Part I - Primarchs
There are countless planets in galaxies, and galaxies stretch across the fabric of universes—each one a distinct reality, far removed from the others. Ren Saiga lives in the "Mortal Realm," a place where death is a natural part of life. Here, mortality is normalized by humanity's quiet resignation. They weep for the dead but make no move to challenge the inevitability of death. And how could they? The Grim Reaper comes to collect their souls, burning away their bodies in solemn ritual. But few ever question what becomes of those souls after the flames die out.
The Mortal Realm is a strange place. Humans boast of their complexity, yet fail to conquer their own inferiority. Instead, they thrive in it. Their misplaced superiority breeds jealousy, and jealousy begets envy. But have they ever wondered where these emotions come from?
Emotions are not random. They are gifts—curses, perhaps—bestowed by the Primarchs: ancient gods of feeling and passion who dwell above the universe in the "Realm of Emotara." There are over 34,000 Primarchs, and each represents a fundamental emotion. Their avatars, known as Affecters, live in specialized domains. Passion thrives in Flamora, a city of ever-burning flame. Peace floats in Seraphis, a place of light and serenity. And Sorrow weeps in Nightharbor, a port city where drifting souls arrive like lost ships swallowed by fog.
But Grim—the god of weariness, indifference, and monotony—resides alone in Dulthor, the City of Ennui. This city is the epitome of stillness. Here, nothing ever changes. Time stretches like an old shadow, thick and unmoving. The air is heavy, the sky colorless. Lifeless stone buildings absorb all light. Streets spiral in meaningless loops. Hollow archways and frozen statues gaze into a future that will never come.
At Dulthor's heart stands a massive, ancient clocktower with no hands, no tick, no tock. It is a symbol of purposeless time, a monument to futility. Grim watches it with disdain. Time without meaning is the greatest cruelty of all.
Driven by a desperate hunger for change, Grim resolved to shatter the tedium. He would invade the other realms. He would bring chaos to the beings who still felt. He would twist their lives with apathy and dread—the only emotions left in his hollow soul.
To do so, he created an avatar: the Grim Reaper. Not a servant, but a weapon. It was a being carved from his own essence, cold and merciless, spreading entropy and silence wherever it went. The Reaper wandered through universes, ending civilizations, extinguishing light, snuffing hope. He was death incarnate.
But the Primarchs—the creators and regulators of emotion and balance—intervened. They viewed Grim's disruption as a blasphemy. The god of Ambivalence led the charge. Passion, Peace, and Sorrow followed. They couldn't allow this infection of indifference to unravel the emotional order of existence.
In punishment, they cursed Grim. They severed the Grim Reaper from chaos. The Reaper, once free to bring death indiscriminately, was now bound to justice. He could only act when balance demanded it.
Stripped of purpose, Grim rebelled. In a desperate act of defiance, he attempted to destroy his own avatar. But he was defeated. The Grim Reaper shattered into a thousand fragments and was cast down to the Mortal Realm.
Raging against his fate, Grim unleashed cataclysm. He summoned an asteroid storm, wiping out Earth's greatest creatures—the dinosaurs. But then he saw something he had never felt before: sorrow. A small dinosaur mourning its kin, its home. The rawness of the grief cut deep.
And in that moment, Grim hesitated.
Part II - Empathy
The Primarch of Sorrow saw this flicker of change. Sorrow, an eternal witness to pain and compassion, offered Grim a chance—redemption.
Now, the Reaper could only kill when witnessing mortal sin. His blade would fall upon those who stained the world with greed, malice, cruelty. The scythe he now wielded was forged from grief and retribution. His face was hidden by a black veil. He was no longer a god, nor a destroyer. He had become a reminder: a symbol of life's fragility.
But he remained bitter. Neither god nor man. He wandered, bound by his new law, haunted by the weight of his past. Endless death, endless monotony.
Until he saw Ren.
A mortal boy, broken and thin. Eyes hollowed by pain. Yet within them, a flicker of something rare. Hope—not the bright, noble kind, but a dangerous spark. Compassion wrapped around cruelty. Kindness hiding the potential for wrath.
Grim watched. Fascinated. For the first time in eons, he felt something stir.
Ren Saiga
Core: None
"Dad, can you bring me food?" Ren asked.
"There's yesterday's meal—stuff that in your platter," his father, Harry, grumbled.
Ren entered the kitchen. Filth. Dirty plates, blood, stench. He opened the fridge—and recoiled. A pig's head wrapped in foil. Inside: cockroaches and mosquitoes.
He vomited.
"Filthy child! Go to your room! NOW!" his father screamed.
Ren ran. Locked himself in. Out the window—fire. Screams. Criminals butchering civilians. A flying man smashed an old woman. Ren closed the curtains. He collapsed. His disease flared. He passed out.
When he awoke, three corpses lay behind his bed. Blood in their eyes.
He rushed to his father.
"DAD! There are bodies—"
"I killed them for you to eat later. Don't eat it all—save some for dinner."
Horrified, Ren ran. His father shouted after him:
"And buy me some intestinal juice while you're out!"
He fled the apartment. The hallways were filled with corpses. It was 3 a.m.—no one around. Outside, at a betel leaf shop, he saw a man stab another. But then—tentacles erupted from the stabbed man. They devoured the shopkeeper. Laughter. Horror.
Ren puked. They noticed.
One rushed him. Tackled him. Ripped away his face.
Darkness.
He awoke.
Grim smiled and watched, impassive.
"WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?" asked Ren.
"You're still concerned only about yourself, how narcisstic" replied reaper.
"Please take me back to where my mother and father are safe, please turn it to how it was before." requested Ren.
"You see how you took everything from granted. You think your life is hell but now you realise what is true hell, don't you?" asked reaper.
"What do I have to do to go back to where it was like before?" asked Ren.
He raised a hand, his long, skeletal fingers pointing to two glowing, ethereal doors that materialized in front of them.
"Choose."
Ren's eyes widened as he gazed at the two doors. One door was shrouded in flames, crackling with red and black energy—a blazing fury that seemed to beckon with promises of power, destruction, and blood. The other door was cold and gray, like the bleakest shadow of a forgotten world, shifting and distorted like a broken reflection.
"What is this?" Ren's voice trembled. "What am I supposed to choose?"
Grim's lips curled into a semblance of a smile, but it was more like a cruel sneer than anything else. "The first door offers you power beyond your wildest dreams. Immortality, dominion over life and death itself. You will become a force of pure destruction, a killing machine. You will be unstoppable. But know this: the cost is your humanity. You will lose yourself to madness, a mind consumed by violent urges, a soul reduced to chaos. You will be feared and hunted across all realms, yet you will be alone, because no being can live with such power without losing their sanity."
Ren flinched at the weight of the words. The temptation to take the power… it was undeniable. It called to him. He had suffered so much, and here, in this moment, he could feel the stirring of something within him—the hunger for vengeance, for control. The promise of an end to the suffering, the torture he had endured all his life.
Grim's gaze never wavered as he gestured toward the second door.
"But the second door," Grim continued, his voice growing more distant, more cold, "leads you to another world. A world far worse than the one you left behind. A world where you will be forced to survive, to fight, to scrape and crawl through a barren, merciless hellscape. It is not your world, but a reflection of it, a twisted version of what you thought was your reality. The rules are different here, Ren. The laws of existence are distorted, and in this world, you will find nothing but death, decay, and despair. Every day will be a fight to remain alive, and every day, you will be reminded of the things you failed to protect in your previous life. But you will remain human. You will hold onto what makes you… you. But you will never know peace."
Ren's knees felt weak beneath him as his mind reeled. Neither choice was good. Both paths led to darkness, both offered an endless form of suffering, a torment of its own design. He looked at Grim, desperation bubbling in his chest.
"There has to be a third option! Something—anything but this!" Ren's voice cracked, the agony of his decision gnawing at his very core. "What the hell do you want from me?!" He clenched his fists, rage building in his chest, as the weight of the impossible choices pressed down on him.
Grim tilted his head slightly, his expression unreadable. "There is no third option, Ren. There never is."
He stepped closer, his presence almost suffocating, yet there was no warmth, no comfort. Only cold inevitability.
"In life, you will find that there are no good options. There are only the terrible ones, and from those, you must choose the one that is less terrible."
Ren's breath hitched as the words struck him like a slap to the face. He stumbled backward, tears welling in his eyes. This was not a choice—it was an impossible demand. How could he choose between insanity and eternal suffering?
The ground beneath him seemed to sway as his entire world crumbled away. All the pain, all the loss, all the cruelty that had been forced upon him over the years—the abandonment, the betrayal, the endless wars—it was too much. His throat tightened, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he let the tears fall.
"I… I can't…," Ren whispered, choking on the words. His hands trembled, and his body shook with the weight of the decision. "I can't choose this… this cruelty. You're cruel, Grim. You're asking me to give up everything—my humanity, my soul, my life—to become… nothing."
A small laugh escaped from Grim's lips, though it was not a humorous laugh—it was more like a tragic inevitability.
"You are learning, Ren. This is the Grim Equation. The fundamental truth of existence. It is not a question of whether you will suffer, but how you will suffer. It is not about finding the right choice—it is about making the choice, and living with the consequences. There are no perfect solutions in life. Only the lesser of evils, and sometimes, not even that."
Ren collapsed to his knees, his body wracked with sobs. "This can't be real," he muttered. "This can't be…"
Grim stood above him, unblinking, as though this was simply a natural process. He wasn't there to comfort Ren. He wasn't there to save him. He was there to teach him.
Ren wiped his eyes, his hands stained with dirt and tears, his voice trembling with the weight of a reality he could no longer ignore.
"It's not fair…" His voice broke, but there was no one left to hear him.
Grim watched him for a moment, unmoving, and then, in the silence of the vast, infinite expanse, he spoke the final, chilling truth.
"The world is never fair, Ren. But it's real. This is the Grim Equation. It is the math of life and death, a series of choices that shape everything you are, everything you will become. And one way or another, you will make your choice."
He turned, fading into the shadows.
"Choose, Ren. Or die by your indecision."