Chapter 328 Volume V - Chapter 46: From the Claws of Darkness and Death
No...
That was the only thing that crossed my mind. I couldn't do anything else as an intense silence descended upon us, as the huge ball of flame that I had literally spent everything to strengthen was swallowed up by the darkness in mere seconds.
"What are you waiting for...? Attack me."
The masked man paused for a moment. He looked at my frozen expression, at the blood still oozing from between my lips. He glanced briefly at Sue and Lucia, who were standing behind me, not unlike me. Finally... all he did was sigh deeply.
"Are you broken already? No way... I thought we were going to have a fun fight. I thought you'd be able to push me since you're so visible on the news... But you're just too scared to move."
He shook his head from side to side, his disappointment evident with each word that left his lips. But soon, his tone changed again.
"Ah, I found it... If we can't fight, why don't I just... break you even more?"
His whole body went dark for a moment. Even the ordinary white mask on his face disappeared. It melted away as if it had turned back into a liquid, literally disappearing into the atmosphere.
A few seconds later... there was another scream from the crowd. And then another... and another.
'It's because of you.'
I heard a voice in my mind, a whispered voice, like my own. It seemed to... ripple with the darkness around me.
'You're weak again, Adrian Caleo.'
I felt the darkness around me ripple again, the voices faded, everything slowly faded into darkness. But... the people screaming and dying mercilessly remained.
N- no... I'm not...
'Didn't you decide to help people? Why don't you do anything but sit where you are?'
It's not that I don't, I can't...
What can I... What can I do in the face of such a... thing?
'Excuses, excuses...'
One by one, I listened to the agonized screams of the people I could do nothing to help. I watched as they cried, as they were swallowed by the darkness or torn to pieces.
My body trembled, more violently than ever before.
'Since when did you stop trying just because you can't? Pity, pity...'
No, shut up... shut up...
Just fucking shut up!
I...
'You, what?'
I...
I paused for a moment. As my eyes widened, I realized something in this dark, death-filled street.
There was no more screaming.
I tried to focus my blurred eyes for a moment, looked in front of me, and what I saw was... nothing.
There were dozens of bodies on the ground. Some had died so brutally that they were unrecognizable, others had been killed so cleanly that they reflected more than ever the fear they had felt seconds before they died.
The important thing was... they were all dead.
There was not a single person left alive.
'Hahahah... freeze with fear, go on, just like you always do!'
My eyes widened as the voice seemed to disappear, never to return. In deep fear, I slowly looked behind me, but... what I feared hadn't happened.
Lucia and Sue were not dead. Behind me, they seemed to be bound again by ropes of darkness. Their mouths were closed, and even if they tried to struggle, they were unable to do so. That's why they hadn't been able to make a sound or move for minutes.
But... the fact that they were alive didn't give me any peace of mind. Because I saw someone behind them, someone with his hands behind his back, a white mask on his face, just standing there looking at me.
"These were your friends, weren't they? I saved them for last on purpose. I really want to see the collapse of someone famous, like you... So don't disappoint me... okay?"
He took a step, just one short step. But the moment he did so, he paused.
"Oh, how rude of me... one wants to know the other person, right? Even if you're going to die, at least I can do you this favor."
His hands went to his mask, he simply took it off and showed me his face directly. He didn't even hesitate.
He had really black eyes. They were as black as Alice's eyes, even darker, although I don't know how it was possible. They were also... empty and infinite. Just as when I looked into Alice's eyes I thought of midnight, when I looked into these eyes... the only thing that came to my mind was... infinity.
His hair was as black as his eyes. They were like the pitch blackness that surrounded us, like the darkness itself.
He could have been a few years older than me at most. His facial features showed that he was still quite young. All that aside, he was smiling. He had the most sincere, amused smile I have ever seen on a human being.
"My name is Revon. And my last name is Scelas."
He opened his mouth again as if to continue, but then paused for some reason. His smile faded as his eyes shifted slightly upward.
"Hmm... I thought it would be more fun. It's nothing like I imagined. It's weird."
But then, as if remembering my presence, his eyes quickly turned back to me. That strange, seemingly sincere but impossible smile reappeared on his face.
"Anyway. Let's continue... shall we?"
He raised his hand in the air. A dark substance slowly appeared out of nowhere between his fingers, taking the shape of a long kitchen knife. This... demon... who introduced himself as Revon Scelas... started twirling the kitchen knife in his hand, while his eyes moved behind Lucia, whose eyes were constantly on me.
Lucia kept looking at me. Not moving a muscle... but strangely calm.
Revon, or the devil incarnate, swung the kitchen knife at Lucia. It was in that second that I truly realized what was happening, the fact that one of my friends was dying in front of my eyes, because of my powerlessness, hit me like a slap in the face, harder than ever.
My lips opened, I wanted to scream, but... I just froze and my eyes widened again the next second.
Just as the kitchen knife of darkness was about to touch Lucia's neck, something strange happened.
There was a ripple in the darkness, or rather in the mana itself. Revon's eyebrows rose slightly and a tiny burst of light appeared in front of my eyes. Still, I didn't close my eyes, I watched everything as it happened.
The mana around Lucia seemed to calm down as if it was suddenly completely under her control. Then... it was drawn into her body. Even the dark ropes that surrounded her, which prevented her from moving and speaking, were drained and the mana entered her body.
I had no idea how she did it. But... she had managed to take action against someone for whom it felt impossible to move, let alone win.
Lucia jumped to her feet. The knife in Revon's hand plunged into her ponytail of hair and sliced away a piece of it. But it could go no deeper. Instead, Lucia spun around quickly, away from the knife, and, maintaining her momentum, delivered a solid kick to the stomach of Revon, who was right behind her.
Revon was thrown back, but Lucia didn't even look at him. Instead, she just got down on her knees, put her hands on my cheeks, and looked into my eyes.
"Get a hold of yourself, Adrian. This... this is not you. I know the darkness around us is playing with your emotions, I know you're scared, but you have to come to your senses. Every second counts if we want to get out of here alive. Please."
Instead of finishing her words, she quickly removed her hands from my face, turned around, and formed a ball of flame in each palm. She quickly threw them behind her. But two dark hands instantly caught the flames and swallowed them whole.
"Ah, it seems that one of the girls was a bit extraord-"
Lucia didn't wait for him to finish. Instead, she created a wall of flames and sent it back to Revon. The dark figure of his burst into flames.
Lucia looked at me again out of the corner of her eye. Her desperation was clearer than ever. She wanted to live, that desire was certainly evident in her eyes. The only problem was... she didn't have the strength to do it. Her demeanor, her movements, her attempts to bring me to my senses... everything screamed that she didn't have enough strength to get out of here alive.
That's why she was literally... begging for me... her only chance.
And just as I realized this... a voice echoed from behind me, hoarse, but as hoarse as it was brutal.
"This game was not what I expected... let's end it here."
The ring on my finger trembled so violently that I felt it crack. This sensation was the last thing that truly brought me to the world. My vision became clear again, just as it had been when I used my ascension skill, and voices became more distinct.
I took a single, brief look at Lucia, and there was a glimmer of hope in her desperate, pleading eyes. She said nothing. She only turned around and swung a long spear of unstable flames at my back. Not content with that, she threw herself in the same direction.
I did the only thing I hadn't thought of so far, but which I thought might work. I reached for the vast inventory on the inside of my bracelet, then focused on a single thing inside.
A blue glow appeared in front of me, then something slowly began to materialize.
Just then, Lucia flew past me. The glow of her spear, which she had never bothered to control so that it would be unstable, completely pure, and composed of destructive power, suddenly faded. As if... swallowed by darkness. But this was not the end.
Lucia severed the last string holding her spear of flames together. Flames literally exploded in every direction. I could see nothing but orange. My ears were ringing so loudly that my eardrums might have burst already. It was so hot that my skin was scorching.
But Lucia suddenly appeared in front of me in the middle of it all. She used a skill I had seen Aiden use several times. Several layers of Mana Barrier surrounded us and protected us from the flames, including Sue, who couldn't move a millimeter out of fear and weakness. I didn't even know if she was awake.
The materialization of what I had pulled out of my bracelet was complete. Lucia's eyes quickly focused on this object. Her eyebrows lifted slightly, and she had the expression of someone who couldn't understand what she was seeing.
But I ignored her. I threw one hand over Sue's and grasped Lucia's arm tightly with the other. In front of me, I poured mana into the disk that I had been pouring mana into for months one last time.
A tiny pale-colored dot on the motifs on the disk, I didn't know where was it, suddenly glowed with this action. Everything froze as if someone had flipped a switch.
Just behind the layers of Mana Barrier, in the midst of the flames exploding in all directions... the figure of the demon named Revon reappeared. He had dark limbs extending from his back like the legs of a spider, and with them, he struck the first layer of the barriers with tremendous force, shattering it to pieces.
Each of the motifs on the disk began to glow momentarily. The disk started spinning in front of me and rose into the air as if something was lifting it up.
The second layer of barriers crumbled to dust. Every spark, light... the whole existence of the flames around us... was once again swallowed up by the darkness and pitch blackness descended upon us.
I closed my eyes, as Lithoa had told me before, and although I did not reach out toward the disk, I directed my mana toward it. As soon as I did so, the mana inside the disk spread out, but not only that, it moved rapidly toward a point... to me.
Once more, I heard a crackling sound, then a breaking sound, the sound of the last barrier Lucia had created. In other words... there was no longer any barrier between me and the devil himself.
But without waiting for him to act, I made a mental wish with a dual purpose.
To get out of here, away from Revon Scelas... and the reason why I transferred mana to this disk in the first place.
The back of my eyelids, the street of death, which normally should have been completely dark, was suddenly filled with a brilliant glow that burned my eyes. All sounds disappeared, and my senses accompanied my other senses, which quickly disappeared.
The last thing I felt before a system notification appeared in front of me... was something strangely warm, splashing against my chest.
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Then, everything went dark again. A comforting darkness, rather than one that was so frightening and felt like nothing but death.
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