Chapter 30: The Promise

[Greater Demolition Punch!]

I swing my fist in a practiced manner towards Spacey. He moves his arm and just catches my fist.

Spacey laughs at me, “That was hilarious, do you always act in such a manner when attacking? No wonder you died at the ninth realm. In order to proper do the Greater Demolition Punch, you need to be overpowering. You need to have the will to destroy even the atoms within the target.”

I frown slightly, “You know Spacey. I could swear that you are just trying to make this more complicated for me. Are you sure that you have my best interests in mind when you are teaching me?”

“No,” He shakes his head, “I have never held your well-being as an item of any importance you know. My goal is to make you strong enough so that ‘They’ don’t kill me.”

I punch at Spacey again, “You always say ‘They’ or ‘Them’, who is this person?”

He shakes his head slightly and tosses me to the other side of the room, “That’s enough talking for now, you are now at the sixth realm. Any slacking off and I will add more pushups to the workout.”

“Demon!”

“Who cares!?”

Spacey and I continue to argue for quite a while as I continue to cultivate towards the seventh realm.

“Hey Ryu. Why do you have such a stupid personality?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” I tilt my head as I speak to Spacey.

“You know you should really hide things, but you don’t. You act like a child all the time, but still somehow manage to learn new things by sheer luck. Can you help me understand how you can be so stupid, yet continue on?”

“Well.” I scratch my head, “I can’t say I act how I should.” My face suddenly gets serious. “I admit that I was fooling around as the idea of being reborn again was fun… but I have now been forced to face reality, you know what I mean? My mother was killed in this world… well, I can’t say my conscious is too burdened by it because in the other world I barely even remember what my parents look like. I was too young then, and I am too old now. My attitude was like a small child with a new toy. I discovered new things and wanted show everyone I knew.” I let out a sigh, “But that isn’t how this world works. It is survival of the fittest. If I must go back to who I was in order to survive, then so be it. I am tired of losing. It is time to take back what is rightfully mine!”

Spacey smiles at me and laughs, “That seems better. This is going to be a tough place to survive. If you do not keep many trump cards and reveal all your strength right away, you will be quickly killed by those who want your possessions. You hold too many secrets on you to be so open with everyone. If a single one of them becomes public knowledge past this point. You can guarantee that you will die.” Spacey pats my shoulder, “Now with that speech. Let’s see how motivated you are!”

Spacey then trains me until I fall unconscious…

“So Ryusei, you mean to say that you were kidnapped as a small child and forced into something akin to Slavery.” Darius makes a rather serious expression while talking to me rather early in the morning.

I smile, “Who really cares about something that happened so long ago. You learned about it a year after we met and you only ask now, a whole year later than that.”

Lizzy sits beside Darius and cuddles up to him, “He’s a little slow Ryusei, you should just forget about him already.” Lizzy had woken up moments ago and was unobservant of the atmosphere, or just didn’t care about what we were talking about. Either way I don’t care.

I have spent two years with these people. We have all reached the B-rank of the ninth realm.

It was a challenging journey to this part. We have journeyed through many villages, but we always avoided anything that may have had any important information channels running through it.

“So, Ryusei. Why do you never sleep? I know that we aren’t necessarily bound by the rules of normal humans, but you should still have to sleep. Why don’t you?” Lizzy asks me this.

I am pretty sure I’ve told them… “Remember that I was traveling with the person that killed my real family and the entire village I was in, I learned to go weeks on end without sleep and food. Now, It just doesn’t feel normal for me to sleep every day. I even went for quite the amounts of time without sleep when I was travelling alone.” I stand up and stare into the rising sun.

The three of us packed up our camp and started to travel on in a seemingly random direction. The past two years were quite boring compared to the first few days I had come into contact with these to people… but I have found that I am slowly opening up to them.

I am regarding them as people close to me. We have been through a couple life and death situations involving angry guards and various monsters. We have grown so close that I almost regard them as family.

“Hey Ryusei… can you see that?” Darius points to the horizon and a black figure is shooting across the sky… it is getting larger, coming straight towards us.

As the figure comes closer, I can see that it is a humanoid figure, but its skin is pitch black. It has wings that come out from just beneath its shoulder blades. To top it all off, its eyes are bright red like rubies.

The figure drops down from the sky in front of us and creates cracks in the ground like a spider web.

“Humans. What continent might this be?” The thing talks in a loud and overbearing manner to us.

“Continent?” Darius tilts his head.

The thing frowns, “Fine then. If you are unwilling to cooperate past this point, I will be forced to destroy you. My second objective was to kill all that got in my way. Why did I have to take this job?” The thing starts to mumble to itself, not caring for myself and the other two that are standing right in front of it…

How strong is this thing?

I frown slightly as I motion for the other two to stay back a bit, “You say you want to destroy us… but do you have the qualifications to do anything to us?” I release the spells hiding various things from outside eyes.

The thing just smiles. After a short amount of time, he snaps his fingers.

Suddenly a bone chilling aura is emitted from this thing.

“My name is Elsvyre. I am a full blood Demon.”

Demon? Not an augmented human? I have a really, really bad feeling about this.

This ‘Demon’ seems to be much stronger than me… is it a bluff? Or is his strength really that much greater than mine?

Behind me, Lizzy and Darius are shaking in fear because of the sinister aura coming from myself and the Demon.

“Well… I’ll make the first move then.” The Demon disappears from where it was standing and appears beside Lizzy. He moves his hands faster than I can react and Lizzy is thrown far off into the distance.

“Lizzy!” Darius shouts as he recklessly charges at the Demon. The Demon just snorts arrogantly as he smashes Darius in the same direction of Lizzy. The force used was clearly different, the ground shakes as Darius crashes into it.

My jaw drops slightly… My mind was in a daze. How can it be this powerful… is the strength of a Demon?

“Now, now. What do we have here? A human that just saw his friends get blown away with ease. Are you too scared to go against me? Huh?” The Demon starts to walk closer to me.

This is no time to panic. Lizzy and Darius are probably in pretty rough condition… but this is a fight for our lives, getting distracted her would mean death for all of us.

“I think you should be more careful with who you attack indiscriminately you know. You may just run into someone with the power to kill you.” I calmly talk to the Demon.

It slightly widens its ruby eyes in surprise, “Still so calm in the face of a being stronger than you at birth?” The Demon constantly says needless information.

I would love to try and get information out of it all day, but I fear it wouldn’t let me do that.

“Here I come!” The demon moves at incredible speeds and punches towards me.

I move just barely enough to be able to dodge the punch. So fast!

[Endless Skills][Insta-Cast][Velocity][Velocity][Velocity][Hands of Steel]{Wind of a Thousand Blades}{Flaming Meteor}{Straight Flash}

I use the highest powered spells available to me that can be used in close range like this.

“Naïve!” The Demon shouts as it destroys the magic with its bare hands. “You think I am afraid of something trivial like magic? How you instantly cast it without even a keyword is interesting, if you weren’t a human, I might have asked you to teach me. However, you are a human. Now… I need you to point me in the direction of the nearest large city.”

“Like hell I would do that!” I shout at the Demon, not fearing the fact that my most powerful magics were dispersed before they even fully activated.

I can safely say that I have never been an ally of justice, but watching a Demon destroy a whole city… maybe even the entire continent, would be bad… very, very bad.

“I see. That’s unfortunate. I was hoping you would cooperate with me. I mean,” The Demon’s figure flashes and Lizzy appears in with him, her head being held underneath her arm, “Surrender peacefully and tell me where the nearest city is, or I will kill this woman.”

A complicated expression appears on my face, “Holding a hostage is a dirty method.”

“Only the loser will complain about fighting dirty.”

“Is that so? If I rush at you… what would you do?”

“This.” The Demon doesn’t even hesitate. It releases Lizzy, and as I am about to move, it punches her abdomen so hard its fist appears on the other side, going straight through her, “You were too slow again. This is why humans are so weak. Pitiful really, humans will mourn each other and will lose composure when an ally is killed.” The Demon stands there and shrugs its shoulders.

Lizzy! No… I have to calm down and kill this Demon before I can go and help her… please don’t die…

“’God Killer’, Heed my call! Slayer of the immortal! I call forth the sword bound to my soul! I vow to slay all my enemies with this blade for long as my soul lives!”

God Killer appears in my right hand, shining a golden aura. It wasn’t a calming aura… it was overbearing.

The Demon’s ruby eyes go wide in fear, “What is that!? No! Stay away!” The Demon starts to tremble all over and actually tips backwards, sitting on the ground.

I see. This was another blunder… I always hide my power too much. Trying to keep one trump card after another.

It happens again!

I raise the sword high above my head, “Pay for your crimes and die like a dog!” The effects of ‘Velocity’ are still active, so I move extremely quickly.

Before the Demon can recover, it is decapitated, blood spraying from the stump where its head used to be. Even though it is a demon it still bleeds red…

I quickly gather Darius and Lizzy.

Tears start to form at the corner of my eyes… they are dying.

And I can’t help them.

Their injuries are too heavy for even magic to heal.

Darius is bleeding from every orifice. His eyes are cloudy, but he is still breathing. His legs and arms are bent at angles that no person should ever have to see. He is so close to death that a gentle breeze might be enough to finish him off.

Lizzy is in much worse off than Darius. Her internal organs have been pierced and there is a hole that a person could clearly see through… the only reason she isn’t dead is because she is forcefully suppressing the bleeding using her internal energy.

I fall to my knees after inspecting the two, “I’m so sorry!” I start apologizing to them as much as possible, “Because I underestimated the Demon, you two are like this! If I would have just used God Killer from the start, none of this would have happened!”

I feel a small hand on my head. It was Lizzy’s, “Ryusei, you are a man… men… don’t cry. Unless you are Darius… because… even he… isn’t a man.” Lizzy’s strength is fading away, but she is still smiling, “Ryusei… make me… a promise… I want… you… to create… a… place… where people… like us… can live… free…ly……” She breathes out for the final time.

“I promise! I swear that even if I die, that my ghost will continue on!” I hold her hand as her weak pulse stops…

She died… from blood loss….

“H…ey…. I’m alive… for now… but… I too… want something.”

“Anything!” I regret every choice I have made that led to these two dying. No matter what the price is, I will do anything they ask for their dying wish.

“I… want… to be… buried with… Liz… so… this… is… goodbye… supreme emperor.” Darius smiles as his conscious fades. His heartbeat stops shortly after.

“NO! I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THIS!” I scream towards the heavens, trying to reason with them in order to get my friends back.

……

……

Ten days.

I sat with them for ten days, reflecting on my actions. I have to move on…

I slowly stand up rubbing my eyes that have long since swollen up from the continuous tears. For Lizzy. For Darius. I need to move on.

In order to build a place that people can be people. I need to stand tall, and suppress everyone beneath me! First step! The fighter emperor!

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Hello everyone!

As promised, here is chapter 30! Yay!

I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. This is a challenging story to just try and pick up after a while of not writing it, but I think I was able to do it justice.

Have a great day/night!