I CHOSE to be a VILLAIN, not a THIRD-RATE EXTRA!!

The anticipation of seeing something that he could not see in his previous life made him ignore every other feeling, including the fear and chill of the darkness. Not far from Ashok, the darkness started to change, as if it were morphing.

At first, it seemed subtle—like the shadows were stretching, distorting, and folding over themselves. But then the transformation became more pronounced. The darkness wriggled as if it were alive. It took the form of a hand, though it never truly looked like one.

The darkness shifted and churned, twisting into a grotesque shape that barely resembled anything human. Fingers elongated and distorted, their edges ragged, as if the very substance of the night had been pulled and stretched into unnatural proportions. It was a hand, but not a hand, its outline constantly changing, never fully graspable.

Without warning, the inhuman hand shot out of the swirling darkness, moving with a speed that seemed impossible. It surged toward Ashok with such force that the air around him seemed to bend. He barely had time to react before the hand reached him, its fingers curling and sinking into his body with a sickening, fluid motion. The darkness slid beneath his skin, seeping into his very core.

Ashok could not feel any kind of pain or discomfort as the wriggling hand slithered further inside his body. It moved with a sickening, unearthly grace, but his mind couldn't quite comprehend with the lack of physical sensation.

Curiosity, strange and irrational, tugged at him. He tried to touch the hand, to feel it, but just before his fingers made contact, the hand withdrew. In its grasp, it held something small, glowing—an object that looked like a white ember, pulsing with an inner fire.

The ember shone brightly, but only within its immediate vicinity. It cast a soft glow, its light attempting to pierce the surrounding blackness, yet it faltered before the darkness, unable to reach beyond three meters. Ashok squinted, trying to focus on the small flickering orb, but the light felt fragile as if it were not quite meant for this place. The ember's brightness seemed almost helpless in the face of the suffocating darkness that pressed in from every side.

"What a surprising turn of events?" an extremely cold voice, as if detached from the world itself, echoed through the suffocating darkness.

Ashok's heart skipped a beat. The voice was unmistakable and belonged to her. Ashok's eyes darted around, desperately trying to locate its source, but the darkness around him remained impenetrable, unyielding.

But then something new happened.

From the ember, a human voice began to shout.

[NO! NO! THIS CAN'T HAPPEN, THIS IS NOT WHAT THE GOD PLANNED FOR ME. I DID NOT MAKE THE DEAL WITH THE GOD FOR THIS. JUST WHERE IS THIS?]

Ashok, hearing the frantic voice from the ember, froze in surprise, He hadn't expected the System to start shouting in a panicked human-like voice, the moment it was taken out of his body.

'Did the System turn into a human after being taken out of my body? Well, it's in better hands now. But where is the owner of these hands?'

At first, the voice coming from the ember was just spouting words of despair, like a fish caught by a fisherman or a chicken trapped under the butcher's knife—helpless, struggling, and full of fear. The words came in frantic bursts, each one tumbling out as if it couldn't help itself, overwhelmed by the torrent of emotions it didn't know how to process. The voice sounded almost like it was drowning, trying to escape something it couldn't understand.

But then, abruptly, the tone shifted. The frantic words grew more pointed, more accusing, and they no longer seemed directed inward. Now, the voice was aimed directly at Ashok, as if blaming him for everything that had gone wrong.

[IT'S BECAUSE OF YOU! EVERYTHING HAS GONE WRONG BECAUSE OF YOU! I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE HERO LIKE THEM. I WOULD HAVE ENJOYED THE PRAISES FROM THE WORLD IF NOT FOR YOU! EVERYONE WILL DIE BECAUSE OF YOU AND THAT THING, INSIDE YOU!]

Did Ashok give a shit about the words of something that was already sacrificed? No!.

'Honestly, if only someone had some popcorn right now, this would be the perfect show because this System doesn't know what is about to happen with it.' Ashok thought, a evil smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as he observed the ember writhing with its angry, desperate cries. Alas, no one could fulfill that wish right now. No popcorn vendor would appear in the darkness to ease his boredom.

"A Foreign Soul, A Soul kept merged with a Divine Authority and A Heavenly God that ran away. It's my first time seeing the most oddest things gathered in one place," came the emotionally detached voice again, slicing through the stillness of the darkness.

"WHERR… ARR… YUU… COUGH?" Ashok shouted, his voice raw, blood trickling from his mouth. The sharp pain of his bleeding tongue made it almost impossible to speak, yet he forced the words out, desperate to find the source of the voice that had been echoing in the suffocating darkness.

"Since you are the center of all this, consider this a free gift from me," the words left by the cold voice hung in darkness. The voice seemed detached, as if it were merely an observer, offering something without care or attachment to the consequences.

SNAP!

The moment the snapping sound echoed through the air, everything shifted. Before Ashok could process what had happened, a dark hole tore open beneath him, swallowing him whole in the eternal darkness.

The ground beneath him vanished, and he felt himself plummeting into an endless, suffocating void. The dark hole yawned wider and wider as he tumbled through the infinite blackness, unable to see anything, only feeling the rush of cold air and the strange, oppressive force that pulled him deeper and deeper into the abyss.

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