Chapter 110

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Are you both as dumb as rocks?! Did you ever really think we would let either of you go?! You thought you were close? You thought you could save her?! That’s fucking pathetic! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!” It was cruel beyond words. “Why? Why?! We’ve tried so hard and given so much! We don’t deserve this!!” “My, dear sister, you’re starting to sound quite wretched, really. What’s become of that ridiculously polite tone of voice you usually use?” A tremendously powerful fireball appeared in Leticia’s palm and began to stretch upward. “No, no, no! Please don’t! Please! I’ll do anything, I’ll do anything! I’ll be your slave, I’ll lick your boots, whatever you want! Just please don’t do it! Please please pleeeease!!” “Ah, music to my ears! Ah-ha-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!” Leticia’s magic became a pillar of flame, taking on the form of a sword. “Aggghhhh! Aaahhh! Aaaaaaggghhh!!” My heart succumbed to despair. “This is the end, Sister. Feel what we felt—my brother, Kaito, and I. Steep in how powerless you were to save the one you love, and die.” I couldn’t move. Right now, Leticia looked just like… “…the demon lord… A true monster…” “Yes. I’ve known that for a long, long time.” Then she sliced my neck, and my severed head fell to the ground. In my final moment of life, I watched the fires consign the rest of my body to ash. “Stop! I beg of you, please end this madness!!” Standing before Lilia, Leticia constructed a sword of fire. I needed to stop her, but the barrier before me was impenetrable. Kaito peered down at me, a gleeful smile across his lips. I had been close, so close to defeating the thousand monsters he had prepared. On the verge of ensuring that Lilia, at least, would escape this predicament alive. Yet even that glimpse of salvation had been naught but lies, a machination concocted by the deceitful Kaito. In the end, I could do nothing but watch as Leticia’s spell turned my beloved Lilia into charred cinders. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” As her severed head dropped to the ground, a fierce anger overcame me. I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all! But before I could act on this impulse, my body was racked by a fierce storm of mana. “…Huh? Aaaaaaaaaaggghhhhhhhhhhh!!” It felt like I had been tossed, bound and helpless, into raging river rapids. “Hrgh?! Hrgh?! Hrgh?!” Something was entering my body against my will, and I was powerless to stop it. Mana, flowing into me in unmanageable amounts. When I devoured the Fairy-Eaters, it had felt like my body tissue was expanding, but this sensation was different; it was as though the mana was forcing its way between my cells themselves. Just as the wave of power threatened to wash me away, I suddenly began feeding on the Fairy-Eater beside me, against my own will. “Grhh!! Gggghhhhh!!” As I devoured it, my mind grew clearer, and I felt once more the agony I had been subjected to so many times before. As my power grew, so did the unfilled space within me, and the foreign mana rushed to fill it. Amid the excruciating pain, I realized that it would eventually tear me apart. From then on, I drifted between haze and stark understanding, my only constant experience being that of torturous agony. “Why do I always cry after it’s over?” After Lilia’s death, we dispelled the barrier, as Leticia’s oath demanded, and took to the skies to escape the ensuing storm of mana. From there, we watched Leon’s demise. “Graaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!” The man looked nothing like the Leon we knew. “He’s become a ravenous beast…,” muttered Leticia. He was taller than the tree line now, almost fifteen meters in height, rampaging through the forest, crushing trees underfoot and messily devouring the remaining Fairy-Eaters. “Gruuuuuuuuuuuuhhh!!” I guessed that by this point, he was barely sentient. He was nothing but a monster on a painful journey to the end of his life. After eating the last Fairy-Eater, Leon looked around and set his sights on the magical spring, the source of the ley-line energy. “Leticia,” I said. “I know. It shall pose no danger to us. But it does rather raise the question of what you were planning to do without me?” “I would have teleported farther away and watched from there,” I replied. “It’s lucky you’re here to give us front-row seats instead.” The sky was beginning to brighten, and dawn fast approached. How had the night gone by so quickly? The end was nigh. I looked back down at Leon, who was lowering his head toward the spring. “First, I took away the power you so desired. Second, I made you know my despair—of losing someone dear to you right before you could save them. And finally… Finally, I offer you exactly what you need.” What I saw was a prisoner tying his own noose. He opened his mouth to drink from the spring, and then… …KABOOOOOOOOOM!! Magical light seared my retinas, and a trembling shock wave swept the land. Leticia’s spherical barrier cracked under the impact of the blow. The violent blast lasted several seconds, and when it cleared, we saw that the explosion had cratered out everything for kilometers around. “That’s all power is, in the end.” I muttered this as my tears spilled to the ground.