Chapter 1: To Die and Live as a Corpse

The butcher's knife sliced through the blood vessels in his wrist before severing the tendons. The carpal bones posed a challenge, but as Jean cried, he forced it through and severed his hand. He screamed and wept. Blood spurted forth and flowed down his arm before soaking into his shirt as the scent of iron fouled the air. He could feel it in his nose, on his tongue, in his eyes, and in his mind. His sobs rang forth unceasingly and reached a fever pitch before they changed and morphed into something between a cry and a laugh.

No major event caused this. His life was fine as it was. His future could have been bright, but he was afflicted. It was not a pathological illness but a gradual twisting and perversion of his mind and its contents that caused it to drive him to madness. One could say that it was his world that caused this, but that would lead to a false conclusion.

It was not some shallow issue that caused this. It was not some singular global issue that pushed him and warped his mind. It was not another war, a political rallying point, or another ideological horn heralding the end. It was something greater, though what it was was not something even Jean could articulate despite his genius.

His cries grew quieter as he began to die. He felt nothing as he staved off all his feelings as best he could. Over his life, he had been forced to grow apathetic and had eventually become a master of apathy. Only emotions of an extreme magnitude could affect him anymore. He hadn't felt happy in years and felt as though the world was against him every day.

It wasn't going against him, though. He just thought it was. His agony was self-inflicted, and he even recognized it, but he still couldn't do anything about it. He tried creating voices in his head to console him, reaching out to others to help him, drugs, and so on. He knew he was sick but was still helpless. He couldn't run from himself.

At his deathbed, his only companions were melancholy and fatigue. The loathsome duo pestered him his entire life and only redoubled their efforts here. Two shadowy figures appeared in his mind, representing his two worst friends. The world faded and grew black as he lost more and more blood. His mouth remained open as his breaths became more and more shallow.

He looked up, and everything faded until the two figures were all he could see. He hated them, but they were all he had. They were what he felt every day. They were his masters.

But when even they disappeared, they appeared again, and surroundings came into view. He was lying on his back, looking at a bronze sky while men around him fought for their lives, and massive explosions of all natures were unleashed across an enormous field. Pain raged across his body.

A laceration stretched across his side from his left pec to the top of his hip; several of his right ribs were broken; a cut arced from the front of his face just below the cheekbone to the back of his jawline on the left; his right eye and much of the nerves behind it were missing; much of his scalp had been destroyed; his entire right temporal bone was exposed, and that was only a part of his injuries. He was a corpse. He had been a corpse before, but that was only figurative. Now, he was, literally a dead man.

He couldn't utter a word because of the pain, only gasp. On the battlefield, a veritable mountain of ice erupted and claimed the lives of hundreds of ordinary soldiers after a wizard failed to keep his opponent in check. Though Jean was flailing around and slowly moving, he was already in an abandoned part of the battlefield and thus went unnoticed. There were too many bodies near him for any of the fighters to gain a solid foothold to fight their opponents on, so they had gradually migrated to a different portion of the field.

As he flailed his arms around further and sputtered, he frantically crawled and dragged himself across the remains of the other soldiers. He began to fall off the pile and managed to stand up for only a moment before falling again as pain arced from his foot through his body. The bones in his right foot had been shattered, and some had pierced the skin when he tried to stand.

He finally reached the end of the carpet of bodies and was at the very edge of the mound that was the furthest from the fighting when he finally managed to fully stand by balancing on his heel instead of putting any weight on the rest of his foot.

His sight was blurry, but he could see that behind him was a wasteland while the gray land that had been devastated by spells, blood, and martial clashes slowly turned green in front of him. He was terrified of what was behind him, so he limped forward, away from the war behind him.

He managed to slowly move faster and faster despite the pain before he managed to settle into something that resembled a panicked run. As soon as he reached the green, he stumbled, chest-first, into a tree before looking back and breathing hard. He couldn't see much, only vague impressions of color, but he could see bright lights clash in the sky while soldiers, an ever-changing mass of metal to his eyes, fought below.

Occasionally, a bright light would reach the soldiers below and destroy an entire section of them, but the ones who could use magic mostly kept the opposing mages in check so that they could save their soldiers from the overwhelming force magic represented.

Jean, who was in shock, wanted to sit down at the base of the tree and sleep, or at least have time to think, but he knew he couldn't, so he forced himself to turn from the face of death and run into the forest. He was covered in fluids of all kinds: sweat, water from some spells from above, blood, urine, feces, and who knew what else.

His armor was slowing him down, so he tried to take it off but could only grasp around his body, looking for the straps and fumbling with what leather parts he could find, hoping that he could take off his mangled plate armor, but his fingers were numb, so he was helpless to relieve himself of his heavy armor.

As he ran further into the forest blindly, the occasional explosions behind him slowly grew quiet because of the distance. But he kept running as far and hard as he could before he suddenly fell, and cold water soaked him.

He shortly managed to surface and sputtered and coughed up the water he inhaled. The quiet creek only reached up to his knees, but he was so discombobulated that he could hardly gain his bearings. Slowly, he managed to get on his hands and knees and crawled out of the creek and back onto land.

He laid his back on the cool dirt behind him and curled up. He was cold, so cold. And tired. He couldn't run anymore even if he wanted to. The sound of spells rang out in the distance, but despite that and the numbing cold, he still fell into a half-sleep, where he was still conscious but was just about to drift off.

Pain assaulted him still, but after the adrenaline wore off, he was only exhausted. But after managing to find a place to rest, he began to work on taking off his armor again. He was sitting still, so he could find the leather straps on his shoulders and sides much easier now, and after struggling against them for some time, managed to loose them.

The plates fell off his body quickly, and he felt like he had shed hundreds of pounds. His body was many times colder than before, but he couldn't care less. His left side didn't experience much change because much of his armor had been ripped away by whatever egregious blow had destroyed his ribs and abdomen, but his right side felt much better.

He could breathe easier than before, though it was still agonizing to even take a single breath. Finally relieved of his burden, he could sleep. Cool dirt was to his back, and a frigid creek was in front of him. Gray-bronze clouds obscured the sky, draping the world in twilight.

Shadows wreathed the nearby trees and bushes in mystery while small animals skittered through them. After Jean lost consciousness, a massive, muscled man sublimated from the shadows nearby and walked to the edge of the small gorge, where the creek flowed and Jean rested. The man wore only plain black clothes but still seemed to demand respect from anybody who looked at him.

He could see perfectly despite the darkness and stared at Jean before a smile slowly crept onto his face, and he sighed.

"Yes, finally!" he exclaimed.

Note:

The primary inciting incident doesn't occur until around ch 16. Everything before that is setting it up. I strongly recommend reading the full version, but you can also read the summary of chapters 2-15 in the auxiliary volume if you want.