The Villain's Story

Chapter 893: What is Death?

What is Death?

There are many ways to interpret Death. Biologically, Death is the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. The heart stops. Blood ceases to circulate. The brain, deprived of oxygen, shuts down.

First, the higher functions, then the deeper ones, until nothing remains active. Cells begin to break down. The body, once a marvel of coordinated systems, begins its return to base matter.

There are clinical definitions that attempt to pin it down precisely. Brain death — the complete and irreversible loss of all brain function — is currently the most widely accepted medical definition. But is that really the case? Even this is contested. In actuality...

The line between life and death, at its edges, is... blurrier than most people are comfortable acknowledging.

From a purely material standpoint, nothing is lost. The atoms that compose a living person do not vanish; they disperse. They return to the soil, the air, the water. They become part of other things. Other lives. The universe does not lose a single particle when a person dies. It simply rearranges. Nothing is lost, nothing is gained.

Entropy, which is the tendency of all living things towards disorder, can also be used. Entropy, the engine behind Death. Every living thing is a temporary resistance against entropy, a pocket of order fighting against the universeʼs pull toward dissolution. Death is simply entropy winning, as it always eventually does. That could be said of the scientific view of it.

After all, nobody stays ʼperfectʼ. Perfection is simply a myth, for at the very end, itʼs all chaos.

But those are the literal views of it, what of the philosophical? Humans have debated about Death for a long time; after all, who doesnʼt want to talk about the eventual end? Who doesnʼt want to think about the final moment, and what comes after it? Everybody does, everybody.

The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus argued that death is quite literally nothing to fear. His reasoning was simple: when you exist, death is not present. When death is present, you no longer exist.

Therefore, you and death will never occupy the same moment. There is no experience of being dead. It is not darkness, not silence, not cold. It is the complete absence of experience itself. To fear it, he argued, is to fear nothing at all. Do not worry about the end, for is it really you who is worried about it?

Martin Heidegger took a profoundly different view. To him, death was not something to be dismissed but something to be confronted and embraced as the most essential truth of human existence.

The idea is that our mortality is not a distant event but a constant presence that shapes every moment of our lives. Only by fully acknowledging that we will die, he argued, can we live authentically. Death gives life its urgency, its weight, its meaning.

After all, imagine it was confirmed that you would die in a week or so, would you really be the same man? Even the most pathetic one would stop rotting in his bed and try to do something; heʼd try to make something of his life, for a brief moment. People will always say that they would remain the same, as nothing can be done about it, but when it becomes reality, they never follow through.

Everybody has a desire to give some sort of meaning to their life, even those struggling in the depths of depression or apathy. Indifference vanishes fast when death approaches, that is, to the normal.

Plato, through the voice of Socrates, viewed death as the liberation of the soul from the prison of the body. The physical world, he believed, was a pale shadow of a higher reality, and the soul, trapped in flesh, was prevented from fully perceiving truth. Death was not an ending but a homecoming. Socrates faced his own execution with remarkable serenity, rooted in this conviction.

To some, Death is nothing to be feared. To some, Death is what gives Life meaning; to some, Death is liberation. To some, Death is identity. To some, it is a part of Nature. To some, it is an absurdity.

To the Weave, it is a core part of it, a creation that it absorbed and made one with it. To the Mythical Beings, Death is simply the end of their current life and the beginning of the next. Mythical beings, through the Weave, always reincarnate in one form or another; it is a transition for them.

The mythical beings have come to terms with it, accepting it and relieved over the fact that their existence is considered important within the Weave. But what of those above the level of Mythic?

To the Divine, The Supreme, and the Ancient Primordials? Death is something to be feared, for they were there when it was made, they were there when it was created, they were there to witness it. They were the first to have the shadow of death loom over them.

Death was written in front of them, it was realized in front of them, and every single one of them knows what ink it was written in, what cause was behind its existence. The true reason behind the creation of death was pure rage.

It was anger that had fueled Ariel to create it; it was wrath, it was a desire for revenge, it was the wish to end something.

The Creation of Death began with pure, unfiltered wrath, Rage of a level that would never be seen again, but after that, it evolved. Death became many things, not just a reaper thirsty for blood. The evidence was in her throne.

It was clean, polished, calm, and composed. It was beautiful. It was not the Grim Reaper coming to take your soul, but the gentle light of acceptance, one that soothed your heart as you came closer to it.

Death has many forms; it has many interpretations of it, but then again, what would Alan know of it? Was he a Philosopher? A great scientist? A Mythical Being? A man at the end of his life, eager to know what awaited him?

He was none, he was none of those, so what answer would he have?