Blacked out

Currently, Ashur was facing Athena, and while they were facing each other, their swords fiercely clashed a few times every second, and if a normal person were to watch them fighting, all they would see is black flashes and bursts of wind followed by clanking sounds.

Keep in mind that Athena and Ashur were limiting themselves to the strength of a normal person and this was the result of pure skill and nothing more.

Ashur and Athena's swords clashed every second while they both dodged at lightning-fast speeds, from the strikes that were coming at each other.

Although it may seem like they were tied, it was far from it.

Ashur was solely on the defensive, while Athena was attacking him ruthlessly as she attacked from every angle, while Ashur was entirely focused on blocking her strikes.

This was very difficult for Ashur as Athena was not playing around like usual, but she was fighting him seriously as Ashur tried to hold out as long as possible.

As the fight went on, Ashur was more and more ragged as he started accumulating cuts across his body as he was not fully able to block some of her strikes of the many strikes that were coming at him.

As time went on, Ashur was slowly losing as he could not keep up as Athena's strikes got even faster the more she got into the fight.

After a long and grueling few minutes, the tip of Athena's sword was pointing at his neck as he stood there, defeated.

"Wow, a whole nine minutes! That's a new record!" said Athena as she looked at Ashur with surprise at how much Ashur had improved.

Meanwhile, Ashur was a little happy that he beat his previous record of eight minutes, but he was also very sad that he could not reach 10 minutes as this may be the last time he could fight her like this.

The reason why, was that today, was the day that the countdown came to an end.

It has been nearly fifty years since he picked up that golden card on that fateful day and he never regretted it.

He has his best friend Athena, his lovely daughter Hephaestus, and his friend Loki.

His relationship with Loki is a bit complicated as they were friends with benefits, but they both had feelings for each other but decided it was best to remain as they are now, as to not complicate things.

Ashur had made many memories and if he were to die today, the only regret he would have is to not see his daughter get married.

But if it does not kill him, he hopes that he can see that day.

After their spar ended, Ashur used time reversal to heal both his body fully and his clothes as he thought that he could skip the pain today.

Athena watched Ashur weirdly as Ashur did frequently repair his clothes using time reversal, he never really healed his body and only did so when he was not able to move, and only to the point that he was able to move again.

After his clothes were repaired, Ashur turned to Athena before saying "Thank you for everything Athena, I hope to see you again today"

"You're talking like you won't ever see me again" said Athena jokingly as she looked at him weirdly.

Ashur chuckled before replying "Maybe so" before Ashur teleported Away.

Athena just thought that Ashur was joking, although a weird one.

Seeing Ashur leave, she pulled herself back up to continue practicing.

----

As Ashur teleported away from Athena's, he suddenly appeared inside his house.

he decided to take a seat on the sofa and look around, and not much has changed about the house in the past 50 years besides his figurine collection expanding.

After a while of soaking everything in, he decided to check the countdown by closing his eyes.

As Ashur opened his eyes again, he was not in the physical world this time, but an endless black void with only stars visible.

This was inside his inner world, also called spiritual space, this place was the world of his mind.

Ashur did not pay much attention to his surroundings and instead raised his hand to look at the golden card that was attached to it.

Ashur looked at the counter and It had less than three minutes left.

Having a counter count down to something is very ominous if you don't know what it's counting down to, especially if it involves yourself.

You don't know if it may be the countdown to your death, or to something horrible that will happen to you, that is the fear of the unknown.

What Ashur does know, is that the golden card is steadily draining his divine power in accordance with the countdown.

Ashur was not afraid to die, but he was afraid of the people he will leave behind after he dies, the ones that he cares about.

But the real question is what happens after the countdown is over? Will it continue to devour his reserves of divine power until he is empty? Will it stop after it devours all his divine power or it moves on to something else after it's finished with it?

That's not to say if the countdown ends, he will not instantly die that is.

This is one of reality's greatest fears, the fear of the unknown.

It's like the fear of the dark, it may not be the darkness that people fear, but the fear of unknown dangers hidden within that darkness.

At first, Ashur did not really care about the countdown and spent his time worry free, but as time progressed, his fears suddenly grew as the years went by, as the time on the countdown grew closer and closer.

After it was less than a minute to go, Ashur exited his inner world but kept his eyes shut as he counted down till there were a few seconds left.

5...4...3...2..1...0....

As Ashur finally reached zero, he felt nothing happening, which made him not know what to do, but he still sighed in relief, and it made him think maybe he was irrational.

So after nothing happening after a few seconds he slowly opened his eyes, and suddenly got jump scared by a floating blue screen in front of him.

This shocked him greatly, as he felt nothing there, even with his god senses going full blast.

He even tried to use his space divinity to try to sense it, and even with his space divinity, he could not sense it, it was like it was not even there.

He then tried to touch it, and his hand moved right through it. Just like a hologram.

Ashur then saw words appear on the blue screen.

[System has recovered from enough damages to start booting]

[During booting, the system shall merge with your soul and the host shall become the official owner of the Chat Group]

[During booting, you shall fall unconscious for a long amount of time as the system shall finish its repairs on the large amount of damage it has receved]

[You shall fall unconscious in]

[3]

"Hey wait a second!"

[2]

"I SAID WAIT!"

[1]

"WAI-"

But before Ashur could finish, he suddenly blacked out.