The End of a Friendship

The sky never showed itself. Whether it was morning, afternoon, or night was never known to the man in the place called the Purgatory Cage. There was only darkness, silence, and emptiness.

There was no one else but himself. With his limbs in chains, he could only surrender. Both of his knees were bent, as if putting him in a position of subservience in all things.

Mahendra could only endure hunger and thirst, as well as the pain from the whip lashes on his back. However, this wasn't the worst thing. He felt it was much better, at least better than endlessly repeating his life after dying.

Mahendra sighed deeply and then muttered softly, "If only I hadn't been so reckless as to look into my past memories, would this not have happened?"

In truth, Mahendra knew that what he wished for would never happen. No matter what, the gods in the Upper Realm would relentlessly hunt him down, having deemed him a sinner who must be destroyed.

"Hahaha... what do you mean, 'destroying the world'? You're the ones who want to turn the Sky World back into a Void World. What hypocrites."

The remnants of the curse had gathered on his spine. The intact God's Necklace still preserved Mahendra's usual self, even though he felt he was at his breaking point.His red eyes still shone in the darkness, a smile that never faded, and in his mind, he continued to imagine the day he would repay them for all this.

Day after day passed without end. His body and soul were tormented inside the Purgatory Cage. The person they thought would weaken was instead growing stronger as the highest gods took turns visiting him. 

They came not to pay a friendly visit or anything of the sort, but to punish the sinner.When the Goddess of Gentleness arrived without doing anything to him, Mahendra began to speak and ask her a question.

"Hey, do those lesser gods also agree with your views?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you the highest gods have been hostile toward me for a long time because you think I'll destroy your thrones, but what about the lesser gods?"

"Before I answer your question, let me ask, do you really intend to destroy the Upper Realm?" the Goddess of Gentleness asked. 

Mahendra shook his head and said, "No. Not the Upper Realm... but you gods who are hostile to me."

"Devourer of Destiny, you are reborn repeatedly not by reincarnation but by the hopes of many people." The Goddess of Gentleness turned her back on him.

She continued, "Even if you won't destroy this world or the Upper Realm, your mere existence has already disrupted the world's order."

"Basically, you just want to stay in power. And, to keep humans from wanting more, you want to control them with the world's order and laws? The mighty stay mighty, and the meek stay meek?!" Mahendra retorted with a firm voice.

The Goddess of Gentleness turned back, looking sharply at Mahendra.

"Weren't the laws you once created in the human realm also like that?"

"I'm not talking about—"

"The moment you help humans, they will become more and more ungrateful." She interrupted, intentionally cutting off Mahendra's sentence.

"Have you all forgotten? That you were also just ordinary humans in the beginning!" Mahendra shouted, his voice echoing in the room.

A year, two years, three years, and several years later passed. Mahendra was still in the Purgatory Cage.

His long reddish-black hair touched the floor, covering his gaunt body. The frozen red fluid seemed to have changed the original color of the floor, or even this entire place. His mental exhaustion was clearly visible as the light in his eyes slowly began to fade.

***

Ten years passed without him realizing it. Everything in the human realm had changed a lot. However, it wasn't the same for a few people with immortal bodies down there.

The Wandering King, Nephilim, Immortal Warrior, and Azazel were in one place in the human realm. They all gathered at a food stall and began to sense something in the Upper Realm.

"That boy wants to make a move now?"

"Then how do we get up there?"

"Don't be in a hurry. You shouldn't have forgotten who he is, right? Bringing us to the Upper Realm is an easy thing for that boy," said the Wandering King, who then gulped down his drink.

***

Back to the Purgatory Cage.

"How can you all stand not wanting to kill me? Haha, incredible!"

His sanity was eroding, but his power was only growing stronger. The curse was now fully under his control. All that remained was to execute a plan.

A carefully considered plan had been formed in his mind. The plan had been made some time ago, and he had repeatedly practiced its success in his imagination, making sure there wasn't a single flaw.

The sound of heavy footsteps—coming to the Purgatory Cage, of course, to see the prisoner there, Mahendra.

"You seem to be alive. No, maybe just half-alive, Eden?"

Mahendra cleared his throat, glancing at him with a sense of wonder. Then he exhaled briefly, turning his face away indifferently.

"Why aren't you looking at me?" The god who came was Zia, he asked, changing his position to sit on the floor so he could speak with him directly.

But Mahendra didn't answer at all. He only glanced occasionally, who knows what was on his mind at this moment.

"It's up to you whether you want to be silent or not. Besides, you're not the only enemy of the gods. We might even consider getting rid of the strongest legends," Zia said.

Mahendra raised one eyebrow upon hearing Zia's last sentence. He looked at Zia with questions in his mind.

"What's wrong? Are you afraid something will happen to them?"

"Rather than fear, I'm worried about whether you're serious about doing it?"

"You may not know that the four strongest legends in the Sky World, whose power is on par with gods, are no longer as strong as they once were."

Hearing that, Mahendra was a little stunned. When he had met them, he had felt a powerful pressure that couldn't be compared to ordinary strong people. But Zia was saying that they were no longer as strong as they used to be.

"I don't believe it. I want to say this, but the four strongest legends have been around for quite some time. I'm also not sure if they're still as strong as they were in their respective heydays," Mahendra thought to himself.

For a moment, Mahendra was silent with his head bowed. The power he saw with his cursed eyes could never be wrong, but if he thought logically, then Zia's statement also wasn't wrong.

"So it's no use hoping for their help to get you out of here, Eden," Zia added with a smirk.

"Is that so?"

In truth, Mahendra didn't care how strong the people he could rely on were, but it would be useless if he also lost his self-confidence.

"Strong or weak, I don't care. What's most important is... me!"

Thanks to a flow of reddish-black lightning, one by one, the chains that shackled his limbs shattered into dust. If it was Zia who was smiling before, it was now Mahendra's turn to smile, looking at him with a mocking gaze.

"You!?"

Zia was flustered. His smile faded, and he stood up, getting ready to attack, but unfortunately, he was too late. As soon as he drew the spear in his hand, the stream of lightning had already made a hole in his stomach.

"...I'm still much stronger than you, Zia."