Black soil drifted down, covering the modest grave like night closing at the end of time, burying that eternal death. The god born after the extinction of all things now rested, transformed into a small mound upon a hill at the moment this world met its end.
A chaotic wind blew from the darkness, gently brushing over the mound. Nameless wildflowers and weeds swayed atop it, rustling softly in the breeze. Duncan stood in the wind, both hands resting on the shovel, gazing at the fresh pile of earth before him for a long time.
Then he raised his head and looked around—the Reaper had not prepared a gravestone for himself, and there was nothing here that looked suitable to serve as one.
So Duncan drove the shovel that had dug the earth firmly into the ground before the mound, then scooped up soil from nearby and packed it around the shovel to secure it, using it as a gravestone.
After finishing this, he let out a long breath and rested his hand on the handle one final time.
Wisps of dim green fire mingled with faint starlight and seeped from between his fingers, slowly covering the Reaper's "gravestone" before vanishing.
"May you rest in peace, Bartok. Goodbye," Duncan said softly, his figure slowly fading into the wind.
The disordered fragments of wind became a brief howl. Light and shadow spilled from the darkness and instantly reassembled. After a brief sensation of weightlessness and shifting senses, the feeling of solid ground returned, and the scene before Duncan rapidly stabilized.
The magnificent Gate of Death still stood quietly at the center of the rocky wasteland. Before the triangular gate, however, the towering figure seated upon the pitch-black throne was silently and slowly disintegrating, like a shattered dream waking at dawn. The