The madness accumulated from the successive deaths ignited like a spark, burning away the last vestiges of Hegemon's sanity. Upon waking at the escape point, before he could even see Lily's worried face, he clutched his head and screamed, his cries echoing throughout the wooden room.
"Stay away from me! Don't touch me! It's all a lie!"
Hegemon rushed out the door like a cornered wild animal. He ran, headlong, oblivious to the thorns tearing at his skin, ignoring Lily's desperate calls. He wanted to escape this cursed Elf village, escape this vicious cycle, and escape the terrifying, dark-skinned, loli-like mastermind. He needed space to breathe, a place where the law of karma couldn't reach.
But this world offered no escape for mortals.
Having fled far beyond the village's boundaries, standing in a desolate, fog-shrouded valley, Hegemon suddenly stopped. Before him, an amorphous halo floated. Its aura was so grand, ancient, and awe-inspiring that it tightened his chest. In that moment of encountering this entity, the "Treasure of Knowledge" that had inadvertently leaked from his interactions with Lily suddenly blazed in Hegemon's mind.
He realized it. This was a Spirit. But it was the Astra type of guardian Spirit of the Elf tribe. The entity before him represented the primordial Soul—the supreme concept that sustains the existence and logic of the infinite multidimensional worlds, including the myriad chaotic branches of time in this world.
"Help... That's right, you can repair the timeline!"
Like a drowning man grasping at a straw, a frantic lucidity returned. Hegemon rushed forward, his blood- and sweat-stained hand reaching for the luminous sphere, begging for liberation or a supreme power to reverse the situation.
Swish.
There was no loud sound, no bloodshed. Only a fleeting, unintentional touch of the supreme law. The deliberate contact and defilement of a primordial concept by a lowly being was an unforgivable paradox.
Instantly, Hegemon's existence was stripped away. He was completely erased from the world's history. All information, memories of those who knew him, the biological laws that constituted his body, soul, mind... all vanished as if they had never existed. Absolute nothingness.
But the curse from Hegemon's time-reversing ability was even more deeply rooted than the law itself. It backfired, forcibly tearing through the flow of time to pull him back.
Boom!
"Aaaaaaaaa!"
Hegemon screamed, his voice hoarse and devoid of any human emotion. The pent-up rage exploded in his brain. But even more horrifying, his abilities were severely damaged after the collision with the conceptual entity. His Spawn point was no longer in the safe wooden room of a few days ago. It had warped and shifted to the exact spot where he had just died—right in front of the Supreme Spirit.
"No! Wait! Get out of the way—"
Swish. For the second time, he was obliterated by the law of antimatter.
Boom! He resurrected three steps away.
"Lily! Save me—" Swish. His body disintegrated into particles of fundamental information dust.
Boom!
The chain of death and annihilation began to unfold like a horror movie being replayed at breakneck speed. The constantly malfunctioning ability threw Hegemon to the brink of death in the most brutal ways. Once, the moment he opened his eyes, the surrounding pressure crushed his chest; another time, his soul was torn into a hundred pieces before it could even form a human form; yet another time, his consciousness was imprisoned in an endless void for seconds before being completely erased.
Each time he died, the pain from the old timeline piled up, etched directly into his soul. This pain was so immense that it surpassed the limits of a living being's endurance, transforming into an unprecedented form of spiritual torture. Hegemon was no longer a human being; he was merely a pathetic pile of biological matter, crushed and then constantly recreated by the laws of the universe.
And worst of all, the thing that plunged Hegemon's despair to the depths of hell, was the attitude of that Spirit.
Throughout this insane process, the entity representing the infinite souls of the world remained suspended in mid-air. It was utterly emotionless, cold, and silent. To it, Hegemon's death, resurrection, and subsequent annihilation hundreds of times were nothing more than a tiny grain of sand struggling against the ocean. There was no pity, no anger, only the absolute indifference of a supreme machine operating according to the laws of nature.
"Please... just kill me..." Hegemon uttered his final plea with a tattered remnant of consciousness, before reality once again swallowed him in an endless loop of destruction.
A cruel loop began to sweep through Hegemon's soul like an invisible meat grinder. Each time he was resurrected, death struck before he could even begin to process the world around him.
Boom! Hegemon appeared, his eyes wide with terror: "It...it again..." *Swish!* The rule of information erasure ripped his flesh apart into ancient code. Boom! "Ah! It hurts so much!" He screamed as the air pressure compressed his chest. *Swish!* His soul crumbled like foam.
Boom! "Please..." Before he could finish his sentence, a white beam of light from the Spirit swept through, erasing his memories in 3 seconds before crushing his body.
Boom! As soon as he opened his eyes, Hegemon vomited black blood. His mind was in turmoil, his senses paralyzed. *Swish!* He vanished into thin air.
Boom! "I can't...bear it..." His consciousness was trapped in an absolute void. *Swish!* The law of cause and effect shattered his existence.
Hegemon appeared in a kneeling position. "Stop!" *Swoosh!* All his cells exploded into a cloud of light.
*Boom!* Before he could even take a breath, an invisible stream of conceptual energy sliced across his neck. His head fell off before his consciousness could register what was happening.
*Boom!* "Lily... save..." A desperate cry choked in his throat as his heart stopped beating instantly due to the world's rejection.
*Boom!* Hegemon's body convulsed violently, blood gushing from his eyes and ears due to the anaphylactic shock of time. *Swoosh!* He was wiped out again.
*Boom!* "Why... am I so stubborn?" A flash of reason flickered but was immediately extinguished by a conceptual slash.
*Boom!* Hegemon fell, his entire body aching as if stabbed by a thousand knives at once. *Swoosh!* He vanished without a trace.
*Boom!* "Death... isn't a game..." He whispered, the primal fear of death finally overwhelming his madness. *Slash!*
*Boom!* "I want to live... I want to cherish this life..." Tears mingled with blood. *Slash!* The annihilation continued, but a beat slower.
*Boom!* Hegemon clutched his chest, looking at the emotionless Spirit: "I'm sorry... I was wrong... Please give me a chance to protect myself and Lily..." *Slash!*
*Boom!* Unlike before, no pain struck. Hegemon trembled, opening his eyes. The great Spirit had vanished. The shattered reality around him suddenly reversed, pulling his consciousness back through layers of space.
*Thump!*
Hegemon jumped, his breath coming in short gasps. The cool wooden floor, the warm morning sunlight of the Elf village shining on his face. His ability corrected the error, returning him to his original spawn point.
"Hegemon! You're awake?!" Lily's voice rang out beside him, full of worry.
Hegemon looked at his palm, then at Lily. The overwhelming fear from 15 consecutive deaths made him realize one thing: He could no longer value his life for the sake of time.