“Be crushed!”

Increasing the pressure, I put on it, the monster fell back on his knees.

“We-We will not…not BOW!”

“Then freeze. Ice Magic: Ice Bolt!”

I felt the energy gathering in my hand, I felt reality bending to me.

But nothing happened.

No ice left my body.

“What?”

“I-Idiot.”

The monster was now standing, the faces coming from its body were smiling evilly.

“We are memories. We are knowledge. We are power. Without us, you are nothing.”

That hurt.

“Well, then I will crush you. Enjoy the second dimension.”

“But we can use it! Ice Magic: Ice Bolt!”

From one of the mouths of the faces on its chest, a shard of glass flew out, hitting me in the guts.

If I were made from meat and bones, I would have surely died, but it just made a hole in my stomach, which quickly closed up.

Still, if that thing has hit me in the head, where I kept my soul fragment, things have turned out to be horrible.

I need to change my approach if I want to live this through.

Not giving me enough time to think, the mouths of the monster opened, gathering various magic attacks in them.

“Earth Magic: Soil Bolt.”

“Water Magic: Aqua Jet.”

“Fire Magic: Solar Flair.”

“Wind Magic: Wind Slashes.”

“Shit, Telekinesis: Push!”

This time, I used my power on myself, proposing into the air, avoiding the incoming attacks.

“Come back here!”

“I would rather not!”

I can’t fight that thing without any preparations. I need some sort of weapon or monstr-

“Dimensional Martial Arts: Dimensional Punch.”

From a suddenly appearing rift, the monster appeared over my head, its fist covered in energy.

“Fuck!”

I didn’t have time to dodge, so I twisted my body to face it and raised my arms.

“DIE!”

I felt the fist colliding with my body, breaking whatever I had for bones, its force reaching my head with enough power to make my face shatter.

With the speed of a meteoroid, I crashed into the ground, spitting out a great amount of blood.

Crack.

“Oh, no, no, nononononon, NOT THIS!”

Piece by piece, my mask fell apart, showing the world my face.

“I need to make a new one! I need to-“

“We said die!”

From the sky, the monster fell on my back, breaking it into pieces.

From the pain, my mind turned blank, I didn’t even realize that it was held by the back of my head, lifting me up from the ground.

“Disappointing! Disappointing! You are worthless! You are trash! You are not fit to be us!”

By tightening its grip, the skull covering my head kept on cracking, completely breaking off.

When there was nothing left, it threw me back on the ground, then turned me with its foot, showing its changing body to me.

The faces covering its body started to move, converging to its head.

Once all of them were there from it something white grew out.

It was the skull of a deer.

“WE ARE MELINO! WE ARE THE GOD OF MADNESS! AND WE DON’T NEED TRASH LIKE YOU!”

The monster kicked me in the abdomen, making me slide on the ground.

“As God of the new world, we decided that you are no longer needed in this body and mind! Die you pathetic piece of crap! DIVINE MADNESS MAGIC: DIVINE MADENNING BULLET!”

An oppressing amount of energy formed in the opened hand of the monster, slowly turning into an orb of darkness.

…I won’t die like this.

Slowly hissing myself to a kneeling position, I started to draw with my own blood, muttering an incantation.

My mind was still shambled, so I couldn’t exactly tell what I was saying exactly.

“Trying to summon something? No matter what you call for, it’s pointless!”

as it was about to throw the orb at me, I finished the magical circle and clapped my hands together.

-By my will, by my seal, by my soul, I commend you! Creatures called by my wish, manifest yourselves in front of me as I am your master! Drench this land with blood and tears! Summoning Magic: Mass summoning!”

Feeling almost all of my mana being drained, the circle lit up, and from, as if it were a fountain, monsters started to pour out from it, dispersing in every direction.

Acting quickly, I grabbed onto one of them, which happened to be with my karma, a blue deer, with glowing antlers, and rode away as fast as I could.

As we were making a good distance from the monster, I still could hear its words, but they were in my head.

“Alright then. You may escape. But you are no longer us. You are no longer Melino. You are nothing.”

Followed by the message, the familiar blue screen showed up before my eyes, displaying a series of not-so-fun news.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Several errors were detected.

Users have been disconnected from the main system.

Processing…

Changing system display.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The system’s screen disappeared from my eyes and instead, the letters reappeared in my head

[Display changes complete]

[Several penalties occurred]

[User lost its name.]

[Job:[God of Madness] has been lost.]

[User lost several skills]

[User’s states have decreased severely.]

[User’s race been changed into:[ Dying Memory]]

[Compensating….]

[Returning mode: skill level system]

[User level is now measurable]

[Alert!]

[Due to drastic changes, the user's soul became unstable.]

[Soul while disintegrate in two weeks if external power source isn’t implemented]

[User’s body is now slowly decomposing due to unstable soul.]

[New state been added to the system: Death Clock (DC)]

[Displaying new and old states for comparison:]

[Old status:]

[

Name: ‘Antlered King’ Melino

Race: Fallen Evil God of Madness

Age: 1.345. 654

Job: [God of Madness] [Mad Alchemist Master] [King of Crossroads] [Bain of Creation]

LV: Incalculable

HP: 454. 673/1. 454. 673. 8294(+345)

MP: 245/ 4. 645. 682. 8934 (+345)

STR: 1. 443. 544

VIT: 1. 000. 434

SPD: 343. 24

MRES: 3. 000. 342

Skill PT:0

Physical attributes: [Dark Vision] [Liquid Body] [Madness Embodiment] [Immortality]

Skills: [Madness Magic] [Soul Shattering] [Mind Manipulation] [Four Elemental Magic] [High Universal Weapon Knowledge] …

Titles: [Broken Soul] [Enemy of Creation] [Escapee of the Void] [Killer of worlds] [Taboo Breaker] [Eater of Kin]

]

[New stats:]

[

Name: None

Race: Broken Memory

Age: 1.345. 654

Job: [Mad Alchemist Master] [King of Crossroads] [Bain of Creation]

LV: 1/ 100

HP: 5/1000

MP: 10/5000

STR: 4000

VIT: 10

SPD: 300

MRES: 2000

DC: 13 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes,

Skill PT:0

Physical attributes: [Dark Vision] [Liquid Body] [Madness Embodiment] [Immortality]

Skills: [King of Crossroads Contract Creation, LV: Max] [ King of Crossroads Wish Granting, LV: Max] [King of Crossroads Business Sense, LV: Max] [Alchemy Mastery, LV Max] [ Masterful Golem Creation, LV: Max] [Masterful Abomination Creation, LV: Max] [ Masterful Summoning Magic, LV: Max] [Divine Telekinesis, LV: Max] [Divine Weapon Summon, LV: Max]]

Titles: [Broken Soul] [Enemy of Creation] [Escapee of the Void] [Killer of worlds] [Taboo Breaker] [Eater of Kin]

]

[Ending Display]

The words disappeared from my mind, leaving me alone.

“I lost my divinity. I lost my power and now I am dying. What the hell am I to do now?”

After a long time, despair took over me.

I have nothing. I am nothing. This-This is the worst. What do I do now? I lost my divinity to…well myself and I have not the faintest idea how I will get it back.

And I am dying.

I, the great god of madness, am dying from something as trivial as a weak soul.

“Yes.”

I am too great.

I am too great to die.

I survived every bloody thing; I will not be killed by this.

I grabbed onto the deer’s neck and bit into it.

As the monster screamed but didn’t stop.

My teeth still in the wound, turned my body into a liquid, slowly entering the creature.

Once entirely in, I started to spread, to its every muscle, to its every cell, to every fiber of its being.

Then, I started to change.

I break its every bone, reforming it to my image.

The entire process was messy and bloody.

I rearranged its spines and lower-body bones so that it could walk on two legs.

By breaking the front howes, I gave this creature three fingers, albeit they were too clumsy for my taste.

Once the process was done, the blue deer was gone, replaced by a blood-drenched human-deer abomination.

“I- I am Melino. I am Dealmaker! I am GOD!”

*****

Monster Melino (Author note: Monslino? Melinster? Name pending) POV :

“We are free.”

“We are powerful.”

“We are the best.”

We tested our body for a while, making sure that it worked properly.

Before this, it was that guy who did the moving, not us, so us having the reins was strange.

“What are we going to do now?”

“Kill! We are destroying everything!”

“Let us collect every duck in the world!

“I want to eat a human .”

It was hard to decide, with each of us wanting a different thing, we couldn’t determine what our next move would be.

“…We need a leader.”

Yes, like that guy, we need one of us to decide for us. Someone who will listen to us.

“I will gladly be the leader.”

“No, I will be!”

“I have a name, so I will be the leader!”

"That's not a name!"

“Shut up, Ducky!”

"No one likes you!"

It was chaos, each one of us wanted to be the leader.

As we fought between each other, our bodies started to crumble, slowly becoming a black blob.

“STOP! YOU ARE TEARING US APART!”

As one of us shouted, the others stopped, stabilizing our body back into its original shape.

“We are now free from that weakness. We are now capable of doing anything we want. So, we shouldn’t argue between one another and do what we were meant to do.”

There was no response from the others, so the one who spoke continued.

“Even with our own body, we still need more power. Our enemies are numerous and even with our omnipotent power won’t suffice.”

“What do you recommend then?”

“We need to feed. We need sustenance. There is food in this forest, we need to consume them for power. After we eat everything in it, we shall attack the cities, then countries, till we eat the entire planet. Only then we shall be ready to fight our enemies.”

“This is dangerous.”

“We need to take risks. That’s why that one dragged us down to his point. He was afraid and didn’t dare to act. We will be different. We will seize all opportunities.”

“…Alright.”

“Very well.”

“I think we found our leader.”

After we calmed down, we created a pair of wings, the left side belonging to a giant raven, the other one to a black bat.

“What shall we eat first?”

“I am in the mood for chicken or any bird.”

“No duck!”

“Shut it, Ducky!”

*****

Ban Yei (Samurai) POV:

When I opened my eyes, I found myself on the top of a mountain, the snow falling around me with the frigid wind blowing.

If not for my training, I would have frozen solid in seconds, but this just annoyed me greatly.

“Couldn’t she just put me in a warmer place? Why on the top of a mountain?”

As I complained, I heard a sharp noise, which slowly transformed into someone speaking.

‘Can you hear me? Hello? Is this on properly?’

“I can hear you. Who’s there?”

‘Oh great, it worked! This is headquarters and I am the cherub assigned to you to give you that world's briefing. Where are you right now?’

“I am at the top of a mountain, freezing my ass off here.”

‘Ough, I am sorry for that. With the mess happening everywhere, it's hard to aim. But at least you made it there. Listen, the anomalies in that world are quite severe. It seems like the planet's timeline has reverted back to a couple of decades, maybe centuries.’

“So, a planet went back in time. What's wrong with that?”

‘You don’t understand. That planet’s timeline is still connected to our past. Any alterations there can affect us without us realizing it. And the worst of all of this is the time which was reverted to.’

“What? Why?”

‘…You are on Astera. In the timeline where you will meet Melino.’

“…. Are you telling me that there is a young Melino out there?”

‘Yes, exactly. Here, he hasn’t turned into a god yet….Listen, I am telling you this because I also want to make that bastard pay. If you kill him there, the older one will be erased and this whole thing won’t happen. So please, for the peace of the universe, kill him.’

“Oh, don’t worry. I will butcher him.”