The room was too large for one man.
A cavern of luxury stretched out in silence, lined with marble floors and gold-leaf walls. Crystal lamps gleamed dully in the half-light, their glow dimmed behind heavy curtains. Every surface spoke of wealth paintings, antiques, imported furniture but the air was cold, stale, and empty but a heavy scent of medicine hung in the air.
At the far end of the chamber stood a bed so vast that ten people could have lain across it.
Only one did.
He was thin hollowed, almost translucent under the pale light of the monitors. A tangle of tubes and wires bound him to the machines that still pretended he was alive. His hair was gray, but not with age alone; it was the color of exhaustion. The face beneath it might once have belonged to a man in his forties, but the lines of greed and sleeplessness had carved him decades older.
The steady beep-beep of a heart monitor filled the silence.
A man in a white coat stood at the bedside, looking down with professional detachment. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "This is as much as I can do."
The figure in the bed Son, the man who had once ruled markets and continents alike barely stirred. His lips twitched into something between a smile and a grimace.
"Don't apologize," he rasped, his voice hoarse and dry.
The doctor said nothing but nodded with a melancholic expression.
Outside, rain whispered against the windows. The smell of disinfectant and old money hung in the air. The machines clicked and hissed. One by one, their lights began to fade.
Another man stood beside the bed a lawyer in a perfectly pressed suit, his tie neat, his expression careful he waited with a folder of papers contracts, signatures, final arrangements. The kind of man whose very posture spoke of control and calculation. Even here, at the edge of his life, the only company Son had left were men on his payroll.
"Sir," he said quietly, voice practiced but respectful, "I've finished everything you instructed. The documents are in the bank's custody, just as you ordered."
The frail man on the bed turned his head slightly. His eyes were dim but sharp, the ghost of authority still in them.
"Thank you, Jacob," he murmured. "You've been... loyal, more than most."
Jacob, the lawyer, allowed himself a thin smile. He bowed his head slightly. "Serving you has been nothing but an honor, Mr. Son."
Son's lips curved into the faintest smile. "On the desk," he said, his voice breaking with effort. "There's an envelope. Take it when you leave. I wish to be alone."
Jacob hesitated, just for a heartbeat, then stepped toward the desk and slipped the envelope into his briefcase. He bowed again, deeper this time. "Rest easy, sir."
Without another word, he turned and left. The doctor followed, silent and subdued. The heavy double doors groaned as they closed, the sound echoing like the toll of a bell.
The room fell quiet again.
Son turned his head slowly, the motion weak and deliberate. Beside him, on the nightstand, lay a folded newspaper. The headline stared back at him in bold black letters:
RICHES CAN'T SAVE RICHEST CEO TERMINAL AND INCURABLE
He stared at it for a long time before a hoarse laugh escaped his throat. It wasn't bitter, or angry.....just tired.
"Incurable," he whispered, smiling faintly. "They're right about that."
He wasn't talking about the poison.
He knew his body was failing heart, liver, lungs, one after another shutting down but that wasn't what killed him. No, the real sickness had set in long ago: ambition without restraint, greed without purpose.
The poison was only the closing balance on a debt he'd spent a lifetime accumulating. Betrayed by the partner he trusted most, and now rotting from the inside, he lay there in the dark, watching the machines blink slower and slower.
"So this is what success looks like," he muttered to the empty room. "No applause. No family. Just the sound of me dying in a king-sized coffin."
Yet no voice answered his thoughts.
For the first time in decades, the constant hum inside his head plans, deals, forecasts, numbers was gone. The silence pressed in until he could hear his own breathing rasp through the tubes. He bit his lip, trembling, fingers clutching the silk sheets like they were the only thing anchoring him to the world.
He was the richest man alive. A living legend of commerce. A man who had built an empire so vast it could compete with nations. A man who had world nations leader answer to his call. A man who's wealth was so fast he had a hard time tracking it.
And yet, as he lay there, skin gray and shaking, all that fortune meant nothing. The bank vaults, the skyscrapers with his name, the fleets of cars and private jets none of it could fill the hollow space at the edge of his bed.
He had always lived fast, always chasing the next high, the next number on the board. Always hungry, never satisfied. Money had been the pulse that kept him alive, the only thing he trusted.
And in pursuing it, he had left everything else behind friends, family, love, decency. Now, at the end, there was only silence. A silence heavier than debt, deeper than regret. For the first time in his life, he felt it : not fear of dying, but the terrible awareness that he had lived alone. He exhaled, eyes drifting toward the dark ceiling.
"I bought everything," he whispered, voice breaking, "except someone to stay."
The monitors pulsed once, weakly, as if agreeing. Then came the stillness, the kind that stretches forever.
His eyes became heavy and his breath ragged as he wheezed a numbness slowly taking over his body as his thoughts raced with everything he had done in life the good and the bad. He tried to open his eyes. Darkness came instead.
His strength slipped away, every heartbeat slower than the last. He knew this was it. All those years clawing his way to the top had led only here: a lonely deathbed in a silent palace.
He couldn't call for anyone; there was no one left to call. His chest ached, not just from poison, but from the emptiness of it all.
If I ever had another chance…he thought flickered like a dying spark.I'd change it. I'd fix what I broke AND I will never be alone again. That is my choice. A solemn promise, whispered only to himself.
He almost laughed. "Hell's waiting for me anyway," he rasped. "Bring it on."
Then after a brief silent filled only by the beeping sound, the monitor wailed a single, endless tone flat, cold, final.
Son The most powerful, the most well known, the richest man on Earth was dead.
.....
.....
.....
.....
.....
Or was he?
Something very strange and peculiar had taken place, Son expected the flames of hell. He knew he should be gone. But he wasn't. Not completely.
He blinked and found himself sitting upright, somehow whole, in a place that made no sense.
Son was fairly certain he was dead. Which made it awkward that he was also sitting upright. He blinked, squinting into murky, flickering light. Something smelled like smoke and… burnt chicken?
He looked down. Stone floor. Symbols carved into it. Candles everywhere. Blood. A lot of blood.
To his right, a cluster of skeletal people in tattered robes knelt, mumbling something in a language that sounded like someone gargling gravel. To his left, another one was enthusiastically carving sigils into his own arm with a tiny sharp dagger while whispering "glory" in between sobs. Front and center, an old man with a beard that looked like it had lost a fight with a lawn mower was screaming incantations into the air.
Candles flickered in circles around him, their flames black at the edges. A sigil spiral, uneven, wrong glowed faintly beneath his feet.
And above his head…A tiny, translucent creature, half-humanoid and half-octopus purple looking thing that was straight out of a comic book or a horror novel hovered in midair, thrashing its tentacles and shrieking at him in some incomprehensible language.
He couldn't feel the blows, but the little thing was definitely trying to hit him.
"Thief! Imposter! You stole!"
"What the hell," Son muttered, staring blankly at it. Before he could move, a shape of pure black appeared in front of his eyes flat, square, and pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
"Thief! Fraud! Counterfeit god! That's my vessel, you finance-obsessed ape!"
Son stared, then blinked, then stared again.
"…I'm sorry, what?"
The creature bonked him in the forehead hard but he felt nothing.
"You! Human scum! Give it back! That body is MINE!"
"First of all," Son said, rubbing his temples, "don't call me human scum until you've seen a shareholder meeting. Second…" He looked around. "What the hell is this? A cosplay convention?"
Dozens of cultists froze mid-chant. The old man's jaw dropped. "The… The Void God speaks!"
Son looked down at himself, realizing he was half-naked, covered in blood that wasn't his, and surrounded by lunatics bowing to him like he was divine.
"Of course. Hell looks exactly like an investor briefing."
A soft ding echoed in his head. A black square appeared in front of his eyes, hovering faintly in the air.
[USER: Son]
[Status: ??]
[Current Form: Host of the Void Vessel]
[Titles: The Fallen CEO | Unregistered Entity]
[Traits: Reincarnated Bastard | Opportunistic Genius | Questionable Morality]
[Skill Set: Leadership (1), Risk Appetite (1), Empathy (…Pending Review)]
[RANK : Intern]
Welcome, User Son.
You have successfully merged with an unclaimed divine vessel.
The original owner has been... displaced.Please refrain from insider trading with cosmic entities. We'll be watching you.
Son blinked at the window. Then looked at the cultists still bowing. Then back at the floating octopus, who was currently having an existential breakdown.
"…Yeah," he muttered "Definitely not heaven."
The black window chimed again.
[New Quest: Establish Initial Profit Base]
Objective: Survive the heretics.
Reward: Continued existence.
The cultists raised their hands, trembling, expecting their god to speak. Son straightened, still half-drenched in blood, eyes cold but amused. "Alright," he said. "Who's in charge here?"