"If that had happened, perhaps my people would not have died."
Gorr's words were filled with regret. He looked quietly at Thor, his eyes full of admiration.
"Thor, you are a good god. Though you are unwilling to kill me, I know my sins run deep. I will give you an answer.
"But I have one request. After I die, could you send my ashes back to Indigo Star?
"Bury me somewhere without temples, somewhere without gods."
Thor looked at him, his expression equally complicated. After hesitating for a moment, he silently nodded.
"Alright."
"Thank you!" Gorr nodded gratefully.
Then he turned and walked toward the doors of the hall, toward the lawn swept by the night wind and bathed in starlight.
His steps were slow and steady, like a man walking the final stretch of his life.
He stood on the lawn and looked up at the stars in the sky.
Among those stars was Indigo Star.
He no longer remembered the color of that planet, because in the countless years since he had left, it had become another world.
But he knew it was there, in some corner of the Milky Way, in the place where he had once still been a man.
He took a small knife from the sleeve of his black robe.
It was not the Necrosword, but an ordinary little silver knife with a worn handle.
It had been a gift from his mother on his final night as an Indigo Star native, before he became the God Butcher.
He held the knife and looked at the reflection on its blade.
"Mother," he murmured. "I'm back."
With that, he drove the knife into his own heart.
There was no sound, no blood.
Only his body slowly collapsed onto the lawn, onto the stone slabs