"Phuwak."
Blood splattered everywhere as the man's gaze darted at the surroundings.Scattered around him were mangled, half-eaten corpses, broken-down debris of paragons and golems of all kinds crumbling losing their vitality slowly..
Corpses gradually began to lose their vitality and cluster in this cursed land of red that seemed to stretch endlessly to the far fetch horizon.
*Sigh*
The man sighed laying down gazing towards the red sky, his eyes have already dried up, devoid of any mosture. His lips have along far cracked, blood sipping out painting his own neck with red.
His head slowly fell down, "Look at them, killed in every imaginable way." he uttered, almost inaudible.
The corpses were his subjects, his soldiers, the people he ruled, the people he promised glory and freedom from the walls that enclosed them.
His gaze fell on to his hand. They already have lost their cluster, latching onto his bones.
He was the Emperor ruler of the continent and bearer of the crest of Owsris lineage. But now, a gruesome hole gaped in his stomach, and death loomed over him.
"We were foolish. The forcefield wasn't there to enclose us but to protect us."
A deep regret, enough to impale his torn-apart heart, hit him again. His lips quivered in pain.
If they had known, if they hadn't been so reckless, they wouldn't have broken the barrier.
He exhaled slowly, accepting that there was nothing left to be done.His gaze fall onto the pendant on his chest.
Its purple luster slowly faded with the passage of time. Still, despite that, if one looked closely, one would realize how intricately the patterns were carved onto such a delicate thing.
The pendant's origin was unknown. No historian, no scholar could trace it.
Yet, from the start of humanity's and Owsdin's rise, it passed from ruler to ruler, bound by one verdict.
"Protect it with your life until it chooses."
"I couldn't fulfill the verdict either..." he uttered, coughing out another mouthful of blood, coating the pendant on his hand.
But now, it ends with him.Along with the fall of the continent.They should've never come here.
His vision started to darken. Sealing his fate, He will be dying today. Time continued to click as wait for his inevitable fate.
"Ughh… Majesty…"
A coarse, strained voice from somewhere came. He opened his eyes gazing at the, pile of debris.
In next second, the pile debris moved on their own and a bloodied figure surfaced, pushing them away.
It was a middle-aged man, standing up on his own feet despite three bloody spikes impaling through his body. As he moved pushing away the debris,blood continued to gush out, painting the red ground rader.
It took a moment to recognize who it was.
"Ah, of course. Who else but the Mercenary King Kairos would survive such a thing?"
The Majesty tried moving... 'Yeah, if it's him, the continent still has some hope., if he could survive"
But before he could crawl and reach him. As if the fate was reminding them of their fate.
A roar split the sky reverting through out the battle field.
ROOOAAARRR—!
A thunderous roar split the skies, shaking the ground beneath. Both of their faces sank in horror.
They knew very well who it belonged to.
The red clouds up in the sky parted, revealing the majestic body. Its feathers were dark with a hint of silver. It spreads its wings, each beat making the clouds part away, sending forth strong gusts of wind below, tearing up the debris. Making hard to breath.
The ruler of this cursed, crimson lord has returned.
The Primordial Blood Phoenix.
Still young by its kind's standards, yet feared beyond measure.Even His Majesty, the Empire's only 9th Circle magician ,dared not challenge it.
And now…It had come back.Shattering the last thread of hope he'd clung to.
Despair wrapped around him like chains, pulling him.
The Phoenix's eyes locked onto the lone figure still standing in the ruins.
Arkus, The Mercenary King.
Rooooar...
(Human, Leave this scared land right at this instance)
The phoenix's roar was more intense this time. It was clearly not happy seeing the human gazing at it like that.
Kairos didn't care. Aura started to pulse within his body. The lifeless nodes, one by one, started to spin for the very last time. His complexion started to return, and his body started to heal rapidly.
"But His Majesty knew all too well this was the man's final stand. Even without a shard of mana, he had once ranked eighth on the continent. Some had even talked that, had he been able to wield mana, he might have rivaled the Emperor himself.
And in that moment, the Emperor realized the rumors were true. The man before him could have defeated him."
He hadn't believed it.Rising a mere Viscount to an ruler of three nations was impressive, for sure. But he'd thought it ended there.
Now, seeing it with his own eyes, he realized just how wrong he'd been.
With a sudden outburst, Aura came out from Kairo's body, making a small dome surrounding him. It was a domain. Not particularly, without mana, a domain loses its main function of authority.
While up in the sky, The phoenix had enough. It screeched in fury,bearing its wings toward the ground, sending forth black feathers at frightening speed.
Kairos steeled his eyes,began to move too. Swing, swing, swing...
Strange things started to happen. Slashes of Aura soared upward, nearly reaching the sky.
But the moment they passed through the dome, each slash grew more violent, tearing through the air toward, causing huge noise as if the air itself was being cut down from each slash.
Every time a slash met a feather, an explosion roared, scattering fierce winds, Causing the debris, paragons to explode here and there.
At first, His Majesty couldn't grasp what was happening. But as the dome flickered under each blow, understanding dawned upon him.
This man was insane, far more than He had ever expected. He wasn't just fighting to the death. He was burning his own Aura to empower his slashes. At first, His Majesty thought it was desperation, the madness of someone about to die.
But that wasn't it. What made the Mercenary King stand out was his mana-less domain. Meaning this wasn't the first time he used such a thing.
This person willingly depleted his own Aura again and again, training it in an endless, brutal cycle of pain and will.
The swings started to slow down, along with the number of feathers from the phoenix. It would end soon. In the next few seconds, the winner would be decided.
The explosive Aura intensified. Arkus swung down the sword with all his might, causing the sword to burst apart the moment the slash escaped the blade.
[Domain Slash]
His body also lost its luster in that split second.
But that wasn't the most frightening thing. It was the slash mark that seemed to carve through the air itself. In a split second, it reached the phoenix, passing through its body in the next second, smoothly leaving behind a line of light.
For a moment, it seemed nothing happened. But then, right up in the sky, the phoenix's body split in two. Blood gushed out of it like a fountain, raining down on the red soil.
"He... he did it."
His Majesty's eyes widened.The phoenix's broken body crashed down nearby with a deafening thud. It was far larger than they'd ever estimated, but that was no longer what mattered, what mattered would be the one who did it It.
Kairos wasn't standing anymore. His remaining hand was bloodied, a chunk of his hand was missing, white bone peeking out of his skin.
He was kneeling down, still holding the hilt of his broken-down sword.
Cough... a mouthful of black blood escaped from his mouth, sealing his fate. He will die soon.
Intense regret washed over His Majesty. If only he had recognized this talent... perhaps... they would have won... Slowly, his own thoughts slowed down.
And that was also the last thought before the regal ruler collapsed onto the ground. His body weathered away rapidly, leaving only bones behind.
Kairos turned around. He could only gaze at the pillar of the continent laying down on the cold red soil, lifelessly.
Cracks appeared on his sword. The fragile blade couldn't handle the pressure anymore. It broke apart, making him fall on his knees, causing some of his wounds to open up even more.
"Heh, heh... at least I killed that... buying a few years of time."
His gaze fell onto the surroundings at the corpses. "You fools. I told you... you all will die."
"Sigh, era of advancement? This all started five years ago"
With the collapse of the forcefield that surrounded the continent, humans rejoiced, thinking they were finally free from the confinement that enclosed them from the origin of time.The land beyond the forcefield was once again reachable to them.
The first few years after the expedition, humans started discovering rare artifacts and ores and traces of old civilization scattered throughout the unknown sea. Human magic started to expand boundlessly, while the cure of many diseases started appearing. A bright future for the continent was just about the time what everyone thought and looked forward too.
But that's when everything went wrong in the most unimaginable ways. And this cursed land was one of them.
Roar!!!
He gazed above the sky. Thousands upon thousands of monsters heading north passing just above the red clouds.
Their goal was obvious. He could only imagine what would happen the moment those monsters reached the continent.
It's not a lie to think that humanity might really go extinct this time around.
"Cartalia... it seems my time has come to leave this world as well," He uttered in a low voice. Remembering the pure face of the one he used to serve. In that moment remembering that smile, the regrets he has started to disappear.
"Yeah,it's my end...I'm not worthy of such miracles of second chances "
But fate had other plans for him.
The silent pendant hanging around the Emperor's neck, a relic that had remained dormant through countless battles, finally stirred.
Its chains snapped on their own, and the pendant floated through the air, drawn toward the dying Mercenary King.
And then, all of a sudden, a deep, resonating voice echoed from within.
"Asfer, Authority over Infinity, chooses you. You have been given a new opportunity."
'Asfer?... Who's tha...'
That was the last thought before everything went pitch black for him. Unknowing that the moment he collapsed, the monsters, the wind itself, froze in time and defied the very law of time. Instead of time flowing forward, it started going backwards.
---
An unknown amount of time later.
"Is this how it feels to die?"
"What was that?... Asfer?"
"I will go to hell, won't I?"
He couldn't help but feel that really would be the case. He was an orphan, and his life wasn't something that could be said to be good. Nor was he a good person. Only survival mattered to him.
"I won't be able to see her right... If I'm in hell"
A white light slowly started to appear before him,
before consuming his whole being.
---
"Ughh."
Pain assaulted him. Slowly opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was the ceiling. Ornate carvings lined its edges, golden light flickering from an elegant chandelier. It was unfamiliar.
His breath came slow, disoriented. A gust of cold wind washed over, causing his thick red hair to flutter.
He turned toward the big window, gazing up at the blue moon hanging in the sky.
The moon!!
He gasped, jumping up from the bed. His body felt heavy, but he didn't care. He moved closer to the window and gazed up at the bright blue moon, his eyes sweeping over the vast land stretched out before him.
His hand trembled...
A thought struck him like a boulder as he slowly turned toward the side where a big mirror was placed.
In the reflection, a kid could be seen with thick red hair and blue eyes, staring back at him in horror. No, it wasn't a person—
it was him. And the moon that was destroyed still present shining brightly up in the sky. Only hinting at one thing that he didn't dare to think further..
"I... regressed in time?"