Darren knew with certainty that he had died.

  Like all men before him, his time within the Land of the Living had come to its inevitable end.

  The last thing he remembered was his fight with the Dragon King.

  Now, Darren fought death.

  And Death was one ugly bastard.

  Chains had been wrapped tight around Darren's torso, biting into his skin. His senses were scrambled, his body sluggish and unresponsive, yet he could still feel himself being hauled from some unseen body of water. No matter how hard he tried, his body would not listen to him.

  Even he had to admit that fighting Death was an exaggeration more than anything.

  A more accurate description would have been a one-sided struggle.

  The one holding the chains loomed above him, impossibly tall. Far taller than Darren’s father had ever been, and his father had been a giant among men. This figure’s limbs were thin yet corded with long muscle. His skin was fully grey, stripped of all warmth and life, as though color itself had abandoned him. But it was his face that inspired true terror. The structure of it was almost beautiful in a cold, alien, uncanny way—a sharp jawline as if carved from stone, high cheekbones that some might have even called elvish.

  That beauty only made the horror worse.

  Because Death had no eyes.

  Where they should have been were hollow sockets, empty and yawning. When Darren, against his better judgment, tried to peer into them, he saw not emptiness but something far worse—a vast, consuming darkness that seemed to stretch beyond comprehension. It was the kind of darkness that undid thought, that whispered madness into the mind. Even Darren, hardened by countless wars, felt his sanity begin to break. He tore his gaze away, breath hitching as instinct screamed at him to never look again.

  The chains jerked, pulling him closer.

  Darren’s legs sprawled uselessly behind him as he was dragged across ground that burned like fire. Red-hot sand scraped against his skin, and he winced as tiny shards—fragments of glass within the sand—embedded themselves into his flesh.

  The pain was real.

  If this was the afterlife, then it was not merciful.

  Was this supposed to be Hell? The Underworld of legend, spoken of in hushed tones and fearful prayers?

  Death continued to stare down at him, unfazed by the expression of confusion on the man's face. Darren tried to gather himself, to make sense of his surroundings, but his body continued to refuse him.

  In Death’s free hand was a large crystal, glowing faintly with magic. Most of the being's attention remained fixed upon it, as though the soul chained at his feet was of secondary importance.

  “What a waste,” Darren heard him whisper.

  The god seemed almost absentminded and that there was his first mistake.

  All along, Death’s attention should have been solely on the soul lying broken at his feet. Because this mortal was not like the others dragged screaming into the beyond. This was not a farmer, a king, or a nameless soldier fallen to time.

  No.

  This was a man whose skill in battle had earned the respect of the being who would go on to ascend and become the God of War himself—an entity who had defeated countless gods and monsters, and still named Darren the greatest fighter to have ever lived.

  This was Darren Ittriki. And even in the afterlife, he was not meant to be underestimated.

  It did not matter to Darren that the being before him was, without question, a god. Titles and cosmic authority had never meant much to him. An enemy was an enemy, no matter how eternal they claimed to be. Red magical energy erupted across Darren’s body in a violent surge, a familiar sensation of which the dead man relished in. The chains binding him were sliced apart in an instant, dismantled as though they had never existed at all. Metal screamed briefly before being thrown to the side, severed cleanly by power that did not belong to death, but defied it.

  Death recoiled. For the first time, the immortal’s composure fractured. His hollow eyes widened, and the crystal in his hand nearly slipped from his grasp as he instinctively reached his arms out, too slow to stop what came next.

  Darren lunged forward from the ground with feral speed, moving like a wild beast. Their bodies collided, both of them crashing into the sand as they grappled violently. Heat and grit exploded around them, sand spraying into the air as the two wrestled for control.

  Darren could have run, he knew freedom had been within reach the moment those chains fell away. But that was not what he wanted.

  He wanted answers, he needed them.

  The only reason he had allowed himself to pass on in the first place was because he had believed, with every fragment of hope he had left, that they would be waiting for him on the other side.

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  “Tell me!” Darren roared.

  The sound carried with it more than rage.

  Pure Mana flooded through his body now, seeping into every fiber of muscle and bone. It granted Darren power beyond mortal limits, strength that should not have existed within a human form.

  They called it the Internal Arts.

  Muscles tightened, reinforced by magic that burned hot beneath his skin. Even so, pinning Death to the ground was a struggle. Darren forced his knee down hard against Death’s chest, sand hissing beneath them, the pressure barely enough to keep the god restrained.

  “Tell me where my family is!” he bellowed.

  The red energy ignited once more, sharper this time, more focused. It crackled violently as it wrapped around his arm, coiling like a living thing hungry to be unleashed.

  There was a reason Death had been warned about this one.

  This was not ordinary magic. This was the power of Darren’s Clan, the magic they called the Divinity of Dissection. It existed to sever all things in its path, whether flesh, steel, or something far greater.

  Even Death would fall if it meant Darren could see his wife and daughter again.

  For the first time, true fear flickered in the immortal’s gaze. Darren saw it clearly. Death understood what kind of power hovered at the edge of release. Darren’s magic did not discriminate. It did not stop at the physical. It could cut through magic itself, this they both knew. Whether it could cut down gods was a question Death had no desire to answer firsthand.

  Darren drew his arm back, ready to strike at the god. But he never got the chance.

  Because Death struck first.

  In a sudden, desperate motion, the god drove the crystal forward. The impact was brutal and the force of it knocked the breath from the man's lungs in a violent gasp. Pain exploded, drowning out thought just for a moment as Darren was thrown back, ripped off Death’s chest and sent flying across the burning sand. He hit the ground hard, body skidding as the scalding grains tore at his skin. The magic around him faltered, flickering as he struggled to draw air back into his lungs.

  Instinct took over immediately a second later. He rolled and pushed himself up, muscles tightening as he prepared for Death’s retaliation. Darren expected punishment for the humiliation he had dealt the immortal moments earlier. His body tensed, ready to endure whatever came next.

  But it never did.

  Instead, Death stood still.

  The immortal watched him in silence as Darren rose to his feet, slow and wary, every sense trained on the god before him. The absence of aggression unsettled him more than violence would have.

  If Death refused to act, then Darren would.

  He had wasted enough time already. His family was somewhere out here, in this desolate landscape that had to be the Underworld, and every second spent here felt like a betrayal of the promise he had believed awaited him.

  He took a step forward but his legs betrayed him instantly.

  Darren stumbled, the strength draining from his body without warning, and fell to his knees in the red sand. He tried to steady himself, his hands sinking into the scorching ground.

  Something was wrong.

  His gaze snapped back to Death, ready to curse him for some unseen trick, but then he understood.

  Death was not looking at him.

  He was looking at the crystal that was now embedded in Darren’s chest.

  Darren followed the immortal’s gaze downward and saw the thing pulsing brightly, its white light burning with increasing intensity. Each pulse sent a strange sensation rippling through his body. Something was moving inside him, threading through his veins, sinking into muscle, bone, and thought alike. It was not pain—not truly—but it was profoundly uncomfortable, invasive in a way he had no words for.

  Whatever the crystal was doing, it was becoming part of him.

  His hands rose to clutch at his head as his breathing grew shallow and uneven. Light-headedness washed over him, threatening to pull him under. His vision blurred, and for a brief moment he thought he might pass out.

  But this was not exhaustion.

  This was something else entirely.

  Before his eyes, shapes appeared.

  Symbols—foreign and cryptic—floated in his vision, sharp and unnatural. They made no sense to him, yet they shifted and rearranged themselves with glorious purpose. Darren stared, helpless, as they aligned and connected, forming something disturbingly structured.

  A screen.

  Panic flared.

  The man tried to crawl backward, dragging himself through the sand as if distance might save him, as if he could escape whatever this thing was. But it followed him effortlessly, fixed in place no matter where he moved. The terrible truth dawned on him quickly.

  It wasn’t in front of him.

  It was in his head.

  On the translucent screen, endless strings of numbers scrolled past—rows upon rows of 1s and 0s stretching beyond comprehension. They meant nothing to him, yet their presence felt…almost intelligent. Then a voice spoke, echoing not through the air, but from within his own mind.

  “Please remain calm. Calibration and integration is soon to be completed.”

  Darren gasped, shaking his head violently as if he could dislodge the voice by force. What was happening to him? This was not how it was supposed to be. Death was meant to be peaceful. He was supposed to find them—to spend eternity with the two people he loved most. Not this. Whatever this was.

  Through the ghostly screen overlaying his vision, Darren watched as Death rose to his full height. The immortal loomed over him once more, no longer threatened. He simply looked down, shaking his head slowly, as though observing a failed experiment.

  “The System has completed its installation,” the voice continued calmly. “Greetings, Darren Ittriki. I, M.E.R.L.Y.N., am now in your service.”

  System?

  What kind of System was this?

  The word echoed uselessly in Darren’s mind. None of this made sense. He didn’t understand any of it, didn’t want any of it. Consciousness began to slip through his grasp as the light from the crystal flared once more.

  Then Death spoke again, his tone stripped of fear and tinged instead with irritation.

  “What a damn waste.”

  Then, the darkness finally swallowed Darren whole.