Dark storm clouds churned across the once clear skies, pouring their rain onto the land below and sending bright flashes of lightning as they collided with one another.
The loud patter of raindrops striking the ground filled the air, the water drumming heavily against the city, now hardened to stone.
The people had erged that morning with smiles on their faces, the streets lined with colourful tents and banners fluttering in the wind, the scent of spiced foods drifting from open stalls as their owners arranged under the morning sun, musicians setting up their instrunts on small wooden platforms, and artisans carefully displaying trinkets and vibrant fabrics on tables.
They had plans to achieve on this fateful day, and quotas to et, but everything was turned upside down within minutes.
People ran for their lives, screams echoing from nearly every corner. So Knights tried to evacuate civilians while others abandoned those they had sworn to protect and fled in fear.
The city they had all called ho was now encased in layers of stone, everything from buildings to trees to the ground they grew from, the scattered belongings in the streets and alleys to blades of grass in the fields and the fountains in the central square, frozen in stone mid-splash, and even the market stalls, their wares solidified in place.
Lightning flashed across the skies, the bright light revealing the imnse body of the existence silently standing in the middle of the stone city.
Its body stretched over 300 tres from head to tail, each breath they heaved adding new layers of stone to the surroundings, and along its several hundred-tre-long body, scaled armour patterned with geotric symbols radiated strong magical power.
Rows of jagged spines ran from the space between its blood-tear-stained, horizontal slit-pupiled eyes down its back to the tip of its long, whip-like tail, which made up a third of its overall length and flattened everything in its path when it waved around.
Rain seeped through the gaps between its brown scales, trickling down to the ground and pooling in the grooves torn into the earth where its taloned claws had dragged across the stone floor.
Standing about a dozen tres from the massive creature was a teenager, his black hair completely soaked and plastered to his face, his clothes drenched and sticking haphazardly to his body, his fists clenched so tightly that his nails cut into his palms and drew blood.
This wasn't how things were supposed to unfold.
Everything had seed to be going according to plan.
He was certain he could prevent this scene from happening.
There were to be no sacrifices this ti.
Surely, only a flawless victory awaited him.
But despite all he had done, and despite the great power he had gained, he still lost.
He couldn't predict the true lengths they would go to eliminate him.
He couldn't stop this disaster from occurring.
The devastation he had tried to prevent still ca to pass.
What's more, he hadn't even been able to catch the culprits responsible.
Not a single one of them.
It was a complete and utter defeat for him.
[…Ev…an…]
The teenager heard his na, but he didn't look up.
He didn't want to, but the voice called again, this ti clearer than before.
[…Evan…]
Biting his lips, Evan slowly lifted his gaze, eting the eyes of the existence before him, one glowing completely red without any light of reason, the other still showing a bright yellow sclera and black pupil, though the edges of its sclera were gradually turning red.
[There's…not much ti.]
Evan didn't like what he was hearing, and he hated what ca next even more.
[There's…only…one option…left.]
The ground beneath Evan cracked from the burst of magical power erupting from his body in rage, the heat radiating off him beginning to boil the rainwater and producing a steam cloud that soon enveloped the area.
[I can feel…so sort of invasive…power affecting my soul. I can barely resist it… and it won't be long before it succeeds and…turns my body into a mindless husk…]
A crackling sound reached Evan's ears as another wave of magical energy exploded from the existence before him, sweeping across the land and adding another layer of stone to the petrified city.
[It's already too late for … That thing, it's soul-corroding…]
The last two words made Evan grit his teeth, as he knew the source of that effect and also knew that it had no cure.
At least, not within reach.
Neither of those that Evan had hoped could help him was anywhere near. All of them were completely out of the range he could reach.
By the ti Evan could contact or even try to find soone with the power to possibly cure it, it would already be too late.
The target soul would already be completely corroded, with no chance to reincarnate, leaving only a husk of a body going on a maddened rampage.
"…that demon… McEnda IV's servant…"
Evan quickly connected the dots, realising how the power of corrosive darkness had co to be used here on this day.
No, not just on this day.
It had been used long before this day.
Before the first action he had taken as a 'Hero' of Aidos.
The sche had already been set in motion long before 'Evan Eris' was even born.
[Evan…there's only one way to end this…while leaving at least…a chance…to see another life…]
"No. There has to be…!"
Evan couldn't even finish the sentence, knowing deep down there was no way.
Any solution he could think of at this point would co with imnse damage and sacrifices, the sa sacrifices he had been trying to prevent.
[You know… we sparred a lot… but we never decided a clear winner… did we…?]
At the question, Evan's expression contorted, not because of the words, but because he saw the yellow light of reason in their eye slowly being overtaken by the crimson cloud of madness.
[Mind fulfilling… that wish of mine…? I… always wanted to know… which one of us was stronger…]
Hearing this, Evan lowered his head, took a deep breath to control his emotions, and then looked up at them with a wry smile on his face.
"What the heck, bro? I was always holding back on you."
Even though his heart wasn't smiling, he forced the expression onto his face, keeping it there even as bright prismatic flas coursed down his right arm and as the ambient law energy gathered to conjure a giant sword of indigo fire above the clouds.
He fully unleashed his magic power, concealing not a single bit, the pressure of the imnse energy radiating from him distorting the surrounding air, its heat boiling the raindrops before they even touched the ground.
Witnessing the power that warped the air and altered the weather with its re release, the eye of the one before him widened, and from their lips ca a dry laugh.
[Hah…]
The speed with which the crimson light overtook the yellow in their eyes accelerated as they spoke.
[I never had a chance… to win… in the first place, did I?]
Evan slowly raised his sword, the bright light of the giant blade descending from the sky piercing through the dark storm clouds that blanketed the land, its imnse power felt by every living thing across the hemisphere.
Maintaining his smile as he watched the last trace of yellow vanish beneath the crimson light, he replied.
"Of course you didn't. I was always the stronger one."
For a mont, the one he addressed seed to smile, but their eye was entirely consud by the light of madness imdiately afterwards, and whatever they had wanted to say was lost forever, for the sound that left their lips was nothing but a maddened roar.
A terrifying aura erupted from their body alongside the thunderous roar, the magic sigils etched across their back glowing and activating, forming several giant concentric rings of grey energy around them that rapidly expanded.
A boundary line expanded with the rings, creating a domain that overwrote the world within it in stone, and as the giant existence lunged at him, Evan brought down his hand and muttered.
"sarthim: Green: rciful Reaping…"
A streak of green fire ran along the side of the indigo blade halfway through its descent, and before the sound of his words could fade, the blade completed its fall in a single blinding instant, appearing as nothing more than a flash to distant onlookers before it had already pierced through scaled armour and dense flesh alike, embedding itself deep into the stone below as the ground split under the force of its descent.
For a mont, there was silence, and then the loud sound of a giant body collapsing to the floor echoed, sending a small shockwave brushing past Evan's immobile body.
Evan slowly clenched his fist, unable to maintain his smile any longer, as for the first ti in this life, he was forced to kill soone he called 'friend'.
.
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Reincarnated Hero System Volu 5: Sea Chronicles and Stone Festivals
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