As soon as I left the north gate I ran. I felt a familiar feeling surging up from inside me. It was the same as when my sister was taken from me. The same as when Kate was taken from me. I cannot lose again.

Lose?

Who am I fighting with again?

Myself?

The world?

Fate?

I ran.

I thought about Brul. He was a nice guy. Treated me to some beer. Told me a bunch of stuff and didn’t ask much back. Even offered his help to me since I seemed like I needed it. Why him? Why does he have to suffer? Why can’t the ones that try to make him suffer, suffer instead?

I will not allow him to suffer because of them. I will make them suffer instead!

Justice?

What the fuck is justice? I’m not doing this for JUSTICE! WHO CARES ABOUT JUSTICE? I DO NOT LIKE HIM SUFFERING THEREFORE I WILL KILL ALL THAT CAUSES IT TO HIM! I WILL DESTROY IT!

Heh...Haha…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

As I was having my enjoyable laugh I witnessed a wagon in the distance. It looked like something a merchant would carry goods in but it also seemed quite big.

As I got closer I felt something wrong. There weren’t any goods inside the wagon. There were only people. Why were there so many people in the wagon? Was it some kind of transportation service? Maybe it’s a new trend for transportation services to keep their clients in cages? Haha…

As I got close three void blades come out of my shadow instantly beheading eleven people in no more than a second including the driver and the fat rich-looking pig besides him. But I am still running. As I pass by the wagon I stick my void blades inside and slice off the bars of the cages. Before I fully leave the wagon behind I throw my pouch of money in the wagon as well.

Hiding my magic? What is the point of power if I can’t use it? I had completely forgotten. Why had I forgotten something so simple? Why did I intend to take it slow in this world? Why did I imagine that having a peaceful quiet life would be allowed to me?

No… no it wouldn’t. Because no matter what I do I always lose. Until I have nothing left. Until it is all gone. Everything. EVERYTHING!

Friends! Family! Loved ones! NONE ARE SAFE AS LONG AS THEY INVOLVE THEMSELVES WITH ME! I WILL CHANGE THAT! I WILL MAKE THIS WORLD A PLACE WHERE NONE OF THEM CAN DIE!

A safe place. A place where I would live silently in peace. As I was running I looked ahead and saw a blockade of some sort. They didn’t look like bandits. How much time had I been running for anyway? As I got close… as I saw what they were circled around… I stopped.

There was a single man there. A single receptionist. A single adventurer… A single corpse.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

…

Seven void spears rose and rotated around me before each pointing at one of the soldiers as if taking aim. They noticed and took a stance seemingly ready to dodge but my spears just flew towards them at a speed they could not dodge.

I ran over to where Brul’s corpse was. He had a major artery in his left arm severed and was seemingly left to bleed out. His corpse was still slightly warm but I could tell that the heat was already leaving it and there would soon be none left.

Again… Again… Again… Again… I did it again… I failed again… I closed Brul’s eyes with my hand and then closed my own for a quick farewell. I burned his corpse and then buried the ashes by the road with void earth magic. I don’t really know what this world does with its corpses so I just did something… anything… It took me only two minutes to do everything. I had no time to waste.

I started running again. Further down the road. I decided to continue where my thoughts left off… what was I thinking about again? I don’t remember… family? Friends? Loved ones? Did I have any of those again? I did right?... Right?

I remembered the face of my sister. She was bright and friendly. Loved by most people. I actually had to beat down a few guys who were a bit too persistent in their approach towards her. Though I usually tried to give them a chance. I loved her but I wasn’t the kind of brother to involve myself in her love life too much. After all she’d probably feel annoyed at that if not slightly creeped out.

Why did I lose her? I know it was a company that wanted me to join up had hired some people to kidnap her but the assholes ran off with half the money they had received upfront and never came back. But that’s not the point. What could I have done to change it? If I made up my mind and joined a company? I doubt that it would matter. In fact people would probably be even more inclined to do something akin to what happened.

Maybe if I made my own? Again no. Then rather than joining someone they would be threatening me to close down my company and possibly for my life. No matter what I think of There was nothing. Maybe if I hid my talent… but it would be discovered sooner or later. First of all though I was intelligent as a child I was still relatively naïve and I was also quite a show off so I doubt I could have hid it.

Always… no matter how many scenarios or simulations I run in my head it always ends up with her dead. Lying somewhere on the hard floor without me even being near and drowning in her own blood. Sometimes even used as a toy to satisfy the desires of those that took her from me… sometimes left as a gruesome symbol of gore for me to fear.

Why? Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why?

I remember Kate. We talked little. We knew each other for only a day. But she was a sweet girl. Highly distressed over the fact that the villagers she knew and loved sacrificed themselves to protect her she felt a duty to not let their lives be in vain.

No matter what I can’t imagine her deserving to be hunted by half the military of a country. Again I tried to remember what I did and try to think what I could have done differently. But there were too many unknown factors. When I fought though I killed a few hundred soldiers since the terrain and position did not allow me to fight too many at the same time and I didn’t know how strong the mages were.

I thought. Maybe if I had done this differently. But in the end I didn’t know what would happen since I lacked too much information in this world. If I had escaped in a different direction? I don’t know how they found me. It might’ve been useless anyway. If I had noticed the enemy sooner? Maybe? That could have helped but again I have no idea how they located us so it might be useless.

In the end I still couldn’t save her either no matter how hard I thought… Not this time… NEVER AGAIN!

I WILL PROTECT!

As I ran I saw a carriage at the front surrounded by soldiers wearing the same uniform as the ones who killed Brul. Behind it a wagon similar to the one I encountered on my way here.

It’s time.

I emptied my thoughts.

It’s time.

I erased my emotions.

It’s time.

The only thing left inside me. Nothing.

I abandoned my human form. There is no longer any need for me to take my pitiful mortal guise. I was now no more than a shadow. A void. Why could I exist in the light? Because I am not darkness. I am emptiness. I am nothingness. I am the void. I am the abyss.

The soldiers seemed to have felt something. It wasn’t logical but they felt something so they turned around. All of them. And as they saw me they looked terrified. There I was. Standing tall in a humanoid shape. I had no features. No face. No eyes. No ears. I was just an abyss with a humanoid shape.

And when you look into the abyss…

Sometimes….

The abyss looks back…

I looked at them and smiled. I don’t know how they knew. My form did not have a mouth but they felt it as they seemed even more terrified than before. All the shadows around seemed to be stretching towards me. The shadows were no longer afraid of the light and were no longer hiding behind something so that the light does not reach them. They just desperately reached out for their lord. Nobody noticed though. They were too busy looking at me.

“A- An elemental of darkness!” (Soldier #1)

“Wh- Why is it standing in the middle of the light as if it’s not affecting it?” (Soldier #2)

I could hear a number of remarks among the soldiers. Some were cursing. Others made questions nobody around them could answer. Among the voices there was a single who stood out by not being afraid. But that fearlessness was no bravery… it was mere arrogance.

“What are you waiting for? What do you think my father pays you for? Hurry and kill this elemental or whatever and let’s move on!” (Brat)

The voice was that of a boy not yet reached adulthood. Yet it was so fearless. So arrogant. So FOOLISH! I walked towards them and some of the braver or more foolish of the soldiers came running at me after hesitating some more.

“Foolish idiots.” (Kenos)

I no longer had a shadow. I did not need one for I was my shadow all along. From my back sprouted the familiar blades. Looking like giant scythes made of the void itself they reaped the life of each and every pitiful being who dared to come towards me. By the time I was done some of the soldiers were fleeing while others were barely keeping themselves from doing so.

I could not allow them to leave though. I would not allow information of what has occurred here today spread.

“I” spread “myself” across the ground and connected “myself” to their shadows. As “I” their shadows were now a part of “me”. Spikes of void as thick as an arm came out of “me”… no they were also “me”. Some pierced the hearth. Others the head. Some someplace else entirely. The point was every single soldier was now dead or dying. And there would soon be forty corpses lying in the middle of the road.

I first went past the wagon from which I heard sobbing and headed towards the carriage. The little lord who looked fifteen was cowering on the floor after hearing the screams his soldiers made from outside followed by the serene silence of death.

He looked at me and soiled himself.

Pitiful

“Pitiul.” (Kenos)

He seemed to be about to say something but I didn’t feel like listening so I stabbed him in the throat with my “arm” which was now transformed into a blade.

Exiting the carriage I went back to the wagon from where I could still hear the soft sobbing and entered the back. Inside was a single girl. In a cage. The girl looked to be around seven or eighteen with chestnut brown hair. Her face though not as beautiful as either of the goddesses I’d met previously she was definitely beautiful. Her face had soft but not by any means childish features and her bust wasn’t lacking either. Though neither was it very big.

The girl was crying until she saw me coming in to which she only backed off from me as far as her cage allowed before being stopped by the bars. I got closer which seemed to terrify her even more but I cared not. She would soon be safe. There would be no need for fear. As I stepped in front of her cage tears were streaming down her face and as two void blades came out of my back she seemed to cover her face with the palm of her hands waiting for her end. The end which would never come.

I slashed at the top and bottom of the bars on the side of which I was standing and they fell on the ground. I also got rid of the top of the cage which I slashed off before grabbing and throwing it out of the wagon. The girl was still scared so I waited a few seconds for her to calm down. And while she was doing that I turned back in human form. Clothes on of course.

When the girl uncovered her eyes and looked at me she made a bewildered expression. I only smiled at her and extended my hand which she flinched at a bit. Waiting a few seconds she also extended my hand and grabbed mine after which she simply… cried.