Ren drifted, just barely conscious, suspended in the cold vacuum of space and agony. Blood still streamed from his eyes and ears. Something had cracked inside his skull—he could feel it, like a hairline fracture in reality, spiderwebbing deeper every time he tried to think.
But he was still alive.
Barely.
Ten black tentacles twitched around him in sluggish, broken patterns. The stars had stopped spinning. The pain was still there, but no longer fresh it had settled into something dull and dangerous, like a migraine that hummed in his bones.
Pull it together, he told himself. You're a Human, not a sacrifice.
A shift above drew his gaze, half delirious.
The Eye.
Still watching.
Then, it changed.
From the center of the black iris, something split open. A tear, wet and deliberate, peeled outward to reveal rows of jagged, glassy fangs. A mouth. Not symbolic. Not metaphorical. An actual mouth. Massive. Hungry.
The voice followed.
"So this is it. The final card. What mechanism of salvation has the world prepared this time?"
It didn't echo. It vibrated through the stars, through his teeth, through his spinal fluid.
"A mortal. Tainted by that disgusting yellow thing. Pathetic."
The eye narrowed. The pupil shrank to a pinpoint, staring into him with such force he thought his soul might rupture.
"I think I'll just watch you break apart. Slowly. Thoroughly. Until you rot in pieces."
Ren's fingers moved.
Clumsy. Trembling. But they moved.
He opened the system interface. Something at the edge of his inventory pulsed faintly a soft white light, incongruous against the chaos. Something that he bought just before he got drag to a boss fight
He selected it with a flick of thought.
[Item: Universal Cure Elixia]
Can cure all injuries, plague, poison, and illness.
His hands, such as they were now, clenched around the vial.
"System," he croaked. His voice was raw, ground down to the nerve. "Can you help me inject this?"
[Yes, Host. Please select a target.]
Ren didn't hesitate.
"The world."
[Target locked. Beginning deployment.]
"You fucking embodiment of plague. Eat a fucking Antibiotic"
The glow spread instantly. From the vial in his hand, a thread of light unraveled thin, silver, alive. It curved around him, then shot down, straight toward the infected planet below like a celestial needle finding a vein.
The Plague God froze.
Not metaphorically.
Not dramatically.
It stopped. Its mouth hung open mid taunt. The eye didn't blink. Even space seemed to pause, holding its breath.
Then—
"You dare?"
The voice cracked for the first time. Not rage. Not laughter.
Fear.
A greenish vein erupted from the planet's surface, lashing up like a spear. It snapped forward with impossible speed, straight toward Ren's face. The air burned as it carved through space. Time stuttered.
He didn't move.
He couldn't.
The vein stopped two centimeters from his right eye.
Then ruptured.
The scream came a heartbeat later.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
It didn't sound like anger. It didn't even sound like pain. It sounded like a mind unraveling like every piece of godhood stitched into the Plague Entity was suddenly, violently, rejected by the world it had been feeding on.
The Eye convulsed.
Veins tore loose from the crust of the planet. Pus-colored clouds evaporated into nothing. The surface pulsed, then began to clear. Mountains shed rot like dead skin. Oceans shifted color from black to bruised blue.
And the Eye cracked.
Down the center, a jagged tear split the iris open like shattered glass. Light poured from the wound. Not divine light. Not holy. Just… clean. Untouched.
The Plague God thrashed.
Its body, if it even had one, began peeling away from the world like burnt parchment. Massive strips of corrupted sky tore loose and dissolved. The mouth screamed again, teeth breaking and falling like meteors.
"I AM ETERNAL! I AM THE FINAL DISEASE! I CANNOT—"
The sentence never finished.
The light reached it.
And the god crumbled.
Its voice disappeared. The pressure vanished. The eye collapsed inward, then burst into ash, scattered across the void.
Ren drifted in place, too broken to celebrate.
Too stunned to even think.
His system pinged once in the silence.
[World Healing in Progress.]
[Elixia Deployment Successful.]
[Catastrophic Entity Neutralized.]
[Congratulations, Doctor Hector.]
Ren's arms fell limp. His tentacles sagged. His breath came slow and shallow, pulled through scorched lungs.
He floated above the healing world, alone in the quiet, covered in blood and light.
"…I'm charging extra for this."