The moment his fingers touched the warm golden light of the Hero's Mark, the world dissolved.

The cold bone-white cavern vanished. The shimmering gate. The weary faces of his team. All of it gone in an instant.

He stood in endless, empty space.

Pure white light stretching infinitely in every direction. His body was whole again—wounds healed, burns gone, missing arm restored. Even his tattered clothes had been replaced by a simple clean grey tunic.

He stood alone in the heart of forever, waiting for his meeting with a god.

She appeared not in a flash of power, but gradually. The light simply decided she should exist. Liora, the Goddess of Light, stood before him. Her form was as bright and perfect as the day they'd first met at the summoning. Her eyes held entire galaxies and looked at him with deep, ancient pity.

"You have done it, Dante," she said.

Her voice was both whisper and bell toll, echoing in the very core of his soul.

"You have completed the trial. You have faced the Warden and proven yourself worthy. You are the first hero of your age."

He remained silent, his face a carefully constructed mask of exhausted, humble victory. He was no longer on a battlefield. He was on a stage. And this was the most important performance of his life.

"You stand before me holding the mark of the first hero," she continued, her gaze softening. "The covenant is absolute. You are owed a wish—a blessing of great power."

She paused. He felt a subtle shift in the endless space around them.

"But before you make your choice, I must offer you another path. A path of knowledge."

Her galaxy-filled eyes seemed to drill into his own.

"The wish is a tool to shape your future. But the truth... the truth can reshape your very understanding of what future means."

"I cannot tell you why you are here—the full reason for this trial. But I can give you a piece of it. A single, unchangeable fact about your world, this world, and the bridge that connects them."

The offer was a masterstroke of temptation. A perfectly crafted lure for a mind like his. A piece of the ultimate puzzle.

"This knowledge would come at a cost," she warned, voice serious. "It would consume your wish entirely. And you would be bound by a curse of absolute silence—never able to share what you learned with another living soul."

"The choice is yours, hero. A wish to shape your destiny, or a truth that will forever change it."

Hell no.

The thought was cold, sharp, and immediate in the silence of his mind.

Waste his precious wish on a single line of cryptic nonsense? He'd clawed his way through hell, murdered, lied, and sacrificed everything and everyone to reach this point. He wasn't here for riddles. He was here for power.

He was here to become a being that would one day surpass the very gods making these pathetic offers.

He remembered his old part-time job, back in a world that felt like a fading dream now. He'd been a "spiritual consultant"—working from a small dimly lit office. His clients were the desperate, the grieving, the lost.

He would listen to their stories, his face a mask of deep empathetic sorrow. He'd tell them he could feel their pain, that he could see the paths of their fate. He sold them hope packaged in vague prophecies and comforting lies.

He was a master of their emotions because he had none of his own. A predator who'd learned to perfectly mimic wounded prey to lure in the sympathetic.

And as he looked at the Goddess, at her ancient pitying eyes, he knew with absolute certainty that she was no different from his old clients. She was a being of immense power, yes. But she was also a creature of empathy.

And empathy was a weakness he knew exactly how to exploit.

He let his shoulders slump, head bowing in a gesture of deep tragic exhaustion.

"A truth?" he asked, voice raw and broken. "What good is truth to a man who has lost everything?"

"My friends are dead, Goddess. My body is broken. My home is a world away."

He looked up at her, eyes full of carefully crafted desperate plea.

"I don't want your truth. I want my life back. I want to go home."

He knew it was impossible. The First Hero had told him. But it was the perfect opening move—the first step in his long, patient con.

Liora's perfect face filled with genuine sorrow.

"If it were in my power, I would grant it," she said softly. "But the covenant is absolute. The summoning is a one-way path. I cannot send you home."

"Then grant me immortality!" he cried, voice rising with fake desperation. "Let me live long enough to find my own way back!"

"Immortality is power reserved for gods themselves," she replied, voice gentle but firm. "It is not a gift I can give to mortals, not even heroes."

"Then give me the power to bring back the dead!" he begged, falling to his knees. His performance reaching its peak. "Let me undo the horrors of this trial! Let me save all my friends all hundred of them!"

"The cycle of life and death is the one magic I cannot unmake," she said, voice full of pity that was sweet nectar to his manipulative soul. "I cannot give you control over the souls of the dead."

He let his head fall, shoulders shaking with silent theatrical sobs. He let the silence stretch, forcing her to stand in the awkward uncomfortable space of his grief.

One by one, he asked for more.

The power to reverse time. Denied.

The power to control fate. Denied.

The power to destroy the trial system that had caused so much pain. Denied.

To each request, she gave the same gentle sorrowful refusal. It was going perfectly as he had planned.

Finally, he looked up, face a mask of utter complete despair.

"Then what is the point?" he whispered, voice hollow and broken. "What good is this 'blessing,' this 'wish,' if it cannot grant any of the things I truly want? If it cannot mend a broken heart, or return a stolen life, or right a terrible wrong?"

"It is a mockery. A cruel joke played on a man who has already lost everything."

He had her. He could feel it. He'd pushed her to the absolute limit of her sympathy. Shown her a noble grieving hero broken on the wheel of her own cruel system.

Now for the final masterful move.

He let out a long weary sigh of defeat.

"Fine," he said, voice barely audible. "I don't care about any of it anymore. The power, the glory... it's all meaningless."

He looked at her, eyes full of pathetic defeated emptiness.

"Just... give me a small wish. Something to help me live a quiet life in this new world. I don't want to be a hero anymore. I just want to be left alone."

"What is it you desire, Dante?" she asked, voice soft, eager to grant him some small comfort.

"Give me a skill," he whispered, "that will allow me to erase a person's memory of the last ten minutes."

Liora's galaxy-filled eyes widened in genuine surprise. Her expression hardened slightly.

"That is not a small wish, hero. A power that can change the mind, that can steal a piece of a soul's experience... it is dark and dangerous magic."

"It is a power of deception, not of peace. I cannot grant such a thing."

His heart hammered in his chest. A refusal. Logical and sound. But he was prepared.

"Then it is useless!" he cried, voice full of fake bitter disappointment. "My last hope, my one chance at a quiet life, denied to me?"

He let his head fall—the picture of a hero whose last hope had just been crushed.

Then, after a long dramatic pause, he slowly looked up. His eyes shining with new dawning realization. Completely false, but perfectly performed.

"Wait..." he whispered. "No. Perhaps... perhaps you are right, Goddess. A permanent power of this nature... it could corrupt even the noblest soul."

"It is a temptation I should not have to bear for a lifetime."

He looked at her, face a mask of selfless understanding.

"But what if it were not permanent? What if you granted me this power for just one month? A single fleeting month."

She looked at him, expression shifting from stern refusal to confused curiosity.

"For what purpose?"

"This trial," he said, voice taking on deep weary wisdom. "It will lead me and my team to a dangerous world who can throw us to more dangers. You said we are heroes for them and what if they use us in more brutal way for their greed throw us in hell"

"With this temporary power, I could erase all their minds who sees us on the other hand, whatever happens i can avoid those things and make my friends live a life without those worries."

He had taken her limitation and reframed it as a tool for sainthood. He wasn't asking for a weapon for himself—he was asking for a temporary power which symbolized humanity

Liora's galactic eyes shone with pure unadulterated pride.

"You have surpassed every expectation, Dante," she said, voice a reverent whisper. "To find wisdom and selflessness even in a limitation... to think of those who were around you in your own moment of victory... you are the greatest of heroes."

She raised her hand. A sphere of pure golden light formed in her palm.

"Wait," he said, stopping her.

He looked up, face worried with last-minute consideration.

"This new world... I do not know what manner of creatures live there. What if I encounter a being that is not human? A demon, a spirit, a dragon... will this skill work on them?"

"I do not wish to take any risks. Please, Goddess... can you make the skill work on anyone? Anyone who has a soul, or a body?"

He paused, then added softly: "To make it simple... anyone who can communicate?"

It was the final crucial piece of his trap. Delivered as a humble cautious afterthought.

He held his breath, mind a screaming vortex of hope.

Please work. Just work.

The Goddess smiled, gentle and kind.

"A wise precaution. Your consideration for all life is admirable. I will do as you ask."

"The blessing will affect any sentient being capable of communication. But remember—it will fade from your soul after one month."

She brought her hand down. The sphere of golden light flowed into his chest. It was warm, pleasant—a feeling of new intricate knowledge settling into his soul.

"It is done," she said.

"How does it work?" he asked, voice full of fake childlike curiosity.

"Simply focus on your target," she explained, "and speak the words 'Lethe's Veil.' Their memory of the preceding ten minutes will be erased, replaced by a feeling of mild disorientation. They will not know that their time has been stolen."

Perfect.

He looked at her. This ancient, powerful, and utterly naive being of light.

He had done it. Played the ultimate con and won the ultimate prize.

A power that worked on anyone. Including gods. A power she'd just given him freely, thinking it was for noble purposes.

And now he would use it on her. The first victim of her own gift.

A slow, cold, utterly devilish smile spread across his face.

He met her gaze directly. And in a voice that was no longer the broken hero's, but the cold confident purr of the tyrant, he spoke the words.

"Lethe's Veil."

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