The man in the Hawaiian shirt casually lifted a hand, waving me over like we were old buddies meeting up for a beachside barbecue.

  I cautiously approached him. He didn't look like a threat, but then again, neither did Talestia until she opened her mouth.

  "Hi, Ragna!" he greeted me cheerfully. "I'm Arya Bhardwaj."

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  "Are you kiddin' me?" I deadpanned.

  Arya just chuckled, taking a loud, unbothered sip from his lemonade. "I know it's hard to believe," he said effortlessly. "But I don't think so. After happening this much, you will have problem believing it."

  (Fair point. When you have a mythical dragon and a fiery poultry empress living in your lungs, an Indian dude in a Hawaiian shirt claiming to be the First King isn't that much of a stretch).

  "Yeah, that's true," I conceded, crossing my arms. "So, why am I called here?"

  "To have a little talk," he replied.

  "What is it?"

  Arya set his drink down in the sand. "It's about you. I know a lot about you in this life of yours, and your previous life too. And yeah, I'll also guide you a bit for the journey you are going to have in this life. So, shall we start?"

  I nodded slowly. "Alright. But after that, answer some of my questions."

  "Sure," Arya smiled. "So, first of all, your previous life. As I went through it, I got to know that you belonged to a poor family, right?"

  "As I remember," I confirmed, my corporate guard staying firmly up.

  Arya leaned back on his woven mat. "You worked hard, both mentally and physically, and reached great heights. But there was something you wanted after you achieved everything—money, fame, love, and respect. You wanted the world to work together." He pointed a finger at me, grinning. "Man, that made me a fan. You gathered all the illegal doings of big people. Not bad."

  He paused, his tone shifting just slightly from casual to cautionary. "You used force and money to gather all these information. But you forgot something. You should never invoke the anger of people who are involved in politics. You did not just provoke them; you made them pee in their pants with fear of going to jail."

  He gestured around the beach. "And now that took you here, reincarnating to this place."

  (Ah, yes. The classic 'don't blackmail the shadow government' lesson. Learned that one the hard way).

  "About me, then," Arya continued casually, pointing a thumb at his chest, "I was an average, common engineer who got hit by a truck and got reincarnated by the Goddess of—"

  "Reincarnation?" I guessed, thinking of the annoying lightbulb, Talestia.

  "No," Arya corrected, shaking his head. "Destruction. Because Leonis was a big threat at that time. He had a sword that could kill even an immortal like gods, goddesses, and all."

  I processed this. An engineer hit by Truck-Kun. It was so painfully cliché, but clearly, the guy had made the most of his stats. Still, I didn't appreciate his summary of my grand finale back on Earth.

  "You know what?" I interrupted, staring down at the First King. "You know the half story."

  Arya blinked from behind his sunglasses. "What do you mean?"

  I gave him my best, absolute zero, CEO-level smirk. "I never lost a single battle in my two lives. Watch the whole story."

  Arya looked genuinely confused. He pushed himself up from the mat. "Let's go then. Come with me."

  He started walking toward the shoreline, and I followed right behind him. When we reached the edge of the waves, he stopped and casually waved his hand over the ocean.

  "Here we go," he said, casting a spell.

  The water in front of us flattened out, rippling before turning into a massive, crystal-clear projection. The image shifted to a very familiar mahogany boardroom. It was the exact scene from my previous life, right when I was explaining the contents of the pen drive to the corrupt politicians... and right before I got shot.

  I grimaced, rubbing the back of my neck. "Can we go a little forward?" I asked, looking away. "It's a bit, uh... weird, seeing yourself dying."

  "Alright, here you go," Arya obliged, fast-forwarding the watery vision.

  The scene changed.

  We were looking into a sleek, modern office. Sitting at the desk was a woman. She was dressed in a sharp business suit, her black hair framing a face with deep brown eyes. She was sitting there, quietly thinking about something.

  A moment later, tears slipped out and fell from her eyes. She raised a hand, wiping them away, her expression hardening from grief into absolute, cold anger.

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  "It's time," she said.

  She reached out and switched on the TV in her office. The news channel was on, flashing pictures of me—my previous life, Aryan Sharma—across the screen. The anchor was frantically reporting on the sudden murder of the billionaire, and then there was a news.

  "I knew I would die," I said casually to Arya. "So I made a backup plan."

  As we watched the news anchor frantically detail the sudden assassination of the billionaire, I crossed my arms, not taking my eyes off the projection.

  On the watery screen, the news anchor's panicked face shifted as breaking reports flooded in. Following the murder, a massive, coordinated leak of evidence had instantly been triggered. Thousands of files were released to the public and the authorities, and in one sweeping motion, the most powerful, corrupt politicians and businessmen on Earth were dragged straight to jail. The truth was fully revealed.

  The woman in the office watched the screen. A proud, tearful smile broke across her face.

  "You have done it again, love," she whispered softly to herself. "You have done your part... and now it's my time. Let's make this world a better place."

  She pulled out her phone, dialing a number. "Gather them," she ordered.

  The vision rippled and fast-forwarded.

  We were now looking at a massive, state-of-the-art lecture hall. It was packed. The people sitting there weren't random civilians; they were the new ministers, politicians, and leaders taking the places of the arrested ones. And every single one of them had been secretly aligned with me in my previous life.

  The woman stood at the podium, projecting absolute, undeniable authority.

  "As you all know, Aryan has died," she announced, her voice echoing through the silent hall. "But he has done the hardest part. Now, it is our time to fulfill his last wish. Every one of you—ministers and presidents of all countries—shall sign a new treaty. We will merge. We will help each other indiscriminately as one unified entity. As the only country called Earth, for the sake and welfare of mankind. This structure will accelerate human development four times faster."

  One of the newly appointed presidents hesitantly raised a hand. "But, Ma'am... is it truly necessary—"

  BANG.

  The deafening crack of a gunshot interrupted him. A bullet shattered the wood of the desk mere inches from the man's hand.

  The woman stood there, her arm extended, aiming a smoking handgun directly at the terrified president's chest.

  "I'm sorry," she said, her voice dropping to absolute zero. "What was that?"

  The president threw his hands up, sweating profusely, his eyes wide with sheer terror. "N-no! I meant, is it necessary to wait to sign it tomorrow?! Can't we sign it right now?!"

  She smoothly holstered the gun.

  "You may sign it now," she said, adjusting her suit jacket. "The news reporters are already here. Everyone gather at the prepared grounds. This will be the biggest, most revolutionary treaty in the history of the world."

  She leaned over the podium, her brown eyes hardening into a lethal glare.

  "And lastly... I want to remind you that you all made a promise to my late husband. I shall personally take care that no one breaks it. And if you try to do so..." She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "...You shall meet my husband in person. He will give you a far better punishment than I ever could."

  The projection sped up again like a time-lapse. The treaty was signed. She instituted massive, revolutionary changes across the globe. She practically forged a utopia with an iron fist. And eventually, the years caught up with her. She turned old, her hair turning grey, and she peacefully passed away, leaving our remarkably capable son to take care of the unified world.

  "Wait, wait, wait," I said, holding up a hand to pause the watery vision. I stared at the screen, my brain struggling to process the timeline. "She turned old and died? How long was I sitting in that white void talking to Talestia? When exactly was I reincarnated?"

  Arya took a loud sip of his lemonade, perfectly unbothered. "You were reincarnated after a hundred Earthly years."

  I blinked. A century? "And here is another interesting fact," Arya continued, lowering his sunglasses to look at me. "She too reincarnated with you on Xeria. And you already know exactly who she is."

  My heart physically stopped for a second. The gears in my CEO-brain violently clicked into place, matching the faces, the presence, the sheer, unapologetic arrogance.

  "Starlia?!" I gasped, my jaw actually dropping. "But... isn't she the incarnation of Talestia?!"

  "Yes, she is," Arya nodded. "But divine incarnations require the soul of a human host. And the Goddess incarnated through her soul."

  Arya grinned, raising his glass to me in a toast. "The plan was amazing, though. She truly killed it down there, and your son is even cleverer than you. Guess humans will be a Type-2 civilization soon enough."

  My mind was reeling. Starlia. The twelve-year-old Princess who had been calling me a "lowly commoner." The girl I had been mentally criticizing for poor corporate synergy. She was the reincarnation of my fiercely loyal, gun-toting, world-unifying wife.

  (Oh boy. The universe really does have a sick sense of humor. No wonder we got paired up as Team 7. We literally conquered a planet together in our past lives). I took a deep, shuddering breath, locking that massive revelation in a mental vault for later. I couldn't afford to have a breakdown on a magical beach. I am a man of focus, and there was a much bigger problem at hand.

  "Alright," I said, my voice hardening as I looked back at the First King. "Now, my questions."

  "Alright," Arya nodded, his playful demeanor sobering up just a fraction.

  "Who was that boy?" I demanded, the memory of the arena rushing back. The brown hair, the dull eyes, the absolute, terrifying void of his aura. "Why couldn't I feel his presence? It was like standing in front of a dead man."

  Arya took a loud, completely relaxed sip of his lemonade. "Ah, that boy," he said casually. "He was just a small fragment of the Demon King, Leonis... Leonis um... Leonis Death, yeah. Dangerous one, huh? Though it's just a 1000th of his power. Pretty tough to defeat."

  I stared at him, my jaw practically hitting the sand.

  "Are you kiddin' me?!" I shouted, my composed CEO facade completely shattering into pure shock. "I faced the Demon King, and I can't defeat even a 1000th of his power?!"

  (A 1000th? A fraction of a percent? And he almost wiped my entire existence off the server!)

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, forcing my heart rate back down to a manageable level. "Alright," I sighed. "My next question is, you said he had a sword that can even kill immortals. Then how did you defeat him, and where is that sword now?"

  Arya chuckled, adjusting his sun hat. "Usually, anyone would have got sliced, but I tricked him using the last fragment of his humanity. He never killed a kid, so I cultivated and researched for years to create a technique to disguise myself into a kid."

  (Hold up. The legendary First King beat the ultimate evil... by catfishing him as a toddler? I mean, I respect the complete lack of morals in pursuit of victory, but damn. Talk about a hostile takeover).

  "And as he came closer to play with me," Arya continued with a grin, "I took his sword showing that I was playing, and accidentally dropped it. The plan was to kill him, but I had to injure him severely and seal him with tonnes of spells."

  "You sealed him because you couldn't kill him," I deduced, crossing my arms. "But what about that god-killing sword?"