Reno stepped out from behind the tyrant's throne. As if he had always been there. Hidden behind the very stone his eldest son desired.
Calmly, he placed his hand on it, and memories resurfaced.
"You know, it's an incredible feeling. When you sit on it, you feel like you've fulfilled the very reason you were born. I felt like I had become the king of the world. I was the strongest, and no one could stand against me. I looked at your mother and said to her while crying, 'Did we really do it?' She answered yes. We were the sovereigns of Nozras. We were…"
Reno stopped and closed his eyes.
"It doesn't matter anymore. She's no longer here. But today, what matters is that you do not sit on that throne."
Azraël looked at his father, his gaze filled with distrust and hatred. Even though he had expected him to interfere, actually seeing him there, blocking the path to his dream, truly broke him.
"You're sick. After everything this country has done, you still want to defend it. I lost Mom, and you want to let it go just like that. How many more warriors will lose their companions? How many more people will die for a quest that has no reason to exist? Even if someone sits on that throne, they'll refuse to see them as king. Nozras has ruled like an idiot, and I'm here to avenge everyone who died for that damn soul that lingers in everyone's heart."
Reno did not answer. Not right away. His eyes were fixed on his son, yet lost in dark and morose thoughts.
"I know. I know this way of life seems unfair. That people die to reach the throne. I know your mother died for the same reasons. But I can promise you something: even if she had known, she still would have gone to the capital, she still would have fought her own until the very end."
Azraël's fists clenched on their own.
"Don't say that name!"
Yet Reno truly seemed to be trying to make him understand.
"What I mean is that you can't take away these people's soul and their desires. The nation of war is what the people want it to be."
Azraël scoffed.
"And if you don't want that destiny, you get swallowed by it, by those stupid warriors who come here just to make a name for themselves."
"Yes, that is the harsh reality of life. Few want peace here, and they become even fewer because of those who want war. I understand how you feel, but I can't let you decide this nation's fate alone. You wouldn't be any better than the tyrant."
Azraël looked shocked at those words and lowered his head with a bitter laugh.
"At least I won't destroy this country, Father. They'll thank me later. You, Azraüs, and even Mom would thank me. But I can't let you stand in my way."
Azraël extended his hand, and a red magic circle the size of half a body appeared, slowly rotating and faintly illuminating the surroundings.
Azraël was holding back his tears, but even the great chief of the Rosia clan could not remain passive in such a situation.
"You're nothing but a coward, Father. You abandoned us. You abandoned Mom. And now you refuse to let me atone for your sins."
Reno also seemed to be holding back his tears.
"Yes, I am a coward. And that's why today, I will do the only thing in my entire life that isn't."
Reno grabbed the long blade strapped to his back and pointed it at his son. It was Man-Eater, the blade that had slain countless warriors. The blade that had spilled the blood of thousands upon thousands.
It had only ever been used to kill enemy warriors, terrifying opponents.
He had never imagined it could be turned against his own son.
At least, he had never hoped it would come to that…
"See? In the end, you're fighting just like the people here."
Azraël did not answer at first, then looked at his father.
"You shouldn't have come."
They stared at each other for a long time. Each piercing the other's gaze with countless emotions. Reno saw his son beyond his blade, and Azraël saw his father through the red circle. Both waited for the other to turn back.
Yet this time that felt so long, this reunion that had gone wrong, this embrace that had turned into disaster, ended in an instant.
Azraël had made his decision…
In a flash, an immense beam of red energy burst from the magic circle without any incantation, sweeping away everything in its path.
Reno barely managed to dodge by shifting aside. Part of the skin on his right arm was gone, burned away by the sheer power of the spell.
Azraël did not stop. Dozens of circles appeared at the same time inside the throne room, announcing a terrible danger.
Reno saw them and immediately began moving, dodging the beams that shot out from each of them. Every circle started to create lasers that razed everything in their path.
Azraël waved his arms as if he were conducting an orchestra, directing the circles along his father's trajectory. The beams pierced the hall in every direction, but Azraël was careful not to touch the throne.
However, Reno managed to reach him while dodging all the beams and struck his son with a powerful right hook.
The impact was terrible, and both of them fell from the elevated throne platform, beginning a long descent.
But as they were falling, Reno noticed that a magic circle had protected Azraël from the impact of his punch. Azraël looked sadly at his father before directing his right hand toward him, preparing a new spell.
"Ordia Nemon."
Another beam struck Reno straight in the face and sent him flying far away. Fortunately for him, he could take it.
He landed farther away, putting his legs to the test.
Suddenly, the ruined city lit up. Reno looked around and quickly understood that Azraël was preparing a powerful spell.
He looked to the sky and saw an enormous rock, the size of a house, emerging from a gigantic magic circle.
"Seriously?"
He ran with all his strength and jumped at the last moment to avoid the rock.
"Damn it, Azraël! You're really rough on your poor father!"
Azraël did not answer, maintaining his many circles around him.
Reno searched for him with his eyes, but instead, he took a massive pillar of ice straight in the back.
"You shouldn't have come."
Azraël repeated it, even though he knew it was already too late.
Reno was smashed into a nearby building, which collapsed instantly under the impact.
Azraël looked at the place where his father had crashed, then turned around to leave, thinking he was knocked out.
However, he barely had time to take three steps before he felt the ogre's aura roar like death itself.
"I think you're underestimating me a little."
It was already too late. The moment Azraël turned around, Reno was already behind him. He struck his son with such power that the impact was heard throughout the entire city.
However, Reno noticed that his blow had no effect. His son was perfectly fine. And even though he could not explain everything happening in this fight, he was sure of one thing: a wave had absorbed his attack.
It was as if his hand had struck the surface of water, creating a ripple across Azraël's body. And even if it seemed impossible, the strike had truly been nullified.
"It's a high-level spell, apparently. It reduces impacts and makes them effective at only one percent of their real damage. Still, I have to admit… it hurts."
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning fell directly from the sky.
Reno saw it and dodged it just in time.
"How can you be this strong, dad?"
Azraël then looked at his own back and saw a huge bruise covering it. Even dampened, his father's punch was definitely painful.
"It won't work if I take a second one."
Reno looked at the sky. The lightning he had just seen was far too precise to be natural. Even if the weather was right for a storm, this was far too perfect.
"Say, son… you control the sky too?"
Azraël adjusted his clothes while wiping away dust and grime.
"Yes. That's also a high-level spell. I control the weather a little, if you want. Look."
Azraël raised his hand, then suddenly lowered it. With a single motion, he commanded the lightning to descend. But this time, there was not just one bolt. There were thirty, all converging on the same spot.
Out of the thirty, Reno took five. Normally, that would have been enough to kill a man.
"However, you're not an ordinary man, are you?"
Under lightning and ash, while the blinding light assaulted every possible eye, Azraël caught sight of his father's frenzied smile.
Like father, like son. He was ecstatic. His warrior instincts were rising to the surface.
"It's been a long time… since I last felt…"
Reno took a step forward.
The pressure from that single step, and his aura, made Azraël tremble. Something had changed. The atmosphere was no longer the same. No… his father was no longer standing before him…
"...the feeling that I could die."
…he was facing the Ogre of Nozras.
Azraël sensed the danger and immediately cast a spell.
"Corta Vida!!"
A gigantic serpent of flames burst from his hand and charged at his father.
Yet Reno did not dodge. He took it head-on, smiling. The heat burned him, but he kept walking toward his son as if the flames did not affect him. His body tanked it like a wall, and with each step, Azraël grew more and more anxious.
Reno then drew his blade as if it were nothing, right in the middle of the serpent.
"Indeed, my son, you are not a man. I will teach you what I should have taught you."
His blade, heavy and one meter twenty long, split the serpent in two. The vertical trail of the strike shattered one of Azraël's protective circles under the shock.
Reno kept smiling and rushed at his son.
Azraël covered his hands with aura and parried his father's attacks, but already on the second strike, he was sent flying. While in the air, he unleashed lightning, bolts bursting from his hands.
Even so, Reno jumped and blocked all of them in one motion, then struck his son, who crashed to the ground, coughing blood.
Azraël got up quickly to avoid his father's impact on the ground.
Reno crashed down like a meteor, lifting a massive amount of debris and dust, barely missing his son.
With his blade planted in the ground, he looked at Azraël with eyes filled with murderous intent. That was the Ogre of Nozras.
Azraël panicked and activated an invisibility spell, disappearing for a moment. Reno stood there, motionless, while Azraël circled him.
Then, suddenly, he violently opened his eyes. In a millisecond, he moved and grabbed Azraël.
"I see you."
"How the f-??"
He threw his son into the rubble like a worthless ball. Azraël smashed through several buildings, which collapsed one after another, before crashing into a wall. He barely had time to catch his breath before he saw the ogre charging straight at him through the holes he had made over hundreds of meters. He narrowly dodged the raw force trying to crush him.
"Damn it!"
Reno was unrecognizable. His aura raged in every direction, and his eyes had no pupils anymore, as if his aura had covered them. He breathed like a beast, and his breath released aura instead of air.
He raised his blade and struck toward his fleeing son. Warriors who were inside the building were cut down without even realizing it.
Azraël activated a spell by extending both hands toward the slash, transforming the blade's trail into butterflies, then into thousands of blades that he sent back at his father. However, none of the blades pierced his skin, so he made them explode on contact with his body.
"Filthy monster."
Reno emerged unscathed and charged at his son again, but this time he was trapped inside a four-walled cage that suddenly fell from the sky. Azraël's eyes lit up.
"That's enough now!!"
The cage suddenly shrank, but it shattered under the pressure of the ogre's body.
Useless. Everything was useless. It was pointless against the Ogre. Reno was a true two-armed bulldozer, crushing all logic in his path.
Azraël was terrified. Terrified. This was not what a human being was supposed to be.
Azraël then created a portal beneath his father's feet, swallowing him. But a portal always led somewhere. He had to eject his father somewhere.
He opened the portal in the sky, where no life could exist. Reno then found himself among the clouds.
Thousands of lightning bolts struck him the very second he appeared.
Azraël unleashed his own aura to increase their power.
"Die!!"
His scream echoed throughout the entire capital.
Then... Reno was struck by the most powerful attack ever witnessed in Nozras.
The sky tore apart with a terrifying roar.
A brutal white light shook the world, plunging the city into a colossal spectacle of light.
Then, a dragon's head appeared. A gigantic head made of lightning that pierced the clouds, each scale shining with a thousand flames, each one charged like a small thunderbolt.
Its mouth opened like a luminous abyss, a bottomless well of energy roaring like thousands of thunders.
Reno's eyes widened.
The entire sky seemed to bend under the released power. A column of light burst from the dragon's mouth, a torrent of lightning so dense that it devoured the firmament.
Then, without hesitation, it devoured Reno.
The ground trembled. The air screamed. The clouds scattered like burned leaves.
At the heart of the storm, his silhouette disappeared, swallowed by the light, reduced to a tiny point before dissolving in the electric deluge.
When the glow finally faded, nothing remained.
At that moment, Azraüs looked up at the sky, shocked and stunned. The entire capital could admire the dragon. The entire capital could admire the spectacle like a mirage, like something unreal.
No one could believe it, yet everyone could see it. A true dragon had appeared, its white lightning flooding the capital with light.
It was not real. It could not be real… and for that brief moment, everyone froze in fear and shock, hoping with all their might that this dragon was not real.
It was a terrifying and mesmerizing spectacle.
But no one saw Reno's body falling from the sky like a meteor...