*** IN A WORLD CALLED ABADDON, IN A PLACE NAMED HELIX ***

*** Amriel ***

The last Malladon warrior’s body bounce on the hard wet ground of the cavern, a huge hole in his neck and gallons of blood spurting out of it. It died in front of Amriel.

The young knight barely notices this however as his eyes are looking directly at the naked woman thirty feet away from him. The woman is gazing somewhere beyond.

His last opponent already forgotten, he began to drag his ruined body to the unmoving entity. The white on blue uniform of his order is completely soaked in blood and ruined by dirt and fire. He drags his shaking left foot forward despite the trail of blood, and his left arm is now completely useless when the last malladon mage burned his flesh to the bone. The pain itself is enough to make any man crazy, but he grimly steps forward, sweat drenching the side of his face, struggling over the uneven ground of the subterranean floor.

Ahead, the young naked woman stood alone. The blanket draped over her by one of her malladon, lay forgotten on the wet floor. She ignored Amriel even as the knight started screaming incoherently in her direction.

‘Just a few more steps,’ Amriel thought almost desperately. He wipes the sweat of his brow, but it did not help his worsening vision. He found himself taking in rugged breathing, but he ignored all this and march on.

“Face me, Demon!” He shouted at the woman. “For I am your death!”

He eventually reaches her and harshly pulled her arm to force her to face him. The woman was mildly startled as if she’d noticed him for the first time. The look she gave him was filled with so much confusion, of loss and even fear. The one that made Amriel hesitate the most though was her eyes, for it was full of unbridled pain that almost equal his own.

But his hesitation was only for a second, He raised his good arm, which is holding a broken knife and was ready to stab her when she spoke.

“My brothers and sisters are all gone,” she said in such a lonely voice. “They left me, I am all alone.”

The voice was like an ice lance stab in Amriel’s heart. He stopped. He stared at her, incredulous. It was a soft woman’s voice. A voice Amriel is so familiar with. Not only thus the demon has Allana’s face, but her voice as well. How could this abomination sound like an angel? Carrying her meaning and the sadness in that simple statement.

‘NO!’ Amriel thought viciously, grinding his teeth in anger. He discarded the unfairness of it all and focus on his duty instead. The void goddess must die.

“As you should be!” He shouted right in her face, flecks of saliva spitting everywhere. “Why those idiotic fanatics of yours needed to revive you, I cannot fathom. Your kind has been dead for a thousand years! And even if you and your brethren are truly gods, mankind do not need your guidance anymore. So go back to the abyss that you came from!”

And with that, Amriel use up the remaining radiance of his life. Incandescent blue fire surrounded Amriel’s knife, burning cold into his cut fingers and spreading almost instantly and into the blade itself. He stabs the woman directly in her left eye and into her brain. The force of the momentum made him slip and fell to the cold ground below, but his broken knife remains embedded in the creature’s eye.

Amriel tried to gasp back some air, but he failed miserably. His lungs are getting flooded with blood and he coughed some of it out. He felt a gentle pressure on his shoulder as someone turned him over. Resting on his back, he watches her watch him back. Amriel has no strength left to do anything else.

She notices him watching the knife in her eyes and she gave a mild surprise as if saying, “Oh what is this thing doing here?” As Amriel watch her helplessly, she gently pulled the knife out of her brain and toss it aside. Right in front of him, the abomination’s eye regenerated almost lazily, and without effort.

‘Instant regeneration,’ Amriel’s thought strayed as his life ebbed out of him. ‘Allana would have love to study that magic.’

“You are dying...” said the creature.

“I... do not… fear you, monster,” Amriel said, again coughing blood. He tried to move his body. To scratch her, bite her, do anything, but his limbs were not following his orders anymore. “I still swear I will kill you, if not in this life then the next!”

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The thing simply watches him with those unfathomable deep brown eyes.

“You cannot kill me with your weapons nor with your magic,” she said. The very simplicity of her words gave weight to its honesty. “I am simply too strong for you.”

Amriel watch as the woman grab his hand and raised it. With her other hand, she touches her chest and a brilliant red crystal emerges out of it. It was huge, the size of an ostrich egg, and Amriel could feel the very river of the source empower the radiance of the crystal.

To his astonishment, the woman forced him to hold the crystal. “This is my soul stone. It holds my very life force itself,” she told him. Her brown eyes never wavering from him. “If you truly want to erase my existence, then you must destroy my soul stone.”

Amriel turned his gaze to the soul stone. It was pulsing with power that he could not even begin to estimate. “You do not have any radiance left. And even if you do, it is simply not pure enough to destroy it,” she said. Her words was a statement and not a question. “So I will give you my own.”

Even before it could register, powerful red radiance envelope his hand that is holding the creature’s own. He could feel the destructive power that swirls around him and he knew just then that he can crush the soul stone in his other hand with nothing but a small effort. He can kill this monster once and for all.

But even then he hesitated. He looks back at her and studied her intently. “Why?” he finally asked.

For a long moment, the abomination simply watches him back. Then she spoke:

“You are the spark of fire in the darkness of night.”

“… What?”

She smiled at him. “Kill me, knight. Send me back to oblivion.”

“…”

It was so easy to finish it all. All Amriel had to do was squeeze and the soul stone will be no more. He would have fulfilled his duty to his land, to the order, to lady Cylene and the royal council, and most important of all, to himself. He would have avenged the death of his beloved wife, and keep the continent safe once and for all.

So why is he hesitating? Isn’t this the reason why he charge into this source-forsaken place? Where only his death awaits him or worse be trap here for all eternity? Isn’t the reason the army is still out there desperately containing the gate so evil will not spread in the world, comes down to this moment?

His inner-self screamed at him to choose now, for despite the unbelievable magical energy that wraps around his hand, he can still feel his life ending…

… And so he chose…

“I understand my duty,” he whispered to himself, looking at the soul stone in his hand. The woman beside him did not move, waiting patiently. And then he screamed to the high heavens. He screamed his frustration, his burden, and most of all his pain… and then finally releasing the soul stone in his grasp.

“… But I cannot kill her,” Amriel said in anguished. “May the source help me, but I cannot kill her.” His scream turned into a miserable broken sob that tore what’s left of his rugged soul.

It was her smile. That half knowing smile that always makes him crazy. Allana the cold bitch, they call her. The efficient master healer who manage her infirmary like a factory. Healing those who can be saved, but throwing away those who cannot. She was responsible for the deaths of thousands in order to save tens of thousands more. Such responsibilities would have broken someone weaker, but not her. As a consequence, she rarely smiles to anyone. But once you see it, like a drug, you wanted more. And so Amriel invested a lot of his time to his lame jokes and goofy antics to see those smile from her just one more time. That half smile. That reluctant tired smile.

Allana’s smile.

He simply did not have the will to erase that beautiful smile in this world. Despite his vengeance, despite his duty, and even despite his very soul. Even if the smile belongs now to an abomination.

Only then did the knight named Amriel let go… and died.