"Zeref Dragneel! How dare you defy the natural circle of life and death?!! You seek to resurrect your brother?
I grant you this unlimited lifespan to fulfill your atrocity, but mark my words, Zeref! This is no charity!
I curse you! I curse everything you love, everything you touch, everything you value—they will wither and die the moment you care for them!
This is the price for defying a God and the natural order!"
The divine voice thundered through the fabric of creation itself, a cosmic decree meant for Zeref's ears alone.
He stiffened, his body seizing as the raw, metaphysical weight of the curses began to bore into his flesh, his consciousness, his very soul, etching the punishment into his eternal existence.
Yet, in that moment of divine retribution, neither being foresaw the tiny, fragmented anomaly—a shred of foreign soul, cast adrift and clinging to the edges of Zeref's being.
Driven by pure, desperate instinct for survival, it now stirred.
Sensing the violent disruption in its host, the weakening of Zeref's spirit under the direct assault of a God, the fragment moved.
It did not think.
It acted.
Zeref's eyes flew wide with a shock that eclipsed even the agony of the curse. A foreign presence, cold and alien, was invading his besieged mind.
"Who are you?!!" his consciousness screamed into the void of his own psyche.
The soul offered no answer. It had no mouth, no identity, only the primal will to exist. It pushed forward, a silent, relentless assault against Zeref's weakened mental fortifications.
Zeref fought back with everything he had left, a titanic internal struggle erupting as he tried to expel the parasitic will.
But it was futile.
His divine punishment had left him vulnerable, his focus shattered.
He clutched his head, a raw, animalistic scream tearing from his throat as two consciousnesses warred for dominance over a single, immortal vessel.
"How could this be…?"
Zeref's will faltered, his thoughts fragmenting under the dual onslaught of curse and invasion.
A final, despairing cry echoed in the crumbling edifice of his self.
"Natsu… Please forgive me… I can't meet you again…"
God Ankhseram observed the unforeseen struggle with cold, detached interest. The mage's defiance was being consumed not by the curse, but by a random variable—a cosmic accident.
"Very well," the God's voice resonated, final and unmoved.
"If this is to be your end, I shall allow it. Congratulations, New Zeref. As this punishment was not crafted for you, go forth. Enjoy your new life, your newfound power, your… immortality.
But my compassion has its limits.
Should you ever attempt to defy the natural order of life and death using that knowledge, your end will be no different from his."
With that, the divine presence vanished, leaving only the wreckage of the lab and the struggling entity within.
The foreign soul, having finally overwhelmed the last vestiges of Zeref Dragneel's fading consciousness, gasped heavily.
It was a raw, physical reflex of a being learning to breathe with new lungs, to feel with new nerve endings.
The eyes—Zeref's eyes—blinked open, wide with disbelief, staring at the hands now under its control.
The very hands that had fought against him for this body.
A slow, dawning realization seeped in, followed by a tidal wave of stolen memory and imprinted power.
"I'm… Zeref?"
A beat of silence hung in the smoke-filled air.
Then a smile twisted the lips, growing into something wild and unhinged.
"Yes… I'm Zeref.
I'm Zeref!
Hahahaha! I'm Zeref!"
The laughter was manic, a victorious cry echoing in the hollow chamber as the vast, terrible knowledge of Black Magic and the boundless, cursed mana of immortality seared themselves into the victor's soul.
He laughed until the sound choked off abruptly.
The mirth vanished.
The new owner of the body fell silent, his eyes—now sharp, calculating, and utterly cold—sweeping over the surrounding laboratory.
He took in the blasphemous research, the tools of necromancy, the legacy of a dead man's obsession.
With a thought, the massive, ambient mana in the room stirred at his command.
Black flames, the signature of his stolen power, erupted from his being.
They did not flicker with rage or grief.
They burned with pure, efficient purpose, washing over the notes, the artifacts, the very history of Zeref Dragneel.
The lab became an inferno, a pyre for the past.
This time, there would be no grand quest to resurrect Natsu.
No weeping under the weight of a divine curse.
Only a man, pragmatic and ruthless, standing amid the ashes of another's tragedy.
Already thinking.
Weighing options.
Planning his first, true move in a world he now owned.
What should he conquer first?