Hero of Darkness - Chapter 43: A Worthy Opponent

“Next, we have the most noble recipient of the Order of the Garter, the Grand Cross of Saint Michael and Saint George, the Grand Cross of the Bath, the Victoria Cross and the lower grades of Knighthood, the leader of the anti-colonial movement, the bell-ringer of the East India Company, the hero of the Crimean War, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a lifelong dear friend of literary giants such as Dickens and Great Dumas, a steadfast supporter of scientific luminaries like Faraday and Darwin, having served as assistant under-secretary, deputy under-secretary, and permanent under-secretary in departments of the Home Office and the Navy Department of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the inaugural Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service, the first graduate and most distinguished alumnus of our school. Please welcome Sir Arthur Hastings to deliver a speech on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the University of London.”Arthur's gaze swept across the crowd before him, looking at the young faces and murmured, “Agares, what do you think I should say?”The Red Devil's wraith hovered behind him, saliva almost dribbling from the corner of his mouth, “Look at these ignorant souls; they still worship you as a hero. Why not say something they'd like to hear?”Arthur took a deep breath and let out a deafening roar, “Oxford is a bunch of whores' bastards!”“Oh!!!!”The audience erupted into thunderous applause.“Cambridge is the same!” he added immediately.The applause grew even more fervent...(The protagonist, possessed by a devil, travels through 19th-century Britain in a world without magic)

At the end of the road, in the throes of despair and impending death, Le Yu shouted defiantly:“If you have the guts, then kill me.”The enemy sneered and said:“I've never heard such a strange request.”Le Yu died.Then Le Yu came back to life, living in the enemy's body.This is a story where being killed means possessing the killer.“Why are the ones who kill me always some enigmatic, cunning figures with complicated backstories and numerous impending quests?Why aren't there some honest, wealthy, lady-charmer winners in life coming to kill me!?”

He used to think Death was the end.He was wrong.Death was but another beginning, a new adventure.Reborn into this strange and familiar world, he should have been dead, his soul fading into nothingness, but he found himself in a completely new existence. Now, as a Primordial instead of a human, he must find his place in this wondrous world.

Our straight (?) bottom woke up ten years into the future and found himself on the bed of his childhood friend… At the start, the bottom was shocked to his very bones, but he soon quickly accepted this premise and found the whole situation to be rather amusing. Precisely then, the bottom once again went back to his timeline — back to when he and the top were just platonic childhood friends.