The battlefield was a furnace of despair. I stood there, my lungs burning with every jagged breath, watching Hina, Seraphina, and the Royal Guard throw themselves into the meat grinder. A bitter, distorted smile touched my bloody lips.
"I'm a fool," I thought, the irony tasting like copper in my mouth. "I could have shared this burden. I could have taken their help. Maybe then, my ribs wouldn't feel like they were made of splintered glass." But the moment of reflection was short-lived. From the shifting wall of black smoke, the reinforcements arrived—one hundred High-Rank Demons. They didn't march; they swarmed, their massive frames casting shadows that felt like physical weights. My companions, who had been holding their own, suddenly looked like dolls facing a tidal wave. Their faces paled, their confidence crumbling like dry sand.
The Final Strike of the Night
"Kiran, shut up! Stop! You're going to kill us both!" I screamed inside my mind.
Night (Kiran) didn't listen. His aura was no longer a glow; it was a violent, screaming Azure flame that threatened to incinerate my very soul. He took a step—a single, impossible step that felt like it ripped my spirit right out of my chest.
THE STRIKE.
The sheer weight of that attack was cataclysmic. A shockwave of pure energy erupted, a horizontal line of destruction that didn't just kill the hundred demons—it erased them. The mountains in the distance were sheared clean off, their peaks sliding away as if the world itself had been sliced by a god's razor.
But the price was paid in blood.
Kiran collapsed to his knees. My body—our body—was failing. Blood didn't just leak; it sprayed from my eyes, nose, and ears. My vision turned into a hazy red veil. I couldn't feel my limbs. I was just a consciousness floating in a sea of agony, staring at the carnage we had wrought.
The Commander of Shadows
And then, he appeared. The Commander.
His aura was a toxic, suffocating fog that turned the very ground black as he walked. He didn't care about the fallen army. He didn't care about the mountains. He looked at me, his eyes twin pits of darkness. People around us began to vomit, the sheer pressure of his mana crushing their internal organs.
"I won't give you a quick death," the Commander's voice echoed, cold and hollow. "I will give you a death so agonizing that you will beg for the void. You will think a hundred times before you dare to be born again."
He didn't wait for a response. He grabbed me by the throat, lifting my broken frame like a ragdoll, and slammed me into the earth with such force that I was buried deep into the shattered cobblestones.
Darkness claimed me.
The Argument in the Stars
My eyes snapped open to the frozen, indifferent stars of the Astral Space. The pain here was worse—it wasn't physical; it was the pain of a soul being pulverized.
The girl was there. She looked down at me, her face a mask of disappointment. "I told you," she whispered, her voice like cracking ice. "Trust your companions. No man, no god, can win a war alone. You need them."I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I started to laugh—a low, rhythmic, Maniacal Laugh 👿🌌 that grew louder and more twisted with every breath.
"Trust?" I wheezed, my soul-form flickering. "I didn't have time to trust! How do I trust anyone when I can't even trust my own body? How do I share my pain when it's all I have?! And you... why should I trust you? You're just a voice in a cage!"
"You're impossible!" she shrieked, her face turning red with fury. "A few moments ago you were begging for my love, for my comfort, and now you're spitting in my face?! Fine! I won't help you! Die in the mud for all I care!"
She turned away, her aura radiating pure anger. But the silence that followed was broken by a different sound—the sound of footsteps.
The New Rhythm of Trust
"You really are quite rude, aren't you?"
The voice was new—sharper, yet strangely melodic. A new presence stepped out from the shadows of the void. Before I could react, I felt a hand—cool and steady—touch my flickering form.
"I trust you," she whispered, her voice cutting through my madness like a lighthouse through fog. "And because I trust you... I will take care of you."
I felt a sudden, violent pull. It wasn't the Commander's grip; it was something deeper, more primordial. She pulled me toward her, her light swallowing my darkness.