Chapter 61 - 62: A Memory Not His Own - God of Death: Rise of the NPC Overlord - NovelsTime

God of Death: Rise of the NPC Overlord

Chapter 61 - 62: A Memory Not His Own

Author: Bri\_ght8491
updatedAt: 2025-07-21

CHAPTER 61: CHAPTER 62: A MEMORY NOT HIS OWN

The stars in that dream-sky flickered like code-glitches—constellations twitching in and out of shape. Darius stood on a barren cliff not of this world, but of some other—a realm written in ancient functions, predating emotion, time, and even death. Below him, legions knelt, nameless shadows awaiting his command. His voice, when he spoke, was not his own.

"They will fall. Their gods. Their code. Their love. All of it."

He awakened with a violent gasp, the shadows of that voice still clawing at the walls of his soul.

Celestia was already at his side, her aura dimmed, concern flooding her violet eyes. "You spoke... as another," she whispered. "It wasn’t a dream, Darius. I felt it too."

He rose from the stone altar, each movement stiff with tension. "It felt like a memory... but not mine."

"No," she said softly. "It wasn’t."

She led him to the Black Archive—a sealed vault beneath the Temple of Echoes. Glyphs flared angrily as they entered, protesting even their presence. At its center was a data-core made of crystallized memory—forbidden code, fragments of the Prime Coder’s failed experiments.

Celestia placed a trembling hand against it, her breath unsteady. "You were made," she said at last. "Not born. The code that anchors your soul... it belongs to a discarded template. One the Prime Coder created for a failed god."

Darius didn’t flinch. But something cracked within.

"A template?" he echoed, voice low and dangerous.

"Prototype X-Zephyr." She read the name like a curse. "The Prime Coder tried to make a god who could overwrite realities without becoming unstable. But it... didn’t work. The template was buried. Forgotten. Until you."

He turned away, jaw clenched so hard it ached. "So what am I then? Some discarded god-shell? A puppet that broke loose?"

"No," she said, stepping closer. "You’re more. You evolved beyond your design. You killed the Architect. You devoured the Void. You chose love. Chose me."

He looked at her, and for the first time in an eternity... he didn’t see a loyal consort. He saw the only thing tethering him to the truth.

"But why now?" he asked. "Why do the memories bleed through now?"

Celestia hesitated—then opened her palm. A pulse of gold light shimmered. It was a memory fragment—one she had been hiding.

"I found this... after Kaela died. I didn’t show you. I was afraid." Her voice broke. "Afraid that if you knew you weren’t entirely human, you’d let go of what little of him remained inside you."

Darius took the fragment. It pulsed like a heartbeat.

As it sank into him, visions assaulted him again:

He stood atop a ruined sky-city, surrounded by other divine beings—mocking him. Betraying him. Locking him in a prism of unmaking.

And at the center of it all stood the Prime Coder... not as a god, but as a man. One Darius almost recognized.

"You were my perfect rewrite," the man said in that echoing dream. "But even perfection fails without pain."

When the memory faded, Darius sank to one knee, sweat pooling at his brow.

"I’m not him," he whispered. "I’m not just code."

Celestia knelt with him, holding his face between her palms. "No. You’re you. And no realm, no past, no creator—will take that from you."

But far above, in the shining skies of Origin, another presence stirred.

The First Heretic smiled. "He’s starting to remember," the envoy whispered into the cosmic winds. "Now... the real war begins."

The world around Darius distorted once more, reality fluttering like torn silk. In the grand obsidian hall of his throne, the flickering visions would not cease. Again, he stood beneath unfamiliar stars, on battlefields he had never stepped upon, among comrades he had never known—but whose names bled into his mind with terrifying clarity.

He gasped, knuckles white around the hilt of his blade. Celestia rushed to his side, sensing the tremor in his aura.

"Darius, your essence—it’s... unraveling."

He stared at her, jaw clenched, vision swimming. "These memories... they’re not mine, Celestia. I feel everything. Rage. Triumph. Betrayal. But they don’t belong to me. Or do they?"

Celestia placed her hand over his chest, her warmth anchoring him. "You were made, Darius. But not forged from nothing. You’re not just a man... nor merely a god. You were born from a failed god-template."

His breath caught.

"What?"

She nodded grimly. "The Architect didn’t just craft a game. He tried to build divinity. A line of prototype deities. Each designed to transcend code and flesh—to be more. You... you’re the last. The only success."

Suddenly, a name slashed through Darius’s mind like a cursed blade.

"Project Prime: Subject Echo-Void."

A name not his own... but tied to his soul.

The walls of the hall pulsed with black veins of corrupted light as his power responded—unstable, volatile. The flames that wreathed his throne turned violet. Nyx appeared in the shadows, sensing the disruption.

"He’s remembering," she whispered, eyes narrowed.

Celestia looked back at her. "And if he remembers too much... he may stop being our Darius."

Later, in the Dream Sanctum

Darius lay upon a bed of soul-threaded silk, eyes closed, drifting deeper into visions not summoned.

He was walking through a sterile lab, walls of glass and iron. He was strapped to a crucible, systems injecting raw code into his mind. He saw hundreds of others—dead, failed, screaming, erased.

He wasn’t born.

He was designed.

And the one who named him... was not the Architect.

A whisper echoed through the vision. Feminine. Familiar.

"Live... not as a god, but as my vengeance..."

His eyes shot open. Tears ran down the sides of his face—burning black.

Celestia knelt beside him, brushing away the toxic trails.

He stared at her as if seeing her anew. "Why me? Why did you stay?"

Celestia pressed her forehead to his. "Because whether you were born, made, or forged from broken divinity... you chose to fight. You chose us. That’s what makes you real."

Elsewhere, in the Realm of Origin

A golden council watched through crystalline mirrors. The First Heretic stood in defiance before them, his robe tattered, wings dimmed.

"He knows now," the Heretic murmured. "The god-template awakens."

A female voice echoed coldly. "Then it is time. The trial begins soon. Let him drown in what he was never meant to be.

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