"Now that we had stopped being passive, and had wholly become a thorn in their sites, the darkness changed tactics. Attacks began getting coordinated, and to them, the best thing to do at that moment was to get rid of the in-edible souls I guess."
Again, her heart sank as she remembered this specific part.
"Reports came up from each sector, entire colonies erased from the face on the Earth, all in one night. One after the other, the nations of different manifestations fell.
Electricity was too unreliable at this time, so every message arrived once it had been too late. The people had all chosen to learn powers that specialised in battle, so our utility structures were failing to keep up with the onset of this new era.
By the end of the week, only a few remained standing. Pandemonium rolled in on clean tyre tracks, and when it rained, it's trenches filled up with oily waters. From these pools seeping in blood, burst all forms of life. Monsters had been regulated, but from these desperate times, madness spread as an incurable plague.
Their numbers exploded at such an extraordinary pace that day became almost as horrible of a time as night. The monsters roamed the vast planes, becoming catalysts for more monsters. And these were no ordinary set of monsters, thousands upon thousands born with powers, spreading more chaos than Ouran alone could contain.
One thing that even came as a surprise was the fact that even though the darkness rejected manifested souls, treating them like junk, they became quite the menacing type of monsters. Whenever someone with a manifested soul became a monster, they became way more vicious.
Late, as I tend to learn about things, I came to learn that this was because madness found a manifested soul easier to take over. This explained why even the destroyers preferred humans, it had something to do with their souls.
Another thing I learned too late, was the fact that the monsters themselves had no preference, each other, humans, other manifestations, even attacking destroyers, even if most were hesitant to enter the darkness. This was no help in the rapidly escalating affair.
On the third week, myself, some Laurels and Ouran stood at the borders of what remained of the once thriving population of forest folk.
Alone in a large crater, marred with deep cracks, and pained over by ashes, knelt one figure.
Her hair was a pretty turquoise, but right now, it was as black as tar. Her skin as fair as the purest silk, but now, she really could be called Cinderella, her skin was charred so black. However, her yellow oak armour, remained as pristine as ever. She was so dark that one would think no-one was inside the armour.
Her body turned to ashes and blew in the wind. Now empty, the armour collapsed.
She was the only reason all of the forest folk alive were still alive. Alone, she fought the whole night, saving thousands of her kin. As we later learned, she was nothing special, just the only one of them who could move with the kind of clarity only spotted by the knights.
Elleria was something though. Not only had she defended them, but she also made sure that she died on her own terms. I still smile every time I hear someone mention the woods of Elleria.
The Earth couldn't take any more of this. It was covered in cracks seeping with magma from the core. These cracks were so big that the glow was visible from space.
Right next to me, watching Elleria's ashes blowing out of her armour, was Ouran. Just like the planet, he too could not take any more of this chaos. His era of power was the worst age humanity had ever seen. People had broken the unison that Eruil had worked for. Night had become even more pressing.
The day was not any much safer, covered in hordes of monsters. Not only could they multiply, but some were so dangerous that they began to cause others fall into a damning deep depression, festering a thick madness deep in themselves, clogging their veins with the venomous thoughts of how doomed everyone was.
The demons then surged in numbers, and when madness took them, they went on to take control of the monster armies, these were known as demon lord marches. When they appeared, entire continents would be wiped out, and at this moment, only four of the seven remained.
It was one problem after another for Ouran, he had even stopped asking to hold the sword. At this moment, he looked ahead and spoke to us.
"I can stop them!"
I looked at him with a strange feeling in me. I recognised it to be the same feeling I had before Eruil disappeared, the fact that I knew what they were going to do, and I couldn't stop them. Ginsi still tried to."
Ginsi spoke wistfully as she said, "It was the same feeling I also had last time. I told him: You don't have to tell me what you're going to do, I'll just watch it in your memories.
He looked back, staring at all of us, and said: "I'm sorry guys, I'm sorry I wasn't the one you were all waiting for, and for that, I'll be the best knight ever to walk this planet, I'm off."
And just like that, he jumped off the hills that had formed at the edges of the island sized crater, sliding down to its centre."
Lerva put her hand on Ginsi and continued the rest of the story.
"Ouran moved so fast, you would think he was teleporting like a Nared hunter. He reached the ash filled wooden armour at the centre of the crater instantly. All the forest folk had finally stopped shaking, at least those that had not been submerged by the darkness for too long.
They looked at the scene unfolding before them with awe and hope, pushing back some of the madness that had begun to infect them. Once at the centre, Ouran lowered himself, touching the wooden armour. Like a clear stream, the wood flowed, fluid and clear, covering him from head to toe, pushing off his steel armour. Even though made by the mountain folk, it could not keep up with him, he had to constantly get it replaced.
He stood up, hit by the light on horizon, and with a single step he disappeared. For a thousand years straight, Ouran hit every hotspot, saving as many as he could, keeping entire towns from vanishing.
Wherever he was spotted, no-one died, and people screamed his name. It was screamed whenever they needed help, and it became so synonymous with freedom, that when monsters heard his name, they hesitated.
On a planet ridden with holes, leaking lives from every pore, problems kept escalating every single year. More manifestations, more monsters, more powerful monsters, and more pressure from the darkness. And on a planet as small as the Earth, only mere inches away from crumbling into space debris, only one man held all of it together, Ouran.
In the future his actions went on to inspire the first response protocol of the knights to every area. If darkness was sighted, it came to pass that an immediate summons of the knights would be made, and only they would handle it. All authority on the matter would be transferred to them on sight, and no-one opposed.
I also made sure to make it clear that the knights bowed to no-one, and no royals would ever dare dream of it, excluding the cloud folk of course. Even as they were besieged, they refused any help, and I couldn't complain since none of them turned into a monster.
The pressure on Ouran decreased because the destroyers stopped attacking the other manifestations as much, no, that's not it. It's more like they had stopped singling them out, their purge had stopped. Either they had a falling out, or the fact that manifestations bred monsters that delayed their march made them reconsider their plans. This alone convinced me; their leader was a genius far beyond my capabilities to match.
The pressure decreased but Ouran could barely feel the change. He kept at it, never even stopping for a moment, and for the first time in a thousand years, the fighting finally caught up to him.
He had not noticed but all of the darkness around him had slowly merged to form a circle, a cage so big he could not see it until it was too late. Over a couple of years, the darkness formed a dome around him, familiar with his speed they closed in slowly. They kept him distracted using a pool of darkness in the centre terrorising multiple small towns.
One night he realised he was covered on all sides, and even if he ran, he could no outrun them, so he stood his last ground for the last time.
We don't know how he died, but it was so bad, Ginsi felt the memories in her belonged to no-one? It was the strangest thing, it was as though he hadn't existed, but the fact that Ginsi had such clear memories of someone who did not exist made us assum him to be real.
Even as I am now, I'm still not sure if Ouran was real or not. His existence had been unwound completely. The only things that told us that that specific someone used to exist, was Ginsi's memory archives and the fact that the existence of the legendary hero Ouran of power never vanished from the minds of people everywhere.
His name and title had been engraved into them, even if they could not remember a single thing about him. I guess that was because the persona of the second legendary hero was so detached from Ouran that when he seized to exist, it remained. Like a thumbnail of a deleted person.
To be honest, when telling stories about Ouran I always feels like I'm retelling the story of an imaginary person I created and used to trick the populus into thinking that not all hope was lost. Almost as if I couldn't handle Eruil's death and all the pressure of being in charge of the planet. It wasn't impossible with how many lives of various people I had stored in my mind.
Imaginary? Even with glimpses of his memories shared to me by Ginsi, I'm still sure he wasn't real. He may not have been real, but as far as I was concerned, for Earths sake, Ouran, really did keep his promise, he was the greatest knight it had ever seen. The greatest knight to ever walk on the surface of this planet, just as he said he would be.
In his vacancy, the world fell into an eon of more suffering, almost reverting back to our old ancient passive ways.
The Order of Knights was barely holding on trying to keep the earth from crumbling. Strange considering than a single imaginary person was able to do all of this alone for a thousand years.
Millions of years passed, and I woke up one morning, looking out into the remains of this apocalyptic world. I realised that on that morning, if a few more million years were to pass, it would have been four million years since you saved me. So, I crawled into a corner, telling myself:
"No, I can't, I really can't. You're not coming back, and I can't keep going, what even is the point?"
I didn't move an inch for months. These guys *she pointed to the Laurels as they waved their hands at the Knight* forced me to get out tell the people what I had just said, tell them that mother was done. Then and only then would everything be over. I stood there, about to address the remaining populus. I couldn't say a single word to them.
Part of me was afraid that even more monsters would immerge if I did that, but another part was afraid I was going to quit right before you came back, and imagining your disappointment would have crushed me. I know that your fragmented soul told me that you expected nothing from me, but I just couldn't let go of the feeling that the real you did.
So, I pushed and kept going despite all the rubble surrounding me.
I didn't want to be treated like some princess or queen, but the knights insisted that if I died, no-one would be left to carry the torch that the knights used to take every step when submerged in dark places, even if they could not see it's light, knowing that it existed, made them feel better.
Because of this, I had an escort of promising knights. Young but each determined and had fought their fair share of battles against the darkness, having saved so many lives that the list could not be catalogued even by books. I was adamant that this was a waste, but I had learned long ago not to argue with hard heads with an unshakable resolve.
As I sat on a chair, drinking a beverage that had been prepared for me to keep me going longer, engineered by the researchers on my request, one of the knights broke rank and file and came towards me. I didn't even look back; I couldn't be bothered.
"Ma'am, mother ma'am, please, cheer up. One day I'll be so powerful that it will be the destroyers who will quake at my feet. Give me some time, I'll be the third legendary hero soon enough."
I jerked my head so fast, I almost spilled my drink. He walked back to the line, going back as though he hadn't said something so outrageous it was basically illegal. I looked at the knight for a long time. The others didn't laugh, only smacking his helmet.
From the look in their eyes, each of them had the exact thought as him, that one day, not so far, they would clear this planet of all its problem. All of them as certain as Ouran, not even blinking as I starred at them.
"Well, you better!"
In unison, they all screamed back, making the academy walls shake.
"Yes Ma'am‼!""