Chapter 270: Death Or Life

Words : 1215 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

Mahdi. Old man Mahdi. "Are you lot sittin' around talking nonsense about my son?" That voice—tough but warm—cut through the night. The men looked at each other, trying not to grin, while Faqir began to pour cups of tea for himself and the rest. "Wouldn't dream of it, brother~!" "Speak for yourself." Rehan smirked. "We've been telling whole truths." Hassan nodded while adding: "The ugly bits too." Mahdi grunted, shuffling to the edge of the circle. "Tch. He was a child." "Maybe in your time, he was already a man; in ours." "Yeah... I guess. He grew busy..." Mahdi sat with a huff, his cane resting against his shoulder. "Saving your sorry hides, I imagine." "That he did." Sinbad murmured. "Over and over." They all fell quiet again. Just for a moment. Fire popped. Stars wheeled overhead. And for a time, it didn't feel like tragedy had ever touched these fathers. It didn't feel like grief still followed their shadows. It felt like they were back in a simpler world. A world where they remained... "To my brother." Faqir said softly, taking a sip of his cup. "To my bravest soldier." Hassan echoed, doing the same. "To my quietest guard, a mistake who grew into legend." Rehan whispered. "To my..." Mahdi closed his eyes. "To my son." They drank in silence for a while. When the moment passed completely, Mahdi cleared his throat. "So! Who started the part about him being naked in the middle of the street?" All eyes turned to Faqir. The old preacher froze. But he was smiling. And that was the only truth that mattered. Mahdi barked a laugh and smacked Faqir with his cane. The fire crackled louder. The laughter rose higher. Others joined in. Some of them Malik barely even knew—faces from battles, from markets, from people he helped on his journey, and from his quests with Layla. Most of them were just names in his mind, but even those names seemed important to him. Others had no names at all, just smiles and voices and the faint pull of a memory from years ago. There were hundreds. And they were all happy. It was warm. It was light. And it was tempting. Malik stood at the edge of it, saying nothing. Watching. His lips didn't move, but his heart did. Somewhere deep, buried under life, it moved. A feeling. A longing. But the void wasn't done with him. Behind him—at the far other end—was something else entirely. Depravity. Corruption. The Drowned Lotuses. Hands as large as mountains coiling around each other. They had the same Cursed runes carved into them. Black as oil. Deep as bone. Some hands... wept. Others... screamed. Depicting emotions with their movement. Many of these hands acted as a base, holding up others that held... An hourglass. It was gargantuan, each grain black. Most were on the bottom, revealing that indeed... There wasn't much time left. Unlike last time, the hands didn't move toward him. They didn't invite or beckon. They just waited. Because time was on their side. Time was on ITS side. They had brought him here to slow him down. Make him end his own life. And Malik... he knew what this was since the jump. This wasn't just a memory. It wasn't an illusion. It was a choice. One end held light. Comfort. Love. The warmth of a life already lived. The other—a road of pain, clawing hands, impossible odds, monsters, and thrones. He could stay here. Rest. Walk into that beautiful dream and never leave, finally have his "break." Or— Or he could go back. To the sand. To the weight. To the battlefield. Malik stood in silence, watching both worlds. He didn't move. He didn't cry. He didn't smile. He did nothing. But after a while, his body turned. And he walked away from the light. His back to Mahdi. To Sinbad. To Jasmine and Yusuf and Faqir and Rehan and Hassan and all the others. He didn't say goodbye. He didn't need to. One day, maybe, he'd see them again. But not today. Thump. Malik stepped toward the void. The Corruption shifted. The Cursed runes flared. The hourglass flipped. 'One day...' And Malik's expression never changed. 'I'll join them.' But today was not that day. '...' Drip. The sound hit first. A soft, single drip echoing in stillness. Malik's eyes opened. The world rushed back in. The real one. The ugly one. The loud one. And yet— It was quiet now. He didn't hear screaming. He didn't feel rot clawing through his bones or the burning of Corruption peeling at his soul. There was no thread twisting down his back or a needle through his spine. Just air. Just stillness. And emptiness. He was still sitting in the Well—the same Cursed place where Hell took shape. But now—now there was nothing. The red was gone. The dark was gone. The gold was gone. Not a flicker of madness, not a whisper of pain. The Well was still. Empty. He stood up slowly, hand brushing over the stone beneath him. ...There was no weight anymore. Not like before. That was when he noticed it. The change. His own body. It wasn't the same. It wasn't even close. Malik stared at his hands—not calloused or cracked, not pale and worn, but glowing faintly with power. Light pulsed beneath the skin like veins of starlight, gold braided in patterns he didn't remember carving but knew were his. Every breath he took was different. It was subtle, but divine. And quiet. His chains had broken, and something greater had taken their place. He looked up toward the sky of the realm. The same light that used to fall upon him from above now bent around him. Indeed, he could finally feel what had shifted inside—not just power, but clarity. The filth of Depravity no longer bubbled everywhere beneath his ribs. The Drowned Lotuses no longer marred his veins. His soul— It had been mended. Not entirely, of course. But it had been mended. Malik had crossed the boundary he'd once thought impossible. The rank beneath the heavens—the second sub-rank, Jinn Al-Wali. The Demon Sovereign. And he wasn't just there. He had passed it. Now, he could feel the third calling. Jinn Al-Azim. A Great Demon. It pulsed in the distance, waiting for him to take one final step. But, for all its allure, it wasn't on his mind. Not now. Now—he stood radiant. Not shining with gold or wrapped in light. But radiant in the way a grave can be holy. That's what Malik had become. A presence. A pillar. And still, he said nothing. Did nothing. Just stood in that Well, beneath the place where he'd nearly torn himself apart, where he'd drowned in memories and grief and monsters made of metaphor and madness. Malik had done it. He'd left the weight behind. The grief. The guilt. The noise. But not the resolve. Never that. Out this Well, the world waited. And he would return. Because the world still needed him. His war was far from over.

Chapter 270: Death Or Life

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