Chris held his sword in his hands.
The blade had cut down every repulsive creature that had killed his squad. Corpses littered the ground, sliced apart in every direction. He had shown them no mercy. He had neither listened to them nor spared them. He wanted to know nothing.
And then... he raised his head.
A huge black spot had appeared in the sky.
The sun had been swallowed.
A great terror took hold of his heart. He had never seen anything more hopeless.
He let his sword fall to the ground as the sound of metal rang out, hollow and meaningless.
His eyes were filled with horror and fear. The black spot was growing larger and larger, faster and faster.
Too fast.
And Chris could do nothing to stop this planet.
**
Elie had heard the news.
The Emperor was returning to the castle. She would finally be able to lessen the pressure on herself. It was good news in itself, because the situation was becoming truly uncontrollable. The soldiers were making more and more suicide attempts. The atmosphere had become gloomy and bleak, as if a spirit were haunting the place. She used her telekinesis left and right to catch those who let themselves fall from windows, those who turned their weapons against themselves, those who no longer fed themselves, or those who had stopped drinking.
She was tired and desperate. Her eyes had lost every trace of hope and comfort. Of course, she had failed to save everyone. Three hundred and eighty-seven soldiers. That was the number she had lost. She would flinch whenever she heard a gunshot, knowing that someone had died. When it wasn't that, it was the sound of a soldier's bones breaking against the ground. Elie would then lean out of the window, only to see that there was nothing she could do.
She didn't know how to resurrect people.
Her heart hurt terribly. Not because of pain, but because of the immense emptiness it contained. No emotion flowed through her frail body anymore, and she could no longer think positively.
She knew it was the influence of a Horseman. War had passed through and wreaked havoc. It had arrived first without warning and taken millions of people with it. Natural Disaster had followed one after another and been even more devastating, claiming a hundred million more. Then Disease had wiped out an entire empire and its billion inhabitants in just a few days.
It was a tragedy without precedent and so devastating that the world had fallen silent. But although already battered, the world still had hope. The apocalypse had reduced the world to ashes, but there were still people left on this weak and impoverished world...
At least, until the arrival of the fourth Horseman...
Elie knew his name because yes, she wanted to support Marc. Yes, she wanted to find a way to stop this ending. But instead, she had only become more desperate. This book was indeed not a solution.
It was even worse to know the dark future without knowing how to change it.
The book she had read belonged to Aeros. A blood-red book adorned with gold, just like Astra's. Written in gold above it were the words: the second horseman of the apocalypse, War.
Every type of weapon was carefully placed along the sides. Ranging from a kurk loaded with an A42 to a dark and black odachi. There was an incalculable number of weapons filling the sides of the cover. In the middle of it, against the blood-red background, was a black skull. Two waterfalls of blood poured from its eye sockets as well as from its open mouth. It had no eyes, yet it seemed to stare deep into the reader's very soul.
A shiver had run through Elie when she saw it. But it was her heart that stopped when she opened it.
"There are many things that Aeros is, but calm and gentle are not among them. This entity was born during the first conflict between two nations. When she opened her eyes, the devastating power that had been given to her continued to grow without end. When she blinked, the war was over. Neither nation had won. Only Aeros remained victorious."
That was only the beginning. Aeros had been born from war. Elie hadn't understood very well. Lavoisi wrote strangely, as if he were far away and too distant to be understood. But the strangest thing was that these books were adapted to the person reading them. So the sentences she had seen before her were undoubtedly not the same ones Marc or Nathanaël would have in front of them.
The book was strange and unclear. Vague and imprecise, but the truth was there. The worst part of all this was that she didn't need precision to understand.
It was direct.
Nevertheless, she was waiting for the Emperor.
She knew that his presence would raise the morale of the soldiers and strengthen the suicidal troops. It wasn't pleasant to live with death every day. Not at all. Every time someone died, it was another weight added to her heart, a weight it could no longer bear.
But just as she was still lost in her thoughts, the world around her grew dark.
Elie was surprised, but very quickly, she felt that something was wrong.
She leaned out of the window and saw the horror descending.
It was inevitable.
Unfathomable.
She had never seen anything like this.
Could she stop this planet?...
**
Nathanaël pierced through the air straight toward Azraël and struck him with a magnificent blow.
However, a magic circle appeared in front of him, and his fist was absorbed as if it were passing through a portal. Raising his head, he could see the second circle connected to the first, through which his glowing fist appeared without the rest of his body. He quickly pulled his hand back before it closed around him and took his hand away forever.
Azraüs, on his side, was locked in a fierce one-on-one against his brother. Man-Eater shattered hundreds of circles per minute, and Azraël was slowly being overwhelmed.
Soon, the apprentice magician made three quick hand gestures, and Azraüs suddenly began to float, losing his footing on the ground.
"Huh?"
Nathanaël interrupted the spell as he rushed toward Azraël at full speed. The moment he crashed into him, Azraüs was brutally forced downward.
Nathanaël pushed Gazor's elder far enough away, but he wasn't done. He violently swung his right arm to the side, and another giant circle as wide as a house appeared. He was becoming faster at summoning them and more powerful in his spells because the two monsters in front of him were just as powerful.
Soon, the giant circle shone brightly, and a bolt of lightning struck Azraël.
Nathanaël and Azraüs were shocked that the magician had inflicted damage on himself, but that wasn't the case.
The lightning didn't disappear, and Azraël was covered by it. The circle didn't disappear either and continuously sent bright blue bolts of lightning into Azraël.
It was a reinforcement spell. The lightning had completely covered Gazor's elder body, making him shine brilliantly and, above all, making him far more dangerous.
Nathanaël didn't waste any time and went to test his opponent's new strength, but before he even had time to move, Azraël appeared in front of him and blocked his path.
He was much faster now. To such an extent that Nathanaël hadn't even seen him move. Nathanaël slowly raised his eyes, almost frozen, shocked by the young magician's new speed.
He grabbed both of Nathanaël's hands, and the two of them entered an intense wrestling match.
Nathanaël pushed with all his strength, but this time, even with the immense power he had just been granted, he couldn't push Azraël back.
But when he seemed to let go, Azraüs suddenly appeared at his side and violently brought Man-Eater down, slicing through the air and fracturing the floor of the throne room once again.
Azraël had disappeared again.
The giant circle above them sent a bolt of lightning behind his brother, and the moment it touched the ground, Azraël manifested through it.
It was a teleportation spell. Nathanaël was almost in awe. The multitude of things Azraël could do was impressive even to him, who also manipulated aura. It seemed that the entire extent of the magic he had read about in books or seen in movies was present within this young man.
Azraüs didn't waste any time and turned around with a smile on his face. Man-Eater swung a hundred and eighty degrees and struck another blue magic circle.
Azraüs was pushed back with the same force with which he had delivered the blow, making him stagger slightly.
Azraël then wanted to strike him but was hit by an enormous beam of light, making him completely disappear inside it. Nathanaël was projecting his aura with immense force and power toward the apprentice magician from where he stood.
The massive beam sent Azraël flying out of the throne room. He fell backward toward the ground in a dangerous manner.
But obviously, he knew how to fly.
He didn't waste any time and shot through the air, landing on the floor of the hall like a superhero. His dark gaze scanned the battlefield, searching for a solution.
Soon, Azraüs and his enormous size blocked what little sunlight there was, and Man-Eater came crashing down upon him. He placed a protective circle in front of his face, but it shattered instantly under the aura of the Ogre's son.
Azraël cursed:
"Damnation."
At the last moment, he crossed his hands, and a navy-blue light seemed to stop the blade at the very last instant. A shockwave swept through the throne room, bringing down the only pillar that remained. Now, the room was open to the sky.
Nothing remained except for the throne, which the three combatants carefully avoided. The cracks in the floor revealed the possibility of the entire hill suddenly collapsing.
No one knew how powerful their blows were, and no one knew how resilient the hill was. But everyone knew one thing: if they had wanted to destroy everything in the city, these three would have done it.
Azraël instantly transformed into confetti, seeing that he couldn't win a contest of strength against his brother. He reappeared farther away, but the moment his foot touched the ground, Nathanaël was already blinding him with his dazzling light.
It was extremely difficult to fight against Nathanaël. His light made it almost impossible to see what was happening. The only way to truly know whether he was moving was to see whether the intensity of the light changed or not.
But by then, it was too late. Azraël received a celestial right hook that sent him flying out of the throne room once again.
Azraël cursed again.
"Damn."
For the fifteenth time in the fight, he flew once again toward the ancient hall from which he had just been ejected. But make no mistake. He wasn't necessarily losing.
The moment he planted his fist into the ground this time, a shockwave far more powerful than the others swept through the hall, and Azraüs was almost thrown out. The moment he looked toward the place where his brother had landed, a projectile came rushing straight toward his face. He ducked to dodge it, but discovered with horror that this was exactly what his brother had wanted. A black circle appeared above his head, still covered in symbols and runes stranger and more indecipherable than the last.
An enormous pillar of netherite emerged from the circle and drove Azraüs deep into the earth. The floor of the hall cracked and failed to withstand it for even a second, and Azraüs's body was driven deep underground as the pillar continued descending.
Nathanaël then appeared out of nowhere and attempted to strike the pillar to destroy it, but to his great surprise, another portal circle had appeared in front of his hand.
Nathanaël tried to pull his hand back quickly, but the trap was already closing around him. A portal formed beneath his feet, and Nathanaël was swallowed into it, disappearing without reappearing anywhere in sight.
No one knew where Azraël had opened the second circle.
"Go sleep peacefully, you two."
Azraël remained alone in the ancient hall. Everything now seemed silent and peaceful, as if a battle had never taken place. Except, of course, for the state of the throne room itself. This hall, so emblematic of Nozras, upon which the ultimate sovereign himself had once rested, was now nothing more than a distant memory. The only remnant of its former grandeur was the throne, itself fading away as the battle continued. And perhaps, the only men who most resembled him, lying there like a tribute to his past.
Azraël raised his head to look at the gray sky.
For once, his heart was at peace. Light, but bitter. The wind blew calmly, carrying his fatigue away with it.
He had won…
No, he knew all too well... that he was only taking a break….
Soon, the ground beneath his feet began to glow.
He looked at it with a dark gaze once again. He didn't even move for a while, admiring his failure with an almost depressed look.
Then, he sighed.
"Come on, here we go for another round."
Nathanaël pierced through the ground with his fist raised. He had dirt and insects all over his face, but he didn't care in the slightest.
Azraël looked at one of the six with a weak and nervous smile.
"I should have sent you into the sky like the old man."
Suddenly, a macabre aura emanating from the ground made him shudder.
Azraüs emerged as well, Man-Eater in his hands and a wide smile filled with madness on his face.
"You really thought burying me would be enough?"
He did. But that thought was vague and utterly contemptible now. His opponents were back after a short break.
He smiled, and his hands lit up once again.
"Come on, here we go again."
The three were about to charge at each other once again when the little sunlight that remained over the city disappeared completely.
A gigantic shadow had taken over the entire city, covering the arena in profound darkness.
"What?"
Nathanaël suddenly felt something strange. A horrifying feeling that an incredible power had been unleashed from the very depths of the other world.
Even among the Horsemen, this seemed too much.
"Is this... the Man in Black?"
But to his great dismay, he didn't know whether it was less or worse than that.
He, Azraüs, and Azraël raised their heads toward the sky.
An immense black spot filled it, growing larger and larger.
All the warriors in the capital and in Nozras raised their heads and were all seized by immense fear.
The end of the world.
This was the true end of the world.
The hopeless outcome.
The terror everyone feared.
The Apocalypse was truly here.
Nathanaël no longer moved.
A profound silence settled over the entire world. No one moved. No one spoke. Everyone stared in horror and dread.
The immense planet was close, and no one could do anything to stop it.
Friendship, power, money, family, property, business, reign, charisma, beauty, fear, joy, light, flame, hope….
There was no hope, and there was nothing left.
Nothing but an inevitable end.
Nothing but death at the end of the road.
The world was silent.
Admiring death in all its splendor.
Admiring the end in all its glory.
Nathanaël was empty.
Had he really done all of this for nothing? All of this, only to end up destroyed and crushed like a worthless insect? All of this, only to have failed to help Marc in his quest for redemption? All of this, only to have failed to help Azraüs in his quest for the throne? All of this, only to have failed to save his family? His friends? Himself? What was the point of his visions if he was going to die so easily? One of the six, that was what they called them. The six what? The six fools who had been shown the future? The six fallen ones who would suffer because of their visions and their turmoil, pathetically struggling against fate?
Was that it…?
Was that all there was?
Soon, a violent wind coming from the planet began to blow. He didn't even fight against it. It was useless. No reasonable force could destroy this thing. The black spot now covered almost the entire sky.
They could even see its black, rocky surface catching fire as it hurtled toward their world.
"Why did this have to happen?"
Fate?
Was this fate?
Their tragic story..
As well as their calamity?...
This marks the end of Volume 2 of The Doom of Humanity.