon raised its eyebrow, in amusement. And in an interested tone said, “Interesting.”

And prepared its signature move, its breath.

It breathed in, sucking all the origin energy in the atmosphere, and ready to unleash hell. But as soon as it opened its mouth to unleash the spell, its eyes constricted. And it quickly channeled the energy into a defensive spell. A golden transparent shield springing up around it.

No sooner had it brought up the shield, that a barrage of red black bullets rained hell on its shield. Many of them piercing through the shield, and even its scale.

Golden blood poured out of the wounds that were closing at visible speed. The dragon now looked at the source of the bullets and saw a black skeletal giant, pulsing with blood red runes and a bloody fire burning in its eyes, and two strange revolving rods held in its hand. Many more like him were standing around him, only the red glow of their runes was a farcry compared to the one in the middle.

This time the dragon eyed the skeletons with a playful gaze. Its lips forming a smirk. Without wasting much time, a huge magic circle appeared behind it, the complications of its runes surpassing any circuit ever made for any chip on earth. And the power surging through it incomprehensible by human standards. Then it released the spell. Immideately a golden-saffron flash enveloped everything. Everything getting obliterated by the flash of light, except for one corner of the room. Where a blood red light persisted, despite the all obliterating power of the explosion, in a part of the plain, a blood red light persisted.

After the flash wore of, nothing remained. The barren plains landscape had changed. The sand had melted, turning glass. Now, a mirror lay on the ground, as far as the eye could see. All the skeletons that were in the area had been obliterated, except for one.

One black skeleton still pulsed with red runic lines, albeit dim. But it stood, confronting the dragon, compared to whoom he looked like a baby. But he stood.

Arun knew that if this time the skeleton got destroyed. He would die for real. In body and soul. Thus he did all he could to keep the skeleton standing. He willed for protection, which was answerd by the runes on its bones, as a blood red shield sprung up from it, protecting him.

As the dragon watched the skeleton still standing, its eyes narrowed in a smile. And it started laughing out loud,

“Interesting. Very, very interesting.”

Its rustic voice echoing, despite them being in open space.

To the dragon’s beaming face and continuos praises, Arun’s skeleton raised its gun, and…………………..

****