The Reluctant Reaper

System Overdrive

The entity's fist left a crater where Darius had been standing a split second ago. He materialized at the other end of the park, his non-existent heart racing. This thing was fast. Too fast.

[QUICK STEP SUCCESSFUL]

[DAMAGE AVOIDED: 100%]

[ANALYZING OPPONENT'S ATTACK PATTERN...]

Darius scanned the area, looking for Constantine. He was still on that bench, tossing breadcrumbs to pigeons that were frozen mid-flight. Oblivious to the cosmic smackdown happening around him. Lucky bastard.

The Altered turned to face Darius, its form rippling like heat haze. It had itself positioned right before Constantine. With everything so far, this thing was just doing too much. Psychopomps could be weird like this, mostly due to the soul's will to continue living. Those were the kind Reapers were always prepared for (Priority Targets), those were the kind that resulted in a battle. Not this kind of battle. Darius was barely surviving.

"Look," Darius said, twirling his scythe. "I don't know what your deal is, but I've got a job to do. How about you step aside, let me reap the old man's soul, and we can both call it a day, yeah?"

Its response was to charge at him again, reality warping around its form.

[WARNING: INCOMING ATTACK]

[EVASIVE ACTION RECOMMENDED]

No shit, Darius thought, diving to the side. The creature's arm elongated, becoming a whip-like appendage that lashed out at him. He brought up his scythe, the handle extending to meet the attack. The impact sent vibrations through his entire being.

[DAMAGE SUSTAINED: 15%]

[INFERNAL ENERGY LEVELS: 85%]

[RECALIBRATING DEFENSE PROTOCOLS]

Darius grunted, pushing back against the pressure. "What's your deal?" he growled. "The man's OLD!"

The thing didn't answer. Instead, its free hand morphed into a blade, slashing down at Darius. He disengaged from the whip-arm and parried the blade, sparks flying as their weapons clashed.

[OPPONENT ANALYSIS: INCONCLUSIVE]

[SHAPESHIFTING ABILITIES DETECTED]

[CAUTION: UNPREDICTABLE ATTACK PATTERNS]

He needed a new strategy. Brute force wasn't going to cut it against this thing. Darius glanced at Constantine again. If he could just get to him...

An idea formed. A stupid, reckless idea. But hey, he needed to do something.

Darius feinted left, then activated Quick Step again, aiming to appear right next to Constantine.

[QUICK STEP ACTIVATED]

[CHARGES REMAINING: 3/5]

For a moment, he thought it had worked. Darius appeared next to the bench, his scythe raised, ready to reap Constantine's soul and end this mess.

Then pain exploded across his back. The Altered Psychopomp had anticipated his move, its fist connecting with Darius the instant he appeared.

[CRITICAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED]

[INFERNAL ENERGY LEVELS: 60%]

[WARNING: INTEGRITY COMPROMISED]

Darius went flying, crashing through trees and skidding across the ground. By the time he came to a stop, every part of him felt like it had been put through Hell's meat grinder. Twice.

[HEALTH STATUS: SEVERELY DAMAGED]

[REGENERATION INITIATED]

[ESTIMATED TIME TO FULL RECOVERY: 2:30]

He pushed himself up, spitting out a mouthful of dirt and what he hoped wasn't goose crap. The Altered Psychopomp stood between Darius and Constantine, its form now resembling a knight in shifting, liquid armor.

"Okay," Darius muttered, wiping blood from his chin. "New plan."

He glanced at the timer ticking away in the corner of his vision. 3:42 left. Plenty of time for this thing to turn him into cosmic dust.

Playing out scenarios in his head, each one ended with Darius getting royally screwed. There was no way in Hell—or Earth, for that matter—that he could defeat this thing. He was left with one option, and he wasn't keen on it.

Darius pulled up his system interface. His Infernal energy was running dangerously low. Any more fancy moves and he'd be toast. Two Quick Steps down, three to go. But against something this fast? Might as well try to outrun a black hole.

The Altered Psychopomp approached again, dispersing an aura that pressed down on Darius like the weight of a dying star. It took everything he had not to buckle under the pressure. His armor was compromised, barely holding together after those hits.

One option left. Suicidal? Absolutely. But hey, death by stupid plan or death by cosmic horror—at least the first one was Darius's choice.

He let out a breath, attuning his perception. The world went quiet, the Altered Psychopomp's steps echoing like thunder in slow motion. Darius twirled his scythe, feeling its familiar weight.

"Activate System Overdrive," he commanded, his voice grim with an urgency that made even time shiver.

The air went horribly stale, reeking of sulfur and burnt flesh. Darius's system interface glitched, numbers and error messages flooding his vision.

[CAUTION: INITIATING FORBIDDEN PROTOCOL]

[HELL'S SAFEGUARDS: COMPROMISED]

[REAPER ESSENCE: CRITICAL INSTABILITY DETECTED]

The Altered Psychopomp continued its casual approach, its aura killing vegetation, its steps blackening the earth. Darius didn't move, didn't flinch, as his system ran wild.

[RECALIBRATING REAPER PARAMETERS]

[STRENGTH: ^200% ... ^300% ... ^400%]

[SPEED: ^250% ... ^350% ... ^450%]

[AGILITY: ^220% ... ^320% ... ^420%]

[DURABILITY: ^180% ... ^280% ... ^380%]

[PERCEPTION: ^300% ... ^400% ... ^500%]

[COORDINATION: ^280% ... ^380% ... ^480%]

[STAMINA: ^240% ... ^340% ... ^440%]

[HELL'S CURSE: TEMPORARY SUSPENSION ACTIVATED]

[SKILLS: UNLEASHED]

[WARNING: ESSENCE DECAY ACCELERATING]

Nobody knew about this—not even Lilith, though she suspected something was off. Darius's system wasn't just faulty; it was a ticking time bomb.

The interface turned a grim, glitching red. Reality itself seemed to hold its breath as one final message appeared:

[COSMIC AWARENESS: UNLOCKED]

[CAUTION: REALITY PERCEPTION SHIFTING]

Darius's suit began to change, morphing into something that would make even the most hardened demon recoil. His eyes sank into hollow, abyssal black pits. For a moment, he saw beyond—threads of fate, rivers of souls, the very fabric of existence.

The Altered Psychopomp stopped in its tracks, sensing the shift in the cosmic balance. For the first time, Darius felt its hesitation. Good. It should be scared.

A new timer appeared, glitching and unstable: 10 seconds.

In an instant, the Altered was on Darius, its fist a blur aimed at his face. This time, he saw it coming. Darius sidestepped with impossible speed, gripping his scythe and twisting it to slam the base into the Altered's midsection.

The air rippled with a thunderous crack as the sound barrier shattered. The Altered was flung back, bursting through the air like a cosmic bullet.

[DAMAGE DEALT: 27% OF ENTITY'S TOTAL INTEGRITY]

[WARNING: 8.32 SECONDS REMAINING]

[COSMIC BALANCE: FLUCTUATING]

Darius appeared above it in a blink, slamming his Infernal-infused fist down. The Altered cratered into the earth, shockwaves rippling out in a massive bang. Trees uprooted, the ground fractured in a spider-web pattern stretching for hundreds of yards.

He dove in after it, but the Altered burst from the dust, meeting Darius halfway. They clashed in a series of movements too fast for mortal eyes to follow. His weapon shifted and adapted, morphing from scythe to sword to spear and back again. Each clash sent ripples through reality itself.

[DAMAGE SUSTAINED: 18% OF REAPER FORM INTEGRITY]

[DAMAGE DEALT: 22% OF ENTITY'S REMAINING INTEGRITY]

[WARNING: 5.67 SECONDS REMAINING]

[REALITY COHESION IN IMMEDIATE VICINITY: 72%]

Darius and the Altered burst through the air, the entity gripping him, driving them up into the atmosphere. The curvature of the Earth became visible, stars peeking through the darkening sky. In that moment, Darius realized the true stakes.

He activated Quick Step, suddenly appearing back down near Constantine.

[WARNING: 2.13 SECONDS REMAINING]

[QUICK STEP CHARGES DEPLETED]

[COSMIC ANOMALY INTENSIFYING]

This was it. Darius swung his scythe, ready to detach Constantine's soul and end this cosmic nightmare. The blade glowed with power, cutting through the very fabric of space-time.

But before he could connect, Darius was airborne again. "Damn it!" he cursed, realizing what had happened.

He looked down to see the Altered expanding, its body becoming a maw of darkness ready to swallow him whole. The event horizon of a sentient black hole, reaching up to erase Darius from existence.

[WARNING: 1.05 SECONDS REMAINING]

[REAPER ESSENCE INTEGRITY: CRITICAL]

[UNIVERSAL CONSTANTS IN FLUX]

For this to end, all Darius needed to do was reap Constantine's soul. What made this human so special? He wondered as he plummeted like a meteor, body coated in flames, as he burst through with force, making one last, desperate attempt to reach his target. Whatever secret Constantine held, it was big enough to warrant cosmic intervention. Big enough to potentially rewrite the rules of life and death themselves.

One second left. One chance to end this.

Darius raised his scythe, reality warping around its blade as he prepared to deliver the final—

That's when it happened.

Between one moment and the next, between one eye blink and the next, reality... shifted. Excruciating pain lanced through every fiber of Darius's being, pain so intense it felt like his very essence was being unmade.

[CRITICAL ERROR]

[SYSTEM MALFUNCTION]

[UNKNOWN ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED]

[ENERGY LEVELS: ???]

And then he saw her.

A little girl's face, framed by hair as dark as the space between stars. Her eyes were ancient, knowing, and utterly terrifying. A wicked grin played across her features as she reached out, pressing her thumb to Darius's forehead.

He felt himself draining away, his power, his memories, his very self being siphoned into this impossible child. Her grin widened, showing teeth that were far too sharp, too numerous.

"My turn," she whispered, her voice sending dread spiking through Darius's being.

[CRITICAL WARNING]

[ESSENCE DRAIN DETECTED]

[SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IMMINENT]

Darius snapped back to reality. His dive had become a freefall, his scythe nothing more than motes of light scattering in the wind. The being loomed before him, somehow more vast, more terrible than before.

And for the first time in his centuries existing on this plane of existence, Darius felt real, primordial fear. It shook him to his core, set every nerve ending alight with the need to flee. This wasn't a battle. It wasn't even a reaping. It was something so far beyond his understanding that his mind recoiled from the very attempt to comprehend it.

In that eternal instant of freefall, one thought crystallized in Darius's mind with perfect clarity: he had to get out. Now.

[EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED]

[INITIATING DIMENSIONAL ESCAPE]

[WARNING: UNTESTED PROCEDURE]

Summoning the last dregs of his power, Darius forced his scythe to materialize one last time. With a desperate swing, he tore a hole in reality itself, larger than any he'd ever attempted. The effort sent searing pain through his entire being, but he didn't care where it led, as long as it was away. Away from this being, away from the little girl's face that he knew would haunt him for whatever remained of his existence.

Darius plunged through the portal, feeling it snap shut behind him. As the swirling energies of interdimensional travel engulfed him, he had time for one last, chilling thought:

What had he gotten himself into?

[SYSTEM REBOOT REQUIRED]

[INITIATING EMERGENCY STASIS]

[ALL FUNCTIONS OFFLINE]

The void swallowed Darius, and merciful unconsciousness followed.