I’ve spent 15 minutes running towards the city. As I approached the gate, I saw people running out of the city, screaming, and a person with full heavy armor using a great axe made out of light to kill those trying to run.

  I couldn’t see Vinicius anywhere, but I was certain this was somehow related to him. Maybe that person in heavy armor was working with him or the vampire, I couldn’t be certain.

  Before I could reach the person, they killed five more people. Each person who fell to the axe fuelled my desire to help them and pushed me forward.

  Before they could hit the next victim, I was on top of him, sword grazing the ground and leaving a frozen trail as I used [Elemental Slice] with the ice element.

  I swung upwards, and a tower of ice exploded out of the ground, encasing the axe and their arms within the ice.

  “Who are you working for? Is it for Vinicius, or for that vampire?!” I barked, my anger barely restrained.

  With me being so close to them, I was able to notice one strange thing. The person attacking the people was a therian, with the extended helmet accounting for the muzzle and the protection for their tail. The people who were lying around, killed by them, were all humans and elfs, not a single therian was among them.

  “Die, human filth!” The therian shouted. The ice encasing their arms exploded with a light explosion. I was barely able to dodge the horizontal swing with the axe they made.

  The swing left their left side open, and I used it to attack, but a light barrier blocked my sword, bouncing it back and leaving me open to attack.

  The axe came straight to my neck, and it was with extreme effort that I was able to push my sword in the way and parry the attack.

  I jumped backwards, sending a wave of fire with [Elemental Slice]. The armored person cut through it with the axe, the fire landing on the ground and burning out.

  They extended their free hand, and several spheres of light appeared. Reacting mostly on instinct, I carved my sword on the ground and swung upwards, bringing a large slab of dirt with my skill, and jumped even further back.

  The cover I had created crumbled as dozens upon dozens of light beams shot through it like a hot knife cutting through butter, burning and melting the dirt in perfect circular holes.

  Suddenly, they appeared behind me, swinging their axe down. I reacted by reflex, mostly, and placed my sword on the axe’s path, covering it with darkness as I did so.

  The moment the elemental darkness of my sword met the light of their axe, something very weird happened. The light of the axe turned darker and exploded faster than I could react, but nothing happened.

  I was about to counter the next attack from them, but it never came. The therian looked confused at me and at the surroundings.

  I noticed we were inside a sphere made out of the darkened light, like a soap bubble suspended in mid-air.

  “I’ll ask again, who are you working for?” I said, not letting my guard down. This could be a trap, for all I know.

  I couldn’t see their face, but I was sure our eyes met at that moment.

  “I’m Gyenos, a paladin of the Church of Light. What is happening here?” They said. Now it was my turn to be confused. Why would a paladin be attacking the citizens of a city?

  It could be a ruse to make me lower my guard, of course, but now that I was looking at them better, I could see the symbol of the Church of Light on their armor. It made no sense to try to confuse me with such tactics after they had already killed several people.

  The darkened light sphere around us collapsed, and I saw the paladin in front of me grab their head and scream in pain.

  They manifested their axe again and looked at me.

  “I’ll cleanse Nahala of your filth, human!” they shouted and rushed to me with their axe ready to chop me in two.

  I parried the horizontal swing and countered with a diagonal swing charged with the ice element.

  Half their body instantly froze inside an ice crystal, arresting their movement and allowing me to jump back and breathe for a moment.

  Somehow, that paladin was being mind-controlled. I wasn’t sure how, but I couldn’t keep them frozen forever, and I couldn’t leave to find whatever was controlling them. They would free themselves and start killing again.

  I had no other choice but to kill him. I couldn’t let innocents suffer.

  “I am sorry, Gyenos, but it’s your life against several innocents,” I said, apologizing to them, even if they couldn’t hear me.

  Another explosion of light, and the ice encasing them shattered like glass. They roared and took a step, vanishing and appearing right behind me again.

  The moment they vanished from my view, I already knew where they would be coming from. Our weapons met halfway through the air, and his axe darkened and exploded in that sphere of darkened light.

  I used their moment of confusion to sink my fiery blade into their exposed neck, slashing outwards and cutting their head off.

  I looked at the blood staining my blade and at their lifeless corpse near my feet. I closed my eyes and sent my prayers to the Goddess of Death to take care of his soul.

  An explosion snapped my eyes open. A huge pillar of light shot in the middle of the city, collapsing several tall buildings.

  I swung my blade with the water element to swipe the blood out of it and ran inside the city proper. What I found inside was a lot worse than I could have imagined.

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  Several people using various magics to blast each other, corpses littered the ground. The amount wasn’t like that time we had fought against those half-demons, but it was more than I’d have liked.

  Honestly, I was at a loss as to what I should do. There were simply too many people fighting each other for me to do anything. I would just be another person fighting a city filled with rampaging people.

  Another light explosion in the city made me look away from the fighting near me to look at it. At the same time, I noticed that the people fighting had stopped to look at the light, only continuing their fight after the light vanished, and nothing happened. It gave me an idea.

  If I could catch everyone’s attention, I could do something, but to do that, I would need to go to the tallest building in the city.

  My eyes wandered towards a tower of the city’s lord’s mansion that was still standing, if barely. Evading light bolts, debris being thrown around from explosions, and even some crazed person trying to strike me down.

  One thing I noticed was that humans wouldn’t attack me, but any other species would. I had to jump over several dwarves or evade elves and therians. Apparently, whatever was causing the mind control was turning people racist?

  “I’ll show the purity of elven blood to all of Nahala!” An elf shouted as they tried to shoot me down using a wooden bow and arrows made out of light. I sent a wave of ice that froze them from the neck down as I kept running.

  That’s the second time I heard that term. It felt familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I saw it before for the life of me. I decided to ignore it for now.

  The worst obstacle I’ve had to evade was a torrent of swords made out of light that were flying around, cutting everything in their path. I was at the edge of their radius. Everything inside the sword storm was filled with countless cuts. I even saw some bodies that were nothing more than mince meat.

  Thankfully, whoever was controlling them didn’t find me, or else I don’t think I would’ve been able to live much longer.

  I was able to enter the lord’s mansion and run up the tower unintended. I briefly saw the guards in a united front against several random people attacking them, but they looked more reluctant in strike back than anything. They didn’t seem like they were in trouble, at least.

  At the top of the tower, I looked towards the city. Everything was in chaos. Fires had started in several places around the city, and I could hear people screaming from terror and anger. It was a cacophony of horror and madness.

  I tightened the grip on my sword and…

  My mind went blank. I knew I needed to draw attention to myself, but how would I do it? I wasn’t able to make a sound large enough with the sound element.

  It was at that moment that another pillar of light surged at the city’s center. From my vantage point, I could see two figures in the middle. One had hundreds of swords floating around them, and the other had dozens of light spheres around them. Unfortunately, they were too far to see clearly, but it gave me an idea.

  I pointed my sword to the sky and reached with [Elemental Slice] to the light element. I felt it react, and suddenly I was dropping to the floor with both my hands on my head, screaming in pain.

  I could feel my mind being seared by an excruciating light. I couldn’t think straight; all I could think was how I wanted it to end.

  I looked down at the city and saw the people down there. It was so clear to me now. The world was filled with filth and needed to be cleansed of it. It had chosen me to help with it.

  I grabbed my sword that I had dropped when I was enlightened and jumped off the tower, sinking my sword against the stone as I fell.

  Once in the ground, I rushed towards the place where I saw one of the corruptors.

  Adjusting my grip on my sword, I prepared for my attack when I reached the first source of corruption I saw. A light trail behind the tip of my sword as I rushed forward.

  The first corruptor I found was almost completely hidden behind some planks on the side of a ruined building.

  I kicked the planks and looked at the two sources of corruption in front of me. They were furry beasts with hundreds of eyes filled with malice. In its arms was a smaller version of itself, with the difference being that I could see it was partly pure, but corruption already flowed through its veins.

  “No, please. Don’t kill me!” It said with a distorted voice that filled me with repulse and anger.

  “Die, filth of the world!” I slashed with my sword. The light from it blasted their bodies into the wall behind them, where only chunks remained.

  Before I could follow with my divine mission, I heard the dying breath of a fellow cleaner in the vicinity. I rushed towards it and saw another furred beast on top of the corpse of one of the few pure souls remaining.

  Their corpse was completely covered in swords to the point that a moment after I saw them, their body fell apart, and all the swords fell to the ground with it.

  “NO!” I screamed as I ran towards the beast. “Die, foul beast!”

  It turned around just in time to see me swinging my blade right in its neck–

  Except that a light sword appeared and blocked my swing mere centimeters away from its neck.

  “This city is filled with these filthy creatures. I might have been expelled from the M.E.C., but I won’t abandon their doctrines,” it said with its distorted voice that made me want to kill it even more.

  Suddenly, hundreds of swords appeared around me and shot at me with incredible speed. I couldn’t evade them all, and nothing I could do would help me.

  No, there was one thing. A small part of my brain told me to use the darkness element to break the swords down with the natural counter of light. I almost banished that blasphemous thought at that moment. How could I, one of the enlightened, use the element of evil?

  But another part of my mind told me that I couldn’t do the divine mission of cleansing the world of its corruption if I were dead. I would have to atone for my sins, but it was the only way I could continue serving the world.

  The light of my sword dimmed as I cancelled the skill before calling it again with the darkness element. I felt revulsed to use it, but I had no choice; it was this or be dead in the next moment.

  I slashed my sword in an arc around me. Darkness spread out like a wave. The moment it hit some of the swords, they darkened and exploded.

  Everything went white, and the constant buzzing in my mind that kept me going and giving me strength vanished. I didn’t even know it was there until I was panting with my knees on the ground.

  I looked upwards and saw a canine therian looking around, her ears moving in various directions, probably hearing things away from me.

  I tried to get up, but I suddenly found myself encased in an ice crystal from the neck down. Something I had done before, but her version was extremely more powerful than mine.

  “Don’t move and don’t use any light-based skill,” she said. Her voice was rough, and I saw her coughing up some blood.

  She picked up a healing potion from somewhere, probably a spatial ring, and drank it.

  “Light is corrupted,” she stated.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  She looked around at the darkened light sphere around us that was rapidly collapsing on itself.

  A metallic sword appeared near me and shot towards her as the sphere came crashing down, but it stopped centimeters away from her neck.

  “Good, I’m safe,” she said, then looked at me. “Thank you for freeing me. What did you do?”

  “I-I don’t know,” I answered. I was still confused. “I was on top of one of the towers of this city’s lord’s mansion, trying to draw attention to myself to try to stop this madness. I was going to use a light beam to do it, and then I was in front of you.”

  She nodded. The same instant, hundreds upon hundreds of ice swords appeared floating in the air around her. She kicked the ground and went flying into the air, swords following her.

  When she reached a good distance from the ground, the swords around her shot outwards in several directions, and in the next moment, the sounds of destruction happening around me diminished a lot.

  She landed again and walked towards me, stopping a step away from the ice. It suddenly broke, and I fell onto the ground.

  “I’m Karol, what’s your name?” she said as she extended her hand towards me.