God of Death: Rise of the NPC Overlord
Chapter 69 - 70: The Origin Trial

Chapter 69: Chapter 70: The Origin Trial

A Trial Without Words

Darius stood alone within the Hall of Origin.

There were no walls—only light. No ceiling—only infinite presence. The High Council of Origin did not sit upon thrones, for they were thrones. Concepts incarnate. Each being a law of reality, a primordial verdict etched into the cosmos.

He had faced dragons, gods, and horrors beyond stars.

But never had Darius felt so... seen.

Judgment was not a person. It was a force—an impartial mirror that pulled truth from the soul. It floated before him as a faceless silhouette of shifting light, neither cruel nor kind.

> "Why do you exist?"

The question wasn’t spoken. It unmade the air around him.

Darius opened his mouth—but no sound came.

A divine silence fell. The Law of Silence imposed earlier had followed him here. He could not speak his defense. He could only be it.

The Trial of Essence Begins

A thousand eyes watched—entities of Origin, ancient and new, bound by concept alone. The child, far behind, waited beyond the threshold. Celestia stood silently, unable to speak, yet her presence formed a stabilizing tether.

Judgment raised a hand.

Before Darius, a mirror manifested—liquid, glowing with every shade of his existence. It did not show his face. It showed versions of him.

The mortal, stabbed and discarded.

The tyrant, drenched in blood and ecstasy.

The broken man, crying beside Kaela’s corpse.

The god, hollow-eyed atop a throne of bones.

The mirror shattered.

> "You are not stable," said the Council in unison. "You are becoming. That is dangerous."

Darius stood firm, silent—but inside, he burned.

Enter the Betrayer

One among the Council stood—a figure cloaked in light so thick it was almost shadow. The others recoiled slightly.

The traitor.

This being had once been part of Origin’s foundation... but its smile was too knowing, its posture too human.

It stepped forward, voice dripping with honeyed rot. "Why not let him fall? Why risk the integrity of the code for an... experiment?"

It waved a hand, and a new image flickered into being—a future where Darius lost. His dominion shattered. Nyx dead. Celestia erased. The child... turned into a vessel of entropy.

Gasps echoed from some among the Council.

> "He will become this. It is inevitable."

The traitor’s voice oozed certainty.

Celestia’s Defiance

Though she could not speak, Celestia stepped forward.

Tears ran down her face.

She pressed a bleeding hand to the trial-floor, channeling every ounce of divine pain and memory she held.

A new image erupted in the air:

Darius cradling their child.

His back turned to a throne.

Power not taken—but shared.

A world not ruled, but reimagined.

Judgment shook. Concept wavered.

Darius’s Final Stand

He stepped forward.

Though his voice was barred, his essence erupted.

His soul unfolded—a brutal, beautiful storm of pain, love, wrath, and defiance. He projected everything:

His first kill.

Kaela’s laugh.

The Architect’s betrayal.

The rage that shaped him.

The longing he never spoke.

The child calling him "father."

It wasn’t perfect.

It wasn’t pure.

But it was true.

And the Council felt it.

Judgment flickered.

The traitor hissed.

---

Verdict: Not Guilty. But Not Free.

> "You may remain. But you are now watched," said Judgment. "One more fracture—and we shall intervene."

Darius turned.

But just before the exit, the traitor whispered into his mind:

> "You passed, because I let you. Origin has plans for you, God of Death. And none of them end with mercy."

> Darius stepped out of the light, child in his arms, Celestia at his side, and a whisper in his ear:

"Let them watch. I’m not done becoming."

A Realm in Hushed Awe

As Darius stepped out of the trial chamber, the world shifted around him. Not physically—but conceptually. The very laws of his dominion were rewritten to accommodate what had just occurred.

The silence still lingered, but now, it was reverent.

Celestia walked beside him, hand trembling in his. She had given up her voice—again—for him. And yet, her silence now felt heavier. Not a burden, but a promise.

The child clung to Darius’s other hand, eyes wide, glowing faintly with divine spark. His presence grounded Darius in a way no throne, no conquest ever had.

And Origin... watched.

Not as jailer.

But as witness.

A War Yet to Come

Far above, hidden between threads of concept and forgotten time, the traitor walked among the inner folds of Origin’s sacred core.

He wasn’t alone.

Others were gathering—gods who had once rebelled and failed. Concepts denied existence. Sins turned sentient.

> "He passed," the traitor murmured. "But only because we need him intact for what comes next."

He knelt before an altar not shaped by thought, but unbeing.

The Code of Unmaking pulsed there—dormant, dreaming.

A God’s Burden

Back in his own realm, Darius returned not to celebration—but to exhaustion. His followers knelt, awestruck. Even Nyx, hardened by blood and shadows, looked at him with new uncertainty.

He had changed.

He was still Darius—but something else grew beneath the surface. An awareness. A pressure. As if the fabric of who he was now held echoes of every trial, every life, every god who had ever been broken and rebuilt.

Azael approached, quietly.

> "You are no longer simply a god," he said. "You are a continuum."

Darius raised an eyebrow. "Explain."

> "You carry within you paths that should never have crossed. Mortality, godhood, fatherhood, dominion, and... rebellion. You were not meant to be. And that is precisely why you must be.

The New Decree

Darius looked out over his dominion.

Ruins and wonders. Broken temples reformed in impossible shapes. People kneeling. Some crying. Some whispering prayers in defiance of the Silence Law.

He raised a hand—and reality bent.

A singular act of rebellion.

He named himself aloud—his true name, the one sealed by the Law.

And reality shattered for a breath.

But instead of collapse... it reformed, stronger.

> "I am Darius."

Not shouted. Not declared.

Breathed.

And the law that silenced his name... bowed to him.

The God of Death had not just passed the Origin Trial.

He had evolved it.

> In the distance, far beyond stars and dreams, the Code of Unmaking stirred... and for the first time, it spoke a name.

> "Darius."