Reborn As The Barbarian God

Galthor stopped fighting the physical battle. Instead, he reached out with his new senses, feeling for the shadows even here, even underwater. They were faint, diffused by the liquid medium, but they existed. Shadows always existed. Wherever there was light, there was darkness to contrast it.

And in the depths of this lake, there was more darkness than light.

And so he let go of his senses and... dissolved.

His consciousness expanded, spreading out through every shadow in the lake, becoming less a single being and more a distributed presence. Vaskaroth's coils tightened on nothing, passing through space that had been solid a moment before.

"What...."

Galthor reformed behind the Guardian's head, in the deepest shadow of the lake where the luminescence couldn't reach. His hands locked around Vaskaroth's throat, divine strength enhanced.

"Yield," he said.

Vaskaroth thrashed, trying to dislodge him. But Galthor held on, his grip tightening, his power flowing into the Guardian's body and disrupting the runes that gave it strength.

"Yield, and this ends. You said you wanted freedom. I can give you that. Serve me until your debt is repaid, and then go wherever you wish."

"I..." Vaskaroth's struggles weakened for just a moment. Then the golden eyes blazed with renewed fury. "NEVER!"

The Guardian's body convulsed with sudden, violent force. Its tail whipped around, catching Galthor across the torso and tearing him free. Before he could recover, Vaskaroth spun, its massive jaws snapping closed inches from his head.

"I am Vaskaroth!" the Guardian roared. "I have guarded this passage for ten thousand years! I will not yield to some infant godling who hides in shadows like a coward!"

Galthor surfaced, gasping for air. His body was battered, his reserves running low. That last exchange had cost him dearly.

But Vaskaroth was in even worse condition.

The Guardian's obsidian scales were cracked in dozens of places, ichor leaking from wounds that should have been fatal. Its movements were slower now, less precise. The runes carved into its body flickered erratically, their power nearly exhausted.

"You're dying," Galthor said. "That blast you used...it cost you everything. You have nothing left.

He really didn't know but he was grasping for anything he could use against the beast.

"Then I will die fighting!" Vaskaroth lunged again, but this time Galthor was ready.

He didn't dodge or retreat. He met the Guardian's charge head-on, his divine aura blazing to full intensity.

His fist connected with Vaskaroth's skull.

The impact was catastrophic.

Scales shattered and bone cracked. The Guardian's momentum recoiled, its massive body thrown backward by the force of the blow.

Galthor followed, pressing his advantage. Another strike to the head. Another. Each blow drove Vaskaroth further back, deeper into the lake, breaking more of its ancient armor.

"Yield!" Galthor shouted. "Don't make me kill you!"

But Vaskaroth only laughed, blood pouring from its shattered jaws. "You still don't understand, do you? The binding... it requires... more than defeat..."

The Guardian's body began to glow. The remaining runes, the ones that hadn't been destroyed, blazed with sudden brilliance.

"What are you doing?"

"What I... should have done... at the start." Vaskaroth's golden eyes were dimming, but its voice was triumphant. "If I cannot... kill you... I will take you... with me..."

The runes were building to critical mass. Galthor recognized the pattern, it was the same technique the Guardian had used before, but magnified a hundredfold as if it was using its life to power it.

It was a detonation.

Galthor's eyes widened.

Vaskaroth was going to destroy itself, and everything around it.

"No."

Galthor moved faster than he ever had before. His body became shadow, flowing through the water like ink, reaching Vaskaroth in a fraction of a second. His hand plunged into the Guardian's chest, through the cracked scales, through the ancient flesh, finding the core of power that animated this creature.

He grasped it.....

....and then he pulled.

Vaskaroth screamed, a sound of agony and loss and something that might have been relief.

The building power stuttered, destabilized, began to collapse inward rather than exploding outward.

"I'm sorry," Galthor said. His voice was quiet, almost gentle. "I would have let you live. I would have given you freedom."

"Freedom..." Vaskaroth's voice was barely a whisper now. The golden light in its eyes was fading, replaced by something darker. "I don't... know... what that word means... anymore..."

"Then let me show you."

Galthor didn't just kill the Guardian. He consumed it.

The same power that had absorbed the Weeping Canyon entity reached out, wrapping around Vaskaroth's fading essence. But this time, there was no resistance. The Guardian was already dying, already letting go. It welcomed the end.

Memories flooded into Galthor's consciousness.

He saw Vaskaroth's birth, millennia ago, when the world was young and dragons still ruled the skies. He felt the pride of being chosen as a Guardian, the honor of serving a purpose greater than oneself.

He experienced the loneliness of centuries alone in the dark, watching and waiting for threats that never came. The slow erosion of identity, of purpose, of hope.

And he understood, finally, why Vaskaroth had refused to yield.

The Guardian hadn't been fighting to live, rather it had been fighting to die. To end its existence in battle, as befitted a warrior, rather than fading away in the darkness like a forgotten memory.

"Rest now," Galthor whispered. "Your duty is done."

Vaskaroth's body dissolved, its essence merging with Galthor's own. The obsidian scales crumbled to dust. The golden eyes dimmed and went dark.

Within moments, nothing remained of the ancient Guardian but memories and power.

Galthor floated in the dark water, processing what he had gained.

Vaskaroth's strength had been considerable, even weakened by millennia of isolation. That strength was his now, adding to what he'd taken from the Weeping Canyon. He could feel his divine core expanding, growing denser, approaching something that might one day be called true godhood.

'....damn! Maybe I should stop hunting cursed monsters and focus on entities, this way won't I reach higher and faster?....'

But Galthor wasn't all that eager to rush into any entities that he found. Terrible things are also entities.

Vaskaroth had been old. Old enough to remember the world before the Abyssal War. Old enough to know secrets that had been lost to history. Those secrets were Galthor's now, locked in his consciousness, waiting to be examined. But even now he could tell that some things were not to be distributed.

'...when I'm stronger, I will start hunting entities....'

Later. He would examine everything he gained later but for now, he need to reach the Abyssal land. To return to it.

Galthor swam to the shore and pulled himself onto solid ground. The cavern felt empty now, hollow without the Guardian's presence. The black water was still, undisturbed by any movement.

"Thank you," he said to the silence. "For the battle. For the power and the memories."

It was the second time he would be thanking an entity. Maybe because they had such a lonely pathetic past as him. But unlike them... he was given a new chance.

There was no response and he hadn't expected one.

Galthor turned toward the tunnel that led deeper, toward where he was sure the Abyssal that waited beyond. Behind him, the underground lake settled into perfect stillness,.