Each step is a mile and each mile stretches for eternity. He knows he's breathing heavy but it feels faint and distant, as if his chest is cotton and all he can feel is the faint vibration. His eye sight is leaving him or so he believes as he continues his march forward as everything begins to slowly burn, as he stares up at the sky now edged with gold.
'So this..this is how it will end' and he laughs and thinks about his former conquests- his pursuit of power that has led him here, the assassinations of his two elder brothers that stood in his way, his own father and his mother who died of a broken heart. He remembers learning of the Occuria and how humanity was nothing more then pawns on a large battle sphere and the distant rage he had felt then, years ago. He thinks about Larsa- his innocent brother, who he had kept in the dark so long and still idolized him. He can feel the coldness creeping in, edged with the fading warmth of the nethicite.
'I wanted..' and he does not finish that thought as the comfort Venat is trying to give him, connects in his addled and dying mind. He gives in to the embrace of the outcast god and feels the warmth again.
And there is pain.
He can feel the metal cutting through flesh and melding to bone, the snap of it and of it being remade again; his skin being cut and left gaping before being pulled taunt and melding with still warm iron. He can feel the knowledge that was fading, gaining its foothold back, added by tenfold by the mind of the Occurian and gasps as in the same moment he feels the knowledge and wisdom press into him like a heavy burden- another weight on him.
He can hear Venat whispering no longer in his ear but in his head and is secretly thankful. He is still dying, though more slowly but he knows he is, he has tried to out run the gods for so long but there are still rules mortal Humes must follow. These new attachments by themselves would do it- heavy and bulk-some, putting more unneeded pressure on his weak body. But no longer will he be alone and forgotten. He will live on in people's memory for a time, not in the way he had intended but still it is a legacy he is fine in having. He is no longer alone as he was in life and now in this prelude to death and that is what gives him the willpower to do this and makes him feel that just maybe- maybe, he can beat being yet another lost soul in Mateus' frozen underworld.
'There is a saying I have heard once.' Venat chimes in his inner mind. 'That a phoenix always rises from the ashes. Do you suppose it means us?'
And thus the Undying is born.