“Remember, boys! Do whatever it takes to keep him from killing any of you. That's the main key… While I will proceed to the next stage.”

The portal seemed to be closing in with the edges that were shaped like some floating cracked stone carvings that were being eaten into the middle, just like a black hole.

Nine people came rushing in, I blew myself up with the curse…

Dark patches rose to my cheeks.

A fiery red crack pierced through my own chest.

With that one hoarse scream of mine, everything around me darkened, leaving black dust on the ground.

Too bad, they all already know that my magic is quite dangerous. So their swift movement to quickly retreat just now, really saved their own lives for this time.

At least, I think there was actually one of them that seemed to have been hit by my previous attack around his left shoulder.

But even his expression didn't show that he cared about anything other than to keep an eye on my movements that are securing my safe distance from all of them…

Despite this wound from my magic… The pain… Anything about it…

Shouldn't be able to be tricked or reduced in any way by anyone, even myself… Right?

If that doesn't relieve the pain of my magic, then what did the mysterious pill just now do, to those who had eaten it?

But why should I care again?

I have to get Fanya out of this place immediately!

~~~~~

With the black mist still blinding everyone, I jumped high… Walking above the night sky with the black magic plate as my footing.

Tiny luminous grains charged at me from below, but lucky…

The bullets didn't seem to have any effect on my mist form, so I felt a little relieved to also disguise myself in this dark sky.

Targeting the soul that belongs only to that one girl from above…

I swooped down to approach Fanya.

But the aura from her suddenly disappeared, replaced with a mirrored portal and many terrorist troops that had not that many souls within them.

They are here, besieging all these innocent people from leaving the city park area.

Maybe it's all just to find that one girl alone? Or anything else than that?

If anything but Fanya is the case, then…

I don't know…

I don’t care…

~~~~~

Dodging all the magic bullets, there wasn't any action left for my protective instincts to take, other than entering the portal.

Just like breaking through a wall of water…

My skin felt a little chilly after reaching the other side.

It turns out that instead of going anywhere, this place actually brought me back to the middle of this ring shaped Guinaian.

To the middle of the City park surrounded by the mini forest.

Next to the wreckage of the Ferris wheel that had fallen off its axis.

The man was caught in the act of grabbing Fanya to obediently kneel beside him.

Soul strength I activate, this instep is currently right beside the man's head to end everything… But…

In the blink of an eye I, Fanya and the man were blown away from each other, my psychic power exploded along with the other person's…

Which, as fast as lightning, had just intervened in the collision.

One thing that I realized from the unexpected, that there are already two portals in this place… One portal from where I came from, another from somewhere else.

The second portal that now took out eight people from its surface, besides the one who had already secured the existence of its leader…

While my eyes reach Fanya's current position…

~~~~~

This soul strength is still active as of the moment I'm running.

One sword slash aimed right at my neck from the side, I dodged by rolling forward.

But another sword managed to come, slashing my right leg off, legs that are still not ready to get back on their own stand…

So I decided… In the instant of using the mist form, leaving the piece of my leg behind, as a burst of fire came from another place.

Like… I didn't see any flamethrowers anywhere, even anyone in their hands, didn't have that such kind of big gun... So where exactly did all this fire come from?!

The man from afar was just aiming the same machine gun as before…

That weapon…

So that’s the only thing they needed?!

What the hell is with that magical gun to do such a thing?!

~~~~~

Rolled with burns, only one leg remains… “Fuck…”

Soul strength finally disappeared from my entire body.

“Fanya?”

Some of them come to surround me…

“I’m gonna fucking kill each one of you here, you piece of shit! Come closer, I dare you!”

I turned my back on Fanya who was lying helplessly alone in the distance…

Dragging myself away, distracting anyone from bothering the girl, I screamed like I was crazy enough not to feel scared…

Luckily my sanity returned after seeing the face of someone I knew… It turned out that his body was also bounced during the hard impact earlier…

I really didn't notice it before…

It's probably because I was too focused on the guy who grabbed Fanya's hair roughly… That there was actually one more man lying there, though I don't know where he had come from.

On the other side, “You nearly killed them with your own kick, you idiot.”

The clapping of his hands to clean his knees was quite loud in a place as quiet as this city park. Where the man who led the terrorists was rebuking me for something that actually sounded good.

Ignoring his words, my eyes actually suspect the other guy… Deo, who is now starting to try to get back up on his own feet.

“Oh… By the way, here is your friend who wants to say hi.”

One hand he raised in order to hold all of his troops in position for a while…

“I’m not his friend…”

“Deo…” You say what just now?

“Sorry Danil… But this guy… Deo, your friend… Is always in denial, you know that?”

“I never really feel like I'm friends with him, sir.”

Sir?

Why did he call him like that?

“Deo?” What’s going on here?

“When this boy dies, only then will you realize that you have such a close connection with him. I know that, because I know the relationship between the three of you…”

Yeah thank you, whatever, but… “What the fuck are you doing there, Deo?”

“They say I’m the next person who will be fated to have that authority on your hand right now... As you have abused those powers, Daniel… You don't deserve it anymore. You've taken too many innocent people's lives already… I've seen the evidence here, I've heard how you scream. So just… Man, just give up, okay?”

“And you believe all their lies? More than your own friend? They’re just using you!”

“Daniel… Just give up now…”

“But… Why…”

That time, I looked again at Fanya.

There she was still weak and helpless even just to open her own eyes…

Then I saw Deo who walked to the side of her.

“If it's like this, you will only live forever with regrets, Deo.”

But the man just ignored me, and held Fanya's head while sitting on the ground.

“At this moment in time, you still worry about your friend's condition in the future, even after soon you die, son? Okay, I admit it, I'm quite impressed by how you don't care about yourself, you know that, Danil?” The words of someone I really don't want to hear come out of his own mouth.

Far ahead, Deo strokes Fanya's hair with a face full of pity…

He said, “So far you've only been torturing Fanya, Daniel… You do nothing but for yourself… Don't you think that all of this is already enough?”

“You…!”

Anticipating, everyone pointed their swords at me…

“You really think that… You think that I will… Ugh…”

I think you've still misunderstood this feeling, Deo…

Well, that’s also right, that I might as well be just as wrong as he is…

But…

“Then… You just want me to give up protecting you two, huh? That’s all?! You want me to give up on being your friend? You think I'm willing to?! No, fucker! I will drag you both home with me even by force, you hear?! Deo! Wait there you asshole, you’ll fucking see!”

I'm fed up already…

I don't care if my understanding of this friendship and family is wrong, I don't care about being seen as stupid and stubborn.

It doesn't matter whether it's because of my ten years of guilt towards the two of them, or it is purely because I feel they are closer to me than my own parents…

But I just want to see them happy with my own efforts!

Yes, by my own, and no one else, It’ll only be me!

Care for the devil if it's classified as selfish, hypocritical, narcissistic… Whatever shit…

To the hell with it all!

~~~~~

Reactivating soul strength, I created hundreds or even thousands of black bullets, charging at the leader of the enemy squad.

But the body of a guy with all white… One of his subordinates came to protect him, while the portal was being prepared on the side.

That this weak bullet would only explode and turn into black dust on the back of someone as strong as his men, while the others were running intending to stab their swords right at my back who was still lying here on the ground.

“Fuck off!” For the second time, I blew myself up with the curse itself.

The four of them bounced with their chests full of black stains, but still had no intention of dying. There… One of them lost his balance, as one of his legs was full of curses to the bone.

So I turned myself into a dark mist and approached him to cut off his masked head… But my sword got stuck before it even got to the middle of his neck.

Not only is my soul count lacking to cut deep enough, but with only this one leg left to support my own stance? The results were predictable from the start…

I fell right beside him…

My claws glowed red.

Intending to split into three the body of the man who is also lying with me on this wet ground… But my hand was immediately kicked by someone, until the current of the dark curse just flew in the wrong direction without hitting anyone in its path.

While the sword of the man who had just kicked my hand, had pierced the head of his own team member who was unable to continue the fight.

He killed his own comrade, only so that I don't get even a single soul in this place…

~~~~~

Releasing the grip of his sword that was still stuck to the corpse's skull, he pulled the machine gun on his back.

But before shooting, he broke a small octahedron-shaped glass accessory right in front of the bullet hole. Then the shattered glass accessories emitted blue sparks, and all the bullets that came out of the weapon turned into multiple explosions of flames that engulfed everything in front of it.

I created a thin black wall between my face and the weapon, I pounded the ground with psychic power to bounce myself anywhere as long as it could keep me away from the flames.

Now that I know how those who can't use magic, can use it, I also get a bit of room to regain my momentum. But still…

My stance…

Then…

I need something to replace my leg.

This left eye of mine was devoured by the counter-curse.

The crack of the second stage has reached my right hand, the only part of my body that should be the last to be affected by the counter-curse…

As I create something simple and shaped like a foot, but its movement cannot be controlled by my own motor nerves.

Something that I have to manually control and separate from my own physical movements…

Wait… This means that the strength of this man in front of me has already grown to around four hundred or even five hundred… RIght?

So I have to find another source of power.

But hearing the previous man's words, it couldn't be that easy… I know it.

They were tasked with preventing me from killing anyone, in a way they would kill their own comrades…

Then…

Although they seem strong enough to withstand the pain of my magic thanks to the mysterious pill, this is the only way for me to kill those who are much stronger than myself…

For my side, the sword is a no in this battle…

I won't die by my own curse, that's the one thing I have to repeat in my own mind…

With this smile and look that I can no longer describe on my own face, I prepared to start the fight again…

~~~~~

There are six of them…

One person died, two more went with the leader.

Without using the sword, knowing it wouldn't be able to scratch their bones, I just threw my claws blindly… Every time they got close, every time I felt their souls right behind me, I exploded myself up.

Sometimes they chase me, sometimes it's me who comes after them…

“Can’t you keep up!? Keep up, you weakling!”

Laughing scornfully at those who never make a sound out of their mouths, I shatter this place until there is more ashes than the fire.

“Trying to keep up with god, huh?! You bitch!”

I hit the ground with nothing but suffering, the echo of the curse still lost to my scream…

“Where's your magic crystal now, huh? Burn me again! shoot me again! Lowly creature!”

Huh? Wait… My only eye left suddenly felt sore… But whatever…

I can still go on-

“Danil!”

“Huh?” That sound…

He came here again?

Where is he?

Where's that guy?

“Where are you!? Come here, you little shit!”

Did he come to check?

Did he think I was dead already?

Have I managed to disappoint that guy now?

Oh? Wait…

No, I won’t fall for it!

Sure he just wants to distract me… But it won't work, yo!

Without stopping, I still attacked all those people while looking for the whereabouts of that one little human.

“Isn't this enough, son? You've gone too far to destroy yourself.”

“Fuck you!” But where is he?!

Is he hiding?

There… I saw a portal…

That’s when I smashed those magical stone edges with my claws, the mirror shattered instantly…

Behind the slowly falling and fading shards of the portal, the man backs away and sits on the ground, terrified…

“So there you are…”

“What the…!? Did you- Did you just…!?”

The man, who seemed to intend to use the portal for cover and should be his only way of escaping under circumstances, asked with a stutter…

~~~~~

Yet now… Many figures felt like they were approaching me from all directions. So I blew myself up with much more force than before, all of them bounced backwards with multiple wounds on their bodies…

Did these tough guys really not see it coming?

Then…

This current situation… They were all currently injured by my unexpected outburst, while the leader sat in front there terrified…

Wait…

It can’t be…

Did I just win?

~~~~~

“So… Even that power of yours can forcibly destroy this portal, huh?”

I can hear it… This guy is… Trying to sound calm, huh?

Too bad for him, but I don't feel the presence of the girl who owns the portal anywhere… “Looks like you just want to protect that doll without ever thinking that her magic can actually be broken by me, eh? Terrified now?”

No answer? Okay…

Now's the chance…

Strengthening my legs with my vision getting blurry… I ran as hard as I could to end the history of the most important man in the whole world.

Someone who barely managed to create a universe prison…

Heaven of lies that this guy had been dreaming of all this time…

I'm running even faster…

He turned around, dragging himself away with that one terrified idiotic scream… Where then something tugged at my leg until I fell pretty hard on the ground…

“Fuck! Who was that!?”

It’s the man with the strength of more than five hundred souls, who gripped one of my legs to the point of crushing…

Even though he himself had struggled to keep up with me while running earlier… Unfortunately he had a sudden fall before making it to my side.

And after losing his chance to kill me, he decided to stop my steps instead.…

I turned into a mist just to break free from his grip, only to fall again because one of my legs had been crushed and the other was just a magically prosthetic.

Then a single scratch of suffering from my claw will end one of these two annoying people, right?

But who?

~~~~~

Looking ahead, there was a helpless man with one soul inside of him, pointing that silly little gun at me.

And another person behind, with a soul count exceeding five hundred, was again trying to stand up…

That one shot came towards my head, the bullet just stopped right in front of my forehead not even scratching anything…

“Dude, stop… You’re done…”

I looked away from that guy who was still in a state of panic, to the back, where the one strong man was still trying to straighten his back…

“That’s it… You go first, tough guy…” I killed him with one claw that glowed red…

His body was split into three parts.

Now I'm stronger than anyone in this place.

“Now there's only one left-” I stopped the stupid talk for a moment…

Something feels wrong…

The sound of dozens of gunshots from behind me…

This… Make sense if I didn't even feel a thing, right?

Either because I was too strong, or…

Or… Could it be…

~~~~~

I looked again at the man with a feeling of misgivings.

Turns out he wasn't shooting at me. But toward the two people far away beside that wreck of the Ferris wheel…

Where Deo drags himself away with a traumatized face, while the girl…

“Fanya?”

~~~~~