Exiting the black spire out into the sunlight my hand covered my eyes from the harsh rays. "I was half expecting there to be a ceiling instead of a sky coming out of here." I muttered.
Tossing his head in annoyance Thorn moaned. "As if that could happen in just a couple of hours. Besides you already turned
"Stop being so melodramatic. I'm just muttering to myself."
"You know that self-talk is never going to make you any saner."
"Says the ghost of a dragon in a birds body parasitised to the paradoxical homunculus that turned into a leviathan."
Narrowing his eyes Thorn's patience hit its end quickly. "I will bite you."
"Aren't you supposed to make promises and not threats?" I mused before walking down the marble black bridge getting an angry groan from the raven. "Anyways, thats it for Ingrik's history. We should head to Taul's homeworld before the two wish dragons sense us."
"Hissy-fit will have a fun reaction to that." Thorn chuckled. "Wonder what became of that planet after it was upended by the kralscell's."
"We're about to find out."
[skill: autumn kings conquest - mach void!]
The magical circle glistened beneath my foot and in an instant a beam of amber and silver light jettisoned into the red planets atmosphere and out to the void. Carrying us through space and time before slamming to a halt.
Inhaling heavily through my nose an ancient stench quickly filled my lungs.
Surrounding where we landed, a glass landscape glistened under the sun. At first you'd think it was beautiful. Like a city-scale piece of art. But if you looked closer at the glass, past the glare and allure of it. You would see the pained faces of men, women and children of all ages screaming out in agony.
"Welcome back to Ruwz." Thorn huffed in a displeased tone. "The last of the four-hundred-and-four civilisation to be destroyed in the Kralscell's resurgence. Great way to kick off the joy of freedom after escaping
Silently listening to Thorn I began walking through the city of glass. Observing a mother holding a child in her arms before being turned to glass together. A man who swung a bat mid swing. And an elderly couple who shared one last embrace as they cried.
"The kralscell of order's aftermath is still as unsettling as ever." Thorn squirmed atop my shoulder. "Evolutions and Flowers's still take the cake though. A flesh city and a garden with crystal roses growing out of corpses." Shuddering Thorn remembered the horrifying scenes. "At least this is scenic. In a twisted artistic way."
"Hmm." Humming in agreement i enjoyed the destructive beauty of glass sculptures in every direction. "Wonder if there were any survivors after the kralscell's left the planet."
"Even if there were its clear they didn't live long enough to rebuild."
"Such as with most civilisations after apocalypse passes. Too busy trying to survive they focus on killing others to take their resources rather than figuring out how to rebuild a sustainable future."
Continuing on through the city of glass Thorn and i soon arrived at our destination in the city. At a massive crater filled with shattered glass. Just like the crumbled glass buildings surrounding it being nothing more than a pit of broken stone and shattered glass.
Stood on my shoulder Thorn stared into the crater leaving an uncomfortable silence between us.
What happened here... was anything short of pleasant.
This planet was the last of 404 civilisation's that were razed to the ground by the thirteen kralscell's after they escaped
Being one of those very kralscell's, where we learned our purpose, i can admit it was a shitty experience. Going insane killing everything in sight for 70-years straight. But one i was already deeply familiar with from my years wandering through hell.
I had to kill so many children to escape that prison and even more adults and monsters.
So unlike the other kralscell's. I had it the easiest as an unfeeling madman who had done much worse before.
It's unfortunate that this was the same place we met Taul in. Considering how Taul himself was killed then taken by me its no wonder he's not come out to watch like Ingrik did.
Even from my throne-world i can hear him praying in repentance.
[aspect: taken devourer - takes the time!]
[skill: hollow void - memorisation]
A golden pulse ran across the the city, bringing forth ancient time to play like a video. And i watched as a girl sprinted right past me.
***
Sprinting, panting, and rushing through the war zone I pleaded to make it in time. Rushing past the infested buildings robots fired their guns all aimed at taking my life. A mirror shell built around me within a second and all the lasers reflected back at their sources erasing the robot ambush immediately.
"Is it here?!?" I yelled, getting a whisper of affirmation in response from aether before reaching the end of the road to see a girl holding a flute.
Explosions shook the air blowing her dark hair up and behind her. Looking beautiful even with the grime and dirt that covered her body and torn dress.
"Please!" Crying out my voice made the girl turn and I saw her shocked, half mechanical face staring back at my teary eyes. "Please just stop this! Let this conflict end! No one ever needed to die!"
"...that is where your wrong, kralscell." The shocked expression on the girls face shifted to putrid disgust of me. "You and your kind need to be erased! You stole everything from me! My home, my family, my face! If your kind never existed then I'd still be that little girl who only knew happiness! You took that from me! You devoured the future that was supposed to be mine!"
Watching her curse me in silence. Deep depravity rooted itself within me as I met a hatred so pure there was nothing that could change it.
The apocalypse on the planet between a single kralscell against the army of robots continued across the city with several metal blimps crashing down from the sky after being shot with black-orange beams.
"You destroyed Ultanai! My home!" she screamed. "How many more worlds have the kralscell's destroyed since then?!? Tell me! What makes you worth living more than my little brother whose dead because of you all?!?"
Shaking where I stood, my whole body quivered feeling the pain of emotions I had buried for the last seventy years well up inside of me. Going from one apocalypse to the next, having only a moment of self control before drowning into my subconsciousness and only being able to watch as my body was turned into a weapon by aether.
"That was... that was... I never had a choice."
"Of course you had a choice!" Not believing me the black haired girl continued to yell from afar as an amber arrow shot up into the sky behind her, rippling explosions across the dreadnought hovering in the atmosphere. "you are gods! Who could control you?!? A human? An ant? How could anything you do not be of your own doing!"
Raising the flute to her lips the girl blew out a whistle loud enough to be heard across the city.
"Wait! Please stop! The apocalypse is over!" As I begged, more gigantic spaceships appeared above the planet and dropped even more murderous robots into the city.
"What was Ultanai's crime then?! Why did my family have to pay the price for a sin they never committed?" Weeping as she screamed at me the girl swung the flute like a sword, trying to hit me.
"It was... that was..."
Memories of screams and blood. Destruction and fire. The images of me gone mad from aether's control and demolishing hundreds of worlds I had never even heard of before all flooded in. It was too much and I froze, getting hit on the head by the girl as she swung her flute.
"Tell me!!" Beating my body with the metal flute like a bat, the girl continued to scream. "Tell me why you killed them but spared me! Please tell me!!"
[regalius breaker: eternity's garden!]
A chill spread across the planet and the girl stopped as the echo of mad laughter filled her ears. Looking up in the air, from the main dreadnaught above the planet. Giant golden tree branches were reaching out across the sky going through the hundreds of spaceships before dragging them in and crushing the dreadnaught into a flaming ball of apocalypse.
Falling from the sky, the giant meteor of metal crashed into the war torn city sending shockwaves that blew the girl off from her feet and sending me flying into a metal bar that went right through my left shoulder.
"Ahh!" Screaming in pain I watched the blood dribble down my sleeve. The agony had snapped me out of my dark thoughts but now I was injured.
"No..." on her hands and knees the girl looked through her ragged hair at the mountain of crushed metal enveloped in silver flames. The giant meteor it had been turned into and crushing the archaic city before it crumbled into dust showing only the massive crater it left behind.
All while watching its sole destroyer steadily walk towards us both drenched in blood of his victims. While a monstrous spirit made of ink, a naga, followed behind him like a loyal soldier.
Striding through the fire, whipping the blood off his gauntlets. Strife breathed a cloud of mist out through his knight helmet, looking monstrous as the amber and cyan feathers around his neck swayed against the silver flames he walked through.
Stopping in his advance as he left the fire Strife glanced at the ground seeing the mechanical flute the girl was using to control the robot army.
"Don't you dare... don't you dare take this from me!!!" Clawing up from the ground the girl stretched her nails out to attack Strife as he picked up the flute from the floor. Only hurting herself however as her nails snapped and bones in her wrist cracked on impact against Strife's armour. "Ahhh!! Monster! You monsters!!!"
Watching the girl with a curious leer through his helmet Strife saw her rolling on the ground in pain before his aether imbued touch turned the flute to a bundle of feathers that dropped to the ash covered ground.
"No... no, no, no!" With her still fine hand the depraved girl scooped the feathers back together in a hopeless bid of the flute returning. "This was my one chance! After all that work! After all that suffering this was my one chance to kill you all!! How can you just take this from me!?!"
Not interested in the girls weeping Strife raised his sheathed sword up into the air ready to chop the girls head off as she looked up at him with eyes full of fear and hatred.
"Wait!" pausing himself Strife stayed silent and turned his head to me. "Please don't! She's beaten! Theres no need to kill her. I-I can explain everything to her! She's only a victim!"
A distant and uncurious stare met me at my words as he lowered the sword before saying, "...so?"
Taken aback by the question I was silent.
"Tell her then. Tell her why kralscell's brought alien judgement to her planet, Neveah.
"We uh..." catching my tongue my words struggled to come out at first before I realised there were no words that I could say.
"Kralscell's don't know why they do what they do." Strife began, now holding his sword atop the girl's shoulder while looking straight at me like a cold and unfeeling machine. "We are apocalypse incarnate. Bringing an end to worlds that commit a sin so heinous that it doesn't even exist."
"Strife!" I yelled desperately.
"We become crazed hounds unfeeling of mercy or remorse the second our source of authority desires blood."
"That's enough!"
"The only things kralscell's know about themselves is that they are unquestioning worshippers that follow a master they don't even understand. If it's judgment they ask for, it's apocalypse we give them."
"Strife, I said that's enough!" Pulling my shoulder out of the iron bar I fired a shot of glass aether to get Strife to silence himself but his naga follower swatted it away to demolish a building across the city.
Hissing at me the naga was about to attack but Strife stopped it. "Thats enough, Taul."
"As you command, my most glorious liege." The naga said back full of loyalty, getting an odd look from Strife.
This isn't the mister Strife I know, this man. He is too... hateful. Just like that girl beneath him.
Breathing emptily through his helmet. Strife met the eyes of the girl. "We are prisoners to ourselves, and slaves without masters. Do you still call us gods?"
The vengefulness in the girls eyes didn't shift or quiver in the slightest. Making Strife tilt his head.
"Huh, you never did to begin with."
With a swift swing of his claws the ink-spirit naga severed the head of the girl from her shoulders and her body dropped to the ash covered ground.
Rolling across to my feet the girls dead eyes looked up at me still retaining that same hatred for me as when she was alive. How can someone still be so hateful when dead, I wondered.... How can someone alive be so emotionless?
My bloodshot eyes raised from the floor and I saw Strife back in his casual attire and the blood that covered him gone as I asked, "how could you do this? She had given up... she was harmless now."
"No she wasn't."
Vanishing his sword into thin air Strife tapped his boot against the ground and the smell of blood and metal left the area being replaced with the fresh scent of nature as silver tree roots began spreading across the city from where Strife stood.
"She was beaten. Not quelled. If we left her to grow again more worlds would be ransacked of metals to create more robotic fleets to try and kill us like the moon her army came from. Had she developed a proper anti-kralscell weapon you would be dead or searching for a new host body, Neveah. You're lucky her rage made her impatient, and that I was here to protect you."
"Even so you have no right to just kill her! It's inhumane!" Not restraining my words the anger in my voice became clear to the man and his servant naga in front of me. "I don't need your protection! If this is it I want nothing of it!"
"And why is that?" Strife asked curiously.
"Because it's monstrous! Killing for the sake of efficiency! Fighting for no purpose! Where's the justice? The chivalry? It's like you're not even human-!" Exiting my mouth the words made me freeze as I realised late what I just said, but the insane smile on Strife's face irked me even more-so.
He should have looked hurt by what I said. Why is he happy? What is that madness on his face?
"You finally realise." Placing his hands into his long-coats pockets Strife looked away seeing Raptor quickly approaching. "I told you once already but it seems you forgot in these last seventy years since we left
Turning his back to me after a swift two fingered salute, the man I admired began to walk away with his naga and as his shadow turned into a raven in his shoulder.
"No i... Sir Strife... wait! Sir Strife!"
"You're old enough to protect yourself and make your own decisions now, Neveah. But you lack an understanding on consequences." Before reaching the man that ran up to us Strife finished his piece. "We won't be acquainted anymore. These are the consequences of your inability to understand life. Try to cope."
Strife whispered to Raptor and he seemed confused, but with a shrug the kralscell of adventure accepted whatever Strife told him before prepping a spell of aether for teleportation before the two of them, along with the naga and raven spirit, vanished up in a pillar of energy.
Still stuck processing what I just heard I realised too late as I reached. "Don't leave-" vanishing in a blast of green light. Raptor took Strife away with him and I collapsed onto my knees as tears trickled down my despondent face. "Don't leave me like my mother did, sir Strife!! Strife!!!"
[aspect: refracting palace - crystallisation!]
In a burst of sorrow and aether the whole city was turned into glass. Transforming into a hollow palace of glass with its abandoned queen the only thing left within it. Weeping among the ruins of a whole world.