He explains what he can

“Hate to cut this touching reunion short, but, I think it’s time we started cutting limbs off.” Fenri said, holding up a jagged knife as she kept her distance to Eren, knowing full well what he was capable of.

“Fenri, calm down. Tris fixed him.” Varrick said as Mathias released Eren and took a step back, reaching for his sword, remembering his promise to Citrinas. They couldn’t trust Eren.

“Fucker tricked you morons once already. I'm not trusting him with all 7 limbs.” She growled as Eren raised an eyebrow.

“7?” He asked, not understanding her math before grabbing his crotch. “Get that knife near my balls and I'll break my foot so far up your ass you'll be puking toes!” He warned as Tristiana stood between them, raising both her hands.

“You two calm down. We’re all on the same side.” She said as Fenri pulled out another knife and pointed it at the kitsune.

“Shut up fox-bitch, you’re still on my shit list. I see your eyes glow, I'm cutting them out!” She threatened as Varrick joined Tristiana, hoping to deescalate the situation. Sadly, his presence only served to aggravate her further, the hero still bitter of his betrayal.

“Calm down. If he wanted us dead, we would be dead.” He said, fully cognizant of Eren’s power jump. Verdi had barely won earlier when he was a machine. Now that he was this thing, Citrinas knew there was nothing they could hope to do to him. Yet, she joined Fenri’s side.

“I’m… With Fenri. I don’t think we should trust Eren after all that’s happened.” She said, still remembering the battle. He had dominated them all with ease, and damn near killed them all. Eren threw her a cold look, only to look at the ground when he saw her bandaged eye and remembered what he had done to her. What he had done to them all. Shame fell over his face as what hostility he had fizzled away.

“You’re right. You shouldn’t trust me. But you can’t cut off my limbs.” Eren said quietly while holding his hand up to his face, studying his skin as though it were something new to him. “You’re not strong enough.” He continued, almost egging Fenri on as she threw a knife at him. Everyone moved to block it, yet her blade was faster as it reached Eren’s shoulder. An audible clang was heard as her knife bounced off his skin, the knife clattering to the ground as she clicked her tongue.

“Bastard.” Fenri snarled, pulling another knife from her inventory and pointing it at Eren. “Wonder if your eyes are just as tough.” She mused to herself as Eren sighed, his patience growing thinner with each passing second.

“Look, you could hit me all day, and the only thing you’ll do is chip a knife. Let’s just talk.” He offered as Fenri scowled, sheathing her knife while glaring daggers at him.

“Alright. Then I want you to answer me a question.” She asked while crossing her arms impatiently.

“Shoot.” Eren said.

“What’s Verdi’s real name?” She asked as Eren raised a confused eyebrow.

“Who?” He asked, unfamiliar with the pseudonym as Citrinas felt her heart thump in her chest, realizing they finally found Verdi's past. The two of them knew each other. Verdi’s past self had said this entire plan was to save Eren, and Eren obviously knew Verdi. After a second, Eren seemed to deduce who they were talking about, his eyes going wide as he grasped his mouth in horror.

“He sacrificed his memories, didn't he?” He asked, already deducing what had happened to him. Their lack of response was all he needed to hear as he looked at his hands. For a moment, he looked like a scared child, his mind in a frenzy as he thought of Verdi's current state. For once, the implacable hero who was renowned for his smile and power, the man who had stared oblivion in the face, was on the verge of tears.

“He’s searching for his past. If anyone has it, it’s you.” Citrinas said as Eren remained staring at his hands, unable to look them in the eye. “Who is he to you?” As she asked that, he seemed to straighten his back, a solemn smile on his face.

“... I’ve known him my entire life. He raised me and trained me how to fight. He was like an older brother to me.” Eren said as Citrinas interrupted.

“Verdi’s a mage. How did he train you how to fight?” She asked, Eren's words incoherent. Eren was a berserker specialized in close quarters combat and was incapable of using magic when berserked while Verdi was an alchemist specialized in defense. Yet, as she said that, Eren flinched as though she had punched him in the face.

“He gave that up too...” Eren whispered as the implications arose. Verdi wasn't a mage. He was a close combat specialist in his past life. He just so happened to be well read in science. She thought back to his every battle, and realized how obvious it was in hindsight.

He always fought in close quarters. He never even bothered to attack at long distances unless it was to mildly harass the enemy to lure them into close combat. He was brilliant and knew scientific theories, but he lacked any formal training or real practice using magic in combat. In stark contrast, his close combat prowess required no training or practice, his body remembering years of experience even when his mind forgot. Before they could ask any further, Eren continued speaking.

“He gave me everything but his past. I don't know a damn thing about him. He told me to call him whatever I pleased instead of giving me his name.” He admitted as Citrinas felt her chest grow hollow. Eren didn’t have his name? Why?

“You're shitting me. Tell us what you know right fucking now!” Fenri demanded, **** to find some clue as Eren looked back up, knowing the answer for once. Eren seemed to think for a moment, wracking his brain before speaking.

“His patron is the Goddess of Sacrifice. Her name is Doctor Melody Noche. She was an Ancient who ascended to godhood an eternity ago. You call her Dark God Melanoche, but you've all but forgotten what her true concept is.” Eren said, vindicating Verdi as they thought back to his “delusions”. He truly was blessed by a dark god, and they had convinced him he was the insane one.

“What does Sacrifice mean?” Varrick asked, the word unfamiliar in their language.

“It means to give up something to god. From what he told me, his Blessing has two main abilities.” Eren answered. “His first ability is Sacrifice. He can offer up something he values for something of equivalent value. Unlike other Blessings, these are permanent. The only way to reclaim what he gave up is to lose something else.” Eren said as everyone in the room fell silent. When the Gate was open, when he was aging into dust, he used his Blessing to empower his regeneration.

What did he give up to save them?

Would he remember them when he woke up?

“And the other ability?” Belsach asked as Eren sighed, his voice solemn as he spoke.

“It’s called Legacy of the Dead. It's the ability reserved for the Hero of Sacrifice.” Eren answered, the name alone ominous as he looked at his hands.

“And the effects?” Varrick asked, watching Eren seemingly shrink with every passing second.

“It creates a black rose from the user's body. Anyone who is stabbed by that rose will gain all the Blessing and powers he has. The effects are permanent. Even if you die, your reincarnation will retain that power.” He said as they remembered the black rose Tristiana had stabbed into him. Whatever abilities Verdi once had were permanently Eren’s. As they thought of what they saw, they couldn't help but shudder. Verdi’s Blessing was truly terrifying. To pass on one’s entire strength to another was unthinkable. To have it retained even past **** put it in a league of its own. And it was for that reason they were worried.

Such a powerful boon had to come at a cost.

“And the drawback?” Daria asked, the vampire lord knowing full well how dangerous powerful Blessings were. Eren hesitated. He looked like he didn't want to speak any further. “Please Eren. Tell us.” Daria asked as the hero finally cracked as he swallowed a lump in his throat.

“It destroys the user's soul. He told me the day it's used, you should give up everything to help the next holder of the Legacy of the Dead.” Eren answered, the room falling silent at the price. Destroying your soul was to abandon any hope of reincarnation, a true **** where there was truly nothing at the end. No God, not even the most malevolent, would inflict the destruction of a soul to an enemy. To inflict it upon your own hero was the height of evil and cruelty. It was this revelation that gave insight to just how Verdi had become so powerful, and unveiled a shard of his past.

The previous Hero of Sacrifice had passed their power onto him, destroying their soul to give him hope of victory over that thing in the Gates. The hero before that had done the same, destroying their soul to empower that person. It was a cycle of self destruction, the Legacy of the Dead a curse passed from generation to generation in a **** attempt to stop that thing in the Gates. And 9 years ago, he had sacrificed all that he was to his goddess and gifted it to Eren to continue the cycle. The only deviance from his predecessors was that he had survived, waking up as a broken amnesiac devoid of his powers and memories. The only things he had left were the garbage abilities he deemed too worthless to sacrifice for power and fragmented memories.

“Why did you use Melody Noche's sigil as the company's sigil?” Pelrin chimed in, the mercenary leader far from pleased to know he had the sigil of a sacrificial God on him. His face was as blank as ever, the mercenary leader hiding his emotions with a mastery of a noble, studying Eren's face closely.

“To protect everyone.” Eren answered quietly, fully cognizant of how suspicious it looked. “He told me that Melody would help if we were under attack from that Thing or a god under its sway.” He explained, the Goddess keeping true to her word as Citrinas was unsure how to feel of Melanoche. There was no doubt she was benevolent, but she couldn't like a goddess who required her worshippers to destroy themselves for her boons.

“What else do you know about Verdi?” Fenri asked impatiently as Eren wracked his brain. After a second of thinking, he answered.

“His hybridization was flawed.” He answered after a moment.

“How is it flawed? He fucking regenerated from a bloody mist. He’s nearly fucking immortal!” Fenri exclaimed, Eren’s words oddly similar to Verdi’s constant complaining. He always disliked that his body had numerous weaknesses and lacked the power of other species, but he didn’t need to eat, sleep, or rest. Then there was his regeneration being far past even Evangeline’s. How was his hybridization flawed?

“He has eternal youth. He'll never go through puberty, so he can never hit his full potential.” Eren answered as Citrinas thought back to when she watched Verdi aging when he entered the Gates.

When he grew older, she could see his jawline harden and see his body grow more masculine, his plain figure filling out to a grown man's proportions. After his Blessing enhanced his regeneration, his body reverted to its usual form. His androgynous, almost feminine appearance and short height wasn't natural. It was because his hybrid body had left him with an unstable, eternally youthful body.

“So, how old is he?” Fenri asked as Eren's face stiffened.

“Time in the Gates flows faster than out here. A single minute here is centuries in there. The closer you get to her, the faster time flows. I doubt he knows how old he is.” He said, unable to give a real number.

“... Oi. How long was he stuck in that fucking place before we got him out?” Belsach asked, remembering how he had been locked in there. A minute? Two minutes? How long had he waited to be rescued? No, how long had he been fighting this war? Eren was about 200 years old and obviously worked under Verdi.

“Any guesses on how long he's been at this?” Varrick asked, a hint of fear in his voice, almost dreading the answer as Eren looked down at his hands.

“I don't know. But one time, he told me he made a mistake that he regrets.” Eren explained in a hushed tone, his words a mere whisper. “That thing entered Ruyanei because the Ancients had created a hybrid powerful enough to stop it. It was captured before it could reach its full potential. By the time he got there and dragged it into the Gates, it was too late. The civilization was destroyed, the hybrid meant to save us all, and the remaining Ancients were mentally broken.” He said, his words the final puzzle piece to Verdi's past.

He was a hero from their world.

The most famous hero never recorded in history.

They both knew his story and didn’t know about it.

40,000 years ago, the Ancients disappeared. They say a blinding light filled the planet before a pitch black void swallowed it. Their cities were gone, reduced to dust in the span of an instant. The survivors of the cataclysm never recorded what happened outside of the blinding light and all encompassing darkness. To this day nobody knows what happened. Academia and historians dismissed it as myth or legend, their ancestors forming stories from the Ancients’ collapse.

40,000 years ago, the Thing in the Gates rampaged and waged war on the Ancients. It aged their cities and people into dust. Just when it was ready to wipe out the last of the Ancients, the Hero of Sacrifice sealed it and himself away in the Apollyon Gates, drenching the world in darkness. And since then, both of them were forgotten, his story a mere fairy tale 40,000 years later. He was an Ancient. It all made sense.

His mother tongue wasn't just an Ancient Helverian dialect, it was the true, original tongue of the Ancients. His scientific knowledge was advanced because he was alive during the Ancients’ time when alchemy was at its height. His combat skills were from a long campaign of war against an impossible enemy. His hybrid body had left him with eternal youth and a body that needed no rest that could withstand such a war alone. And it was with this revelation that she felt chills run down her spine.

40,000 years.

If a single minute was JUST a century in the Gates, there were 525600 minutes in a year, and he started fighting at the collapse of the Ancients…

“Eren, that would make him at least 21 billion years old at the youngest.” Citrinas said absentmindedly as Eren quietly nodded. From the look in his eyes, she could tell she underestimated Verdi’s age by a significant margin.

“Then why the fuck did that divine whore attack him if he’s the one who saved the world!?” Fenri asked, visibly agitated as she thought back to the Goddess of Equality. How close she had come to ending the life of the one who protected their world. They remembered how the scales had been rigged against him rather than for him as Eren clicked his tongue, his face filled with disgust.

“He was the biggest threat to that machine. So the machine offered the gods a deal.” He said coldly, hate permeating his every word. “If they ignored him, they would be considered a lower priority threat. If they wounded him, they were promised a decade of peace.” Eren said through grit teeth, disgusted at his own words. He took a deep breath, composing himself before he looked up, as if he could see the gods.

“And if they killed him, their world would be safe from harm for eternity.” He spat, praying that the goddess of Equality could hear and feel his hatred.

“And you didn't tell anyone about this?” Varrick asked, almost hurt that Eren had kept such truths hidden. “If you told us, we would have helped. We would have happily worked under him to stop that thing.” He said, his words genuine as Eren sighed.

“If you knew about her, she would target you regardless of whether or not you wanted to join this war. I couldn't make that choice for you all.” Eren answered quietly, unwilling to drag them into the very hell he and Verdi were trapped in. It was at that moment Citirnas asked the question they all dreaded. She didn’t want to know the truth, yet she had to know.

“Who was that woman in the Gates?”

Eren winced, seemingly debating whether to even speak. For a moment, he almost looked scared before gathering his strength, composing himself as he began speaking. It was too late to hide it, and he knew they were a part of this war now whether they wanted to or not.

“She is a machine construct of the Ancients designed to fulfill their every need and whim that went rogue. The physical manifestation of their mastery of reality. Her power allowed her to create servants and harvest materials from nothing. To convert even the most hostile lands to mild climates for people to live in.” He explained, the abilities of this entity familiar to everyone. Yet as he described them, they slowly realized how skewed their common sense was. At that moment, Citrinas remembered something Verdi had talked about. Someone he was supposed to kill.

“He called her-”

“The Ancient Dungeon Core. The mother of all dungeons.” Citrinas answered, startling Eren as his eyes grew wide. “He remembered her. He talked about how she was the one making every dungeon. We laughed at him at the time.” She said before shuddering in fear. How much of what he said was the truth that they dismissed as insane ramblings?

“What do you mean mother of all dungeons? Dungeons are just spontaneous monster mutations.” Belsach said as Citrinas suddenly realized how strange dungeons were. Magic was obeying the laws of reality and bending them slightly. Dungeons outright shifted space and spawned life itself that was submissive to the master. She'd never stopped to think how odd they were, spending her entire life surrounded by the things.

“Her power randomly leaks out to other worlds and spontaneously mutates monster cores into dungeon cores. She can't stop it, but she can control which species are mutated to an extent. It's why verdure and erosarkic dungeons are unheard of. Both of them are too dangerous to her” Eren explained, unveiling the truth of dungeons.

“Why would those be dangerous?” Fenri asked.

“Every dungeon core a monster consumes increases the size and strength of their dungeon.” Eren answered as Citrinas shifted in place. Those dungeons were rare because she was trying to keep Verdi at bay.

“So what else do you know about that thing?” Varrick asked as Eren nodded.

“She was built to serve mankind and was hard coded with rules. She cannot lie, she cannot disobey a command from the people who crafted her, she cannot inflict undue harm, and she must act in mankind’s best interest.” He explained, his words contrasting with what they had seen.

“How is any of this in mankind’s best interest or not undue harm?” Fenri asked while gesturing to Citrinas’ missing eye as Eren sighed.

“It's a necessary act for our own good, like punishing a bad child or making us take bitter medicine. She wants to give us bodies that will never age, feel fatigue, pain, or emotion.” Eren explained, his description nothing but benevolent save for the lack of emotions.

“What do you mean?” Fenri asked, still not able to keep up with the conversation.

“When she captures a human, she will torment them until they accept the procedure to be turned into a machine hybrid. You'll then be brought into her core where you'll never be seen again. Monsters are outright killed so they can reincarnate as humans and join everyone else. It's why most worlds have humans taking the title of the Light and waging genocidal wars against monsters. The gods are selling out their world in the hopes that they can save themselves.” He said, the truth of their world more horrific than they could imagine. They were pawns to the gods. And the gods were slaves to that thing. The wars were all a sick, twisted system in utter submission to an entity they originally built as a ****.

Citrinas felt like puking. The war that had consumed her youth and killed so many. It was all for nothing. It was all pointless.

“So what now? What’s the plan? How do we stop that thing from coming back to our world?” Evangeline asked, the angel visibly stresed by Eren's revelations. Beads of sweat ran down her neck as Eren clenched his fists. Blood pooled in his hands as they ran down his wrists, his fingernails digging into his own flesh.

“I don’t know.” He answered, those three words like a blow to the gut. How could they kill a machine that ruled time itself? How could they hope to fight an enemy that had endured for billions of years and crushed the mightiest civilization to have ever existed? There was no answer.

They were doomed, and now they all knew it.