Chapter 32

Her physical body was torn to shreds in an instant. But she somehow felt the pain even after there was nothing left. The eldritch monster consumed every physical and magical atom that comprised Mariabell Rosso. And it didn't stop there. It tore her soul apart, digesting her immaterial being alongside her skill.

Now, she just was. What remained of her existence wanted to cease, to end the agony, but some part of her refused. She would not give up; she would not slip into non-existence. She was better than that, and no reality-ending monster could change that. It had already taken everything it could, and the few remaining shreds of her soul, alongside her pure awareness, began to sink deeper into the void, if what she experienced now could be called that.

There was clarity in her, though, now. The skill that had made her arrogant was gone. The limits of Mariabell Rosso were gone. She floated in this horror-filled realm with a strange tranquility. She was so much less, just the tiniest of shreds of a being left who was intangible, unnoticeable by the lurking abominations that snatched up the last remaining bits of her soul. This one point of being remained thanks to pure willpower, the one thing nothing in existence could take from her. Yet, simultaneously, she was so much more, as if all barriers were gone and nothing could limit her.

Where her skill had gone, she didn't know, nor did she care.

She wasn't Mariabell Rosso any longer, and she wasn't Elizabeth Rothchild either. Those names and concepts were now gone. Mere memories of lives lost, never to come back. But she remembered so much more now, all the lives lived, hundreds of them, and one took her by surprise.

'I was Maria Rosso. Oh, Gran, you old fool. Yuuki and that goddess have played you!' She found strange irony in the whole ordeal. Then again, she wasn't Maria either. Maria died, and she was reborn as someone new. She now just was. She was stuck between who and where; perhaps she would never know.

Her thoughts lingered on her last life, her ambition, her stupidity. She was such a naive fool. World rule wasn't her birthright. She wasn't even close. 'If only I was myself. Perhaps I would have gained that position in Momonga's inner circle.' There was no hatred towards the one who ended her life. She picked a fight and lost; it was only right for the strong to devour the weak. She had done the same with other companies.

And now, she needed to be content with it. Was she even there any longer? She was a woman in all her lives, so likely that was the one identifiable part of her left.

'Who even am I now? Hmm… perhaps just Maria. It would be amusing to pop back into reality to tell that old fool the truth. Not that he would believe me. Fucking that corpse with who knows what inside it is all he cares for. Moron.'

How long she floated, she couldn't tell. The agony had slowly faded away as well. The void had nothing left to eat, to strip away and obliterate. There was nothing to take away any longer. She just was. Time likely wasn't even a concept here. Things were too weird to explain anyway. She could just stop and cease to exist. But that wasn't an option. She would find a path forward. She was will itself.

She re-lived all her past lives in her memories. All the good, the bad, and the awful. All the experiences she had learned from and then forgot. All had led her here. Perhaps it was meant to be. Perhaps she was destined to find something. There was this drive, like an insistent little urge to find something in this realm where things came to a cease.

As she continued to float, this urge grew stronger; she was closing in on something, not that there was any sense of direction or spatiality in the first place. It was more like a feeling than anything else. What she felt was approaching some sort of true finality.

As she floated, she became aware of some sort of massive presence, a familiar presence. 'Momonga? Here?' What was going on? Why was the ruler of Tempest present in this place? Had he perished as well? Did they now ironically share their fate? No, there was more to it. Momonga, unlike her, had a presence and was somehow even stronger than before.

"Some part of you still exists? How curious." Momonga spoke directly into her being.

"I won't perish. Try your worst. There is nothing you can take left, just me." She spoke back in the same manner, which felt oddly natural.

"I don't have to. You are heading where everything ends."

"You will end up there, too. Don't be smug about it."

"In time, but not now. Unlike you, I am here by choice."

"By choice?" She was intrigued. Was there something she didn't understand? Was Momonga something that came from this place? His pet monster surely did.

"Yes. It is part of my path. I don't expect you to understand."

"Try me. I have nothing better to do now anyway. Might as well learn from you what I can. No place to go, nothing to do."

To call himself intrigued was an understatement. Mariabell, or at least some fundamental part of her, had somehow managed to survive in the endless abyss. She was basically pure awareness. Momonga couldn't help but see the greater significance of the event. Mariabell was special in a way he could have never expected. Where the likes of Hinata broke, despite being the strongest humanity had thrown at him so far, Mariabell persisted. She was one of a kind, and his collector's urge demanded he add her to his collection in some way or form.

"My path is that of death. This is where I train to become a true God of Death. Beyond those gates lies the true end, where everything will ultimately end up. Tell me, what is it that you want?"

"What do I want? Hmm… I am not sure any longer. To exist, I guess, but I can do that on my own, though something could happen here. Why are you asking?"

Momonga didn't immediately answer as he used Omniscience to analyze the spark of awareness. She now was the most fundamental building block of sapient existence. Around this spark, a soul could be formed and shaped. He could rebuild Mariabell and send her back into the rebirth cycle to find her own path, or he could send her back to the Cardinal World to be reborn as a human or any other creature, including spirits that existed on other outskirts of the physical universe.

"Because you remain. I have not seen another spark here. I didn't know anyone could exist like this."

"You're the one who sent me here, but I can't blame you. I made myself your enemy and paid the price. My one regret is that I was misguided by my own skill. I could have been so much more, but now I will just end. Not yet, of course, but I likely won't be able to keep my mind together for eternity." She responded freely, though confused.

"I can recreate a soul for you and send you back," Momonga offered. He knew he could trace her and then take in the reincarnation.

"I don't want to forget. I want to be me. Were you this God in the making when we last talked? I am not sure how much time has passed," She asked.

"Time has no meaning here. No time has passed. The Void just is. But if you want to remember, I can let you reincarnate as a spirit."

"Momonga, I am not so naive to think you are helping me out of the goodness of your heart, if you even have one. What is the price?"

"I am a collector at heart, and you are unique." Momonga openly confessed. "I want to add you to my collection as a servant."

"Hmm…if I serve you, and I mean really serve you without any duplicity, what would you offer me? Don't get me wrong, I would love to have a body again, but I don't want to be turned into some goblin and put on toilet-cleaning duty because you find it amusing to mess with me even more. I've made it this far without your help."

"Nothing of sorts. You were capable; there is no denying your ability. If not for you making yourself an enemy of Nazarick, I would have offered you the place in my cabinet you so desired," The overlord answered, scratching his skeletal chin bone.

"I have had a lot of time to think of what I did wrong. You know, now that we are talking like this, it feels like I finally know you. Can you tell me, is this my time to end, or do you not know?" Maria continued.

"If it were your time, we wouldn't be talking. I know one thing: I would and could not stop someone's true end. Yours has not come yet." Momonga was only instinctively aware of this truth. He was part of the death current and knew better than to go against its flow. In time, he would lead everyone dear to him here and, in the very end, go through the final gates himself.

"Let me remember and give me a fulfilling role, and I am yours to command. But when my time comes, you will guide me back here, and we'll say our goodbyes as old friends, not enemies. Serving death itself, there is a nice ring to it." She chuckled.

"Deal." Momonga agreed. Now, the question was how to send her back for rebirth. And the solution came immediately. Diablo was the one denizen of the world with the deepest roots in the void, and he had immense expertise in handling souls. As he rebuilt Mariabell's soul, she would carry the same void.

{ Diablo, I need you to catch a soul that comes out of the void and make her reborn out of your line. Can you do that? } He contacted his demonic butler through his self, which was present in the physical world.

{ Of course, master. I will deliver this new demon right onto your arms. Am I permitted to take a deadman body? }

{ Yes. You can pick a suitable one. }

"Be ready, Mariabell. I will rebuild your soul and send you up."

"Maria. Please call me Maria; there is an ironic connotation I'll explain later."

"Very well. Maria, it is. I will name you with this name when you arrive in Nazarick."

The path upward was just as agonizing as her death. Her newborn soul got tainted with the void, and until she got used to the feeling, the suffering was beyond the description of words.

Soon, she found herself in a chaotic realm with floating isles and demons. As her form took shape, a new skill etched itself in her soul: Unbreakable Will.

As her senses returned, she could observe herself fully. Her base spiritual form was that of a black-haired, black-eyed woman with the facial features of Maria Rosso. She didn't feel like she was that particular Maria, but the name fit her new self.

As she looked around, she saw the demon in a butler's outfit she had seen before and felt a familiar connection, instinctively kneeling.

"I know you. Diablo?" She inquired.

"Indeed. You must be the one master recreated. Be ready; you are about to be summoned and brought before him. I recommend you show proper respect." The demon warned.

It felt strangely wonderful to have such a form. She was a lot more powerful than before. Perhaps she was reborn as a high-ranking archdemon. That would explain her power level.

Then she felt the pull of a summoning, a powerful body beyond the ones she had had in her previous lives offered as a tribute. She gratefully accepted the tribute and opened her physical eyes for the first time since dying, and Mariabell now was a nameless demon of the black line.

She found herself in the place of her previous death: Momonga's office. The whimsy of the whole ordeal was too bizarre to be denied. She took her first breath as she instinctively assumed the appearance she desired, creating clothes for herself as the overlord watched in silence with Rubedo and Diablo beside him.

Her new master. One who could keep her whole as long as it was her fate to exist, and she knew with all her heart he would do so. That was her covenant with the God of Death she chose to serve. She dropped on one knee.

"Rise, Maria," Momonga declared, naming her and empowering her even further into a demon peer.

"Thank you, master. It feels nice to have a form again. I hope I can keep it for a long while." She smiled.

"I trust you will. Now tell me why you chose this name for yourself?" Momonga questioned.

She didn't hesitate to reveal everything to her master. About who she was and that she chose the name Maria to show what Gran did to her; so that the old man would know the truth before his life was forfeit. She told him everything she knew about Yuuki and their conspiracy to gather enough forces to kill Lord Momonga. There would never be a secret she kept from the God of Death, as she was his dutiful servant now.

"I can't wait to see his face when he learns the truth." Momonga laughed, with Diablo already joining in.

"Should I go and execute them now?" Maria asked. For her, it would both carry out Momonga's will and get her revenge on Yuuki. The prick deserved to be tossed in the void and hopefully torn apart at a much slower pace.

"No. Neither Yuuki nor Granbell is the true target. While Ker thinks she has the upper hand, I can and have prepared countermeasures for her. If we take her tools away now, she will be much harder to predict." Momonga shot her down.

"I see. What are my duties then?"

"For now, you will train under Diablo to be shaped into my agent, answering only to me. I also want to use you as a blueprint to make more agents like you. So you both can look out for candidates."

Her new life had begun. It was a strange ride from her last death, but one Maria would never forget as now she knew that beyond everything she now had, she just was and would be as long as fate deemed for her to be. She would face true death in due time, and it would be her master who would bring her to the gates of oblivion when her time came.

What more could a person ask for?

Editing by aidan_lo, Nich L.

Proofreading by mfkz_rocker, clagan, IAMTHEPLOKOKIOPO, Alassandro, fvvck, and aidan_lo.

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