-A While Ago-
"Do you guys think the troops are even going to need us?" Richter asked, "I mean the only reason that the Sword Kingdom has lasted this long after the Sword Demon founded it is because of the terrain advantage. Without the mountains and desert, we should have taken them over centuries ago."
"No use complaining about it," Keith responded, "They do have the mountain and desert. Anyways, the preliminary forces probably don't need our help, but the king did send us for a reason, so we still need to go."
"Yeah, yeah... It's just boring," Richter replied, "I bet the other group got a more interesting mission. Annoying that they didn't tell us what it was. Wonder why..."
"It's probably nothing, and look, we're almost there." Sarah butted in.
"Finally!" The twins Lucia and Lana exclaimed at the same time.
The group were on a ledge that was positioned to the north-west of the fortress while sitting on their hover vehicles, looking on towards the ensuing fight between the Sword and Magic Kingdom troops.
"Looks like it's as we expected, the Sword Kingdom is being pushed back pretty fast. If it keeps going to plan, the fortress should be ours in no time!" Sarah said enthusiastically.
"What was even the point in coming here?" Matthais groaned, "it looks like the mission is going to be completed soon without our help anyways." He finished while yawning.
"Yeah, yeah, it's boring and whatever, but it's still our mission. The king will probably give us summat more interesting for our next mission anyways." Rikter replied, "And you never know, they might have some gimmick hidden away to give the troops trouble."
Suddenly Sarah exclaimed, "Hey you guys, who are those two people at the fortress' roof?"
The rest of the group turned their attention to the fortress.
"Not sure, you think they're some of ours?" Dylan asked, "Although they probably aren't. To get up there you'd definitely need the flight spell, and there's no way a common soldier is learning a tier 6 spell."
"Who do you think they are then?" Keith replied and looked closer, "The woman's kind of hot."
Matthais, Rikter, and Dylan all looked closer and simultaneously said: "Damn, she really is."
Suddenly the Magic Kingdom troops fired off a coordinated attack, causing the Sword Kingdom troops to start retreating back into the fortress to get themselves back into a better position. The only reason that the Sword Kingdom hadn't started off inside the fortress was because the Magic Kingdom's troops could just fire spells at them from afar. Coming in close at first to exhaust their mana and then retreating back into the fortress was the best way they could fight against them.
"Hey look!" Sarah exclaimed, 'The two on the roof jumped down!"
Suddenly the white-haired man pointed his hand below him and an intense crimson flame flashed below him, instantly sending him careening hundreds of meters into the air.
"What!?" They all said in various tones, "What was that!"
Suddenly a bright red, not unlike a second sun, lit up the sky, tinting the clouds a deathly shade of red.
"Oh... My god." Sarah said, deathly pale.
Rikter paled, not dissimilar to Sarah: "Is that... A meteor?"
"Was one of the meteor labyrinths supposed to come down here?" Keith asked.
"No!" Lana and Lucia said: "The king would have told us!"
"No I think..." Sarah trailed off, "Wasn't that the white-haired guy?"
"No way! We aren't nearly that strong, and we are some of the strongest in the Magic Kingdom." Matthias said, "If there was someone that strong, part of the sword kingdom, they wouldn't have such a hard time against us!"
"No way! Is it getting bigger?" Sarah shouted.
The meteor impacted despite their gawking, instantly evaporating most of the medium and low tier mages' shields and boiling their blood and turning their bones to ashes, releasing a grotesque hissing sound. Only some of the stronger mages available on the field survived, no more than around 50.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The squad was staring at the battlefield with open mouths, shocked beyond belief.
But the white-haired man wasn't done, seeing the survivors, his face formed into an ugly sneer, and more red flames similar to the ones still lingering around surrounded his straightened palm whilst he swung it around in a perfect full circle.
"What is he doing? Shouldn't we stop him?" Lana and Lucia said.
"I don't think we can..." Matthais responded.
When his hand again reached the starting position of the circle, all the residue flames that were unnaturally still lingering around in the air, started to grow brighter and brighter.
"Oh my god," Sarah said again, "what is he doing now?"
The flames reached an apex, and they all detonated, creating a massive hurricane of flames. Any remaining survivors were burnt into oblivion by the raging tides of flame.
"Quickly we need to get down there!" Sarah commanded her group, "The soldiers that came with us finally arrived behind us, and it looks like they're going to engage the white-haired man!"
"Yeah let's go help." Dylan said, while the rest replied with similar responses.
Their hovercraft were incredibly fast, and as they were going full speed unlike the soldiers, they arrived at about the same time.
The white-haired man had now walked back towards the woman he was with before, and finally set his eyes on the approaching hovercrafts, holding his smoking hand above his head, like an executioner's blade before the oncoming troops.
Sarah quickly shouted out, "Wait!" Having arrived way before all the others, who were somewhat reluctant in their coming.
His expression turned even uglier upon setting his eyes upon her, for reasons currently unknown to her. Not listening to her, his hand started moving down and portions of it were bursting into flames.
Most likely saving the group's life (Unbeknownst to them), the woman placed her hand on his soldier, and spoke: "It wouldn't hurt to hear them out, y'know, perhaps don't smite them where they stand."
The white-haired man's face quickly turned into a frown, "They deserve to die."
Ignoring him the woman turned to the group, "Sorry for Sirus here, he tends to get a bit... excited?"
Sirus grumbled at her, but eventually turned his attention to Sarah and asked with a raspy voice: "What's your name, answer honestly if you don't want to die."
"uh S-Sarah!" She managed to stutter out.
"Wait!" Sarah quickly followed up, "Did she say your name was Sirus?"
The woman answered: "Yes, yes, his name his Sirus," But suddenly a glint of interest shined in her eyes, "You wouldn't happen to know him, would you?"
"I-I think I do," Sarah replied, "he looks nothing how he did though, but Sirus is a pretty unique name around here."
"You wouldn't happen to have come from another world, would you?" The woman asked.
"Yes!" Sarah exclaimed whilst her squadmates arrived behind her, "So it is him! He told you, didn't he!"
"It's him, who?" Dylan and Rikter asked at the same time.
"It's Sirus!" Sarah said enthusiastically.
Sarah turned back to Sirus and looked at him with worry, but she quickly noticed a tear snaking its way down his left cheek, glistening like gold.
Sarah's heart wrenched up, while she thought: 'He's so happy seeing us again, he must have been so lonely!' Still looking at him she suddenly frowned when his eye bubbled.
More specifically, the brass plate above where his left eye should be. She twitched her eyes back on to the tear, and realized it wasn't actually a tear, but molten brass running down his cheek.
"Are you okay? Why is the plate on your eye melting?" She quickly asked him, only to stumble back when the very same plate turned bright red and disintegrated, revealing a revolting fleshy hollow housing a crimson flame steadily growing larger and flaring out of his eye.
"Am I okay?" Sirus muttered, "Am I okay!?" His voice steadily grew louder and louder.
"Am I okay, you ask!" A distorted manic laugh ripped out of his throat whilst Sarah and her squad gave him an odd look. He pointed to his eye and shouted, "Do I look okay!?"
Sarah grimaced but didn't respond.
"You want to know how I lost my eye?" Sirus's face showed an odd blend of a smile and a grin whilst his eyes formed upwards crescents, "A monster dozens of levels above me used it's arm to stab its blade-arm through my head, millimeters away from my brain. Not to mention it also stabbed me through my gut."
Sirus took a manic breath and continued, "I survived the encounter-"
Sarah took this moment to cut in: "Well you survived!"
"-only to spend days in the healing pool, which only managed to stop the bleeding. Every movement of any fiber of my being resulted in me feeling like that monster was stabbing me again. But oh, I survived that too didn't I? I'm okay right? Right?"
"But I think," He said while tapping the side of his head, "That not everything can be healed."
"Oh come on," Matthais interrupted, "It can't be that bad, you got hurt a little, oh no." He said in a mocking tone, "Because none of us have ever felt pain before."
"Pain, oh pain!" He sang manically, "You think it was the pain that was burning me? Oh, no, I had gotten used to the pain as one might get used to a missing limb. What really hurt me were the flames of my rage boiling in my stomach, constantly scalding my insides, burning me in more places than I can name."
"You want a taste of my suffering?" Sirus shouted, and grabbed Matthais' face, not waiting for him to respond, "Then you'll get it."
Sirus smashed his face into the ground, cracking it for dozens of feet, flames flickered inside Sirus' palm while Matthais weakly exclaimed: "No! Wait-"
The other squad members tried to rush towards them, but a massive and volatile burst of crimson flames shot out of his hand. The mere wind force of the attack was more than enough to slightly burn and blast away the other group members.
Meanwhile nothing was left of Matthais' head, and his body was nothing more than crisped black flesh that was already starting to fall apart in clumps of black ash.
Sirus stood up and turned back to Sarah with a wide grin, "Am I okay..." He paused and his smiling face instantly turned grim, "No."