?No...
That was the only thing that crossed my mind. I couldn't do anything else as an intense silence descended upon us, as the huge ball of fla that I had literally spent everything to strengthen was swallowed up by the darkness in re seconds.
"What are you waiting for...? Attack ."
The masked man paused for a mont. He looked at my frozen expression, at the blood still oozing from between my lips. He glanced briefly at Sue and Lucia, who were standing behind , not unlike . Finally... all he did was sigh deeply.
"Are you broken already? No way... I thought we were going to have a fun fight. I thought you'd be able to push since you're so visible on the news... But you're just too scared to move."
He shook his head from side to side, his disappointnt evident with each word that left his lips. But soon, his tone changed again.
"Ah, I found it... If we can't fight, why don't I just... break you even more?"
His whole body went dark for a mont. Even the ordinary white mask on his face disappeared. It lted away as if it had turned back into a liquid, literally disappearing into the atmosphere.
A few seconds later... there was another scream from the crowd. And then another... and another.
'It's because of you.'
I heard a voice in my mind, a whispered voice, like my own. It seed to... ripple with the darkness around .
'You're weak again, Adrian Caleo.'
I felt the darkness around ripple again, the voices faded, everything slowly faded into darkness. But... the people screaming and dying rcilessly remained.
N- no... I'm not...
'Didn't you decide to help people? Why don't you do anything but sit where you are?'
It's not that I don't, I can't...
What can I... What can I do in the face of such a... thing?
'Excuses, excuses...'
One by one, I listened to the agonized screams of the people I could do nothing to help. I watched as they cried, as they were swallowed by the darkness or torn to pieces.
My body trembled, more violently than ever before.
'Since when did you stop trying just because you can't? Pity, pity...'
No, shut up... shut up...
Just fucking shut up!
I...
'You, what?'
I...
I paused for a mont. As my eyes widened, I realized sothing in this dark, death-filled street.
There was no more screaming.
I tried to focus my blurred eyes for a mont, looked in front of , and what I saw was... nothing.
There were dozens of bodies on the ground. So had died so brutally that they were unrecognizable, others had been killed so cleanly that they reflected more than ever the fear they had felt seconds before they died.
The important thing was... they were all dead.
There was not a single person left alive.
'Hahahah... freeze with fear, go on, just like you always do!'
My eyes widened as the voice seed to disappear, never to return. In deep fear, I slowly looked behind , but... what I feared hadn't happened.
Lucia and Sue were not dead. Behind , they seed to be bound again by ropes of darkness. Their mouths were closed, and even if they tried to struggle, they were unable to do so. That's why they hadn't been able to make a sound or move for minutes.
But... the fact that they were alive didn't give any peace of mind. Because I saw soone behind them, soone with his hands behind his back, a white mask on his face, just standing there looking at .
"These were your friends, weren't they? I saved them for last on purpose. I really want to see the collapse of soone famous, like you... So don't disappoint ... okay?"
He took a step, just one short step. But the mont he did so, he paused.
"Oh, how rude of ... one wants to know the other person, right? Even if you're going to die, at least I can do you this favor."
His hands went to his mask, he simply took it off and showed his face directly. He didn't even hesitate.
He had really black eyes. They were as black as Alice's eyes, even darker, although I don't know how it was possible. They were also... empty and infinite. Just as when I looked into Alice's eyes I thought of midnight, when I looked into these eyes... the only thing that ca to my mind was... infinity.
His hair was as black as his eyes. They were like the pitch blackness that surrounded us, like the darkness itself.
He could have been a few years older than at most. His facial features showed that he was still quite young. All that aside, he was smiling. He had the most sincere, amused smile I have ever seen on a human being.
"My na is Revon. And my last na is Scelas."
He opened his mouth again as if to continue, but then paused for so reason. His smile faded as his eyes shifted slightly upward.
"Hmm... I thought it would be more fun. It's nothing like I imagined. It's weird."
But then, as if rembering my presence, his eyes quickly turned back to . That strange, seemingly sincere but impossible smile reappeared on his face.
"Anyway. Let's continue... shall we?"
He raised his hand in the air. A dark substance slowly appeared out of nowhere between his fingers, taking the shape of a long kitchen knife. This... demon... who introduced himself as Revon Scelas... started twirling the kitchen knife in his hand, while his eyes moved behind Lucia, whose eyes were constantly on .
Lucia kept looking at . Not moving a muscle... but strangely calm.
Revon, or the devil incarnate, swung the kitchen knife at Lucia. It was in that second that I truly realized what was happening, the fact that one of my friends was dying in front of my eyes, because of my powerlessness, hit like a slap in the face, harder than ever.
My lips opened, I wanted to scream, but... I just froze and my eyes widened again the next second.
Just as the kitchen knife of darkness was about to touch Lucia's neck, sothing strange happened.
There was a ripple in the darkness, or rather in the mana itself. Revon's eyebrows rose slightly and a tiny burst of light appeared in front of my eyes. Still, I didn't close my eyes, I watched everything as it happened.
The mana around Lucia seed to calm down as if it was suddenly completely under her control. Then... it was drawn into her body. Even the dark ropes that surrounded her, which prevented her from moving and speaking, were drained and the mana entered her body.
I had no idea how she did it. But... she had managed to take action against soone for whom it felt impossible to move, let alone win.
Lucia jumped to her feet. The knife in Revon's hand plunged into her ponytail of hair and sliced away a piece of it. But it could go no deeper. Instead, Lucia spun around quickly, away from the knife, and, maintaining her montum, delivered a solid kick to the stomach of Revon, who was right behind her.
Revon was thrown back, but Lucia didn't even look at him. Instead, she just got down on her knees, put her hands on my cheeks, and looked into my eyes.
"Get a hold of yourself, Adrian. This... this is not you. I know the darkness around us is playing with your emotions, I know you're scared, but you have to co to your senses. Every second counts if we want to get out of here alive. Please."
Instead of finishing her words, she quickly removed her hands from my face, turned around, and ford a ball of fla in each palm. She quickly threw them behind her. But two dark hands instantly caught the flas and swallowed them whole.
"Ah, it seems that one of the girls was a bit extraord-"
Lucia didn't wait for him to finish. Instead, she created a wall of flas and sent it back to Revon. The dark figure of his burst into flas.
Lucia looked at again out of the corner of her eye. Her desperation was clearer than ever. She wanted to live, that desire was certainly evident in her eyes. The only problem was... she didn't have the strength to do it. Her deanor, her movents, her attempts to bring to my senses... everything scread that she didn't have enough strength to get out of here alive.
That's why she was literally... begging for ... her only chance.
And just as I realized this... a voice echoed from behind , hoarse, but as hoarse as it was brutal.
"This ga was not what I expected... let's end it here."
The ring on my finger trembled so violently that I felt it crack. This sensation was the last thing that truly brought to the world. My vision beca clear again, just as it had been when I used my ascension skill, and voices beca more distinct.
I took a single, brief look at Lucia, and there was a glimr of hope in her desperate, pleading eyes. She said nothing. She only turned around and swung a long spear of unstable flas at my back. Not content with that, she threw herself in the sa direction.
I did the only thing I hadn't thought of so far, but which I thought might work. I reached for the vast inventory on the inside of my bracelet, then focused on a single thing inside.
A blue glow appeared in front of , then sothing slowly began to materialize.
Just then, Lucia flew past . The glow of her spear, which she had never bothered to control so that it would be unstable, completely pure, and composed of destructive power, suddenly faded. As if... swallowed by darkness. But this was not the end.
Lucia severed the last string holding her spear of flas together. Flas literally exploded in every direction. I could see nothing but orange. My ears were ringing so loudly that my eardrums might have burst already. It was so hot that my skin was scorching.
But Lucia suddenly appeared in front of in the middle of it all. She used a skill I had seen Aiden use several tis. Several layers of Mana Barrier surrounded us and protected us from the flas, including Sue, who couldn't move a milliter out of fear and weakness. I didn't even know if she was awake.
The materialization of what I had pulled out of my bracelet was complete. Lucia's eyes quickly focused on this object. Her eyebrows lifted slightly, and she had the expression of soone who couldn't understand what she was seeing.
But I ignored her. I threw one hand over Sue's and grasped Lucia's arm tightly with the other. In front of , I poured mana into the disk that I had been pouring mana into for months one last ti.
A tiny pale-colored dot on the motifs on the disk, I didn't know where was it, suddenly glowed with this action. Everything froze as if soone had flipped a switch.
Just behind the layers of Mana Barrier, in the midst of the flas exploding in all directions... the figure of the demon nad Revon reappeared. He had dark limbs extending from his back like the legs of a spider, and with them, he struck the first layer of the barriers with trendous force, shattering it to pieces.
Each of the motifs on the disk began to glow montarily. The disk started spinning in front of and rose into the air as if sothing was lifting it up.
The second layer of barriers crumbled to dust. Every spark, light... the whole existence of the flas around us... was once again swallowed up by the darkness and pitch blackness descended upon us.
I closed my eyes, as Lithoa had told before, and although I did not reach out toward the disk, I directed my mana toward it. As soon as I did so, the mana inside the disk spread out, but not only that, it moved rapidly toward a point... to .
Once more, I heard a crackling sound, then a breaking sound, the sound of the last barrier Lucia had created. In other words... there was no longer any barrier between and the devil himself.
But without waiting for him to act, I made a ntal wish with a dual purpose.
To get out of here, away from Revon Scelas... and the reason why I transferred mana to this disk in the first place.
The back of my eyelids, the street of death, which normally should have been completely dark, was suddenly filled with a brilliant glow that burned my eyes. All sounds disappeared, and my senses accompanied my other senses, which quickly disappeared.
The last thing I felt before a system notification appeared in front of ... was sothing strangely warm, splashing against my chest.
Then, everything went dark again. A comforting darkness, rather than one that was so frightening and felt like nothing but death.
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