Any ounce of happiness I had was gone. All that was left was a dark horror of anger from the depths of my conscience. It was a pent-up feeling. One that had been hidden away from me for a very long time. One that I only remembered earlier in the day in the Desert Kingdom with Belle and Alice, and then again right at this moment. I could recall a faint memory at this time. It was a clear memory, but I had been left to relive it in my current state… and I had no idea what was going on anymore.
**A long time ago, at an unknown place**
When I came to, I was surrounded by trees and the morning dew upon a cliff. A young girl was crying next to me. She had platinum white hair, and her clothes were tattered immensely, like she had just survived an explosion or near-death experience of some kind.
I was holding her hand as we stood at a view of some city, and she continued to cry and wail… I didn't know where we were.
When I looked down at myself, I was also young. Probably the age of twelve—and this girl, ten. Her skin was like that of rose blush, and mine was tan like golden dirt.
Who was she?
Where are we?
And was this my memory? Why had I not remembered any of this? Had this memory really belonged to me?
I continued to witness things like this, finding us running in the next memory as if it had skipped to this part from my point of view. We found a spot to stop and rest near a huge oak. The grass was soft, and the morning rays peeked over the leaves above us. We were fairly deep in the forest—wherever we were.
There was a stream nearby, so I set the young girl down to sit as she continued to whimper. I then ran over to get some water for both of us, but I didn't have anything to carry it back… I guess I'd just figure it out when I got there.
When I finally arrived at the calm waters, I investigated the clear surface and saw my reflection… I knew I was a kid, but… who had this been?
Not only was my skin tan, but my eyes looked completely different in shape and color, vibrating a reserved maroon rather than the black that I had come to know. I also had a mole under my right eye and my hair… was a grayish color.
Was this really me?
As I continued to scurry around, I found a bowl-shaped piece of wood on the ground nearby. I took it and cleaned it to the best of my ability, and used it to scoop some water to give back to that young girl.
Trying to balance the water that was in it, all my focus was on this wooden bowl at this time, not realizing there was a stuck-out root that lay hidden in the grass behind me. I tripped over it, fell, and spilled the bowl of water just before me.
When I looked up slightly from where I fell, I saw a young girl's bare feet. When I lifted my head up some more, I saw her platinum white hair glittering from the pockets of sunlight above us through the trees. It was her.
She crouched down and picked up the wooden bowl I dropped, looking at it intently. Her eyes were a beautiful deep blue that seemed to reflect the world, as she observed the piece of wood I dropped, blinking with those wispy white eyelashes over her puffy eyes. It seemed that she had finally stopped crying.
As she finished observing the wooden bowl, she focused her deep blue eyes to me. Innocence in her face, she held on to the bowl and extended a small hand out to me as I was still lying on the ground in front of her. She made no sound. The only sounds were the stream and the rustling of leaves, and even the soft breeze through the grass.
When she finally spoke, all I saw was her mouth move. It was completely silent. But I think… I think she said the words Thank you.
***
**Present day**
Before I realized it, my eyes were burning. I could feel myself slowly losing my sanity as I witnessed Belle get stabbed from behind through the middle of her. Behind her was Syemore, mangled and burned all over. The side of his face had been completely charred, utterly unable to open his right eye. The rest of his hair on that side was also burned off, revealing him partially bald, suffering from what seemed like a fifth-degree burn. Pieces of metal and armor still clung onto his naked canvas. The face on the left that controlled the Phantomdrakes—destroyed completely, but the one on the right was still intact.
As he trailed his eyes onto me with his one deranged eye, he shouted in my direction. But for some reason, I couldn't quite get out what he had said… It sounded muffled as he shouted, What the fuck are you!? it seemed.
He had a look of fear on his face as he laid his eye on me. The sensation I had burned every part from inside and out of myself. Yes, I was angry, but this… this had taken it to another level. What was happening to me right now? Why does he look so afraid?
I barely caught it. But from his one red eye, I saw my reflection. Even from that distance, when I saw myself, I finally understood…
Black flames engulfed me, and I was but a shadow within them. My eyes glowed from the flaming black mass with what seemed like swirls—a vortex of white. Monster was not a worthy enough term for what I was becoming.
A jagged mouth formed on my face through the shadow that enveloped me, like it was ripping open. I roared, emitting a pulse so powerful that it blew back Syemore and Belle a few yards from the sound of it alone. Using Belle as a shield from the roar, he threw her to the side afterward, releasing the stab he inflicted on her. She tumbled a few feet away from us on top of the barrier, and I merely watched her with my glowing, blank eyes like the monster I was. Looking back in the direction of Syemore, who stood frantic, a distance away from where he had flown back.
Dashing to him at a sonic speed, I met him where he was before he could even grasp the situation, punching him directly in the gut. His eyes turned white from the impact, then his body shot backward a great distance, skipping atop the barrier like a ragdoll—stone on water. He managed to protect himself with whatever armor he had on him; the pieces that flew off him still floated all around us like they had been suspended there.
I dashed again immediately after that last punch. Circling him at great speeds and amassing a black flame-like tornado all around him that blocked any pieces of armor or debris he was trying to assemble onto himself. Then, from within the tornado, I shot out from different angles at him. One after another in endless rotation, I struck him from all directions. He staggered uncontrollably as his body flailed from each impact—trapped in the black tornado, being attacked relentlessly.
Finally, from above, I appeared. My black-shrouded body suspended there in the air. The tornado still roared as the burnt pieces of armor and debris floating around us turned to ash. I pushed with my legs from nothing but the air right back down onto Syemore into a mighty crash, causing a massive shockwave right on top of him.
BOOM!!!
An intense blast echoed from the top of the Valley Kingdom. So strong that it opened a hole in the Celestial Dome and the Zion Orb barrier right below me and Syemore as we thrashed in the sky all the way down onto the city frozen in time. Syemore landed first as he crashed onto the top of it and plunged all the way down, shattering and crumbling the building from his raging impact.
I flew in through the path he had created from the crumbling building, through the smoke, crumbling piles of concrete, and steel in the air. Each one melted when it had made contact with me. In the background—unbeknownst at the time—severed pieces of flesh and body parts joined the chaos, raining in the air all around us.
When I landed in the newly made trash heap, Syemore was not there. I stood crouching over like the monster I was. From within the smoke, flashes of light had begun to beam at me in multiple directions. I remained in place, unfazed, and when the beams hit me, they disintegrated completely. Ineffective.
Next, from below me, a giant shark creature emerged from the ground, swallowing me whole inside its massive mouth. The moment it had closed, it had begun beating and pulsing from different parts of its head, and then…
SPLAT!
Blowing up from the inside out, and its head exploded, it sent pieces of its shredded head flying in all directions.
I remained in the midst of the blue blood of the beast as it rained down onto me, letting it pour over as I finally moved, merely looking upward at the falling debris as all this happened in a matter of seconds. Right then, a strong wind blew from under me, forcing me upward through the falling concrete and debris and then into the sky.
As I flew up, I met with Syemore in an instant, stationary in the sky. He had amassed mechanical wings behind him and had armed himself more with random pieces of debris that had formed a weapon of sorts from his forearms, connecting into one large cannon protruding out from where his hands once were. It was pointed directly at me, charging a massive blast all the while.
"Die, you fucking monster!!" he yelled just as he shot the blast onto me there in the sky.
FEUUUUM!!!
The blast shot across the Kingdom from above, hitting the end of the Celestial Dome, causing it to crack and ripple after its shot. The blast was immensely powerful, just about matching the size and power of Belle's Heavenly Arrow's Judgment, but not strong enough to shatter a hole—Instead, it had bounced off the inside of the barrier and shot through different parts of the Kingdom, causing more calamity within the city's frozen stasis.
When the blast subsided, Syemore was taken aback as he witnessed me there once more, unscathed. "How… How do you still remain? What in fucking Keeper's name are you?"
We both floated there above the silent city as the building we had annihilated, and the other crumbling buildings from his attack, continued their destructive fall.
At this time, my shadow form had begun to protrude dark wings from my back. It rippled out until it shot out with a mighty swing, spanning over a few yards in width.
Below us, the whole Kingdom had still been frozen in time. Even the Phantomdrakes that were scattered throughout the city were frozen as well. The citizens caught within our destructive orchestra decorated the streets with their red iron. And as heartless as it might have been, I, in that moment, didn't care.
My mind was gone, and all I could focus on was my unending rage directed at Syemore for what he had done. I still could not understand why. I had only just met Belle the other day. So why was I so angry, like she was more to me? Like we had a history…
In a tempest mix of hesitancy and frustration, Syemore shouted, "I'm done with this Kingdom! I don't care anymore! All I want right now is for you to die! I want you to die! Every single one of you! Die, die, die!!!"
Completely unhinged now, Syemore grabbed the remaining face on his right chest and began spreading open its eyes and mouth. The red glow from it began to intensify as it even seemed to groan by his pull. He even began sweating profusely from his own wrath.
Right then, everything around us had begun to distort. Anything from buildings to people, to even the sky above. Everything had started to lose shape and become corrupt. But I was too far gone to care about any of it.
"If this face still remains, even after you kill me, the whole Valley Kingdom will be frozen in time forever. So go ahead, monster. Do your wor—"
I didn't even let him finish his sentence. It had all just been white noise in my head up till this point… and all I wanted… all I wanted was for it to stop.
BANG!
I jabbed him in the face so hard that it cracked several bones. He flew far across the Valley Kingdom through the sky, struggling to stop himself. From the pieces of debris and leftover armor on him, he began to shift it all to his back, spreading it out like wings to stop the momentum.
When he stopped, I appeared again with a spin kick to his side, cracking multiple ribs and other bones in his body, shooting him across to another part of the Kingdom. We kept on like this until he was completely bloodied. At this point, he suffered multiple fractures and had one of each, an arm and a leg, completely broken—bones shattered from within. Already unrecognizable from the burns Belle gave him earlier, his face was even more so now that it was shaded in blood.
Barely conscious, he used his armored wings to fly around the Kingdom as I chased him. From the back of his wings, more missile launchers opened, shooting another endless barrage at me in the sky. I dodged each one as we flew extremely close to the Celestial Dome's inner layers. The missiles crashed into the inside of the barrier as they each missed. Even as a few had struck, I had still come out through the emitted blasts without a shed of blood or wound of any kind. I was unstoppable.
As we continued to fly in this deadly game of tag, Syemore used Light magic to heal his broken arm and leg—though it was not as effective due to the intense and continuous contact of powerful strikes onto him.
After he had healed them the best he could, he positioned his hands as if he were unsheathing a blade. With a combination of Light and Time magic, he fabricated a giant long sword from the ethers. It was a nameless spell cast, a brand new incantation from the fusion of spells that he just so happened to awaken in this moment. It was as if he pulled this sword from time itself with the help of Light magic to help it travel there to this dimension. An awakening of sorts, which was a perfect time for him to have in this dire moment he was in. The massive blade hummed as he held it there. It had its own aura. Similar, almost, to mine…
He swung the massive blade at me, making impact, and shooting me back down onto the city, right through another building somewhere else in the Kingdom.
Everything happening so far, it felt like I had been watching it happen from a third point of view. I didn't seem to have control over my body or even my own thoughts. It was as if I was a spectator in my own mind—devoid of emotion or the ability to comprehend. Until…
As I got up from the wreckage, my white eyes caught sight of a hand from the rubble… it was the hand of a little girl, and for some reason, I had been captivated by it. Curiously, I reached out with my mangled shadow of a hand and tugged… however, when I pulled it out, it was only an arm… and nothing more along with it.
My blank eyes pulsed, and my head began to hurt… Pain? Now?
The last time I had felt pain, it was pain that I had dealt to myself from the puppet of the previous Arcane King… The massive sword Syemore now wielded… something about it had possessed the same unknown power, enough to not only do damage but to also shake my consciousness that was hiding behind my burning rage at this time.
I began to have a headache of thoughts swirling in my head, This young girl is dead. Was this my doing? The pieces of flesh and body parts in the air as we fought… I remember them all… none of them… none of them deserved this. Is this their pain?
My head began to pulse more this time. I felt a sharper pain than what I had just felt a moment ago. Dropping the little girl's severed arm, I threw my hands to my head and let out a cry from my jagged mouth as I dropped to my knees and contorted my body. My blank, white eyes shuttering from the pain of every single person who had died from our fight. It was as if I had been given each and every one of their suffering. Roaring in agony as Syemore crept closer in the sky with that mysterious long sword he had pulled from the ethers.
"My, my… How the Keeper watches over me…" he said hoarsely as I still roared in agony. "He must want me to fulfill my duties here after all…" He observed the mysterious blade in his hand. "Looks like we both had awakenings just now, but it seems you cannot control yours… a pity, really. But in the end… we are all at the mercy of fate."
Then out of nowhere. A voice… a very familiar voice… Similar in tone to Asura, but very different. Someone who was very close to us both.
"I couldn't agree more…"
Startled, Syemore whipped his head in every direction, wondering who that had come from.
I could barely focus, but right in front of me, a male in a black cloak appeared. I couldn't see clearly who it was, but I recognized his voice even amidst my pain and suffering.
"That's a nice sword… I'll be taking that," he said.
Then, with one movement of his fingers, two golden pentagrams formed around the long sword Syemore held. With one snap of his fingers, the sword vanished completely, leaving only particles of gold light in its place. Syemore watched in shock as the long sword he had awakened with was taken within moments of him summoning it.
"No!" he yelped, "You will not take this away from me!" Syemore positioned his hands like he did before, combining his Light and Time magic, trying to re-summon the sword in a frantic manner… but nothing happened. It was futile.
"Yeah, no. You're never going to summon that sword again," he said tauntingly, "But I can…"
As the mysterious male waved his hand, a pentagram formed to the left of him. He reached his right hand into it and slowly began pulling out a certain long sword. Whipping it out of the pentagram and making a clanging noise that hummed as he finally pulled out the blade completely, revealing it.
"See," he said tauntingly as he wielded the long sword that once belonged to Syemore, "If the Keeper really was 'watching over you,' he wouldn't have sent me."
Eyes twitching and body shaking, Syemore finally realized who the male was. "You… You're him! You're S—"
SLASH!
With one quick motion, he cut Syemore clean in half. The strike from the long sword left Syemore unable to reform or mend his body back together. A special blade from space and time, forged by light… and then darkness. A power that wasn't magic. And it seemed this male knew that.
The male snickered as he said to me, "Ha! What a rare blade. I'm glad I came. Anyway, this is all I can do for you before they realize I'm gone. You can always trust your big bro to get you out of a tight spot, but the rest is up to you… Alright, little bro?"
The male in the black cloak touched the side of the long sword to my shoulder gently as he finished its full swing, making it all the way around to where I had been. I don't know what happened—or why it happened, but once it did, I came to my senses.
I inhaled deeply as if I hadn't got any air. Before I noticed, my consciousness was back. The black flame-like shadow aura I was emanating was still pouring out of me, but only from my neck down. From the neck up, I was back to normal.
I tried to find him—the one who helped me—but he was gone. As if he had never been there to begin with. The only proof that he was, was Syemore suspended before me in two halves.
He was unable to put himself back together, beginning to curse at me—falling deeper into insanity with each word he uttered; witnessing me stand back up to face him atop the building he had met me.
"This has gone on long enough, Syemore. It's time we ended this."
With my conscience back, I knew what I had to do. I had wings now, so I flew toward him, grabbing both his halves, first from his remaining long white hair on his head and one of his legs, bolting at sonic speeds upward and through the hole we fell from earlier. Pieces of debris and metal from him began to flutter off as we ascended farther out through the Celestial Dome high above the Kingdom.
When I flew past, in the blink of an eye, I noticed Belle still lying there, seemingly unconscious. She had bled out, but it seemed to have stopped. All I could hope for was that she was still alive.
I'll be with you soon… Princess…
Dashing past, the Kingdom yawned beneath us as I flew higher and ever higher into the clouds.
"You fool. Even if you kill me, Eclipse of Chronos is still in effect. Everyone down there will be frozen in time forever." Syemore tauntingly warned me as if I hadn't already dealt with that issue…
"You know… you're kind of an idiot, now that we finally get to have a decent chat."
Syemore held a confused look upon his face. Right then, the sound of small flames finally met his ears as we continued to fly upward. When he looked down to his right chest, the face of his father—the one who had cast the Forbidden Time magic upon the Valley, had been entirely incinerated with black flames.
I had touched it before grabbing Syemore, undoing Eclipse of Chronos affecting the Kingdom. It was a blessing and a curse that he didn't die when Belle had blasted him. For if she had, the Kingdom would be forever frozen in time. Had we known this prior, it would have been the first thing we would have done. Had I been sane when I had my awakening, that would have been my next move. I was only grateful that, along with the pain of all the people below, I had also remembered what had occurred while I was unaware in that state.
The citizens, mages, and everyone else back down there began moving from the last moment they remembered before being frozen in time, which had only been seconds before Syemore cast the spell. The Phantomdrakes that had once scourged, shattered and disintegrated one by one, having been dispelled by the blast Belle made onto Syemore, burning the left face on his chest.
"Seems the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree… I am a failure just like you, Father," he said under his breath.
I said nothing, letting him stew in his loss.
The flight was long, tedious, and refreshing all the while. When we stopped a great distance away from the Kingdom and the clouds above it, we were just outside the exosphere, where finally, I released both halves of Syemore there.
Barely with any breath, his skin forming frost and being swallowed by the stars, he uttered his last words the best he could. An intimidation of sorts, even in his severely weakened state, "This is not the end of your struggles… I am but one Maven Lord, and there are many who share my beliefs and live in the Olympus Kingdom. You have no idea of the beings that lurk even above us. You will face countless enemies much more powerful than I… they… yes, they will finish what I started… and your life will be nothing but suffering."
I simply smiled back to Syemore as I floated back down to our world, the opposite direction he was going, and said, "Let them come. I will dispose of them, just as I have you."
Syemore attempted a laugh but coughed instead, spouting nothing but his final etched-out words, "Hopeless… dog…"
I raised my hands in his direction, palms spread out, and eyes focused on him. From my palms, a black orb emitted, pulsing and condensing, continuously becoming bigger as more of the black aura emitting from me filled it. The black flames began to disappear, my dark wings, shrinking. All the power I had was now in this black orb, preparing to release all its raw and unknown power onto Syemore.
When I unleashed it, the black beam emitted was so powerful it wiped Syemore from the face of existence, wiping even the color of him into black and white—upward and outward into the scattered stars and darkness beyond.
FEEUUUUUUM!!!
As large as the beam was, it camouflaged with space due to its dark hue—unbeknownst to anyone, even if they just so happened to be watching, that it ever even happened. Unless of course, their senses were highly keen.
Regardless of the fact, I closed my eyes and began falling back down to our world.
And at this time, the winner atop the Valley Kingdom between the Blue Phoenix traitor, whom everyone trusted, and the Black Wolf framed by him, whom all the Valley had come to hate… was Greed, the Acting Captain of the Black Wolf Knights.
***
**Somewhere far away**
A man in a black kimono sat crisscrossed on the floor of a wooden porch outside an empty old-style house. His hair was long and black, tied up in a ponytail with a long strand of his bangs hanging over his face, the color white.
Smoking from a long pipe and blowing it out exaggeratedly, he said aloud to himself as he stared at the sky from a great distance.
Unseen to most people, he saw traces of black vapor in the sky, remnants of a black beam that emitted just barely out in space.
With his tired and raspy voice, he said with a faint smile, puffing out a plume of smoke, "Nice job… you damn brats."