(EVE SOLARIS)

The already dark night sky seemed to darken further under the weight of his aura, causing me to be unable to move my body no matter how much I willed it to.

‘Why can’t I move? Am I going to die here? Is this really the end? It can’t be… I've only just started…’

As I struggled with my own inner turmoil, I heard Amelia roar from beside me as she suddenly charged in. Her aura flared, the sand beneath her freezing in the process.

I knew it wasn’t the time for it, but I couldn’t help being mesmerized by her strength. With frost highlighting her every move, Amelia was so much faster than I had ever seen her move before.

‘I can’t let her fight alone, I promised. If I don’t get over my fear now, I’ll always be too scared to do anything.’

I forced all the mana I could to erupt around me, causing a small sand tornado to encircle me as my bloody white hair danced around my vision.

The only way we’ll even hope to stand a chance is if we hold nothing back. The most we can hope for is to capitalize on his indifference.

I turned my bow into its bladed form as I quickly followed behind Amelia, pushing my wind mana into every part of my body that I could.

Mana flooded through every vein in my body like a wild gale, increasing my speed and strength beyond its maximum.

As we charged in, I watched as he put one of the axes behind his back, a crazed smile appearing on his face.

“Now, this! This is what I’ve been waiting for!”

“Amelia, don’t let your guard down. Once this is over, we can go home.”

She gave a quick nod without turning my way as I used my enhanced speed to get a little ahead of her.

I swung my blade down towards him as fast as I could, but before I even got close, he was already side stepping my swing.

I turned to see Amelia trying an attack of her own, twirling two ice kunai toward his head, but as if he was never there, he vanished.

I turned to Amelia in confusion and, after a blink, he appeared behind her, his figure still blurry..

“Amelia behin-”

But it was too late. I could only look on in horror as he brought his axe up and watch her blood fly into the sky as his axe sliced across her back.

Without missing a beat, he flourished his axe back up ready to finish her off.

On instinct, I reached out my hand and focused on the mana between us. I put a wind barrier around Amelia and pulled my hand back towards myself as the wind dragged her over to me, the axe missing her neck by a hair.

I bent down towards Amelia, not taking my eyes off him as I felt for her pulse. Thankfully it was still there. I noticed ice starting to cover up the wound.

“Eve, you have to leave me here. You need to…”

“I need to do what?! Have you gone mad? Even if I run he’ll just catch me anyway. Even if there was a chance, I’m not leaving you here.”

“But…”

“No ‘buts’, we agreed forever and always. Now you stay here and heal. I’ll pay him back for what he did to you.”

Tears started streaming down her cheeks. “Please be careful.”

Without another word, I turned to face him. I noticed how even now his posture showed how uninterested he was. He was a child and we were some old toys he no longer wanted to play with.

“You know, you and I aren’t so different.”

“How in the hell am I anything like you?!”

“You see this village we are in, this barren wasteland that has been swallowed by the Borderlands. It used to be the place I called home.” His face quickly twisted into a distorted smile before he continued.

“Although, the biggest difference between us is that you are searching for the one that killed your family, friends, and everyone else, while I was the one that killed everyone who lived here.”

“Why would you even do that?! To the people you lived around? How can you stand there smiling after what you just said? Do you not care for anyone?”

“You see, girl, I actually don't have any mana, at least not like you. I failed to awaken as a child and my parents hated me for it and treated me like I was nothing- like a mistake. Not allowing me to eat, abusing me everyday, forcing me to live in conditions unfit for any human or animal.”

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“However, one day, my dad came out to hurt me while I was doing my chores and, for the first time, I heard the voice.”

“It told me ‘kill him, chop him up, it will make you feel good and make the suffering go away.’ So I did. The look on his face as I slowly cut him down with the ax, piece by piece, it was unlike anything I had felt before. The feelings I got from it were out of this world. ”

“At that moment, I felt something awaken inside of me, something I had never felt before. But, the feeling went away as quick as it had come. I felt regret for what I did so I went inside to tell my mother, but when she saw me covered in blood… she did this to me.”

I could only watch as for the first time, he removed the mask and hood covering his face. As I got my first glimpse at him, it took everything in me to not look away.

One side of his face was fine with an emerald green eye and short brown hair, but the other half was a squinted eye with burn scars all across his face.

“And you can guess what happened next," he smirked, " I heard the voice again and, much like my father, I chopped her up, smiling as I watched her face turn into pure despair and fear.”

“As her blood emptied from her sagging corpse, I felt it again. That was when I realized my mana had awakened. My own, unique mana, along with all the feelings of euphoria I got from spilling and tasting blood. So, from then on, I’ve spent my entire life killing whoever I want. I crave the rush of that feeling. I live for it.”

“What even are you?” My stomach churned as my brain attempted to process.

“Ah, that’s right, I haven’t introduced myself yet, have I? Not that it’ll matter, you’ll both be dead soon anyway, so I guess I don’t mind telling you.”

Bringing his other axe back out, he continued. “I am Shezmu, the first conqueror of the Satanists and the Horseman of Conquest.”

While I had heard of Horsemen before, I couldn't help but ask a question burning in my mind as I took in his axes. “Wait, you said you chopped both your parents up with an axe. Does that mean the skulls on your axes are…?”

He quickly brought the axe he’d used to cut Amelia up to his mouth and licked the blood off of it. “You’re actually quite smart when you try. That’s right, the skulls are my parents, and now it’s time to add both of you to my collection.”

His personality seemed to switch as the blood went into his system. He began to sprout a crazed look over his face.

"I've taken my parents along for the ride. They still keep me in check from time to time, like now, mother has told me that I'm wasting too much time."

Knowing the talking was over, I tried to bring my bow upwards.

A hard kick landed on my ribs, sending me flying as I felt myself break through a nearby cottage’s walls.

I came to a stop at the next building, my back crunching against its outer wall sending cracks rippling all throughout it. I fell to my knees, coughing up blood.

I felt the pain travel through my body. It hurt worse than anything I had felt before. The pain from the fruit. The pain Westin had caused. Nothing compared to what I was feeling now. It was only one attack but I could tell he had grown stronger somehow.

I tried to stand until I felt both of his axes rake across my back.

I let out a stifled scream as he grabbed my head, digging his nails into my forehead. I felt the blood run down my forehead and into my eyes as he threw me into another building.

I felt more ribs break and one of my lungs popping like a bubble as I coughed up even more blood and slid down the building right next to Amelia.

I could see blood starting to pile around me from the large cuts on my back and my internal injuries as I heard him walk towards me.

I tried with all my will power to lift my bow- to fire one more arrow. To do one last thing, anything, but I just couldn’t.

Through the blood in my eyes, I glanced over at Amelia and saw tears streaming down her face. She tried to reach for me, watching as the life was fading from my eyes.

I tried to open my mouth to apologize. To say one last thing to her before I died, but as I opened my mouth, all that came out was blood.

Accepting my fate, I looked up at the man who was now going to kill me, wanting to at least have the resolve to stare him down in my final moments.

He approached my bloodied form, dragging the blades of his dull axes behind him. That crazed smile of his still twitching in excitement.

Grabbing my hair with his lanky arm, he lifted me just enough to look into my eyes.

He could have killed me at any time, and I was starting to wish he just would.

Again, the bloodied flat-side of his axe buried itself into my stomach sending me careening through another cottage wall.

I started retching before I had fully come to a skidding halt halfway across the street, but even blood had long since stopped coming up.

Before I realized it, he was already standing before me, but now his smile had faded into an almost sad expression. He was talking to one of his parent's skulls again, but I couldn’t hear anything, my hearing had long since faded.

I truly thought that, in my last moments, I would go out kicking and screaming, using my anger to last just a bit longer, to try a little harder. Yet, as I watched him raise his axe for the final time, my only thought was about how beautiful my blood arcing off the blade looked as it began to swirl around it.

The moon in the dark night sky seemingly illuminated my blood, my mind going blank as its beauty was unraveling.

‘Are… these my last thoughts?’

Shezmu began swinging his axe down, but, before he could finish, his eyes went wide. He instantly brought both axes together just in time to block a beam of light so hot that it scorched the very atmosphere around it. The detonation sent him flying backwards, while I was held in place by a warm darkness now embracing me.

Shadows coalesced to my side into a familiar form. Ryla knelt down beside me and rested her shaking hand on my cheek. The expression on her face still masked by the unnatural shadows she always wore. The violent rippling of the air drew my attention to the side as a seemingly electrified Kalan touched down with Amelia in his arms.

His energy dispersed as he quickly approached us and laid Amelia next to me. His face was impassive as he asked Ryla, “Do you think you can hold him off for a moment?”

“I’ll give you two,” Ryla seethed before slithering off, draped in shadows towards the unharmed Shezmu who was smiling again.

Kalan was strong, unbelievably so. In fact he was so strong that I knew I couldn't comprehend his level of power. So why? Why was something deep inside me so sure that he couldn't defeat that psycho?

I struggled up to my knees and attempted to speak, to shout at them to run, but I could only muster a hoarse, pained, moan. Kalan brought his finger to his lips and gently shook his head.

“I never focused on the healing aspect of this mana, but it should do,” he whispered as a bright warmth spread from his hands. I immediately felt the effects as the pain I had been too injured to feel returned to me, but I didn’t care.

I tried to speak again, but was met with an uncontrollable shaking taking hold of me. My body was finally able to react to the fear coursing through every fiber of my being. Kalan embraced me and rested his hand on the back of my head.

“It’s okay, Eve. You did very well. Now, it’s time for you to go.”

I shook my head as hard as my wounded neck would allow me. I can’t. Not that. Never that again. I can’t lose them again. It’s my fault-

Kalan released a gentle yet firm pulse of mana to cut off the thoughts he had to know were flying through my head.

“We each have something we must do in this life, a dream, a goal, a purpose. I thought I had lost mine long ago… but meeting you has saved me. You still have a mission of your own. If you fall here, who will find justice for your family?”

“Now, please, let me save you like you saved me. As long as you make it out of here,” He said softly as he placed his forehead against mine, “I will have won.”

Blood mixed with the waterfall of tears streaming down my face as my teeth sank into my lower lip, my fingers threatening to break with how tightly I was squeezing my fists, my nails digging into the palms of my hands.

It took every ounce of my determination to nod once. Kalan smiled and, for the first time, the gentle smile he always wore now reached his eyes.

“Thank you, Eve, for reminding this old man what it feels like to be happy. I know you’ve been through a lot of pain, and I couldn’t help you then, but I’m here now, so this time I will.”

Ryla screeched to a stop next to him, visibly exhausted and bleeding. Kalan placed a hand on her head and said something that I couldn’t hear. She turned on her heel and hurried towards us. Even with her shroud of shadows I could see the tears trickling off her chin.

Kalan’s back was to us with his head turned just enough to see us over his shoulder, and for a brief moment I saw a single tear fall from his eye as he mouthed the last words I may ever get from him.

I love you, Eve.

With a nod, his power exploded, lighting up the entire world, piercing through even the thick shroud of shadows that Ryla was quickly wrapping around us.