Chapter 124: Fragments

Words : 1326 Updated : Sep 17th, 2025

Charon didn’t know how much time was passing. He faded in and out of consciousness, his world revolving around quick snippets of light and darkness. He still felt uncomfortably warm, but it was interspaced with moments of a blessed chill pressing into him from an unknown source. Every time it left, he wanted nothing more than to reach out and drag it back, no matter the cost. His limbs felt hollow, emptied of contents by the lava that had ravaged his system. He had tried to move them a few times, but they never responded, choosing to leave him in his isolation. It was hard to think at first, his mind hazy and unfocused, but it cleared with time, allowing him to contemplate everything that was going on. ’Did... I die? Did the cultist manage to kill me through some trick? Poison, perhaps?’ He thought back on the mechanical hand, how it had tightened around his jugular. How easy it would have been to coat it in a contact toxin that would seep into his bloodstream on first contact, guaranteeing the death of any who wandered close enough. ’This must be it then. No ball of glory, no galactic announcement of the fall of a hero, not even the knowledge of my friends’ well-being.’ It was a dreary, forlorn kind of thing, with no hope of changing the future for the better. The kind of fate Charon had prayed to avoid a thousand times over. ’I should have struggled more, fought harder, tried different solutions. There are so many things I wanted to do, and never did.’ He had never confirmed the safety of the Mistress, Roger, or any of his other friends from the orphanage. It had been the first thing he wanted to do after the battle, yet he had never found the opportunity, thrust into a different realm all too soon. After that, he had wanted to exact vengeance for his people. The abominable Elves had brought him nothing but misery and pain, and now they would be let off scot free. ’Where is the justice? The fairness? They get to rampage across the stars, meanwhile I got to die in a land without friends!’ He knew that wasn’t fair; he had Emerius, and to a lesser extent, the other members of his group, but he had only known them for a few weeks. Nothing like the years with his other friends. Above everything, though, he had wanted to be a hero. Something for everyone to remember, the herald of a legacy to span generations. It was the first thought in his head every day. It guided his actions, pushing him to continue his pointless struggle for power. For anyone else, it would have been laughable to see an orphan try and become a household name, yet Charon didn’t want to let his status drag him down. He had earned the element of Soul, after all. Rare, reviled, and powerful, it was his first taste of true power. It was the gateway to everything he had ever wanted; all he had to do was survive long enough to master its secrets. ’And I failed in that. I let myself get carried away with frivolous things. I have an ability I haven’t even properly utilized, all because I wanted to hear the cheers of the Stadia!’ It was unfair for him to judge himself so harshly, especially after all of the effort he had put into strengthening his body and magic, but it was hard not to be critical when he assumed he was dead. The chill came again, slowing his thoughts as he revelled in the sensation. ’Is this the gaze of Death brushing over me? Banishing my ailments and bringing me peace?’ He tried to smile, but his muscles wouldn’t listen. Still, it didn’t dampen his elation. It was no small comfort to expect the embrace of a god, especially if it was so relaxing. ’I had never expected to worship Death, and maybe my experience with him was minimal, but I still appreciate everything he did for me. He didn’t have to give me this element, nor does he have to watch over me now. It’s more than any of the other gods can say.’ His appreciation towards the God of Death awakened something inside him, a mixture of disappointment and annoyance. It came from a part of his brain that he didn’t know existed, even when he acknowledged it. It simply slipped away the moment he tried to grasp anything regarding it, as if it were never meant to be seen. Without a logical outlet, he assumed the thoughts were his own. They challenged his notion that Death was the cause of his growth. ’What has he explicitly done for me?’ The easy answer was his element, Soul, but he didn’t like to use that one. It felt wrong, incorrect, despite everything he knew about magic pointing towards the gods being in charge of the elements they awarded. It made sense from everything he had seen and heard. The Mistress had spoken about it before, although Charon was barely listening at the time. She credited the gods with the benefits of magic, thanking them for their gifts, but scorning them at the same time. She blamed them for allowing so much chaos and suffering to infect the empire, burdening humanity with unprecedented challenges. More personally, she blamed them for not granting her an element, nor one for her orphans. She believed none of them had a good excuse for abandoning the least fortunate in their time of need, a view Charon had once shared, until he grew old enough to care more about heroes than the eternally distant pantheon. ’If she judged them, why shouldn’t I? If Death cared enough to aid me with this power, why couldn’t he have aided me against the cultist as well?’ He metaphorically grabbed at his head as he grappled with his blended thoughts, realizing that this path wasn’t the one he was supposed to follow as well. There wasn’t a secret hatred in him for all the gods, nor was there any deep-seated love. He simply saw them as the grand arbiters of magic, a group to be respected, but not devoutly worshipped. It was as if there was another will inside him, imprinting its opinions, but only on select topics. As if there were things it could ignore, while others were too important. The most difficult part of it was that it gave no indicators of what it wished to alter. Stuck in the darkness, Charon jerked and spun himself around, trying to put himself back together so he could face the other being properly. It was an impossible task, his consciousness too fragmented to have any hope of restoration, yet he struggled on, possibly due to that very state of being: he was too splintered to properly consider what he was doing. Still, it gave him purpose in an otherwise unchanging field. He recognized fleeting aspects of himself as he saw them whizz by. His happiness, his ambition, his sadness, even his strength. They were all present and accounted for, bouncing like little memories, waiting for him to scoop them up and place them where they belonged. At some point, he felt himself be moved, an unexpected stimulus in his current situation, but he ignored it. Right now, he had a different item to complete, and anything outside that was secondary. He grew numb to the warmth, only noticing it when the blissful chill returned, its timing always coinciding with another fragment being sewn back into position. Like a puzzle of a million pieces, Charon slowly gave each part its place, relishing the feeling of finding success in his task. It was infinite, unsolvable with a thousand lifetimes or a thousand perspectives, yet it was still his own all the same.

Chapter 124: Fragments

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