It wouldn't be right to call what I released upon the forest an explosion.
Honestly, an explosion would have seemed tame, in comparison to the firestorm I had unleashed.
No matter where you looked, there was fire everywhere, enveloping everything. On the ground, across the trees and branches, some spheres of fire even lingered in the air, trapped by my will.
The tidal wave I created didn't just crash and burn, it incinerated and landed with a thunderclap of force that made the ground tremble. Within only a few seconds, I had created natural disaster which would steadily burn this forest to ash.
It was terrifying.
It was exhilarating.
Yet, through all of that, the archer still somehow remained.
She wasn't dead, far from it, as she sat on her knees and looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. She wasn't dead, but she was wounded.
Her clothes sizzled, tiny embers picking at the edges of her cloak and clothes. Her hood was gone, either incinerated or just blown back, I wasn't entirely sure which it was, nor did I find myself caring.
Her face was narrow and pointed, with a dainty nose and full lips. She looked almost like a model. Her eyes were a startling shade of grey, and her hair fell to frame her face in a silver curtain.
Or, it would have, if not for my fire.
Her face was scarred, a jagged wound of red flesh sticking out against ivory skin. It was large too, spreading from the side of her neck and past parts of her chin to partly sit on her cheek. Her hair on the left side was gone, burnt away by the flames.
She hadn't gone bald, but she would definitely need to look into getting a haircut after this was over.
I watched as her eyes tracked my every movement, watching yet unmoving as I moved closer to her. The flames around me flickered, moving almost towards me, as if they were craving my attention.
I stopped a few feet away from her, looking down upon her as she had looked down upon me.
The first words that left her lips made me wonder if I had burnt her sanity away.
"You missed…" She almost sounded proud as she said it. Almost, being the optimal word. Because her eyes showed the fear she felt, and her voice trembled as she spoke.
"I spared you." I corrected her, narrowing my eyes.
She looked away with a subtle flinch, as if my words had physically struck her somehow, and she bowed her head.
"Why?" I raised a crimson brow at her whispered question.
"Do you think you're in any position to demand answers?" I asked, pulling on the fire behind me, and suddenly making them flare. Her head fell a little more as the shadows around us grew. "Have you also forgotten that there is fire surrounding you?"
It was petty of me to use her earlier words against her. I could and would admit that freely. But she reeked of pride—of strength that she used to place herself above others. I had met people like her before, in my past life.
All they respected was strength. So, the only way to deal with them was to bring them to submission. To show your own strength, and then to rub it in. To make them realize that they weren't as powerful, or as big and mighty as they thought.
It was slightly cruel of me. But it was a lesson the streets had taught me, and it was a lesson I would weaponize to stop any further fighting.
"Now then, raise your head, and let's start again." I told her, taking a cautious step back, and bringing the fire behind me under my control.
In a show of power—one that cost me a little too much Mana Points—I extinguished them all with a flex of my hand under her watchful grey eyes.
"My name is Artorias Regulus. I do not know where I come from. I do not know who I am beyond my name. I do not know what a metal has to do with my looks or my powers, and I am telling the truth." I repeated, meeting her eyes. "Now, your turn."
She looked at me silently for a moment, before she tilted her head back down again, bowing to me, and spoke, "My name is Veya Hg Omega. I am the daughter of Elowen, the daughter of Vidor, and a huntress of Clan Omega."
"Right…" That wasn't at all what I was expecting, if anything, in terms of introductions at least, that was a lot to reveal. Then again, it had been three centuries since my death, so maybe this was the new normal?
"…Its um, it's nice to meet you?"
She nodded her bowed head at me. "Likewise."
I sighed quietly to myself. "You can raise your head. As long as you don't plan to kill me, we can treat each other with some respect."
Ever so slowly, she—Veya—raised her head. She seemed almost cautious to do so, a little too weary in my opinion, as if she was expecting me to attack her and was bracing herself for it.
Silence fell between us as she finally looked up.
Whilst I wanted nothing more than to interrogate her with questions, I kept my mouth shut and observed her as she watched me. I traced the movement of her eyes, as she looked from my face to my shoes, and even moved to my tangled mane of crimson hair.
Finally, she spoke.
"Are you not planning to kill me?"
I blinked, startled by the question, but not too surprised thanks to [Omphalos Mind].
"Am I meant to be?" I asked in return, noting how instead of demanding answers, she was asking me a question. It seemed my displays of strength had, for once, worked against someone.
'Sometimes you really do just have to accept small miracles like this.'
"Yes." She nodded, entirely straight faced as if she wasn't talking about her own death. "Anybody else in your position already would have."
"Why?" I asked, unintentionally parroting her words again.
She tried to shrug, only to subtly wince, trying, and failing to hide it.
"That is how the world works, Artorias. The weak die by the hands of the strong."
'It seems I have some things to catch up on and learn.'