On a cold night at the Sorono desert, as I watched a blue flash of light get closer, I pondered a question. 

How do you overcome your greatest fear? 

How do you get revenge on something who destroyed your family?  

How do you slay a god? 

To me, those questions were one and the same. This feeble pursuit was ingrained upon me ever since my earliest memory, forever haunting me hitherto. On that day, that accursed behemoth bug tore into our shelter, its countless legs reaching towards my parents, puncturing their stomach, legs, head, neck, everything. My brother threw his javelin at its head, even managing to embed it deep in its head. It merely doomed him to the same fate. 

Soon, the three bloodied corpses dropped towards the ground, with a small beetle having dug out of each one. They flew up to my hand, glanced at me with their compound eyes, then followed the monster back out the shelter. That was when the gathered villagers stopped standing about and started wordlessly burning the corpses. No one spoke a word about it ever again. 

Since that day, many things changed. The mere sight of insects would cause me to recall that terrible scene all over again. Whenever I asked about my family, the villagers would pretend like they did not hear me or quickly sidestep the topic. Every few nights, I would have a nightmare of that homicidal beast attacking me for something I never did. 

I was quickly adopted by a couple who lived nearby. With how small our village was – a few hundred people at most – everyone was close-knit. My new parents were no exception, treating me as if I was their son. Nevertheless, there was still an unshakeable desire burning within me, yearning me to somehow exact vengeance upon it. 

Even when my friends tried asking the elders about it, they received no reply. In class, it was simply referred to as a group of divine beings who should always be respected. Without anyone willing to tell me anything at all, I had to resort to salvaging glass tablets and preserved books from nearby ruins to conduct my research on their lore.  

The Endbringers. That was what the people of a past time called them, back when the world was still thriving. They appeared near the end of the 22^nd century and were bequeathed with their own names. Those people were right – they were the harbinger of the end times. Now, many stories from the remnants of humanity even use their names to represent Gods. 

They came in all forms and sizes. Some looked like monstrous atrocities, some scraped the atmosphere, some the size of a table, some invisible to the naked eye. Even the tundras and oceans were not spared from their company, turning into bloody arenas free from pesky human disturbances. 

Nobody knew what the Endbringers thought. The people before didn’t have enough time, the people after didn’t want to. Their fons et origo was practically lost to time. 

Everyone knew what the Endbringers could do. Dionysus-Osiris infected others with indolence and insanity, Eostre decreed forests and wilderness to grow, Watatsumi commanded the waves. Not all were hostile towards humans, but their combined presence was more than enough to plunge the world towards chaos and extinction. 

Khepri was the title of that wretched Endbringer. It was named the God of rebirth for a good reason. Khepri was a giant amalgamation of various insects then amplified thousandfold. Its main trait was exclusively targeting certain individuals, being able to shrug off any damage and tear through the thickest bunkers just to zero in on them. It would then cause them to metamorphosise into insects, much like my family did all those years ago. Sometimes, it also held the position of the god of the rising sun, but that was exclusively in olden myths and likely mistaken. 

Little research was done on Khepri considering it was on the lesser end of Endbringers. Not to mention, Khepri caused relatively little collateral damage. However, what was widely accepted was that its victims had crossed a specific line. That line was unknown to anyone but itself, for among those targeted varied from politicians, farmers, developers, managers, and my family. Many theorised Khepri was the ultimate judge of virtue, yet there always seemed to be edge cases (and that category of Endbringer was already oversaturated anyways). 

Khepri shrugged off conventional weaponry as if they were pool noodles, letting it focus solely on its prey. The most common way to ward off its attacks was by producing extreme winds – bug types were weak to flying type attacks. Extremely sharp objects could also disable its body parts, discovered when a bodyguard once stabbed its wings in desperation. When Khepri retreated, it apparently hibernated for months on end before restarting its cycle of roaming. 

The journey to have built up all this knowledge was long, tedious, and dangerous. There was no knowing what stood guard in broken labyrinths and flooded caverns. The only thing pushing me forward was my thirst for revenge. It did not need to be questioned or rationalised, only comprehended. By extension, this too applied to the research of their lore. 

Even still, it wore down on me. Hunting it down meant sustaining through ruins for weeks on end, barely dodging desolation and death just for tiny scraps of information. It stung all the more when it was instead about similar yet different gods – like the twins Castor and Pollux – or worse, completely conflicting with my data bank. 

Tracking down Khepri was the easy part. According to some of the chronicles I read, Khepri was mostly active in a ‘North America’, apparently a desolate desert where the sun hung directly above. It was trivial to spot a giant bug and its swarm when you had a salvaged pair of binoculars that came with built-in motion detectors. 

Killing Khepri was the hard part. After all, how much of a chance did a lone teenager have against a god who fell armies? In a fair fight, I would have lost immediately. That was precisely why I had to make this battle absolutely unfair. 

There was precedent for the fall of an Endbringer. In essence, their stories revolved around outsmarting them and striking their weaknesses. For instance, Hyacinthus could not be directly harmed, so humanity manipulated wind speed and released massive spinning projectiles at it. The Endbringers would never attack each other, thus all the effort had to be put in by them to win. 

If Khepri mainly attacked by stinging me, I could simply sweep myself aside with wind. If Khepri commanded its swarm via pheromones, I could simply blow them away. If Khepri flew up in the air, I could simply climb up in pursuit after it. Khepri had one glaring weakness, and I needed to exploit it. 

Sometime before the rise of the Endbringers, humanity had developed aether. Aether could be synthesised from rare compounds in the air by a specialised machine. When released, aether could be easily controlled by the same corresponding machine as if it was magic. For instance, one could force electricity to be channelled across air, rally or suffocate flames, and control the air all around us. Naturally, I was quite fond of the latter and had practiced it extensively with a greatsword inherited from my mother. 

The weapon was completely made of metal and was about as long as my height. The main edge was reinforced with even more metal parts, while thinner blades protruded out from it. At the nexus of its guard was its aether generator, which glowed a brilliant emerald green when activated. In this state, it was as light as a feather. The blades could then separate like a firearm’s barrel, projecting the aether to the air with immeasurably sharp viridescent blades. 

Aside from gathering intel about Khepri, I trained in my swordplay whenever I had free time. While you would think that having the ability to make a greatsword’s weight nil would make this much easier, that was far from reality. See, I had to also learn techniques to reduce any openings while using my aether, not to mention how I would even use the aether in the first place. In a way, it was both frustrating and satisfying to stop using older techniques in favour of making progress with new ones as I learnt more about Khepri. 

At long last, my fated journey led me here today – approximately in the middle of Khepri’s rest – to its final destination, the Sorono Desert. Yet, there was one unforeseen yet not entirely unwelcome variable: the blue flash. A technique used only by my friend and rival, Tefnut, or Tef for short. Evidently, she greatly favoured power and speed, completely disregarding stealth at all. In a blink, she was right in front of me. 

“Fancy seeing you here, Shu. After all, there’s only a nearby pyramid here, no ruins whatsoever. No reason for you to go all the way out here.” 

“Tef, you know exactly why I’m here.” 

“And that is exactly why I must stop you. This mad suicidal dash of yours will just result in your death. Show that you can beat me, then I will reconsider.” 

Great. Tef always liked to do this. With her own skill at perception and using aether for strong physical effects, neither of us had an inherent advantage and whoever won was by pure skill. Not this time though. I would have to win this battle while using the least aether possible, lest I lose the war. Tef took out her dagger – used by my father and gifted to her as an offshoot of our friendship – and allowed me to make the first move. 

I feinted a slash with my greatsword before raising it to my head. Tef fell for the bait, jumping backwards to dodge. I formed a barrier of still air right behind her, then started swirling the air around the sword. A miniature sandstorm formed about me. 

I held the storm for a few seconds, then released it in a downwards blast. Yet, even as the dust settled, Tef was nowhere to be seen. The air around had no heat– perfectly normal for subzero temperatures. Where did she reposition to? I scrutinized the sand, yet it was perfectly still, as if- 

The space above me split apart. Instinctively, I compressed the air into a forcefield. Yet, I was too slow by nary an instant and the forcefield was torn apart by her dagger, forcing me to dodge via a charge of compressed air. Tef ended up where I was a barely moment ago, her vulpine grin fading into a slight frown. 

I commanded wind to form. Before it even reached Tef, she flowed like water and hit like a waterfall. Dagger in hand, she made a single cut against my armour. Despite the blade not penetrating through, my mind was overridden with pain as if I’d been hit by a plane. Before I knew it, the transcendent blur wrapped my body with rope and I was knocked towards the ground. 

Tef placed her dagger on top of my greatsword’s aether generator and I felt my grasp on the air’s aether loosening. She leisurely trotted towards me. Yet, without my connection to the aether, there was nothing I could do to stop her. Was this really the end for me, destined to fail to even beat a human before I could even challenge the Endbringer? 

Tef’s vulpine grin returned once more. “Checkmate.”  

I replied through gritted teeth. “You’re not… getting me. There’s still something else I can… do with this blade.” 

 “I’m waiting with bated breath. For your super-duper-whatever.” 

I dug the handle of my greatsword into the rope. With how aether could flow through its entirety, a light touch was more than enough to annihilate the rope. I blasted myself downwards, creating a tsunami of sand to act as cover. 

Theoretically, I could have simply controlled the sword to fly into the air and used a mythical ‘Empathic Sword Link™️’ as described in the legends, but I had absolutely no experience in it and would have likely made a fool out of myself. On the other hand, Tef seemingly did master the skill, her dagger imminently flying back into her grasp. I quickly grabbed the blade with one hand and threatened a mighty cleave with the other. 

“Alright, you win,” Tef entreated, throwing the dagger onto the ground. “I suppose I’ll join you, but you must promise that you’ll retreat from that disgusting Endbringer on the first sign of danger.” 

“Wasn’t that your intention anyways? You usually don’t use so little aether in combat.” 

“It’s not like that, I was absolutely just saving aether in case the slim possibility of joining you came up, that’s all!” 

“Hey, don’t make it sound so bad. I mean, two is indeed a bigger number th-” 

Tef whacked me on the head, bringing an end to my sentence and a few skin cells. I pointed towards the nearby pyramid, and we started walking towards it together. Before long, she continued our conversation, “Well, we should be able to replenish our aether quickly anyways. Our abilities practically game the entire system.” 

“Makes you wonder how nobody else thought about this.” 

“I have to ask, have you ever wondered how we became rivals?” 

I thought about it for a moment. “Honestly, I have no idea. We’ve always been competitive with each other since we were young, and I guess that never changed.” 

“I suppose you couldn’t know or find out since nobody wanted to tell you about your parents and brother. Well, I owe you the truth then.” 

“Wait, you know about my family?” I stood still; eyes wide open as if staring into Tef’s soul could find the answer. 

Tef filled me in on how my parents used to be hunters, with my brother joining in their footsteps with a javelin that would gradually weaken its targets. My head spun trying to think of a connection between politicians, farmers, employees, managers, and now hunters. Their overall importance to humanity? The aggression they had against bugs? Eventually, I gave up. 

She continued to explain how I changed so much after that day, not wanting to talk to others and being fearful to insects. No matter how much she, or anyone else for that matter, wanted to connect with me, I didn’t reciprocate. Eventually, she managed to find out how to get me moving, my competitive side. 

Afterwards, we started to discuss how we would win (or as Tef put it, not die horribly). I suspected that the pyramid was the cocoon made by Khepri to reside in, and it was consequently thin and hollow. We would try to kill it in one strike before it could wake up, using my power to conceal our scent. Tef suggested that in the event it did, we would stay above it, since it would likely be used to attacking from above. 

Before we knew it, we were already at the pyramid. Tef high-fived me, temporarily sharing with me her power of perception. A swift climb and cut to make a hole, and we saw it. Khepri. It seemingly appeared different from how I saw it in the past, but I wrote that off as the novel angle I was seeing it from. 

The first issue: Khepri was not sleeping. The second issue: it was flying in place while insects, winged serpents, cicadas, butterflies, blazing birds, and countless other pests were surrounding it. The very sight made me shiver in fear. Luckily, they seemed to be none the wiser to us, letting me get my nerves together. 

Seizing the initiative, we dived down towards Khepri faster than terminal velocity. Khepri instantaneously reacted, moving out of the way. Yet, the cocoon was too small for meaningful movement, and the wind guided us onto it. As I fell, I took extra care to make thick barriers around Khepri to keep it cornered. Tef’s dagger glowed a pale yellow and flew towards one eye, while my greatsword cleanly sliced the other off. As it made contact, I could feel the heavy presence of foreign aether.  

 Khepri was not without retaliation. The swarm was already rushing towards us from all sides, biting and stinging in an attempt at getting through our armour. I panicked for a second before remembering my strategy: blowing away the pheromones. I commanded a vortex and an updraft to manifest, ejecting them out the hole. 

The third issue: they continued attacking us, albeit slightly less agitated. How could this even have been possible? If they didn’t need Khepri’s pheromones to attack us, then not only did they retain their cognition, they also were doing this out of their own free will. This also meant a core part of my plan was wrong, not to mention potentially the other information I had was likewise. I groaned and settled on the less elegant way of directly blowing them away instead. 

Spikes and ooze were beginning to form along the thorax, forcing me to make platforms of stilled air for the both of us. Yet, trapped in its own cocoon, Khepri couldn’t do much more to retaliate. Tef’s dagger now glowed orange and projected out echoes of its swipes, neutralizing anything that dared fly close. Tef was moving with complete trust of my ability to place barriers, so I repaid that faith in kind. 

“Careful!” Tef screamed in my ear as she looked down. Mimicking her, I glimpsed flames and poison being flung at us like flak targeting a jet. Unluckily, I didn’t have Tef’s skill at dodging. Luckily, being able to control air meant being able to suffocate fire and only losing half of my hair. Before I could even catch my breath, that was when all the bugs I pushed aside to deal with later decided to add insult to injury, coming back to strike us down in the form of an interlinked heap. 

With an assault from both the bottom and the top, I had to sacrifice the vortex in favour for a more direct method. I tried controlling the air to directly slash every insect in the pyramid. The fourth issue: they were covered in that same layer of foreign aether, and with their immense density, the air virtually bounced off them. 

It seemed I had to resort to my last trick I could use here. One that I had not even tested out, for I feared it would be too destructive and expensive. I cut a hole in the pyramid and concentrated wholly on my aether outside. 

Go up, and up, and up, to the atmosphere. Then, scatter. Move everywhere but this dry desert. Return with the clouds you’ve pushed to mix them all together. Concentrate the ions and charges, then strike. 

When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was sitting rather uncomfortably with my back flush against the wall, while Tef was busy fighting the swarm. A massive cloud had formed above us, blocking out the moon as rain started falling. That was my cue to surround us with a dense barrier of air and scream out a quick “brace”. Right after, a massive bolt of lightning struck the swarm, instantly frying all of them to a delicious golden brown. 

…On second thought, vermin that were previously humans did not sound appetising at all. At least the swarm was cooked. 

“Woah, when did you learn to do all that? I thought you only knew how to break wind.” 

“Not telling you. When did you learn to shoot daggers?” 

“Heh, not telling you.” 

We were right above Khepri’s exposed abdomen now. From such an angle, I could see just how helpless Khepri was. An entire Endbringer reduced to a mere cornered bug, its swarm all but dead with the remaining few too scared to attack. Finally, after so many years of pain and anger, this would be the end of everything. 

After a curt nod in concert, Tef placed her dagger beside my blade as I “welded” them together. The entire blade glowed with a brilliant gradient of green and purple, letting me see the look of determination on Tef’s face. With our hands tightly gripped on the greatsword’s handle together, we jumped and thrusted our union sword inside with every last bit of might left. 

Khepri screamed as its wings accelerated into a blur, yet it was an act of sheer folly. Soon, it crashed down onto the sand, green blood flowing out of its wound and its motion coming to a final halt. 

My legs and arms were absolutely aching, my body was devoid of stamina, my brain tired from all the split-second decisions. Subconsciously, I used up all my compressed air dashes and my armour was cracking in some places. 

But, we did it. We won. We won, against an Endbringer. At that very moment, all my pain melted into pride and satisfaction coursing through every single one of my veins. I glanced at Tef. 

Her face had a hardened countenance, and her stance was one of combat. Her dagger glowed with a blue hue. Immediately, I sensed that something was wrong. Yet, I could barely make out the words she spoke, much less verbally reply to her. 

“Do you know what happens to the eggs of insects?” 

They hatched, obviously. 

“Do you know that in many pyramids, there lies underground structures?” 

…I didn’t, actually. That was new to me. Perhaps I should’ve considered researching into that before doing this. 

“Do you know what Khepri is?” 

An Endbringer. 

No, Khepri was the God of the cycle of life and rebirth. But even then, that was preposterous, impossible. We killed it. None of the dead Endbringers could bring themselves back to life, not even Dumuzid or The Nazorean did. Unless… 

“Do you truly know what Endbringers are?” 

The sand started vibrating, then trembling, then quaking. I promptly cut open a hole in the side and blasted us out right before the entire pyramid collapsed. As the dust settled, the one flying there was Khepri. A Khepri, but different from Khepri before. Its exoskeleton glittered beneath the moonlight as if it was made with crystals. Its wings were broader and sleeker. Its mandibles were only partially formed, as was its antenna. Its horn had a loop on its base with an inverted “T” shape on top of it. 

It was the rebirth of Khepri, and it was waspish. 

I decided to take the bull by its horns (or in this case, take the colossal insect by its antenna) by releasing my aether towards it for my attack. Instantaneously, Khepri lunged towards us. I instinctively set up barriers, but they all formed too slow, cut apart by its scythe limbs like a hot knife through butter. Tef grabbed me and zoomed out of the way. As she did so, she made a superficial cut on my neck with her deep violet dagger. A technique she saved for the direst of situations. My mind momentarily blacked out as I got used to the connection. 

Her thoughts would indiscriminately flow to me instantly; my thoughts would indiscriminately flow to her instantly. 

Khepri was already in pursuit of us. Subliminally, we agreed on our riposte. Tef reversed directions as I thrusted my sword towards it, while she cut from below. Surprisingly, Khepri retreated a few wingbeats. Then, it healed back its cut limbs and wounds. 

This is what Khepri is. It is what makes Khepri strong even without being destructive. It has the power to rebirth over and over again, play this game of attrition, wear you down slowly, then win the long game. 

That much I know. I just didn’t think it would even recover after all that.  

So, do you know why it must rebirth after some time? 

No. You know the reason? 

That was a literal question. I don’t understand yet, though I think I know why. Careful, it’s attacking again. 

Khepri flew at a downwards angle towards us, its two front limbs now braced to hit us respectively. I ran in front of Tef and pitched a thick macrosegregated barrier to shield us. As Khepri’s limbs pierced through layer upon layer, I surrounded and froze the air on them. 

Well, that was technically inaccurate. I did not bother with liquid – too cumbersome to account for both it and gas. While I also couldn’t control solid, I could control gas enough to keep it solid. 

With the right pressure and temperature, the barrier materialized right on Khepri’s limbs, effectively rendering them useless (unless it decided to crush us). Tef followed up by attacking them with a reflective dagger, but it bounced right off. Frustrated, she pressed it up against the limb and cycled through an array of colours, but all of them seemingly had no effect.  

Suddenly, she turned her head backwards, eyes wide open like she’d seen a ghost. 

The swarm. 

A distinct sound of animal cries was steadily growing louder by the second. Behind us, thousands of bugs were approaching us, some even larger than Khepri itself. 

Considering how Khepri’s rebirth worked, they were ghosts in some sense. 

Their screeching discord only got more intense as they drew closer. Even Khepri itself was buzzing, somehow instilling equal parts dread and reverence. I thickened the air around my ears, but Tef wasn’t so lucky. Without any way to safeguard her ears combined with her attuned sense of hearing, she was reduced to a quivering pile on the sand. I couldn’t even copy my own solution, unless I was willing to fully concentrate on her movement to avoid cutting off her ears. I settled for a thinner bubble around her. 

Focus on the small fry, I’ll deal with the rest. 

I raised up my greatsword and started solidifying the air above it. The blade grew, its sheen a pale blue and towering multitudes over its initial size, with a frigid sharp edge of ice. 

Seriously? Repeating what you did with Khepri’s limbs? 

Reusing it is less taxing on my brain and lets me focus on actually improving its quality. Not everyone just relies on one-time effects and a fixed weapon infusion like you. 

Your loss. 

As if to drive her point in, Tef smirked and bolted to the swarm, exterminating them with enough flashing lights to warrant an epilepsy warning. Every slash unleashed by the butcher sent spears of blood through their bodies. I sighed and made a downdraft near the remaining survivors, then sliced through them with my sword, bugs dropping like falling leaves. 

Simple and effective. If it works, then no need to change it. 

Suddenly, I felt a massive air current behind me. I erected another barrier behind me and looked back. Air, sand, and corpses were being pulled into a singular point behind Khepri. I felt into it and sensed the aether of Khepri near the middle. 

Out of the blue, Tef went flying towards Khepri, violet dagger in hand. As the blade made contact, there was a clangourous screech of metal against metal. Then, the suction force plummeted as Khepri was knocked backwards with an equally violet wound on its head. Tef fell onto the ground, unconscious. It took me a second to process what had just happened. Then, the panic and shock hit me. Instantly, I broke into a run towards her. 

It worked. 

Tef slowly lifted herself up from the sand. I dared not interrupt her with my thoughts while she seemed so fragile. 

I can hear it. Its voice is deafening, yet empty. I think I can feel what it wants to do. 

“You didn’t have to do that, you damn martyr,” I mumbled. 

You really had to emphasise it so much by actually talking? It’s too late to undo it anyways. Get going while its vulnerable. 

Before Khepri fully recovered, Tef continued her assault, her dagger becoming blue to jump back onto Khepri before turning yellow. I secured the rear, preventing the other bugs from interfering with her attacks. 

Without Tef on the battlefield, I could go all out with my attacks. I concentrated on the air near the swarm, decreasing the air pressure to low amounts and randomly simulating explosions. Many of the weaker bugs started dying, while others quickly bled out from their wounds. 

I turned my attention to Khepri. Tef already made immense progress, with one of its wings torn off and rainbow-coloured gashes on its body. However, Khepri was evidently starting to recover and retaliate, with bumps appearing over its body and exploding with a yellow liquid on nearby movement. 

Using the same deposition technique as before, I summoned spikes in the air. Tef moved in unison, slashing deeper into the wounds they created with a red dagger to sublimate them and letting me further solidify in its veins. 

Suddenly, Tef transmitted a sense of alarm and jumped up. Taking her cue, I blasted myself up as well. Four giant worms burrowed up from beneath us, then colliding with the block which trapped Khepri’s limbs. Khepri quickly took this opportunity to escape. 

We have no time to deal with them. After it, now! 

Tef ran up and high-fived me, the power of her blue dagger spreading to me as we gave chase to Khepri. 

If this was its true power, then how are we even still alive? 

We’re really just that good, I suppose. In fact, I didn’t even see it try to rebirth us yet, strangely enough. 

Weird. I also got the feeling that it was waiting for us to use our aether before attacking. 

There was also a presence of its aether around it. Perhaps it’s due to its history with other people using it, so it adapted to it? 

Huh, then what are all these air suctions about? 

I got the impression that it was “making a star”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. 

How did that even have to do with what Khepri was? It was the God of rebirth and- oh. God of the morning sun. 

Tef came to that realisation the same time as me, though that didn’t count since she cheated. Her face darkened into a scowl, unlike her typical demeanour. Without a second word, we accelerated to Khepri who was part way through another one of its vacua. 

Tef sprang onto Khepri with her purple dagger as I stilled most of the air around the vacuum. 

Our efforts were practically futile. The core expanded and spun faster and faster. Then, dawn arrived. 

Heat radiated towards us, melting my greatsword back to size, while the light of a star nearly blinded our eyes. With a deft swing, I commanded the aether to diffract the light back to Khepri’s eyes. It had absolutely no reaction, as if it wasn’t affected at all. 

In retrospect, the God of the morning sun obviously couldn’t be blinded or burnt. 

It definitely doesn’t want me to get near its legs. 

I pushed her thought from my concentration, prioritising making an updraft to blow away the hot air and while making my barrier denser. With this much aether concentration, I could try making a miniature thunderstorm in my hands. It was risky, but I needed to do it if I had to win. 

Khepri resisted, pushing the miniature sun forwards with its hind limbs. My barriers heated into plasma, which I exploited with bolts of lightning aimed at it. 

Hmph, don’t ignore me like that. Aren’t you curious why I said that? 

If it’s not going to use them to rebirth you, why bother having anything to do with them? We just need to kill it. 

Then, haven’t you wondered why that is so? They’re its strongest weapons, after all. We’re not going to win if we just continue hacking away at something unkillable like this. 

What are you even planning to do? 

Use it to force my rebirth. 

Are you insane? 

Both of us are already insane for trying to kill an Endbringer. And we must continue doing more insane things because no sane man will survive this. Besides, I have a plan to not be stuck permanently as an insect. 

And if doing this actually insane rebirthing doesn’t do anything? 

I turn back into a human and we continue fighting. 

And if that doesn’t work? 

We die. Same as if we don’t take this risk. What happened to your killer instinct? How much do you even trust me to do this? From that very first day until now, I always- 

I’ll do it then. 

 You can’t, silly. You won’t escape the rebirth. I suppose I’ll still consider that as approval for me though. See ya! 

Wait, I have to- 

Pain shot through my hand into every crevice of my body. My skin felt like I was in the middle of an inferno, burning hotter than the sun itself. My heart was beating a thousand times per second, my throat and lungs felt as dry as a wasteland, my stomach was revolting and trying to throw up food that wasn’t there. 

My legs and arms folded into themselves, bones breaking and twisting to their new positions, then being ground and mixed with skin. Fingers and toes blended to become lumps, then smoothed out into nothingness. 

Following that, my skin pushed inwards, proceeding even when muscles and tissues provided resistance. My entire body forcibly compressed into a smaller version of itself. Then, pairs of unfamiliar carapaces started moving subconsciously. Then, my head collapsed, losing my sense of sight, hearing, thought… 

Hand drop something. Pain, near middle. Become larger, even more pain. Fur and claws on leg. Tail, long. Then, nothingness. 

I forced my eyes to open. I was still myself, a human, Shu. I looked back up towards Khepri. The sun had completely disappeared, and a cat was dashing off it onto the sand. A metal dagger was flying out, towards me, then froze in the air. I took it. 

I was alone now. Tef was completely gone, reduced to nothing but a cat. Probably better than a bug like the normal procedure was, yet still unable to help. Khepri seemed to be momentarily unresponsive, but- 

The sky split open with a pale brown laser concentrating down behind me. The sand blew away under the immense force. After a few arduous seconds, the laser thinned out. Standing there was the top half of a giant humanoid with dark complexion, possessing a hundred arms and outfitted with dark blue robes. A radiant ring of rocks was revolving about its torso. Below it was a chimera with the head and horns of a buffalo, the wings of a crow, the lower body of a snake, the legs of a horse, along with a distorted shell of a tortoise. Instantly, a feeling of desperation and insecurity manifested in my mind, along with an unfamiliar name and concept: Shani, God of Karma.  

Together, it roared out a guttural cry, myriad weapons manifesting in each hand. Khepri responded with a hiss of its own, its bugs joining in its call and commencing their assault on Shani. Their combined sound seemed to summon even more bugs from beneath the sand. 

Shani did not waste a second in retaliating, loading and shooting shining arrows at Khepri. With its other hands, it used its sword and trident to slice apart the armies. However, its biggest weapon seemed to be passive: anything that touched it burst into flames, forming cyclic cloaks of blaze. 

Khepri adapted quickly, organising its army to form into hollow “clones” that looked alike to itself. Then, it rushed at Shani while the other ones flung string at its weapons, flew into its face, and quaked the earth. 

“This is… a battle between the Endbringers,” I stammered out. No one responded to me. 

What was I even doing here? I thought I alone had the power to bring one down, yet I was absolutely no match for them even at their weakest. Throwing myself at them now would be tantamount to suicide, and to an even higher order of magnitude than my original plan. 

I had spent every single waking moment studying, planning, training, fantasising about the day I would beat Khepri, yet I failed to ever understand the infinitesimally small chance of that happening. I mistook myths for prophecies and peace for opportunity. 

Now, I was foolishly stranded on a battlefield between two of them. The fate of my only friend was unknown. The golden opportunity had passed – it was never there at all. Perhaps this was just the simple fate destiny had for me and my family; except I managed to drag her down with it too. Was there even any point in fighting anymore? 

I sat down on the ground and looked up. The sky was about to break into dawn, a beautiful fading salmon pink gradient mirroring the battle on illuminated sand. The distant planet of Saturn was visible, and I could make out a radiant ring around it. The majestic sight made me feel nothing. 

 I cried. I lost everything in this feeble pursuit – my family, my time, my passions, my health, my friend, and myself. Two entire lives gone and wasted because of this fruitless, worthless pursuit. 

In the face of the inevitable, I couldn’t save her from herself. Now, I couldn’t even utilize the one opportunity she sacrificed herself for. 

Even if I managed to survive, what would I do now? I would return unsuccessful, my comrade dead and my past meaningless. All my honour would be forsaken. Without any of the skills my peers had learnt, I would never reach them and spend my whole life in their shadow as a failure. 

I looked down and immediately regretted it. The greatsword reminded me once again of my mother. No matter how hard I tried, I failed at the final stretch. I couldn’t avenge my parents. I couldn’t even hold a candle to my brother, who fearlessly defended them even at half the age I was now. I simply sat on the sand and accepted defeat.  

Suddenly, I heard a soft purr besides me. A cat had crawled up behind me, looking at me with an ineffably intense look. The cat walked up to the dagger half-buried in the sand, touched its violet blade, and scratched the wound on my neck. 

The wound was no more severe than any other, yet it hurt the most. 

The cat sat still on my shoulder for a few moments. Then, her emotions flowed into me like a truck. Courage and faith, with a repressed undertone of agony. 

 If the thought of giving up was intoxicating, then this feeling of hope was like consuming ambrosia. Since I had come all this way here, dedicated my entire life for this one moment, I couldn’t give up now. 

Logically, I knew that standing up again to fight was foolish. Emotionally, I knew that it was what I wanted to do. No matter how slim the chances, our hearts and minds still held the will to fight. The so-called impossible is merely something that has yet to happen. 

I had fallen into the trap of simply thinking about the power of Endbringers. Khepri was strong, yet that didn’t mean it couldn’t be defeated. Our problem was its self-healing that we couldn’t overcome by ourselves. Yet with the presence of another Endbringer, that factor would be excluded from the equation. 

I picked up the dagger and the greatsword. In the face of god, we rose, as one. 

Khepri and Shani was locked in a vicious stalemate. Terrestrial pests could barely scratch a god versed in war, but those who sunk beneath the sand endlessly came back with a new lease of life. On the other hand, Shani was catching up to Khepri’s pace of healing, consistently countering its feints and gaining meaningful progress. 

I propelled us upwards with aether, catching the attention of a nearby fake Khepri. Before they could attack, I compressed them into a single mass and tore them apart with a blade of air. 

Another burst of air put me just above Khepri’s abdomen. As I landed on the ground, I instinctively knew my destination: the head. 

The swarm was all around us now, determined not to let us get any further. I looked around for anything to exploit, yet only saw fire and death. As another flare of Shani ignited, I made a path of oxygen to lead it near. The swarm burnt to an unappetising golden brown while a barrier of air protected us. 

I let the barrier linger until the flames died out, then transformed it to a refractive bubble around us. With a blue flash of light from the dagger, I ran up to that one spot on its head. 

I immediately knew where it was when I arrived. A wounded patch of skin caused by Shani’s weapon was present within a slight depression, with a hole bored through its centre. This must have been where that javelin had landed all those years ago, and Khepri never recovered from it. Though the javelin was gone now, it let me tear that small crack in its defence wide open. 

I anchored the bubble onto Khepri to prevent myself from falling, then concentrated on the blades in my hand. With the powers combined of myself and the cat, both blades resonated with each other; the greatsword with the quintessence of pneuma, the rainbow dagger at the pinnacle of fluidity. 

Suddenly, three beetles flew up near me. My mind wanted me to let out a scream, yet my soul and body did not waver, as if they already understood everything. Overclocked into something otherworldly, the blades glowed with an aethereal lustre. 

With all my emotion and power, I thrusted the blades into Khepri. It cried out a visceral roar of pain, completely unlike anything I had heard before. It shook my very soul to its core, yet determination ensured my conviction would remain. The blades sunk deeper and deeper, until it seemed to meet an immovable resistance. 

My hands let go of the swords as I wordlessly concentrated on the air around me. The abundant aether in the air resounded in unison. From nothing, moulded something. 

I opened my eyes and looked down. In my hands were chakrams, blessed by the wind itself.  

With a final flicker, I threw the chakrams into Khepri before blacking out. 

When I returned to consciousness, Khepri was lying on the desert sand. Shani was gone. The bugs in the distance were gradually dropping out of the sky, the nearer ones hanging on for a few more moments before they too succumbed to the embrace beneath the sand. 

I freed the barrier of air and walked up to the three beetles. We couldn’t communicate to each other, but that wasn’t necessary. I stared into their eyes with an intense mix of emotion, and they stared back. 

Uncontrollably, tears started streaming down my eyes. 

This didn’t feel like their demise. Rather, it was a final farewell to them as the curse of rebirth was lifted from them. Even still, as the frozen time began to flow once more, I felt myself melt in the morning light.  

This was the one inevitable truth I found out today, and I had come to terms with it. 

Yet, when their time came, I realised I was never ready for it. All too soon, their wings started rapidly flitting. I held out my cupped hands to them, granting them one final embrace. 

My mind became a blur as my legs walked on autopilot down from Khepri. Then, I moved them to one hand and dug a small hole with the other. I buried them beneath the sand, spared myself one final look at where they laid, then never looked back. 

As I was walking back, a cat suddenly purred, and I felt a sudden weight on top of me. Together, we collapsed onto the sand. 

“You really couldn’t have hopped off before transforming back?” 

A mischievous grin. “Hehehe, sorry.” 

“This is your idea of a joke? Right after all that?” 

“Hey, you stopped crying right after you left them. Besides, was I meant to be a cat forever?” 

I remained silent. 

“You’re stronger than me though. I couldn’t have managed all that.” 

“I was… prepared for it to happen.” 

“Hey, don’t start crying again right after I said all that. Look on the bright side, we won against an Endbringer!” 

“Yeah, we did.” 

“We’re practically the stuff of legend now! This could be like our very own Verity of the Divine.” 

Somehow, I felt an immense urge to cringe. Tef laughed maniacally, as if my reaction was a catalyst. 

Eventually, she got a hold of herself. “So, what are you going to do now?” 

“Beats me. Though my first destination is definitely the hospital, since I think I’m numb to all your jokes.” 

Her reaction seemed to suggest that she needed to go to the hospital too. 

“On a more serious note, there’s so much more to the Endbringers than I first thought. They are more than just simple but strong beings, yet no one else wants to take the first step. Not to mention, nearly everything I read up about them was wrong or incomplete.” 

“It’s almost like the people wrote things wrongly on purpose. Very strange, but I suppose that’s what the gut instinct is for.” 

“Perhaps, I will find the truth to them one day. I would let everyone be free from their reign of terror and misunderstanding.” 

“Anyways, what are you going to do with the greatsword? I mean, you have your own chakrams now.” 

“Do you think I would throw them away?” 

“No, but wouldn’t it be redundant?” 

“I see, both my hands would be full. I can give it to you too if you want.” And now she conveniently got herself both of my parent’s heirlooms. Whatever. 

Her eyes lit up as a smile formed on her face. 

“But really, you’re just envious of my own weapons, aren’t you?” 

She deflated. “How come you can see through me now? I’m supposed to be the snarky one and catch you off guard.” 

“You’re just rubbing off on me, I suppose.” 

“Don’t copy my overused lines too!” 

I chuckled for the first time today and held out my hand. Tef’s dagger flew into one of her hands while she high-fived me with the other. On a warm morning on the Sorono desert, we set off as a blue flash of light together.