339 Memoir of the past: (Intermission)
Damien looked at the undead that was running away and said, “Where do you think you’re running off to?”
Wylie’s face paled. She was the one who had commanded the remaining crimson mages to attack him. Obviously, he was so strong that he had killed their leader, Odon, single-handedly. Yet, she didn’t hesitate to sacrifice them to buy time for herself to escape. But her plan to sneak out failed.
Damien focused his eyes on her and commanded, “Kneel!”
An instant later, such immense pressure descended on her that her head lowered, and she was forced to her knees.
‘This brat is a monster.’ Wylie secretly cursed him in her mind.
Damien descended down the air and landed in front of her. He was younger than her and also shorter than her, but at this moment, his shadow covered her whole person because she was kneeling before him.
She felt like there was an unsurmountable wall in front of her and stayed still.
Damien opened his mouth to speak.
“The entire Alliance of Evil has been eradicated. Not a single member was pardoned. All of your dead comrades are waiting for you in hell. How about you go and say hi to them?”
She raised her head and saw a twisted smile on his face. It wasn’t a smile that could belong to a human. It was a smile that only an asura could show. And it added a maniacal charm and a hint of craziness to his rather young but extremely angelic and cute face.
A single glance and she was rendered useless.
She lowered her head fearfully as she saw him raising his hand to end her and immediately prostrated to him, “Please spare my life. I won’t do anything bad from now on. If you let me go, I will take you as my master and follow your command unconditionally. I will serve you wholeheartedly.”
The noble guards were surprised to see a mass murderer pitifully begging their master to spare her life. Was she shameless?
“Don’t listen to her nonsense!” Eldwin shouted from behind Damien. “Just kill her.”
“I was about to do that.”
Everyone noticed that Damien was looking at Wylie with ruthless eyes.
She might be behaving like a typical human, but she was quite a ghastly sight.
First of all, she didn’t have any skin or flesh on her body, and her eye sockets were also empty. Secondly, she looked nothing like a human and reeked of a putrid and mind-numbing smell that could only belong to a mass murderer. Lastly, her desire to live was the only thing humane about her.
Because of all these reasons, Damien found it impossible to sympathize with her.
“No. Please don’t.”
“How many people have begged you to spare their life over the years? Did they not cry to you to let them go? Did they not beg you to at least spare their family? But how did you deal with them?” Damien looked down at her and said, “Did you let even a single one go?”
They both knew the answer.
It was a big fat no!
She had killed everyone she had caught. After all, how could a predator let go of prey that it had already latched on to? Wasn’t that simply crazy?
“Go to hell and beg for the forgiveness of the people whose lives you have ruined.”
Ripples appeared on the river above Damien, and arrows, hundreds of them, burst out of its surface. All of them targeted Wylie, heading towards her at breakneck speed.
She looked at the incoming rain of arrows with fear.
Using all her power, she broke the force restricting her and sprinted away from Damien and the arrows chasing after her. She didn’t sneak-attack Damien, as he was wearing armor that not even her leader could break.
She didn’t take flight, as that was a sure way of dying in this situation.
Instead, she ran into the woods beside the snow peak,
Damien controlled the movement of the arrows with his hand and sent them after her with a flick of his wrist.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
pAn,D a-n0ve1,c-o-m The arrows chased after her, breaking trees and drilling through the mountains to get to her.
“You should know by now that it is impossible for you to dodge them. They had locked onto you. Even if you run to the end of the world, they will still chase you down. And soon, you will fail to outrun them. So stop struggling, and accept the gift of death.”
Damien’s words dealt a heavy blow to her, causing her to stagger. She didn’t let that stop her from hurriedly ducking to dodge dozens of arrows. They flew past her from above her head.
“Impossible.” She straightened up and ran even faster.
It was quite comical to see a skeletal mage in ragged robes bouncing around in the snow like a rabbit to dodge arrows.
She dodged a few more, unknowingly trapping herself in the middle of the arrows.
The arrows that she dodged turned around in mid-air, and she found herself surrounded by arrows from all sides.
“I told you….”
Damien clasped his hand, and the arrows closed in on her.
“… Resistance is futile.”
Wylie pushed out her arms, and the forbidden mana surging out of her palms immediately morphed into an egg-like barrier that trapped her.
This was her last struggle against Damien, and it was easily shattered by the arrows conjured by him.
The egg-like shield broke into pieces the very second it came into contact with the tips of the arrow.
After shattering it, they thudded into her, drilling countless holes in her skeletal body.
One even penetrated her life source, puncturing it.
Her life essence seeped out of the hole in the life source, and she fell on the cold hard floor, lifelessly.
Damien mercilessly crushed her to death too, putting an end to this twisted enmity.
Right after, the river in the sky disappeared, and darkness took over his vision. He was out of divine power.
It was keeping him alive.
Since he had run out of it, his breath was cut short, and he experienced death.
“Lord Damien!” Seeing him losing balance and falling to the ground, the noble guards yelled his name and ran towards him.
“Are we too late?” Rays of light flashed across the sky. Four people were flying towards them.
Two of them were from the Baldwin clan, and the other two were water deities.
Damien had no pulse and did not appear to be breathing when they arrived.
Vivia poured her minuscule amount of divine power into him, hoping for a miracle.
But nothing changed.
His warm corpse was quickly becoming still due to the cold.
“What you are doing is useless. He is dead.”
The Water Celestial pronounced him dead heartlessly.
Vivia looked at him with red eyes and said, “You knew this was going to happen? Why did you let him go ahead with it?”
“He knew the risk. But he didn’t let that stop him from doing what had to be done.” The Water Celestial calmly said, “It was his choice. And since he died after exhausting his divine power, the worst didn’t happen.”
Damien was like a bomb because of the immense amount of divine power in his body, but as he had used up all of it before breathing his last, the very thing extremely dangerous about him disappeared.
Arnard and Vivia felt offended hearing what he said.
“He is your grandson.”
“Are you heartless?”
The Water Celestial remained silent.
Badulf sighed, “You have misunderstood him.”
“Care to explain what exactly we have misunderstood?” questioned the grieving parents.
“We are running low on time.” The Water Celestial raised his head and said, “Naturally, an explanation can’t be given.’
Vivia: “???”
The Water Celestial looked past her and his son-in-law to stare at Badulf. “Do it.”
Badulf nodded and mercilessly stabbed Damien with a sword.
“W-what are you doing?!”
Everyone was shocked by his actions, and some knights even drew their weapons.
“Following his orders,” Badulf shrugged and twisted the sword deeper into Damien’s flesh.
The onlookers muttered, “You crazy…”
Arnard was about to wipe the floor with them, but he caught sight of the sword Badulf had used to stab Damien and stopped.
Vivia eyed her father and asked, “What are you up to?”
The Water Celestial replied, “Nothing serious. Just bringing the dead back to life.”
“But how? By stabbing him with a sword?”
The Water Celestial pointed at the sword in Badulf’s hand and said, “Look at it carefully.”
They stared at it, and their eyes widened, “It’s his class weapon!”
At this moment, Badulf spoke up,
“As you already know, it can remove what’s real, be it a human or an object, from reality. That’s its recognized limit. But it can go beyond and touch upon imaginary concepts if it is fed with divine power. And by that, I meant past, future, and present. Certain events can also be eliminated. Some truths can be bent, too. And most importantly, someone can be brought back to life.”
Vivia and the onlookers were shocked.
Only now did they understand that Badulf and the Water Celestial had seen it coming, and they were horrified to know that they had been one step from their enemies from the very beginning.
It hasn’t been long since the Water Celestial woke up. But he had the power to divine the future in exchange for his lifespan. He knew that an Alliance would be formed and Damien would be targeted. That’s why he made a plan to destroy their plot and teamed up with Badulf.
The Water Celestial grabbed the handle of Badulf’s class weapon and said, “You have said enough.”
“Let’s get on with this,” Badulf said.
The Water Celestial poured his divine power into it, and Badulf activated its special effect.
As a result, Damien was brought back to his life, and everyone rejoiced.