The Carpathian valley lay still and lifeless, but Ren never felt more alive.
The golden halberd that pinned the Heretic God to the rock vanished, dissolving into sparks and slipping back into the endless vault of the King’s Treasury.
Tammuz—Babylonian God of Shepherds, resurrection made flesh—didn’t bother to scream as his body gave up.
He just shattered, brittle and silent, like some doll made out of porcelain.
His divine core burst in a wild, stunning eruption of green energy and gold dust.
Ren stood right in the middle of it all, letting the storm of divinity sweep through him Prompts flickered across his vision, but this time Ren barely noticed.
The system felt distant.
Something much bigger was happening in his body—myth and man becoming one.
[ Processing…
] [ Authority Acquired: The Cycle of Spring (Conceptual Resurrection).
] [ Effect: Grants the Host the absolute ability to resurrect from any fatal injury, provided the Host’s conceptual anchor to the earth has not been completely severed.
The Authority passively heals all wounds, toxins, and curses over time.
] Killing Gilgamesh had been chaos, violent and raw.
His ascension then felt like getting a nuclear core crammed into a body not built for it.
This was nothing like that.
This was quiet, steady, almost peaceful.
It felt like gulping down crisp winter air, but all the way to his bones.
That stifling little hum of human anxiety—the background noise everyone ignores but never escapes: the fear of bad luck, some surprise diagnosis, the clock running out—just vanished.
Snuffed out in an instant.
He closed his eyes and tipped his head back.
For twenty-four years, he was just a guy you’d ignore on the train.
Some corporate drone watching his cholesterol, crossing at the crosswalk.
Living in perpetual worry.
Now?
Now he was an anchor for the world itself.
Immortal in every way that mattered.
Poison, blood loss, curses—none of it stuck.
Even if some maniac godslayer tore his heart out, so long as his tie to the earth remained, the earth would just knit him a new one.
He opened his eyes again.
For a split second, they glowed a soft, unnatural green before settling to their usual red.
A mile away, something shook the mountain.
The roar that broke the silence was pure fury.
Marquis Voban—oldest, angriest among Godslayers—had finally clawed his way out from under half a mountain.
The thirty-foot wolf tore up the trees, frenzied, desperate to rip apart the thief who robbed him of a kill.
Ren glanced toward the sound, his face pure boredom.
*I could kill him,* he mused, his hand drifting near his pocket.
*I’ve got enough power.
Enough immortality.
I could fight him for days, grind him to nothing just to prove a point.* He looked down at his shoes instead.
Mud-caked and half-ruined designer leather.
The thought lost every bit of its thrill.
He didn’t become King to slog through mud for the sport of it.
He had endless time, endless wealth.
Why waste a second wrestling a rabid wolf in a dead forest at 2 a.m.?
That was the kind of overtime he swore he’d never endure again.
“Take me back to Italy,” Ren said.
He poured himself a new glass of wine from the decanter beside the throne—because, why not?
The Vimana rose with barely a whisper, shed only a faint trail of light behind it.
Down below, Voban thundered into the clearing, howling at the sky, slashing at nothing.
All rage.
All futility.
Ren never looked back.
The best insult for a predator is to ignore him completely.
By sunrise, Ren was already out of the shower, steam curling around the marble.
He stepped into a thick white robe, made himself an espresso, and walked out onto his private terrace at the Grand Hotel Majestic.
The city below bustled awake—terracotta rooftops, humans scurrying off to work, oblivious to the new immortal sipping coffee above it all.
He leaned against the glass, looking out, coffee in hand.
Immortal.
Wealthy beyond reason.
An arsenal ready to flatten nations.
*Now what?* Ren wondered, a slow and wicked smile teasing at his lips.
He didn’t need to save anyone.
He didn’t want to conquer anything, either—honestly, ruling meant paperwork, and paperwork was hell.
He just wanted to see what this reality could throw at him.
Every challenge, every thrill.
He wanted the boss mode experience, cheat codes on.
His thoughts were interrupted—sharp, sudden.
Not someone kicking in the penthouse door.
No, this was the sound of ancient wards shattering, protections slapped together by local magi, coming apart like glass dropped on marble.
Air warped.
Space twisted.
And out of that rip, a guy about Ren’s age stepped onto the terrace.
Messy hair, cracked leather jacket, an air of lazy defiance.
There was a plain sword strapped to his hip, a wide grin on his face.
The grin never touched his eyes.
“Man, you’re impossible to track when you’re not lighting up the skyline,” the stranger sighed, stretching like he’d just rolled out of bed.
Ren didn’t blink, didn’t reach for a weapon.
He just sipped espresso, eyes cold and unwavering.
“Salvatore Doni,” Ren said.
Not a question.
Doni grinned back, slouching against a chair.
“Guilty.
Word is you’re hogging all the fun—toppling legends, stealing wins from relics like Voban.
Starting to make the rest of us look bad.” Ren set his cup down—soft, delicate clink—and the air thickened, the atmosphere itself seeming to bend under his power.
“I’m on vacation, Doni,” Ren said quietly, every word heavy and edged.
“You have ten seconds to say your piece before I pitch you off my balcony.” Doni just laughed, his fingers tapping lazily on his sword hilt.
There was nothing relaxed about his eyes.
“Talk?” Doni asked, voice trembling with excitement.
“No.
I’m here to see if the Eighth King actually bleeds.” CREATORS’ THOUGHTS entertainment_king_3820 Enjoyed the chapter?
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