1 Death for Death

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, despair for despair. Death for death, shadow for shadows."

Those were my last thoughts before I woke up.

Opening my hazy eyes a sudden tremor ran through me, as I looked around the place I was in before I slightly recoiled at the intensity of the room's brightness.

"Where...?" Was all I could summon for a thought in my head, and what resonated out of my dried sore throat which felt like it had been lined with sandpaper.

Before I realized that I could think again.

Moving my head around I couldn't understand what was happening but I could see a body... It was my own body, but something was amiss.

It was kneeling motionless, with a spear sticking out from the back of its chest through its heart, dripping out blood but the blood wasn't red like anyone would think, it was completely black.

As I looked at it, weirdly, I wasn't even shocked just surprised, since I could now think I could already tell what happened with the memories that began flooding into my head, explaining why I, Ainz Dorak, had a fucking spear sticking out of my chest.

I felt disgusted and pissed, yet it was the reality of things.

To cut the long story short, I died during the greatest war of the universe, yes it was hard to believe that someone like me could even die, but it was what it is.

Why was it hard to believe you would say right? Simply put I was a monarch not just any monarch but a monarch of shadows Ainz Dorak, king of death.

A demi-god, and a being who was near impossible to kill.

Eons ago, out of empathy I decided to help the last monarchs of my race, defeat beings of absolute darkness, who had invaded their worlds. However, I was betrayed by the same monarchs I was trying to help...

Ambushed by the absolute beings and other monarchs who had turned on me, I was stabbed multiple times, that I lost count of the number of times I died during the war.

It was an unfortunate, and undeserving death.

So why wasn't I angry? Because it was war, losses were inevitable even by the strongest, or putting it straight I knew I had lost.

Which I had learned through numerous battles, and lives I had taken during my days as a shadow monarch, it was what protected the little sanity and emotion I had left.

But the more I observed something else gradually caught my attention, making me Iook at my corpse. I couldn't help but notice something, with each blood that dropped from my chest, it would disappear as if something had sucked it away to a place where I couldn't see, also my bones were slowly crumbling and falling apart.

I watched as the armor I had worn countless times, broke apart and turned into rags of ash, the same way my body was doing as no more blood came off my damaged body.

I chuckled at myself, so a king of death could also die? What a shame it was... It was a bitter feeling watching yourself die in front of you.

Must be my soul watching the death of my body, right?

Was what I thought before a voice resonated loud enough to grab my attention.

"Sigh, welcome home my child." A calm voice, almost like it was a bell rang out softly as it spoke to me, "But unfortunately the battle is not yet over, your journey is just starting"

I squinted my eyes a couple of times before shifting them, to look at what spoke to me. Just as I laid eyes on what spoke to me, my vision suddenly went blank.

For a moment I felt as if I had lost consciousness completely, I couldn't tell if it was just me or it was because of what I was trying to do, but my curiosity got the better of me, and so I decided to look again, it was then I realize it wasn't that I had lost consciousness but for some reason, the figure in front of me seems to be sucking away the light in my eyes each time I tried to look.

It was like I had walked into a completely dark environment that had its light switch off.

As if to sense my confusion at trying to discern what it was, the figure revealed a blind shining light that was supposed to be his mouth, I could feel it was weirdly smiling at me.

"Ainz Dorak, we shall meet again when the time is right." For a moment, I didn't know if I should be annoyed or just start cursing out whatever I had in mind, but for some reason, I chose to remain silent instead.

I felt annoyed, it was the second time since I met the God of Shadows, that I had difficulty discerning a person, to no avail. But soon I calmed down, there was no need getting worked up since the figure had already said we would meet again.

However, what I couldn't understand was what it meant that the battle wasn't over, and my journey was just starting?

Wasn't I dead? I thought, because I knew even my shadow juice had run out, so even if I wanted to come back to life, it was literally impossible to fight again.

There was no chance I could get an answer even if I asked, so I kept quiet.

It was a helpless feeling, yes, I hated it since it reminded me of how I had died but, I just nodded my head before speaking, "As you have said, I guess I don't have any other choice. However, can you please explain to me why I'm here? I'm pretty sure I died during the war and can't revive even if I want to!

"So where is this place? A reincarnation realm? What would happen to the remnant of my soul?"

I began speaking, but the figure only stared at me briefly and then shook its head as if not wanting to answer any questions.

Then the next moment I had lost consciousness completely, but this time it didn't take long before I could open my eyes again, as I noticed my environment had suddenly changed.

The moment I gained clarity, I could see a vast space filled with clouds but different from the previous one I had seen, this one had two colossal gates, one was filled with vast whiteness, and the other a complete cloud of darkness.

As I looked at them I couldn't help but be shocked, they were bigger than anything I had ever seen or come across in my previous life.

They were swirling in reverse, but counterpart to each other.

However, after a few seconds, I soon noticed there was something odd, as I stared at my left to right, I didn't know if it was just me or if it was real but there were an infinite number of shadows popping out of thin air one after the other.

These shadows appeared to be the same way with themselves, surprisingly it included myself. But none of us seemed to be in complete forms, we all had dark tiny bodies, floating in midair .

I had no idea what was happening or what we were supposed to do, until the next moment, we heard a voice in our head.

"Welcome monarchs!"

I couldn't help but squint my eyes, when I heard the voice and the fact it said monarchs, was it referring to every shadow baby?

It felt like my brain couldn't process what I had just heard.

Nevertheless, my little body, as if it had been given a command, began to move on its own, it wasn't just me but everyone it seemed like we were being called forward by something.

Looking over at all the shadow babies that could all be shadow monarchs, they all looked dazed or flustered as well. As if unaware of what was happening, all they seemed to know was that subconsciously they were moving towards the colossal gates.