Sword God in a World of Magic

Chapter 4: Death

Time seemingly froze as Alex's fist hit the young man's nose.

"Argh, fuck!" Alex suddenly shouted as he shook his fist. He looked at it and saw that his index and middle finger were broken.

Alex had just punched the nose of the young man, but it felt like he had punched a nail made of steel!

The young man only smirked viciously. "And that's exactly why I chose you!" he said. By now, his voice sounded calm but arrogant.

Alex looked with shock at the young man.

What the hell was going on?!

"Any normal person," the young man said as he gestured grandly to his hall, "who saw what you have seen would cower before me in fear. Everything I have shown up to now, my power over space, my ability to cut off your leg in an instant, even this very hall would have sent awe, fear, terror, and respect into anyone's heart."

"However!" the man shouted, his voice sounding pleased. "You are not like a normal person. No, you are different."

The man took a step forward as Alex began sweating. His fight or flight instincts kicked in. Usually, he always chose fight, but in this instant, he felt like flight was a better alternative.

"Everyone else would have thrown themselves at my knees, begging me to not play with their lives any longer."

Another step.

"That's so boring," the man said with a neutral expression. "I want excitement, fighting, someone that doesn't take shit from anyone."

"I want chaos!" the man said with a smirk as he looked deeply into Alex's eyes.

Alex gulped.

"Chosen for what?" Alex asked, trying to hide the panic in his voice.

"Chosen to change the world!" the man said with a smirk. Then, he chuckled a bit, turned around, and walked back to his throne, which had just appeared behind him. He sat down and looked at Alex again with a smirk, just like back when Alex had first arrived here.

Alex remained silent for a couple of seconds as he calmed down, trying to analyze the situation.

'Obviously, this isn't a dream. The pain is too real, and now that I take the possibility that this is real into account, I also notice that my thoughts are too orderly. Usually, in a dream, I never notice that it's a dream since a big part of my brain is asleep.'

'I have to throw these preconceived notions of what counts as reality out of my mind and learn to accept that this is all real.'

Alex looked at the man sitting in front of him.

'And that means that he's also real. What is he? He can't be a normal human.'

"Finally, you are actually thinking about your current situation," the man said. "Took you long enough."

Now that Alex was calming down, he also noticed that this man had reacted to his thoughts several times.

'Does this mean that he can read my mind?'

"Yes, I can," the man said. "A mortal human life might be beyond complex for you, but for me, it's not very complicated. Your mind and soul follow rules, and when something follows rules, you can extrapolate what this something does at any given time, assuming you have the processing power to take everything into account."

Alex took a deep breath.

Too many strange things had happened in these past minutes, and he couldn't be sure about anything except that his life was probably about to change severely.