Deep within Kyriekaos’s mind lay a foreign memory. It seemed that during the memory erasure, the suppressed memories were spared.
Father. The vase. Discipline. The party.
Kyriekaos is unsure what everything means. This was not the memory of the prisoners.
Mother was sick. The flower stolen. Stupid child.
Was this punishment? Kyriekaos knew that the child believed so. However, this did not add up.
The hero tried desperately to remember more about her ‘father’, but it seemed that childhood memories were fragile and incomplete in their nature.
To learn of the people she had the memories of, would be to learn of herself.
Who was she?
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“...It’s a shame, really.” said Reginn, “If only you didn’t commit those crimes, you wouldn’t have to be punished. I’m curious, why did you kill those people?”
“...Heh, it’s an order. To pursue beauty. To sate my hunger for blood. To pleasure myself. I don’t understand myself, I’m just a concentrated solution of evil.”
“...Hm. I thought you would be more human.” said Reginn, “Any last words?”
“No thanks, I won’t need it.”
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The battle unofficially began as Reginn quickly created his metal spheres again — thirteen of them this time. Usually, this single spell was enough for most foes, but today was a show, a spectacle of his power. From each sphere blasted volts of lightning, enough to instantly vapourize an entire horse to ashes.
However, Kyriekaos was fast — faster than before. It seemed that the new body indeed improved her strength greatly. Perhaps it was the integration, compatibility or simple willingness to not limit themself. The hero wielded the cross as a blunt weapon, but each strike of it spread a crack — like the one at the marketing district — though Reginn immediately healed those with mana concrete before they could spread.
As Kyriekaos was occupied with the orbs, Reginn shifted his position to behind her, kicking her with enough force to snap her back in half. She instantly healed the wound as all good super-soldiers did, and prepared for a counterattack. She stabbed the cross into the ground and opened its entrance. From within sprouted massive, unending stretches of spinal tentacles that began to strike the surroundings.
Reginn quickly jumped from one tentacle to the other and shredded them to bits with his hands covered in a force field of mana. To impress the crowd, he began casting higher-level spells.
For different mana users, different techniques and gestures helped them focus their spells. Oftentimes the most important spells recommended incantations, not for any integral reasons, but to simply help the caster focus and follow the instruction. For Reginn, these techniques manifested as hand gestures, the strong movements of his fingers and palms helped regulate his intentions, like the conductor of a concert.
He first used the spell to pull Kyriekaos to his palm, then in a firey explosion, used a sudden impact to cause great destruction. Within the smoke, Kyriekaos enabled her other visions — mana vision and heat vision — in order to locate her target. However, now there were multiple Reginns, perfect illusions created by mana. Kyriekaos was amazed by the craftsmanship — the clones also did not have any mana signatures within their body, only around them. While she wondered how this was possible, Reginn began casting his most powerful spell.
“⌈A Glimpse of the Absolute⌋”
Each clone began casting the spell, forming massive balls of chaos. Not quite black holes, but the embodiment of maximum entropy. The mechanics behind the spell were quite simple but almost impossible to achieve. First, all mana originates from the imaginary space that surrounds the universe. Through a thin membrane similar to a mana skin, mana permeates into the world. However, mana is influenced by emotion, and emotion is influenced by mana. By this logic, with an incredibly high concentration of mana, the imaginary space creates exponentially chaotic spells until finally reaching the dynamic magical equilibrium (DME). Within such a state, all matter, energy and information inserted would be destroyed, turned into elementary particles, and then recomposed into mana. ⌈A Glimpse of the Absolute⌋ was simply a small demonstration of the DME, though only temporarily.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“I suppose this is farewell.”
Speechless. Acceptance of death? Frozen in fear? Confidence? Reginn could not tell the meaning of such an expression.
A moment of anticipation
Then bright light, the sun.
—- — — — — — — — — — — a loud screeching noise — far too loud. Was it screeching? Chirping?
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* — — — - - - — — — Was this what it was like to live inside the sun?
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— — —- - - - — —-- —- —--
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Reginn specifically created an invisible barrier around the inner court of the arena in order to protect the spectators, but did not quite account for the electron particles and gamma-radiations emitted. However, even without the knowledge of future health complications, the audience felt true fear.Not for their lives, but for their existence and future.
However, a single person had penetrated through the barrier, then the area was reconstructed without Reginn’s knowledge, as he was distracted with casting ⌈A Glimpse of the Absolute⌋ thirteen times simultaneously.
After the light, sound and dust had settled down, all that was visible was a massive crater — though the audience area was safe. At the center of the crater… Siege.
“...I thought we made a deal?”
“...I’m afraid some rules are made to be broken.”
The rest of the Endlegion Silverguards and Ayn followed suit as Siege released the fairly unharmed Kyriekaos. She was confused at first but accepted this sudden partnership.
Yuta then took her by surprise and slammed the back of her neck, knocking her out instantly.
“Sorry, we’re just here for the girl.”
Sivrit watched on in worry. She believed only Reginn was skilled enough in controlling mana to free Attila, and the victory of either side did not guarantee her safety. The only option was to convince Reginn, though perhaps the only language he understood was violence, and the words of the Goddess.
“Well then, time for a rematch.”