Welcome to the second series!

Same protagonist, different setting!

Hope your Christmas was as joyous as mine!

Enjoy the new beginning!

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I took a sip from my bottle and felt the alcohol burn down my throat.

This was the moment everything I’ve done the past twenty billion years is proven.

Down below a couple kilometres away from the mountain my latest body and Soul sat were two armies perched against each other.

One was the remnants of an old empire, one long past its glory in terms of might yet still with a fairly professional army consisting of many Mages and body enhancers, called Fighters.

Although their knowledge and power had deteriorated vastly compared to their golden age, they were no push-overs.

The other side was a coalition of petty kingdoms, merchant republics and religious orders hell-bent on destroying and conquering the lands of the decadent and ‘heathen’ empire.

Their army consisted of many man without any form of special powers, instead their countries had grown the ‘traditional’ way of advancing their technology.

They were at the age of gunpowder with an army of line infantry, cannons and dragoons.

In terms of development, either the way of technology or of Magic and similar, they should be about at the same stage.

That is why I picked them as my test-subjects.

If every Law and power I’ve created works as intended, neither of them should be able to utterly and completely overwhelm the other.

Unless the balance between technology and Magic was somehow imperfect, this would be an incredibly bloody, drawn out battle.

The fact that these two sides were on the same planet, which was very rare, made it the perfect place to test out if my very very very very hard hard hard work paid off.

There were about a hundred thousand men together on the battlefield.

I expect half of them to die and the result to be either a pyrrhic victory or a draw between the two.

The artillery, placed upon a strategically located hill on the battlefield, of the coalition resounded the start of the fight.

Dozens and dozens of explosive shells were fired at the empire’s army.

In response, their Mages skilled in Barrier Magic created many bubble-shaped shields to try and ward them off.

Half of those hit by artillery collapsed and resulted in hundreds of deaths-by-shrapnel.

However, the other half stood firmly and resisted both explosion and the shrapnel.

The empire responded in full.

Their Mages capable of long-distance spells, be it Fire, Water, Lightning or any other form of Magic, fired a similar barrage of carnage.

Although the coalition’s side had no defences whatsoever to speak off, all of the spells successfully infiltrated their ranks and caused deaths.

But because all these spells lacked the explosiveness and impact of artillery shells, the death toll was about the same on both sides.

While I took another shot of gin both armies continued firing on each other while slowly closing in on each other.

Cavalry took the flanks while infantry marched towards each other on either side.

Eventually the manoeuvres of the cavalry of both sides caused them to meet and fight.

The result was as expected.

Obliteration of the empire’s cavalry.

Because the dragoons from the coalition could fire from horseback relatively easy compared to the horseback Mages and bowmen of the empire, they had a definite advantage as long as they kept running away and adopt a harass tactic.

It took a while but eventually the empire’s cavalry was scattered

But they were around long enough to allow their infantry to close in on each other.

There too, the result was as predicted.

At first the line infantry held an advantage.

Although the enemies had a couple of bowmen to fire at the line, they were at the edge of their firing range while the muskets were perfectly capable of killing the empire’s men.

As long as the distance was kept, the coalition had the absolute advantage in fire-power even while being hit by both bowmen and long-range spells.

But because their cavalry was kept busy for too long by the empire’s horsemen, the distance couldn’t be kept.

Feeling no pressure from either flank, the empire’s Fighters bravely charged through the volleys of lead and the thunder of artillery shells and soon reached the line.

Even though the infantry had fixed bayonets, the Fighters were masters of weaponry.

The coalition’s infantry didn’t stand a chance.

However, the cavalry had arrived just before the line broke and charged in the empire’s backs, devastating the Fighters.

But since the cavalry of the coalition had been forced to charge into the ongoing fight, the scattered horsemen of the empire had the chance to regroup and join the fray once more, turning the fight again to their favour, but not after sustaining heavy losses.

The battle lasted for a couple of hours until both sides were forced to retreat.

During the retreat the Mages and artillery were constantly firing at each other, creating even more casualties on both sides.

When both sides had fully retreated, the ranged attacks ceased and the battle was finished.

I took another mouthful of burning alcohol and, leaving my body temporarily, scouted the abandoned battlefield through my rule over Energy and the Soul.

In one day there had been about five thousand deaths on both sides; a tenth of the total.

The Souls of the dead left their bodies and I followed them as they went back to the new Furnace of Creation.

It was something I had changed compared to the previous world.

No realm like the one of Death was present here.

Souls now return to the Furnace to be send out once more and reincarnated in another body.

I also changed added a Law to Energy so there won’t be a need for a realm like that of the Devil.

No-one except me had the ability to ever wield Energy, be it through technology or otherwise.

All Energy was under my control for eternity, allowing no leakage whatsoever outside of my realm.

Everything in my realm worked like a well-oiled machine, already much better than the previous world with its holes and capability of outside forces to influence it.

I continued watching the battle for the following week-and-a-half, during which only three encounters became serious.

While drinking bottle after bottle of alcohol to make spectacle seem less gruesome, I watched thousands upon thousands died.

In the end, the coalition ‘won’, albeit a more tactical victory rather than a true victory.

From the sixty thousand they had brought to the battlefield, more than forty thousand had died compared to the fifteen thousand of the forty-thousand strong Empire’s forces.

This may seem like a loss, since the empire lost more than half the men the coalition had lost, but this was because of an event I had anticipated, though not expected.

The emperor – and his sons – at the head of the Empire’s forces joined the last encounter.

The emperor and his sons were capable of Magic invented in the past of the empire and also were tremendous Fighter.

He was the one that turned the tide of battle in favour of the empire, slaughtering hundreds by his hands alone, which inspired incredible confidence in the empire’s soldiers and demoralized their enemies, resulting in the overwhelming loses of the coalition.

So, how did the coalition ‘won’ the battle?

The emperor lay dead and so did their sons.

The vast knowledge of the ancients were lost, never to return.

Whereas the coalition could simply rebuild their forces and try again, the empire was doomed to collapse and their Magic soon to dwindle and perhaps even be lost forever.

In other words: the empire won the battle and temporarily stopped the invasion.

The coalition won the war and doomed the empire to die, never to return.

The balance between Magic and more traditional sources of power was near perfect.

I had already made sure that overall development in society – in political or economical sense, for example – and was satisfied there as well in the established balance.

After running about two million of these sort of tests in the past twenty billion years of work I was finally done.

My realm is complete.

I finished the nineteenth bottle of gin ever since I came here and once again, just like the other days, dispelled its alcoholic effects.

The buzzing feeling immediately disappeared as did the nausea and instead, my usual depression set in.

Twenty billion years of hard work was now done, but I felt no happiness, no joy to see it completed.

It was only there to make sure that I would not fall back into the cycle of depression I once suffered through, and now that it is completed, nothing is holding it back.

Even though I say nothing is holding it back, that doesn’t mean I’ll fall into a pitiful state of being.

I had left most of it behind me after ten billion years of losing them, when I was still alone in this universe, working hard to prepare for my realm to be capable of supporting basic and more advanced life.

During that time I sometimes went into a random frenzy caused by guilt, anger and bordering near insanity.

There weren’t any living things at the time, so I rampaged all I wanted until my regret slowly but surely became less and less.

After letting it all out repeatedly, over and over again, I became a much more stable person than ever before.

Sure, I still held regret.

Lots and lots of regret.

Why didn’t I give them Immortality before I left?

Why didn’t I give them a temporary power to rule over?

Why didn’t I place protection around them, give them a shield, give them bodyguards or simply knocked them unconscious?

Why didn’t I take into account the unknown power of my foes?

Why was I so overconfident?

Why, why, why, why, why, why and many, many more unanswered questions and regrets.

It was something so easily prevented I didn’t spare any effort to actually prevent it.

I was too overconfident that nothing could ever harm me anymore, that the future was bright, victory was assured and freedom was destined to be mine.

That is my regret, and it became a part of me ever since.

It’ll probably influence me more than anything that ever happened to me and stay with me for eternity, turning me into a self-conscious sombre person.

Which is much better than the agonizing state of being I had been in previously.

But if I could turn it all back and do it over, I would.

Unfortunately, even with all the power the world has to offer, I cannot.

Even if I make time into an actual, traversable power instead of a construct of the mind, I’d still not be able to get back to the past.

That world is gone now.

Permanently.

I threw away the bottle and teleported away – a new and personal power, replacing the traditional Energy bridge – and arrived in an alleyway near the tavern I’ve hung out in for the past decade or so.

Even though it was in the middle of the night – about 2 a.m. – and the alley was steeped in darkness, the city itself was brightly lit by lamps filled with an orb of light, created under the system for Light Magic.

I stepped out of the alley and unto the main road.

I followed it for about five minutes, sometimes coming across guards patrolling to make sure curfew is being kept – of which I’m thankfully exempted – gave them a little greeting and continued until I arrived at my temporary home.

Opening the door, the local patrons – all drunkards considering the time – stared at me for a second before returning to their cups, most giving me an acknowledging nod or raising their cups before drinking again.

I walked towards the bar where the owner – a big, burly, bald man of about forty years of age – stood there, watching me approach while preparing a large tankard of beer for me.

After consuming large amounts of gin the past few weeks, beer was a welcome addition.

Every day of mine was filled with drinking.

A tell-tale sign of a man with regret, just like all the drunkards around me.

“Once again, thanks for doing what you do Marcus.”

I – now named Marcus since Acedia was a name reminding me of too many deaths, both Damien, Anna’s as well as my wife’s – had been hired by the city for ten years to keep away all bandits and thugs from the city.

Before I came here, the city had been filled with criminals and surrounded by bandits.

The position not only allowed me to walk the city at night whenever I please, it also allowed me to leave for periods of time without arousing suspicion.

Since, thanks to my absolute power, I can easily figure out who the evil-doers are and kill them or hand them to the guards without much effort, this job was a perfect cover.

Ever since I made a grand sweep throughout the city and its surroundings just a few weeks after my arrival, I also became one of the most respected man in the city.

Even the drunkards acknowledge my deeds, let alone the guards and the law-abiding, God-fearing citizens.

I took the mug from Ralf, the owner.

“It wasn’t much, really.”

I said, drinking my beer.

“You’ve been gone for longer than a week now. You, who swept this shit-hole of a city clean within a month, needed a week to take care of the trash. They must’ve been quite something, eh?”

“Nah, just a couple of bandits.”

I didn’t leave at random without a good alibi.

There were about a hundred of them, raiders ready to enter the city at night and ransack it before the guards could even respond.

I slaughtered them the first day I left and the rest was spent watching the battle.

“Ha! A couple of bandits for you means an army of them to me!”

He laughed and began preparing another beer for me.

I finished mine and accepted the next.

“You do know how grateful we are, right. All of us. Without you, my wife and daughters would still be shivering in fear every time they went shopping or so much as left our home. We can’t thank you enough. Am I right guys!”

He shouted the last sentence towards his patrons.

“Here, here!”

I heard about five of them returning, the others already in a drunken slumber and unable to respond.

I grinned a little hearing these people praise me and quickly finished my beer, fishing a silver coin from my pouch and placing it on the table.

“I’m tired. Don’t drink too much and cause trouble now, okay?”

The men grumbled incoherently as response.

I stood up and planned to go upstairs to my room, yet was caught by the arm by Ralf, holding up the silver coin and placing it firmly in my hand.

It was the usual routine.

“You know you don’t have to pay for it. Just accept it as a token of my gratitude.”

He always tries this, but I won’t accept it.

I barely do anything and can create money out of the blue.

I really don’t need anything, so I placed the silver coin back on the table.

“I’ve got enough money already. And besides, the last job is sure to pay very well.”

“But…”

He started, but I won’t allow it.

“Just accept it, or else I might get angry.”

I said, faking seriousness while still being stubborn about it.

He finally accepted the coin.

“Thank you again. Sleep well.”

Without a word, I went upstairs, opened the door without bothering to get the key and locked it with a mere thought.

Feeling the quick consumption of two large tankards filled with the best beer in the city suddenly affecting me, I threw myself on the bed and promptly went to sleep.

Even though I’ve got too many regrets to count and even though I’m clearly an alcoholic, it all felt very liberating.

This was my hard-earned freedom, achieved after 257 billion years of hell and 20 billion years of work.

It was sacrifice by both me and those I care about to finally arrive at this point.

Finally, the bitter victory, at last, felt bittersweet.

For the first time, I truly felt a sense of achievement and acceptance.

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If you want, let me know what you think about the Acedia turned Marcus below.

I'd really appreciate your thoughts, even if you hate the change.