Chapter 4: Return?

Well, the good news was that he hadn't fallen into an infernal kingdom or a nightmare, but that he was simply seeing images of his past life. Maybe it was? Yeah, it seemed logical, what else could it have been anyway? He couldn't think of any other explanation than that.

"So none of this is really real, huh?"

There was something curious about looking at events in his own life as an almost external spectator. The feeling he felt was a mixture of relief and many other emotions, but essentially it meant that the hell he had been through was finally over.

Yet it was curious, of all the possible moments in his life, why was it the one that had been chosen over another? Was it because it was the most important turning point in his life? Probably.

The deep voice of the warrior was echoing. "You are now in the kingdom of Varrimar, one of the nations bordering on the west of the young continent of Enoa, in the blessed world of Yvelmore, a very different world and very far from Terra, the world that saw you born and live until today. You, the inhabitants of Terra, have been judged guilty of the destruction of your world for the next centuries by your actions. And when you caused the definitive extinction of the majority of species, the Regent God of Humanity and the Goddess of Terra chose together to send you elsewhere, both to allow you to survive, but also so that you could pay the price for your crimes."

As he remembered, the man looked at them as if they were less than bugs. As if he had been in the presence of creatures so unworthy that they didn't even deserve his gaze upon them. Well, in his defense, he may not have been wrong about some of the Earthlings, since the demons were not much worse than some Earthlings.

Indifferent to the thoughts of Mars, the man in armor continued his speech. "Yet in their kindness, the gods of our world agreed to welcome you and decided to offer you asylum in our world. This is the cause of your presence, Humans of Terra. This is the price your entire race must pay and your only hope for salvation. Fight the nightmare creatures and demons of the immaterial worlds that infect this world like an incurable plague, and in return, after your death you will be allowed to reincarnate into this world as normal citizens. Do not do so, and you will be sent back to the abyss to suffer an unspeakable fate."

Then the man retreated, to be replaced by a fat, half bald man dressed in silk embroidered ecclesiastical garments, just stepped forward to take the place of the man in armor, and began to talk about the endless speeches.

Contrary to the guy in armor, the man's voice was cold and an inexplicable feeling of disgust seemed to exult from his being, giving his moral lessons while punctually accompanying his words with great gestures typical of those who like to talk a lot.

It was almost as if he was trying to be a caricature of everything that could make a human being hateful, while his high-pitched, nasal voice spat out every word with a kind of disgust.

Basically, what the priest was saying could be summed up in a few lines: blah blah blah this world is ruined, blah blah blah you are all fucked, blah blah blah you are unworthy heretics, and blah blah blah blah I'm going to wipe my ass on your faces. Hmm... maybe he misrepresented the last part a little bit, after all he hadn't paid much attention, but he was pretty sure about the first three, and then it didn't really matter anyway.

And in front of him, almost all the Earthlings were standing like a group of lobotomized zombies with a stupid look on their faces. It was a really strange vision, but not only for that.

At the feet of the standing Earthmen there were many people who had remained on the ground and were motionless, so motionless in fact that an attentive eye could have noticed that they weren't even breathing. These were the corpses of those whose souls had not been strong enough to survive the invocation and who had died in the process. Honestly looking at them lying there like that, he was jealous.

The truth was that these guys were lucky bastards. The weak ones had left in such a comfortable way, their last moments had probably been a barbecue party, playing games, or just sleeping and dreaming random crap, they had never had to crawl among piles of dead bodies and never had to find out what a demon looked like.

Well, at least he was dead now too, and he would never have to know this kind of thing again. But when exactly was the good stuff supposed to happen?

"Is this boring scene going to last long?"

When he had experienced this scene in his life, Mars had had his mind almost totally dominated by mind control spells, but this time he could feel only a small influence on his mind, and that it could easily be thwarted.

Concentrating his will, he focused it to free himself from the influences of the spell. He felt the magic crackling all around him as the psychic attachments struggled to maintain their power over him, but their struggle was useless, and then the spell broke completely.

Mars was finally able to move his body as he wanted, he cracked his neck and stretched all the muffles of his body, he had a little laugh "Hehehe, free at last!".

Since he knew that what he was seeing was not real, but rather a kind of movie, it meant that he was allowed to do whatever he wanted since there would be no consequences. After all, what sense would it make to care if it was an illusion?

Now that he was reliving the scene of his past life, there was something he really wanted to do that was itching him very badly. It was all too much for him to take, so why would he sit there and have his ear washed and do nothing? He wasn't going to pass up this chance!

Mars walked and stepped between the bodies of the different Earthlings as he inflated his chest with air, before shouting "Stop fucking around, you old bread crust!".

The old priest looked at him as if he had just stepped on a pile of shit and didn't understand what was going on, Mars took pleasure in seeing his stunned face "Wow serious, man you really like to listen to yourself talk. Tsk tsk tsk, I bet that when you were a kid you suffered listening to an old man giving you moral lessons, and swore that when you were an adult you would abuse your authority to do the same, right? You old pervert."

Gradually, the priest's face went from confusion to anger, and he was breathing as if he was about to give birth. ~ Ah! It was so good to see that stupid face make that expression ~ "How dare you?"

A little bit more and the old man would almost self-burn "Shut up, you fat dripping lard ass! I'm the chosen one! So call me Hero-sama or Master! How can your blind eyes be unable to see such obvious things? Where is your deference to me? Hmm? Kneel now! Why don't you do it? Hm? Oh, are you unable to understand the words that come out of my mouth? It's probably because you're nothing but a stupid fanatic in public, but who takes advantage of it to get rich as soon as others look away. Where is your piety when you steal from the poor? You piece of garbage!"

Well, true or false, he always meant those lines once. The priest was so angry that he was red as a tomato and almost seemed to be on the verge of choking, he pointed at Mars trembling like an epileptic, chanting orders he couldn't understand. It was really incredible, it was so relaxing. Dying had unexpected positive sides, was this what the feeling of redemption was like?

The priest shouted, "Seize this heretic! He who flouts authority must not go unpunished! Let him be taken away to be burned."

Mars smiled as the priest pointed in his direction "Eeeeh? You're jealous because yours is too small, right? Look, I'll show you how to make the helicopter with it! Just take it in your hand and turn it like this. It's easy, isn't it? Hahahahahaha!"

Then when the spells fell on him, his mind became white and frozen, almost as if he had fallen into a form of unconsciousness. After an unknown time, he regained his senses, feeling that his will was being crushed by something.

Mars looked around him, but his mind was too stunned to really understand what was going on around him. Apparently the priest and the man in armor seemed to be arguing. The priest seemed to want to give Mars a death so that he could set an example, while the man in armor seemed to be defending the obligation of the Terrans to fulfill their sacred duty.

The two apparently came to agree that if Mars survived his training, he would first be given 30 lashes, before being sent to the most dangerous battlefields to atone for his affront, but who cared? After all, why should a dead man fear death or corporal punishment? It was nonsense.

Anyway, it would be nice if it all went away, this scene was fine, but he had no desire to look again at the despair and terror on the faces of the people around him. Looking at the other scenes in his life really seemed like a bad idea, especially when he had tried so hard to forget them in a dark corner of his memory.

But no matter how complex or how strong an illusion was, it was always possible to create a breach to get out of it, or even break it, and that's what he was going to do.

Here Wizards and Saints prepared themselves during their lives in anticipation of their death, and learned and mastered all sorts of techniques in preparation for that moment. The concept was a bit strange, but there had even been rumors about some of them even dying voluntarily, in order to cross over to the other side of the veil, before resurrecting, just to check their mastery of their skills.

Anyway, the techniques for breaking illusions were part of this category of spells useful in life and afterward, so he had learned some too.

He began to focus his psychic energies while mentally reciting the beginning of the incantation to break illusions and dreams

O Asaria, lord of illusions and truths, may your eternal light dispel the dark bastion of ignorance and lies. May the truth of the invisible Sovereigns slay all illusory darkness.

With an effort of will, he channeled within himself the illusion-breaking spell he knew best. Focusing every ounce of power in him to destroy the hold of the powerful spells that bound his senses. But this had no effect whatsoever, despite his concentration the spell that should have been unleashed remained pitifully weak, as if he was deprived of any form of power to sustain him. It didn't even create the slightest ripple in the texture of the reality that surrounded him.

This... it was absurd. Had he done something wrong? No, he knew this spell by heart and could use it even with half a liter of alcohol in his blood, so where was the mistake?

His spell shouldn't have been so weak, but even so, it should have had a direct effect on his perception of his environment, yet he didn't feel the slightest change. There was a reason why even the most powerful archimages, as well as the gods, had created almost infinite kinds of labyrinths of changing illusions, and that the most sophisticated illusions were made up of an almost stupid number of illusory spells, superimposed one on top of the other. Because creating an unbreakable or unalterable illusion was impossible.

Was it just because his spell was too weak?

Faced with the absurdity of the situation, he decided to pour all the power of his psyche into his techniques in order to create a breach, even a slight one. Faced with a spell of illusion as solid as this one, he persevered, again and again. As elaborate as the prodigy was, his attempts would end up creating a flaw or a breach around him.

Yet even after 9 attempts, no matter what he tried, nothing was different, everything remained the same. It was so absurd that he was unable to understand what was going on.

This kind of situation normally only happened in one situation: it was when it was real and there was nothing to be dispelled.

But it didn't make sense.

Then when he was about to start again, he stopped halfway through his act when images of what had happened before his death, especially the memories of the moments before Aleria's death came back to his mind.

The amount of magical energy totally absurd in the ritual circle she had performed. Her despair when he had completed it, as if she had not wanted him to do it, and then the words she had spoken when she had bound her spirit to his, he repeated to himself the words she had spoken with a mixture of hope and urgency "Help... return... save... home...please".

Struck by a sense of disbelief, he looked back into the invocation room with his eyes wide open and a haunting thought in his head.

If all this was not an illusion, but the reality, so did that mean he was really back in the past??

At that moment he had the impression to hear something breaking in his mind in front of this absurd situation.

...

YOU'RE FUCKING KIDDING ME! RIGHT ?!