Pete materialized in a crouch, his hands hitting stone.

  The first thing he noticed was the smell, sulfur and smoke and something ancient and terrible. The second thing was the heat. The third thing was the massive shadow falling over him.

  He looked up.

  And up.

  And up.

  The dragon was the size of a cathedral. Its scales were black as a starless night, edged with veins of molten red that pulsed like exposed arteries. Its eyes were golden and slitted, filled with intelligence and malice in equal measure. Smoke curled from its nostrils, and when it breathed, the air shimmered with heat.

  This was Malachar the Destroyer. The Black Scourge. The dragon that had slaughtered armies, toppled kingdoms, and once fought three gods simultaneously to a standstill.

  Pete didn’t know that. So he just looked up, and felt... nothing.

  Maybe it was the depression. Maybe it was the exhaustion from dying. Maybe it was the fact that for ten years, he'd been hoping something would just end his existence, and here was his chance.

  Whatever the reason, instead of fear, Pete just felt annoyed.

  "Really?" he said to the universe in general. "A dragon? That's the best you could do?"

  Malachar's eyes widened slightly. In three thousand years, no creature had looked at him without fear.

  "You dare, " the dragon began, its voice like an avalanche.

  "I dare? Listen, Smaug's discount cousin, I've had a really long day. I died, had an existential crisis with a goddess, and now I'm here in what I'm guessing is Hell's parking lot. So either eat me or don't, but spare me the villain monologue."

  The dragon's jaw actually dropped.

  "You... you mock me? I am Malachar! I have ended civilizations! Gods themselves fear my name!"

  "Good for you. Want a medal?" Pete stood up, brushing dust from his pants. His new body felt strange, stronger, younger, but his mind was still the same. Still tired. Still done with everything. "Look, I get it. You're big and scary. Very impressive. But I've been dead for like twenty minutes, and honestly, being eaten sounds fine. So if we're doing this, let's get it over with."

  Malachar had never been so insulted in his entire existence.

  The dragon's maw opened, revealing teeth the size of swords. Without ceremony or further dramatics, Malachar simply snapped forward and swallowed Pete whole.

  In the moment before the dragon's teeth closed, Pete's hand moved on instinct.

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  He'd already activated his immortality skill. Four times. Simultaneously.

  He didn't want it. Didn't want a chance to survive. The skill was supposed to give him four separate escapes, but Pete had just mashed the metaphorical button four times in rapid succession, trying to waste them all at once.

  What he didn't know was that this wasn't how the skill was designed to work.

  What he didn't know was that Aria's "vitality boost" had been a bit too enthusiastic, accidentally granting him true immortality.

  What he didn't know was that stacking all four uses of a divine blessing while already being immortal would create a multiplicative effect that, for exactly sixty seconds, would make his power output comparable to a god's.

  What he didn't know was a lot of things.

  But what he did know, suddenly, was that he felt angry.

  Not at the dragon. At himself. At the universe. At the ten years he'd wasted punishing himself. At the guilt he'd carried. At every moment of Sarah's life he'd poisoned with his self-hatred instead of cherishing with gratitude.

  Jennifer's words echoed: "She wouldn't want this for you."

  Aria's words followed: "Promise me you'll try."

  And deepest of all, a memory: Sarah, age seven, squeezing his hand. "You're my hero, Daddy. You're the strongest person in the whole world."

  Inside the dragon's throat, in the darkness and the acid and the certain death, Pete made a decision.

  Not like this.

  If I'm going to die, it won't be because I gave up.

  Sarah deserves better from me than that.

  Power erupted from Pete's body like a supernova.

  Malachar the Destroyer, terror of nations, killer of gods, had time for exactly one thought: What is

  Then Pete punched.

  The explosion could be seen from three kingdoms away.

  When the light faded, Pete stood in a crater a hundred yards wide. Dragon blood, glowing gold and red, covered him from head to toe. Around him lay the scattered remains of what had once been the most feared creature on the continent.

  Pete looked down at his hands. They were smoking slightly.

  "Huh” he said. Then his legs gave out and he collapsed onto his back, staring up at the ash-filled sky.

  That... that was probably not a normal dragon.

  Power surged through him as he absorbed Malachar's essence without even realizing it. Thousands of years of accumulated magical energy, the dragon's vast strength, its knowledge, its very nature, all of it flowing into Pete like water into a vessel.

  When it finished, Pete remained lying there, utterly exhausted.

  "Another one will come along” he muttered to himself. "Something bigger. Something worse. Might as well rest here and wait for it."

  He closed his eyes.

  Minutes passed. Then an hour. Then two.

  Nothing came.

  In fact, everything in a twenty-mile radius had fled in absolute terror. The creatures of the Borderlands knew power when they felt it, and what they'd felt from that explosion was the aura of something that killed Malachar.

  Whatever that thing was, they wanted nothing to do with it.

  Pete's stomach rumbled.

  He opened his eyes, confused. "Huh. Still hungry."

  He sat up slowly, looking around at the wasteland. No monsters. No threats. Just rocks and some scraggly trees in the distance and the lingering smell of cooked dragon.

  "Weird."

  Pete stood, testing his body. He felt... fine. Better than fine, actually. Strong. Alive in a way he hadn't felt in years.

  But also hungry.

  "Guess I should find some food."

  As he started walking, his thoughts drifted to Sarah. Not to the accident this time, but to what Aria had shown him. To Sarah's smile. To her happiness.

  She lived again. She was happy. And she thought of me with love.

  The spark in his chest, the one Jennifer had lit, the one Aria had fanned, grew a little warmer.

  Pete didn't know where he was going. Didn't know that he'd just become one of the most powerful beings on the planet. Didn't know that a certain goddess was frantically trying to hide her involvement.

  But he knew one thing: he was still alive. And for the first time in ten years, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.