The Long Night [1]

After defeating the cultists of the Old Gods, Serens fell into deep thought. For forty-three years, he had searched and excavated, sacrificing one eye, six fingers, and his hearing in both ears. At last, he had avenged his family. But after spending so long teetering between life and death, Serens sensed something strange, something unspeakably strange.

But every bridge connecting the Old Gods to reality had been severed. The power of the Great Beast had fallen alongside the stars, and the supernatural had bid farewell to the world of humanity.

The greatest lesson Serens had learned during those forty-three years of hovering between life and death was to trust his instincts, because the enemies he faced were far beyond human understanding.

After a long silence, a ray of sunlight fell through the clouds onto the ruins. It was the first light the world had seen in a century and a half, since the Old Gods descended. Serens gazed at the sea and the sky, standing motionless.

A seagull cried out in the distance.

After fifteen years of silence, Serens heard a heartbeat, powerful and immense, surging like a giant wave. A tremendous source of heat radiated from behind him, hotter even than the sun he had never seen in his life.

Serens turned around. He knew this was the end he would have to face, the final destroyer of all things.

Serens opened his eyes. What he saw was something he had never encountered in the endless backrooms, in heaven, in hell, or in the corridors of reincarnation: the dazzling essence of humanity, a sense of power surpassing that of the ancient Greek gods, a beauty surpassing that of the fairies of Penglai, a perfect body beyond human imagination.

A human voice reached Serens's hollow ears, and it felt unfamiliar.

"Can you see, Serens?"