“… Why?” I say to myself. “To become that again?” I spit out a laugh. “I don't understand. I can't. What's the point of all this? To make me hate them? My role is to be their enemy?! The torture, the pain—was it all for that?!” I say. “Answer me!”

  The child remains silent. Apathetically, she continues to stare at me. I spit out another laugh. No, those weren't the questions, but the mere repetitions of a parrot that no longer knew what to say. They had all already been answered, after all.

  I clench my fist. In life, my body decays. Behind me, the academy shakes and its ceiling collapses. As the last remaining barrier between Dufae's survivors and the fairy, I force myself to stand.

  Opening up to the supernatural means not only being closer to the clouds, but also to the abysses. The final temptation that was once offered to the lion-shaped celestial stretches out before me. I see the shadows of Dufae being destroyed and am tormented by visions of its inhabitants being hunted down one after another by the fairy. I hear the screams of my precious demons who have helped me survive the fury of the heavens.

  This has always been the problem. Paralyzed, I would forever be indecisive in the face of the world and the truth. Faced with choice, I would always choose not to go through the pain of forcing myself to be certain.

  I step over the abyss and walk on it. I force my body to overcome the numbness that throws me to the ground. The response has always been the same as the one I gave every time I forced myself to disobey my body's cries and keep doing the right thing. Before, however, I knew that they would only do it because I endured them—even if I felt the agony that one day I would have to overcome them.

  He hoped that he would be consumed or killed before then. Living day by day, I hoped for that. Now, I walk. One step after another, without thinking, over the emptiness. I ignore the voices. I ignore the memories. I ignore my body becoming wood and fire. I don't need to think. I need to do.

  Aldwyn is stunned. His hand remains upright, his last spell had not been answered properly. A mistake made as much by my mana weakness and fallen body as by inexperience: my left arm is torn off. A river of blood falls to the ground and makes the soil rot faster than the acid from the rain. It mixes with the puddles and turns them black.

  I feel the aura flowing through the fairy's body and I close my eyes, but her attack doesn't continue. The flow is interrupted—stopped, as if its blood were frozen. The creature tries to break my control, but its efforts are in vain.

  I breathe in and get close to the child. I feel this spiritual body tremble as if my bones had been ripped out. Still standing, I smile sadly behind the hateful gaze—one of the few times in my life when I don't have to force an expression onto my face.

  “You're scared, aren't you? I know. I am too.” I say and cross the distance between us, then bend down to his size. “Sorry, I'm not very good with words. You can choose to join hands with the Lion that comes to save you, but it will betray you like all the others and destroy you. But it's all right. I'm here for you. If you hold my hand, we'll keep walking together. I'll show you another way.”

  Sieghart nods. “You'll let go of my hand. They will. Everything tells me they will. Knowledge of the world won't save us. Holding hands with corruption won't save us. Neither will trusting in the gods. It's impossible. It always has been.”

  “The last time I was in the forest, wasn't it you who told me to remember the village and trust in the gods? Wasn't it you who helped me take the only path that would lead us to victory? That would keep us from dying?”

  “… This is different. We took a step last time. Keep walking to the end, climb up this path and forget everything else…” He wanders his eyes. “It's a trick. They'll kill us.”

  “You helped me take the first step. There's no going back.” I spit out a laugh. “There never was. We were born cursed.”

  “…”

  “But if I don't help him now, Dufae will die. Villages will die. Elron will die. We will die—and we're better than that.” I hold out my hand. “You don't have to accept Chaos. You don't have to walk alone. I'll show you another way.”

  Corruption, death, or victory.

  The child hesitates. He clenches his fist and remembers the stoning, the flaying and the gangrene. He remembers the taste of revenge, and then the dread of destruction. He holds my hand tightly, and I promise myself never to let go.

  Eyes wide, a nervous smile. From what I can hear behind the ringing in his ears, his voice is distorted. Perhaps Chaos has altered the shape of his throat. Perhaps I'm going mad, but something beyond has given me the strength to persist. Yet, in Aldwyn's powerful voice, I realized something I would never have dreamed of:

  Afraid. Aldwyn is afraid.

  I face the beast. Something is different. I feel different.

  I stand up. My arm burns and throbs. I've never been good at healing spells—but that doesn't matter now. I intensify my insensitivity to pain and replace my arm with a solid shadow copy. Adrenaline in my blood limits the pain along with the numbness of the epiphany.

  “What's that…?” Aldwyn says. “That's not the First's look. Who are you?”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I feel the heat of the flames and the acid of the rain. I watch it create puddles as I breathe in the fresh air and the stench of smoke. Sapphire and crimson dance on the black night, the results of our battle. My feet come off the ground, the wind lifts me up and places me in front of the silver moonlight. I face the emerald of the forests, the brown of the earth and the blinding brilliance of the butterflies miles to the north.

  I understand now.

  If the Lion becomes a god and makes non-existence a reality with its chaotic paradox, if it wants to become on earth as much as those who dominate the heavens, then;

  “I am the one who divides the heavens from the earth.”

  Darkness erupts from the movement of my hands. A shadow opens up behind my body and covers the moonlight like an eclipse. From within it, the spell I had been guarding since the beginning of the battle emerges. Under the name of Ignite, the fireball shines like a second sun and shatters the night.

  I reach him. Manipulating the fire, I feel Aldwyn's aura glow unholy blue and expand in contrast. I cast my spell against his;

  “Fireball.”

  And I see the fireball consume the air. It towers over a third of the village, but Aldwyn clings to it as if trying to bear it. Refusing to die, her feet break the ground behind her and the fairy is dragged towards the village gates, her hands burning as I hear her roar. I feel her mana being drained—a well that once seemed endless finally runs out, and then gives way to the pressure of the sun.

  The fireball explodes and expands like a violent orange-red storm. It blows away and freezes the clouds it casually reaches, obscures the stars in the night sky and not only blinds me, but deafens me with its thunder. I feel Aldwyn's mana dilute and shatter, his body charred next to the wreckage of the village.

  Then it ends. I feel numb. The wind wraps around my body until I land on the ground, my eyes wandering over the trail of destruction that feeds blood flowers and pillars of molten black rock. Wrapping around each other like a forest emulating the confines of the Unknown, the patterns of randomness emanate in nature.

  The air writhes in vibrations and the smell of smoke resembles the fresh air of the fields. The frozen clouds fall to the ground, then evaporate and rain backwards into the sky. Whether acid, water or crystal, I don't know. I can't. I don't care.

  So I walk along the trail.

  What am I doing?

  Aldwyn knew the consequences of his actions. I couldn't stop the fight to force the destruction of the hidden spell, even if I knew it existed—an opening was certain. At the same time, I believed it wasn't necessary—that the power I stored as my mana regenerated would be useless because it would get out of my control.

  He was right. I couldn't control it. Not with that power.

  In front of the crater that pulses like a stomach and with earth so cold it burns, pillars surround Aldwyn's charred body. They lock his arms and legs and grow to the heavens like thorns according to my vile heart, but their broken ends bleed light. Exposed, dust falls from the fairy's flesh as if his body were crumbling into sand, and a mark of a witch's butterfly wings stretches across the thorns that bind him. With these eyes, I could see them. Not anymore.

  Tricking the villagers with the challenges of the forest to make his release convincing, Aldwyn's power was still too great for me to beat him pre — or post — epiphany. Only the combination of both could do that.

  I snap my neck and descend into the crater. Something calls me to the dying fairy. I can hear her faint whispers calling my name.

  “Sieghart…” He say.

  “Aldwyn.”

  “You did it…?” His eyes looked up at the sky. “Are you really the one who's going to stop the Demiurge?”

  I open my mouth, then close it. I nod to myself.

  “Yes.”

  Aldwyn laughs, spaced out. “… Will you avenge us? Be careful… He who becomes a god can no longer live as a man… Those crimson eyes you squander so much were stolen from Chaos, an one day, the Lion shall steal them back.”

  “…”

  I see. Indeed, this is the truth of a fairy.

  Something build up inside of me. I must take the prize of my victory. I must take back what he took from me.

  My power. My arm.

  Step by step, I climb above the creature, leaning over while trapped. I prepare the hand of shadows and then pierce its chest. It vomits black blood that is lost in the arm made by darkness. I grab its beating heart and pull it out.

  Then, still numb, I devour it.

  The taste is bitter—the bitterest thing I've ever eaten. As If I'm eating a rainbow that has lost it's color. The flesh moves, but seems to be made of stone and coal. Its blood is like pasty acid that bubbles up in my mouth and makes it crackle. Liquid, it burns and refreshes at the same time. If I cared, I'd make one of the few unforced grimaces of my life. However, in this state, the world does not hold my actions.

  Amidst of the pain, Aldwyn nods to himself.

  “… I see…” He exhales. “… Sieghart…”

  The blue glow in his black eyes disappears like the flame from his soul. Aldwyn takes his last breath and collapses, charred to the ground.

  I tear out his ribs and devour his intestines. Bile and blood leak onto the floor as I push and search for his internal organs. Spleen, kidneys, lungs. Their structure is not human—their organs are multiplied and blurred, their texture and taste change from wood to boiled oil. One by one, however, they are devoured evenly as I sit in the reverse rain, agreeing with my own disappointments. It was nothing like before. Nothing like the human blood I know. Perhaps he changed since the last time.

  My shoulder burns. From the throbbing wound where my severed arm was, flesh grows. Throbbing, gray, woody, suffering flesh. A new limb, emulating human mortality, made of nightmares, constructed from the same flesh I absorb from the fairy. I feel the black blood diluting among the red, like paint spreading across a canvas.

  Then, I feel pain.

  Something hurts behind my head. I look down and see a rock. I wander across the field and trace the path to the beginning of the hole. A blond-haired boy carries the blessed blade of Lugnir. I must have dropped it during the battle. He holds another stone and babbles as tears stream down his face.

  Elron…?

  How did he managed to get here?

  For how long I...?

  “Get out…!”

  He throws the other stone, and it hits my eye—but I refuses to be hurt. Another stone to the left. I look in the direction and see a villager in a straw hat. Little by little, more and more stones hit me, projectiles make me retreat towards the village gate.

  “GET OUT!” Elron's shout stands out amidst the angry voices of the villagers. Rocks and more rocks hit my body and, although they don't hurt me, they bruise my chest.

  A different kind of feeling. Nostalgic and hateful. I'd like to say that I was sorry for the losses I caused them. I'd like to say that your words hurt me much more than the stones. But lying is a mistake I learned from fairies not to make anymore, so I just turn away.

  I let the stones whip my back and let the villagers be the weeping heroes who finally cast out the demons that haunt them; I walk to the village gate while fearful people call me a demon; I fight for those who have tormented my life with their kindness instead of accepting those who have accepted me as I am.

  With steps that spread chaos and darkness, I walk out of the village without looking back. I walk until my body can no longer support its own weight. I walk until the skin on my feet peels off.

  So I walk more.