--Mark's pov--

Our horses were galloping through the dungeon, Alua and Ron weren't hiding their presence anymore, so the monsters didn't try to approach us.

We were surrounded by soldiers and our guardians in formation, protecting us along the road and escorting our prisoners. Those soldiers were adventurers that worked for the guild, so basically for Hoss, as soon as Ron sent the rescue signal with his magic, they hurried to us bringing our horses and a map, and now we were running as fast as we could towards Shoxon's town.

We all stayed silent, in part to concentrate on riding, in part because of the cumbersome presence of the corpse behind us, on the horse of one of the soldiers.

I tried not to think about it, but the oppressing feeling of powerlessness I was feeling didn't allow me to keep it out of my mind.

I couldn't help but think of how much I failed during the last fight. I couldn't save Jane, and when David went berserk on the enemy hero, and almost killed Erian, I didn't stop him. At that moment he felt unstoppable, like he was a calamity instead of a human being, at that moment I felt just like I felt back in middle school, and, just like back then, I did nothing.

After that period, I always helped people whenever I could, and continued to do so in this world too. I felt good when I accomplished these deeds, and with time it made me forget about that period, but now those memories were haunting me again.

I always believed that good intentions could solve everything and that it was because the world and the people were good; but just like back then, now I was starting to doubt it, now I felt like there was something wrong with the world.........like it has gone mad.

I wanted to fight back those thoughts, but right now I felt completely powerless, I felt like I hadn't the energy to do anything anymore.

I also wanted to talk to David, to tell him I wouldn't let anyone die anymore, and that he wouldn't need to be so terrifyingly fierce ever again, but I hadn't the strength to.

Right now I just wanted to run away and hide somewhere, away from Hoss, Zaven, and any conflict.

After many hours we finally reached the exit and the guild clerks rushed to us and brought us to one of the rooms used for private talks, to let us rest away from prying eyes.

No one uttered a word. After a while, the guild master and Alua came and told us that we would be staying in the guild for the night since it was the most guarded place in the town and it was Hoss' property. They would let the second floor all for us for the night and limit the flux of adventurers to the ones returning from the dungeon, not letting anyone else in.

They showed us our rooms and then they brought us to the now-empty tavern, where adventurers usually hang out while looking for party members and brought us something to eat.

They brought us soup and we all forced ourselves to eat. The one that seemed affected the least was Oliver, he still had a shaken expression, but he seemed able to eat normally.

Lae also seemed to be faring relatively fine, she was eating slowly but her expression didn't seem sad, it was more like she was engrossed in her thoughts.

I, David, and Erian were the ones that looked the worse, no, actually, David didn't seem shaken at all by looking at his expression, but from how slowly he was eating and how lost his eyes seemed I could tell he wasn't in his right mind at all.

After we finished eating, the silence became difficult to bear, my thoughts were swirling in my mind without a pause and I couldn't bear to keep them inside anymore, I didn't care if Alua heard me.

“What if we escape?”

No one replied, David, started looking down. I continued to talk.

“What if we abandon everything and flee to a place where we can live in peace? We could build our own village and live however we please. Maybe people would start coming and we might end up funding a kingdom.”

Everyone continued to stay in silence. David and Erian were both staring at the void while smiling, I guess they were dreaming about it too.

“Isn't it possible? We are heroes, we can do it. Hey David, what do you think?”

He looked at me, then opened his mouth; he was about to say something, but in the end, he just closed it again and said nothing.

“If we stay here we'll have to participate in a war, even if just for show. I don't know if I'm strong enough to protect you all, and I don't want to kill people, like this it might end just like it did with Jane. Isn't fleeing the right thing to do?”

No one said anything for a few seconds, then Oliver broke the silence.

“Look, Mark, I know you blame yourself for not saving her, but there are times where you just can't stop things from happening. This was one of those times, and it will happen again, you can't blame yourself every time. We couldn't stop her from dying, it was just meant to be.

And escaping is just an unrealistic dream, dream how much you want, but there's no way we can do it, and even if we could, why would we do that? Here we are protected, if we were to escape we would have to fight anyway, be it bandits or monsters, but without Hoss' support.

I know you're shaken right now, but you have to face reality and realize we are powerless in front of fate, we can just brace ourselves and resist as much as we can.”

Oliver's words struck me, negatively, now I felt even more powerless. I wondered if after all, being able to protect those I love was only a pipe-dream. Maybe I wasn't the protagonist after all.

I suddenly felt a powerful and fierce force awaken beside me.

I looked at David and saw a deep red aura surrounding him, it was the colour of the demonic attribute, his body was brimming with demonic ki and mana.

--David's pov--

I thought that hurting that kid would have helped me, and it did, but it still wasn't enough. Now I felt like I partly restored the balance of the world, but I still wasn't satisfied. I was still feeling powerless and I wanted to keep fighting, to keep smashing my enemies to the ground until I demonstrated I wasn't powerless, but I had to restrain myself.

But when Oliver made his speech, something snapped, it was not like I wanted to beat him, but I wanted to beat down something or someone.

Of course, I wasn't going to attack randomly one of my teammates, I still had control over myself, but my spiritual body went out of control.

I suddenly felt my ki and mana starting swirling inside my body, begging me to unleash them.

I read it was something that could happen with the holy and demonic attributes, but I didn't think it would ever happen to me to lose control over it.

It was called Overflow, it happened when one lost control of his emotions, the harmony with the attribute would reach its peak, making you very strong, but the ki and mana would start circulating on their own without control, hurting the wielder. It could be cured either by regaining control of the emotions, using enough healing magic to heal the damage until the energies were exhausted, or injecting a great quantity of the opposite divine attribute, in my case holy; in the worst cases, it could lead to death.

I didn't want the others to see me not in control of myself, so I decided to go to my room and resolve the matter by myself, in the worst-case scenario I would use one of the superior healing potions I had.

“This is to show you I can use the demonic attribute, if you did not notice earlier, now I will go take a rest.”

I walked slowly and with a confident attitude until I was out of the room, then I hurried to my room while staggering.

The door didn't have a lock but I doubted anyone would come to disturb me, I cast a silence spell to avoid any noise to get out and then walked to the opposite wall.

I could feel magic flow through this wall, it was reinforced with magic runes and was probably using mana crystals or mana-eating lanterns to furnish the energy, just like Hoss' walls.

I started throwing punches at it, hoping it would help me blow off some stress, but it didn't help.

I looked at the window, the moonlight was entering from it, I got near to it, and then I looked at the moon.

I stared at the moon, trying to calm down, I started breathing rhythmically, I tried to empty my mind from all the violent thoughts, but I couldn't.

My mind started racing, even more, my energy started swirling even more violently, my breath became haphazard and my vision blurred.

After a little my vision started to distort, the moon's colour seemed red now, now the whole room seemed bathed in an eery red light, and in front of me, I could now see a figure.

I just called Kaguya, I didn't know why I was representing her like this, but I felt compelled to do it this way.

I started commanding her.

She came to me and started petting my hair.

“Everything you did was fine, you didn't get anything wrong, David, you don't have to worry about it.”

The image of Jane's corpse flashed in my mind.

“everything is going to be all right.”

I recalled Mark's dejected face.

“You are the strongest, you can do anything.”

It sounded like a lie.

An idea came to me, maybe Oliver didn't get it completely wrong when he said we shouldn't flee.

I recalled what Jane told me: I was pitiful.

Maybe I was still as weak as back then.

Now I knew what I wanted to punch.

I commanded Kaguya to tell me the truth.

Her face distorted, she started to wear a mocking smile and began to talk.

“You are weak, so weak you couldn't even protect Jane from a kid weaker than you.”

I punched the wall with all my strength, my hand hurt like hell.

Kaguya's face distorted again, now it resembled the face of one of the bullies from my past.

“You became a worse monster than us, but you are still weak, you will always be.”

I started punching the wall repeatedly, the one I was punching wasn't the wall though, it was myself.

“And differently from us, you are alone, you are too scared of others and so you keep them away with the excuse of not needing them even though you actually want friends, so pathetic.”

I continued punching the wall, I think I felt something in my hand breaking.

“You can't flee, you can't flee from me, I will always be with you until you die.”

Red Kaguya started to laugh mockingly and I continued to punch the wall, I felt my bones breaking, one after the other, but I didn't care, I just wanted to continue to punch, until I stopped suffering.

Now my bones were completely broken, I was flapping my arms more than punching, I suddenly felt my power going out.

I exhausted all my energy. I looked at the potions that were in my pouch, they rolled on the ground while I was raging.

I tried to move my arm to take it, but I couldn't control my arms anymore, I walked towards it, but my legs failed me.

The demonic energy wounded all my body and I had neither magic nor physical energies to force it to move.

I was on the ground, I wondered if it was going to end like that.

Everything could end, I would escape from everything that haunted me, from my weakness, from my pitifulness, from my fear, from Kaguya.

Escaping.

I felt rage, I didn't want to escape, I wanted to face my problems and crush them, why did I spend all this time fleeing?

I wanted to live, I wanted to fight, I wanted to fight any enemy that tried to stop me and destroy them, I didn't want to destroy myself like this.

I wanted to defeat Alua, Ron, Hoss, the Esha empire, Horus, Esha, and Kaguya.

I wanted to go out to drink with Mark, to make Oliver my subordinate, to kiss Erian, to have sex with her, and protect her from whatever was threatening her.

I gritted my teeth and tried to crawl to the potions, I moved one leg, then another, I got closer to the potion, but not close enough.

I felt my vision becoming black, strength left my legs, I did the damage, but it seems I couldn't solve it by myself.

Everything became black, I heard a sound before it happened though, like a door opening.