Kon

Since my cursed blood plagued me with nightmares- no! Visions of the future, I always knew things would end up like that. I always knew it, yet…

“…Shit”, I cursed, tightening my fists.

The interior of the walls was overpopulated; people standing everywhere, from the streets to the ceilings; and their living conditions were worse than ever, with almost everyone afflicted with one or another kind of plague, famine, and violence running rampant.

When I stared at the desolated city of the deceased Emerald [Goddess], once so beautiful, I felt guilty. I’ve dedicated so long to stop the cult, and in saving the world and attaining my revenge, for our mother, for my sister’s leg… for breaking my father, and yet, I’ve failed. The outer [Gods] were invading, hundreds of thousands of monsters poured out of the one [Dungeon] I have left for later… and the world ending ritual would be completed as soon as the enemies had collected enough sacrificial power; not for themselves, but to bring their true master forth.

Every nation between the two world empires had been devastated already, only the countries protected by the Highest [Gods], who fought on their borders, and that one city in which the strongest adventurers had gathered, was still standing. As far as I knew, the fall of our one walled town could be enough to tip the scales in favor of the Cult of the Unborn Star… And yet, no one accepted taking our people as refugees.

“What are the [Gods] doing?”, asked an angry woman whose both arms were completely crisscrossed with scars. “Even If they’re not the highest type, they could very well be of great help in this damn situation.”

“When was the last time they proved themselves helpful, Giselle?” I heard they all ran away to the Nalatza Empire”, explained my older sister; since there were only 2 deities in the entirety of the Silverrange Empire since ever. “They’re probably relaxing and waiting until mortals finish things here, so they can claim territory later.”

“…There won’t be any territory to claim if we perish here, though. Only darkness”, I said, sighing.

“What do you mean?”, questioned Giselle.

“I believe the enemy just needs a little more of bloodshed to achieve their real objective”, I explained. “To summon their master and creator.”

“Kon…!”, my older sister was surprised. “Are you sure?”, she surely didn’t seem certain herself.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, right? Taffy waited for too long, her guild tried too hard, and she didn’t achieve her objective of gathering strong enough mortals in time anyway. Might as well tell them the truth?”, Ur didn’t question me again, but the bleak reality was just as depressing for her as it was for me. Turning to the woman with the scared arms, I concluded: “The truth is that… [Gods] were created by the planet itself to serve as their soldiers. But they’re shit… or became shit. But the thing they were supposed to be fighting against didn’t fall, but simply waited, manipulating its way through this land via the cult it created. And now it’s finally coming. A creature almost as powerful as the entity that created all the [Gods] of this planet. The responsible for creating the [Dungeons]. And it will surprise the land… It will have the best chance it had ever had to finally achieve its objective and consume this world.”

“Gah-?!”, we heard a gasp from the stairs connecting the top of the walls with the city beneath.

“Who is there!?”, asked my sister.

“A- Ahaha…”, a yellow-colored young girl revealed herself, smiling. “Hello?”

“Incute, were you listening?”, smiling, Giselle added: “I thought you didn’t care about the details, as long as you survived. If I had to guess, I’d say you’d have already run away.”

Frowning, the petite blonde girl approached Giselle, and angrily pulled the bigger woman closer by the collar, complaining:

“And I’d have done, if you have stopped being so stubborn, pretending to be a hero, and decided to come with me!”, giving me a side look, she concluded, then more sad than angry: “…But it doesn’t seem this was actually ever an option, hu?”, sighing, and letting the blushing (?) bigger girl go, she muttered: “The origin of the [Dungeons], the end of the world… So much to think about”, perking up and turning to me, she added: “There’s something I don’t get, though: once I met some… very promising adventurers twins. I’d thought they’d get as strong as this Taffy woman wanted them to be, it would be surprising if they didn’t?”

“Twins?”, repeated my older sister.

“Yes”, answered that Incute girl.

“With purple skin?”, questioned Giselle.

“Yes, yes”, said the petite blonde again, more hopeful.

“…Do you mean Ank and Hunah?”, I guessed.

“Yes! These two!”, agreed Incute, beaming. Then she noticed my somber expression.

“The last time we’ve seen them, they were being kidnapped by Tezmont, one of the only 4 highest [Gods]. None of us was capable of opposing him”, I explained, and the yellow girl’s expression turned like mine, dark. And I hadn’t finished yet “…This was 1 year ago.”

There was a minute of silence, in which everything that we heard was the ash-carrying wind bowing over our heads, and the disease and famine plagued people coughing and begging down the streets.

Then the yellow girl spoke again, her voice hoarse, harsh, her eyes frowned, her shoulders slumped down:

“Ah… My summons detected incoming enemies.”

“Already more scouters, hu?”, Giselle massaged her temples; we all have been dealing with those annoyances, but she was fighting since the beginning of that all.

“I- I fear not”, Incute stuttered, eyes going wide. “I’m looking through my summons eyes, and I can see an entire ocean of monsters! Their mass obscures the entire horizon! I think this time is for real…”

We all turned around, and didn’t need to wait for too long: first we saw the giant clouds of dust that the marching horde raised, which obscured the sunlight, and set the world dark, only dust above, and ashes beneath; then we took the first real glimpse of the main horde of the enemies. And trembled. There were millions of them, they took all kinds of shapes and sizes, from enormous slithering snake monsters, to great swarms of tiny man-eating bugs, and their [Levels] varied anywhere from 300 to 600.

“Shit!”, Giselle turned my way and asked: “Can you do something about that?!”

“I can clear the wave greatly, but that many…”, I wasn’t confident that I could kill all of those monster, even going all out. Then I remembered a pair of purple twins that made of the [Gods] their enemies, this when they were insignificant in the power scales of that world. Shaking my head, I added: “But we have to try anyway! This is what means to be a Death Bringer!”

“What the heck is a ‘Death Bringer’?”, questioned Incute, and when my older sister simply smiled at her, I blushed a little.

“Ur”, I opened my [Pocket Dimension], and gestured my older sister to enter it. But she didn’t.

“Little brother…”, she smiled at me, and caressed my head. She knew it. She knew that that would be, probably, our last fight. We kissed, and she looked at me again, but this time with all the seriousness: “I will fight too.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but I stopped myself. Turning to face the approaching monsters, I promised, closing the portal to the [Pocket Dimension]:

“…I won’t let you die”, turning to the other girls, and, to my surprise, catching a glimpse of their lips coming apart too, I concluded: “Let’s save the world!”

We all jumped from the top of the wall, and onto the ashen wasteland outside; Incute summoned a small army of creatures, I created a few copies of myself, and Giselle gripped my clones by their clothing, and started to throw them against the horde.

“BOOOM!”, my clones released their full power onto the monsters, creating great mushroom-shaped clouds all around, obliterating thousands every time.

And yet, though the explosions I caused were huge enough to destroy the city we were defending many times over, seemed small in compassion with the huge mass of incoming enemies, and barely slowed them down.

I kept cloning myself, and Giselle kept throwing my copies, while Incute summoned monsters to substitute her fallen ones as soon as they vanihsed, and my older sister shot kitchen knives at the incoming horde. But soon, they were too close; a tsunami of claws, teeth, talons, and fangs; and not only it as impossible for my clones to use their full power without blowing up us and the city behind, but it was also clear, even as Giselle dashed, screaming a war cry, against the horde… we wouldn’t make out of that alive.

So, maybe I should use my full power, after all. It would surely be better than letting those creatures tear us to pieces and eat us, and all the citizens behind.

As the number of monsters that seemed infinite was too close, I raised my fist high, and took a deep breath. I had promised to save my older sister, after all. And to let her go peacefully might be the best salvation I could offer her.

Then I filled up my fists with 100% of my power. And the skies split open.

But not because of my punch.

An aura so intense it was visible to the naked eye pierced the clouds, ad brought light onto that devastated battlefield, raining over the numberless army of creatures… and silencing them all.

As a pair of purple figures graciously descended from the skies on the back of a giant summoned [God] bird, the entire army of countless monsters, at once, fell to the ground, dead instantly.

“B- But!”, Giselle stuttered.

“There were monsters of [Level: 500] there…!”, my sister understood immediately. “To kill even them while spreading their aura so thing, shouldn’t be possible.”

“…Just how strong have they gotten?”