Within a desolate desert, inside a dilapidated shop, on a simple chair, a youth that had always seemingly slept, opened his eyes. His body that had been akin to carcass moved and the youth seemed to breathe for the first time in a long while. It was as if an illusion had been broken and the feeling of death that had been emanating from the youth vanished. His eyes scanned the derelict shop in which he had been sleeping for who knew how long before his brows furrowed just a tinge.

In the next moment, a single finger of his fell on the desk.

No sooner had the finger fallen than a gong resounded out. The sound of this gong was unnatural; for it did not decrease as it travelled far and wide. Instead, it flipped its nature and increased. The sound of gong grew louder as it travelled farther and farther away from the youth. Those things that suffered the effects of it passing, shattered like glass. While those things through which the sound did not pass through, felt the vibrations that its passing created.

The sound of the gong continued to travel endlessly and it travelled faster than any sound had the right to travel. It continued to travel until it covered the entire desert, the entire continent, the entire ocean and the entire planet before it finally reached a kitten seemingly sleeping on the remnants of a broken wall, within the ruins of a long-dead city.

The sound of the gong woke the kitten and the moment the azure kitten opened its eyes, it found itself in front of the youth that had been seemingly sleeping for so long. The youth grabbed the azure kitten by its neck and the animal cried out in anger and unwillingness but the youth gave it no mind. Instead, he stepped forward.

However, at the moment the youth stepped forward, the very Creation exploded out while the very Reality cracked. The destruction spread far and wide as it destroyed lands, air and space. Yet, none of the creatures anywhere died. It was as if the destruction had purposefully avoided anything alive.

Through the cracks and the explosion, the youth walked through.

-X-

Merchant of Malice. Merchant of mercy. Merciful Merchant of Malice. Malicious Merchant of mercy. Numerous names for a creature that is one. These names imprison themselves not in a single reality. Rather, they spread themselves far and wide, not just in Creations but in one and all Realities.

A myth. A Legend. A horror best left unsaid. He was a creature that mothers used to scare their children with. The boogieman that haunted not one but all. Such was his legend that few believed he lived and even lesser believed that he had ever existed. Throughout all the Creations and Realities, the doubt of his existence was a constant truth.

He was a creature that was said to trade in nothing but malice and mercy. Yet what he traded for was said to be anything and everything. He was said to be deal not with death but in disasters and calamities. He was said to deal in not just miracles but wonders and marvels. He was able to deny even the most powerful mortals and immortals their right to life. Meanwhile, he was capable of banishing even death.

Such a creature had now been summoned by a chambermaid that had nothing but malice in her heart.

0.0

The [Transgender] laughed and her hoarse voice resounded in her cell as the Creation seemed to explode and the Reality itself seemed to break. The cracks spread far and wide but they avoided the living and swirled around them. They bent and twisted as they rushed forward, leaving the living safe and whole.

But for how long?

None of the present people noticed the cracks in the Reality and the explosion of the Creation. Instead, they saw the space break apart, walls fall and the ceiling vanished. They saw the earth part and the skies crack but they failed to notice the horror hidden underneath.

At that moment, all of it mattered not as a youth walked out of the cracked skies and the parted earth. He walked out of not just one but from everywhere. It was as if he was the Reality that cracked and the Creation that exploded. He walked from everywhere at once, only to merge and become one.

Despite the method of his arrival, the youth had a face that was plain and forgettable by all standards. It was as unmemorable as the random stranger on a busy road. Along with his ordinary features, his skin that was light brown and his black hair that came down all the way down to his shoulders, his presence was utterly unmemorable.

In contrast to his features, his clothes were something else entirely. If his features had been made to be forgotten, his clothes had been definitely not. He was dressed in 2 pieces of unstitched fabrics. It was as if the place where he came from, people had not fancied the concept of stitched clothes. The first piece of fabric was wrapped around his waist and each of his legs before it was finally tucked right beneath his navel. While the second piece was folded neatly in layers and came from behind his neck before falling down his bare chest.

Other than his unstitched clothes, the only other thing noticeable about him was his age, which appeared to be barely about 17 to 18 years of mortal age.

The youth’s brown eyes fell on the naked woman standing behind the burning carcass and he released the kitten from his grasp. The kitten seemed completely normal despite who it had come along with. It was about as big as a mortal’s palm with its fur as grey as that of a common river stone while its eyes as azure as the purest mana.

However, at that moment, it let out a meow and broke the illusion of normalcy. For its meow was not the meow that was heard by those present. Rather its meow sounded akin to the voice of an extremely young mortal child whose gender could not be determined by their voice alone.

“Enough with the madness.” The kitten meowed as it eyed the corpse that had almost turned to cinders.

The grey kitten had barely finished meowing that the laughing woman’s mouth shut itself. By the way, the naked woman’s eyes widened, the action was against the chambermaid’s will.

“Speak.” The extremely generic voice of the youth addressed the [Transgender]. The voice was so generic that if one were to hear it ever again, they would have trouble matching it with the one they remembered. “Your trade.”

The naked woman’s head swirled towards the crowd but the green-clad woman that the [Transgender]’s eyes had been searching for was nowhere to be found. The [Monster Tamer] had escaped in the moment of chaos. The [Transgender]’s face twisted as he snarled. “Where is she?! Where!”

As if the chambermaid’s snarl awakened the gathered people from a bad dream and they immediately realised that this was not a place that they wanted to be. With the realization dawning on them like freezing winter, they all began to run.

All at once.

The mortals ran towards the door but the people that had accumulated were too many and the corridor was too small. In such a situation, mortals did what they did best. They survived caring for nothing else. The mortals ran, they ran over each other. They pushed those ahead of them to make way for themselves and then they ran over those that they had downed.

A stampede ensued as screams and shrieks became common with each mortal that fell. Cries and pleadings for help besieged those that ran but each mortal cared not for another and ran for their own lives, stepping upon those that had fallen. People screamed, they cried and they died. However, to those that were within the cell, none of that mattered.

The grey kitten’s azure eyes flickered away from the cindered corpse and back to the woman. It frowned a bit before it meowed once again. “Stop with the nonsense. Just speak what you want to trade. Why are you wasting time?”

The naked woman stumbled as if struck before his eyes turned to the youth who gazed at him dispassionately.

“Trade, yes. Trade.” The woman said to herself. “First! Remove all the bindings from me!”

The youth nodded and waited.

The woman eyes swirled as his mind raced. “Immortality! Give me the method to gain immortality!”

Once again, the youth nodded.

The woman’s face twisted into extreme hate and she snarled. “Destroy the Empire of the Three Moons!”

The youth frowned for a moment before he shook his head. “Not enough.”

The woman’s bloodshot eyes widened and her nose flared. Her clenched fists drew blood and her form trembled in rage. She glared at the youth with madness dancing on her face as she spat, “Not ENOUGH!! Not ENOU-”

“Stuff it.” The cat meowed with narrowed eyes and the woman’s jaws locked themselves once again against her will. “With this pitiful amount, you want to buy the destruction of an Empire? Do you think this is a thrift store or something!”

The woman breathing hitched and she suffocated. Her body grew hot and stifled. However, at that moment, the woman’s lips parted in an ugly smile and her head swirled to face that wall that separated her cell from the monster’s. She spat. “Take my Skills, will you!? Leave me powerless, will you?!! Kill that monster!”

The youth frowned but it was the kitten who meowed in its childlike voice. “There’s no one there.”

The woman baulked for a moment before she screamed. “There should be! There should be! If it isn’t there now, then where did it go?!”

“Do you want to trade for that information too?” The kitten meowed like a true merchant. It left no opportunity for profit! The woman’s head whirled and she glared at the kitten that was licking its paws clean after having poked the cindered corpse.

“No.” The woman glared, yet her madness seemed to have calmed down. “Then, then kill the creature that used to be there.”

“Tch.” The kitten scoffed at missing easy profit. The youth, however, frowned for a moment before he shook his head. “Not enough.”

The kitten looked up, surprised at the reaction before it too narrowed its eyes. After a moment it meowed as it scolded the naked woman.

“Ha! You must really think this is a thrift store, huh? To try and buy that creature’s death with such a pitiful amount, don’t you have any shame! Pitiful! Pitiful! I am truly pitiful! To have to deal with such a moneygrubber, truly pitiful!”

The woman’s mouth fell open at the kitten’s rant before he patted his chest as if to calm his breathing. Yet his anger did not subside. “Why can’t I buy its death? It’s just another monster!”

“Just another monster, he says. Keep your mouth shut if you don’t know anything!” The kitten snapped as it meowed before its eyes became shifty as it sensed a deal. “Or you could trade for that information. Do you want to trade for it?”

The [Transgender] wanted to strangle the little kitten but given who it came along with, he dared not do such a thing. Instead, he replied hotly, “Yes, I will buy it! Tell me. Why can’t I buy its death?!”

The youth simply shook its head. “Not enough.”

The kitten let out a roaring laugh as I rolled on the floor. It even stopped rolling on the floor for a moment to point at the woman before it began rolling with laughter again.

The chambermaid clenched his fists and ground his teeth. Such shame. Such disgrace. Such humiliation. But he endured. He hit himself and he endured. He knew that someone’s tragedy was someone’s comedy. After all, hadn’t the tragedy of his life been the comedy for those that belonged to the Empire?

Thus, with gritted teeth, the chambermaid asked. “Then how about those that came to this land from the Empire of the Three Moons? Can I buy their death?”

The young man nodded and the [Transgender] let out a bitter laugh. Even with all his sufferings, the malice in his heart couldn’t buy the destruction of those that destroyed her so. Instead, he had to settle for killing the scrap that had brought her here. He breathed and hit his chest but answered all the same. “Kill them then. Kill them all.”

“That will be all.” The youth said in his common voice. “The trade shall now commence.”

The youth did not wait for the [Transgender] to respond as he gave her a look and the bindings on the woman dissolved as if they hadn’t been there in the first place.

No sooner had the bindings on the woman dissolved than he received a notification.

Ting.

Ting.

Ting.

At that moment, before the woman could even think, the flesh on his body bubbled and reformed. His skin lost its tenderness and his face took on a square shape. His shoulders broadened and his hips narrowed. His breasts shrank until they disappeared while his vagina elongated and fell until it became a penis.

The youth’s face remained impassive as the woman changed into a man. It was as if he cared not for what happened to the woman, for whom he had crossed not just Creations but also Realities.

The moment the process ended and the man began to touch himself all over, the youth flicked a finger. The moment the youth’s finger was flicked, men and woman began to die as their flesh exploded, leaving behind nothing but blood and guts splattered across the earth and the sandy beach.

The mortals exploded without any discrimination. No matter what Tier they were, or where they were, as long as they were those that had left the Empire of Three Moons, and arrived to land on this nameless continent, they all exploded where they were, without any exception.

As a result, the countless FIrst Tier mortals became nothing but guts and blood. Even Tier 2 mortals like Anubhav Dhyan, the [Mana Sensor], escaped not their fate and exploded just like their Tier 1 brethren. And if Tier 1 and Tier 2 mortals had died in droves, then how could Tier 3 mortals escape the flick of the Merchant’s finger? They too exploded without exception.

The old [Healer] became blood and guts within his office along with the patients that he had been seeing and those that had been waiting outside. While the [Ward Smith] turned to blood paste and dissolved in the ocean where he had been casting the ward. The [Monster Tamer] and the [Ship Captain] exploded too, right in front of their son, showering their chamber and their son with blood and guts while turning their room the colour of blood.

Mortals died and continued to die as the Merchant of Malice delivered his part of the trade. The senseless slaughter continued one after the other and the youth’s face twitched not for even a moment. He neither smiled nor did he show grief as his face remained impassive all along. It was as if it was not mortals that he had just annihilated but pests.

When the final mortal turned to nothing but a splatter, the youth placed his hand on the chest of the man who had earlier been a woman and pressed. The man gasped and coughed out blood as the youth’s hand began to penetrate the man’s flesh. The youth continued to push his hand in, and the man’s eyes swelled and popped, splattering the blood and goo all over his face.

The youth cared not for this as he continued to press his hand in. Yet even when the youth’s hand was elbow deep within the man’ chest, it did not emerge out from the man’s back. Instead, the man’s nose, ears and pores on his skin began to bleed as streams of blood ran all over the man’s body.

“Within the moment this hand is pulled out, you will perish.” The youth announced as if he were commenting on the weather. “As for the method to gain immortality, it is thus. Reject your god as you focus on you [Species] within your Status. Reject them and you will achieve immortality.”

The moment the youth finished speaking, he pulled out his hand mercilessly and the man fell on the ground, face first with his body twitching uncontrollably.

Ting.

Ting.

Ting.

0.0

The moment the youth turned away from the man on the ground, the grey kitten jumped up and in a single leap landed on the youth’s shoulder.

“Did you really think you’d continue to exist after violating the decree of the Eternals?” The kitten meowed to no one as its eyes roamed across the land spanning in its vision. “You must be really full of yourself, huh?”

The youth raised one of his legs before slamming it down on the ground. The moment his feet landed, however, the land began to tremble and shake. It was as if a massive earthquake had arrived at that moment. The sea trembled and the sand danced. The trees fell and the plains overturned themselves. Countless creatures died under the effect of the youth’s stomp.

However, it wasn’t just the land near the beach that was assaulted by the earthquake, it was the entirety of the continent. Every point of the massive piece of land shook and trembled under the assault of the youth. Mountains fell and hills flattened. Massive trees that had existed for thousands of years broke apart while mammoth creatures stumbled and fell.

“A mere Will of the Wild, a Continent’s Will dares to defy the decree of the Eternals? Insolence!” The kitten meowed and its face twisted in condescension and disgust. “Present yourself to be judged!”

The moment the kitten finished speaking, the youth threw both his hand forward and clenched his palms into fists as if he had caught something. In the next moment, he pulled his fists back as if he was dragged something along.

As a result of the youth’s actions, the Creation screamed as space itself was dragged out, much like a paper painting that was pinched and pulled upon. As space was dragged, cracks began to appear as if the painting was being torn under the force of the pull. The youth cared not for the torture that the creation went through under his assault and pulled with even more force, widening the cracks.

At that moment, if the continent were a painting then it was as if all the paint from the painting was drawn to point, leaving the rest of the canvas blank and anew. Meanwhile, all the paint and the art of the painting had been pinched and pulled into a single point. This unnatural phenomenon did not last long, however, as the paint exploded and fell on the ground with a mighty roar.

The paint of the painting that was the essence of the continent, churned and took form. It churned and swelled as it grew. It grew not just towards the skies but also towards the seas and the mountains that were leagues apart. With each moment that passed, the form grew taller, wider and titanic as if daring the world to challenge its growth.

This form that this paint was taking was the form of no mortal or immortal but the form of an Existence. The form expanded at an astonishing speed but the youth cared not for it as he waited patiently for the Will of the Wild to finish manifesting.

The Existence roared again before it finished manifested in completion and appeared before the youth with a kitten on his shoulders.

This existence that had manifested was not a single existence but an entity formed of innumerable lives that existed within it. It was not [One but Innumerable]. It was a massive and shapeless Existence that could choose the form of all the different creatures that lived within it, to manifest itself in.

Though, any form that it could manifest in, towered above anything in its vicinity. Such was the immense size of this Existence that it towered over the tallest trees and the tallest mountains. And this was true for its current form as well; the form of the tiger that the Existence had manifested itself in.

However, this tiger was not made of flesh, blood and bones. Instead, it was made of trees, plants and creatures, both alive and dead. Its massive eyes were made up of dead and alive trunks and its irises of uncountable flowers. The Existence’s legs were made of the massive trees and its tail of various creatures. Its body was the canopy of trees that just continued to rise while its stripes were made of the dead and rotting trees and flesh.

“You dare to drag me here and defy the rules of Tilism?” The Existence thundered. “You are not above the rules of Tilism, [Pitiful One].”

“This-this! Such thick face!” The kitten spluttered for a moment as it meowed. “Even after hundreds of slaps it would not thin! Such shamelessness!!”

The Existence glanced at the spluttering grey kitten but dismissed it and focused on the youth before it instead. “You are not the Heavens, [Pitiful One]. The judgement is not yours. Send me back at once.”

“For you,” The youth addressed the Existence for the first time and in the same common voice as before. “I may as well be the heavens.”

“You hear that you pile of old dust!” The cat meowed, indignant at being ignored. “You think an Eternal would descend to deal with you? You think too highly of yourself! A mere Immortal is all that is needed to end your existence!”

“Can you deal with violating the rules of Tilism, [Pitiful One]?” The existence reiterated as he ignored the kitten once again.

“The Eternals themselves demand your end.” The youth answered as he raised his arm. “I am a mere executioner.”

“You-”

Before the Existence could reply, the youth brought his hand down and slammed it onto the ground. “[Shatter].”

The moment the youth’s hand touched the ground the continent parted as it shattered under the force of his Skill. It was not just the land that had broken apart but the continental layer itself had broken into pieces and shattered. The rift ran across the length and breadth of the continent, destroying its very roots.

The ocean rushed into the parted land yet the continent continued to rumble and shatter. Cracks continued to spread and the landmasses continued to drift apart. All the while the monstrous tiger continued to roar as its size decreased at a rapid pace. From where it had once been the size of the mountains, the Being decreased until its size became similar to that of a small hill.

“[Pitiful One]! Stop this at once!”

“Shut up, you stack of rotten leaves!” The cat meowed angrily. “You dared to manipulate a soul for your own purpose! Fully knowing the consequences! You thought you could survive? Pff. Pff. I want to know what gave you the impression that you would be the exception?! Such arrogance!”

The youth ignored the kitten and the Will both as he raised his hand once again and then waved. “[Death Sentence].”

The moment the Skill was called upon, all the creatures that had been born on the continent and head reached Tier 10 or above, exploded in the shower of blood and guts, much like how the mortals had died earlier. No matter how big or small they were, they all died in an instant without so much as a last breath of peace.

As the monsters on the continent died, the size of the Existence began to decrease. From mountains to hill the height of cliffs that looked down at the sea, its size continued to decrease. However, that was not the only change in the Existence. The fear in its eyes dissipated, leaving behind a grim resolve. It turned to the kitten and addressed it for the first time.

“True Spirit, why would I not dare?” The Existence asked the kitten. “Mortals were set to arrive here. Mortals that would have butchered me to create their Gods. Why would I not dare when my existence would have ended anyway?”

The kitten puffed up at being addressed as True Spirit and meowed arrogantly. “That is the Dharma of Wills. That is why you Exist! You dared to defy your Dharma. Impudent!”

“Who branded me with this Dharma that I did not choose?” The Existence shot back. “Who created my Dharma where I must end? Whoever it was, I care not. I was unwilling. I am unwilling. I will remain unwilling until the moment my existence ends!”

“Such arrogance! Bow before the will of the Heavens! You insolent being!”

“What is even my heaven, True Spirit?” The Existence asked, with its voice growing weak with each word that it spoke. “Was the Dharma that I did not choose, my heaven? If so, then I defy it. I defy such Dharma. I defy such heaven.”

The kitten stood silent for a moment before it meowed solemnly. “Then you must end.”

“And the end I shall.” The Existence closed its massive eyes. “But on terms that are mine.”

“[Dissipate].” At that moment, the youth’s voice rang out and the massive tiger that was the size of the cliffs crumbled into plant matter and flesh before that too dissolved and turned into mana.

~~

End of the first book.