Return?

Well, the good news was that he hadn't fallen into an infernal kingdom or a nightmare, but that he was simply seeing images of his past life. Maybe it was? Yeah, it seemed logical, what else could it have been anyway? He couldn't think of any other explanation than that.

"So none of this is really real, huh?"

There was something curious about looking at events in his own life as an almost external spectator. The feeling he felt was a mixture of relief and many other emotions, but essentially it meant that the hell he had been through was finally over.

Yet it was curious, of all the possible moments in his life, why was it the one that had been chosen over another? Was it because it was the most important turning point in his life? Probably.

The deep voice of the warrior was echoing. "You are now in the kingdom of Varrimar, one of the nations bordering on the west of the young continent of Enoa, in the blessed world of Yvelmore, a very different world and very far from Terra, the world that saw you born and live until today."

"You, the inhabitants of Terra, have been judged guilty of the destruction of your world for the next centuries by your actions. And when you caused the definitive extinction of the majority of species, the Regent God of Humanity and the Goddess of Terra chose together to send you elsewhere, both to allow you to survive, but also so that you could pay the price for your crimes."

As he remembered, the man looked at them as if they were less than bugs. As if he had been in the presence of creatures so unworthy that they didn't even deserve his gaze upon them. Well, in his defense, he may not have been wrong about some of the Earthlings, since the demons were not much worse than some Earthlings.

Indifferent to the thoughts of Mars, the man in armor continued his speech. "Yet in their kindness, the gods of our world agreed to welcome you and decided to offer you asylum in our world. This is the cause of your presence, Humans of Terra. This is the price your entire race must pay and your only hope for salvation. Fight the nightmare creatures and demons of the immaterial worlds that infect this world like an incurable plague, and in return, after your death you will be allowed to reincarnate into this world as normal citizens. Do not do so, and you will be sent back to the abyss to suffer an unspeakable fate."

Then the man retreated, to be replaced by a fat, half bald man dressed in silk embroidered ecclesiastical garments, just stepped forward to take the place of the man in armor, and began to talk about the endless speeches.

Contrary to the guy in armor, the man's voice was cold and an inexplicable feeling of disgust seemed to exult from his being, giving his moral lessons while punctually accompanying his words with great gestures typical of those who like to talk a lot.

It was almost as if he was trying to be a caricature of everything that could make a human being hateful, while his high-pitched, nasal voice spat out every word with a kind of disgust.

Basically, what the priest was saying could be summed up in a few lines: blah blah blah this world is ruined, blah blah blah you are all fucked, blah blah blah you are unworthy heretics, and blah blah blah blah I'm going to wipe my ass on your faces.

Hmm... maybe he misrepresented the last part a little bit, after all he hadn't paid much attention, but he was pretty sure about the first three, and then it didn't really matter anyway.

And in front of him, almost all the Earthlings were standing like a group of lobotomized zombies with a stupid look on their faces. It was a really strange vision, but not only for that.

At the feet of the standing Earthmen there were many people who had remained on the ground and were motionless, so motionless in fact that an attentive eye could have noticed that they weren't even breathing.

These were the corpses of those whose souls had not been strong enough to survive the invocation and who had died in the process. Honestly looking at them lying there like that, he was jealous.

The truth was that these guys were lucky bastards. The weak ones had left in such a comfortable way, their last moments had probably been a barbecue party, playing games, or just sleeping and dreaming random crap, they had never had to crawl among piles of dead bodies and never had to find out what a demon looked like.