There was a moment of stunned silence among the men of the head supervisor, who lay in front of him in a groove in the shape of his own body. Lakshman waited for a few seconds for the opposition side to say or do something. When seconds ticked by, he understood that they were too shocked to do anything and decided to do something to snap them out of their reverie.
He took two steps forward and put his right foot down on top of the supervisor’s head that was facing the ground. In an instant, it had the effect he desired as it snapped the man’s group of men from their shocked state to start shouting at him.
“Hey?!”
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“Do you know who you’re setting your foot on?!”
“Get off him!”
“Get off him right this instance!”
Their shouts continued to fly through the air and got carried to him, but he ignored all of them. He sighed and decided it was a waste of his time to speak with them, and instead beckoned them with his hand in a challenging gesture. This instantly made the men fly into a rage, especially after seeing the smug smile that their enemy wore on his face.
“You bastard!”
“You had this coming!”
“You made the biggest mistake of your life!”
After shouting such words, the ten men took stances, aimed their lasers in his direction and launched them all at the same time. The attacks flew through the air and smashed against Lakshman, causing an explosion to occur and cover their vision with smoke. This did not dither them because they knew the general location of their target and continued their barrage of attacks at him.
Several seconds passed like this until they finally decided they had fired enough and took a break with grins on their faces. They were feeling very satisfied at the thought of punishing that arrogant man for the crime of attacking their head supervisor. However, as the smoke cleared and a figure appeared through it, the ten of them stiffened in shock to see Lakshman was looking the same as before.
His expression with the smug smile was still in place, but it soon changed to that of a frown as he tilted his head and asked, “Is that all?”
His simple question sent them flying into a mighty rage, causing them to shout various things at him.
“Damn you!”
“Just stay there and watch!”
“We’ll launch our attack at maximum output!”
“See if you can survive that!”
After shouting, the men began typing the buttons on the devices on their wrists for a few seconds before aiming their hands at him. Ram, who was beaten badly and was relying on the taller man for support, realised that they were deadly serious.
“Let’s get out of here!” He ordered his comrade.
The tall man took one look at his leader and nodded once in reply before shouting to the people in the vicinity, “Everyone! We’re leaving! Come on! Move!”
At his shout everyone was shocked, but as he immediately began moving away to the safety of the high land where the others were gathered at, the victims managed to their feet or supported one another to follow after them. Meanwhile, the men began to form a brilliant ball of light in front of their hands, which pulsated with destruction energy and aimed it at Lakshman.
“Take this!”
“Have this!”
“Eat this!”
Shouting words with similar purpose and meaning, all the ten men launched their attacks at the same time. The attacks got released into ten separate destruction waves, which converged and became one mighty wave of destruction. This time, Lakshman narrowed his eyes and smiled a little before the wave soared towards him and smashing into him with a heavy impact.
Upon impact, there was an enormous explosion that created a wild blowing wind to go in all directions as well as the shock waves that flew everywhere. The men got buffeted while they braced themselves against it, the people trying to get away from them lost their balance and collapsed while the people in front, including the tall man and Ram, made it to safety.
A few seconds later, a huge cloud of smoke covered the vicinity and made it very difficult for the ten men to see anything clearly through it. They were breathing a little quickly because of the energy they had used in releasing an attack of that scale, and smiles were forming on their faces in triumph at the thought of finally defeating the man.
“Yes!” They shouted in great happiness.
“No one can beat us with your combined attack strength!”
“No one stands a chance to survive that!”
“We’ve totally beat the crap out of that guy for sure this time!”
They continued to shout and cheer with joy at the prospect of winning the battle, only for their hopes to crash like that of a glass jar falling to the ground. The reason presented itself in the form of a figure who was revealed as the smoke slowly cleared. A moment later, Lakshman came into full view sporting clothes that were slightly burnt with holes here and there, the only visible damage done to him by that attack.
“No way…!”
“Not a single scratch on him!”
“We attacked him with our strongest attack…!”
“Why…?”
Lakshman did not clearly hear what they were saying from the distance separating him and them, but he guessed what it was and said in a loud voice, “Oh! If you’re feeling sad that I got no scratches, don’t worry. You at least managed to burn my clothes. That’s an achievement, I guess.”
The ten men instantly wore a horrified expression on their faces when they saw this. Instead of even scratching him, all they managed to do was burn his clothes a little bit. It was a devastating thing for them as they had great confidence in their strength and their ability to deal serious damage to whoever they attack with that mighty attack.
The Solaris Hero shook his head and looked sternly at them before asking, “Seriously, though, are you guys stupid or something? I mean, do you even realise that your leader is beneath my foot? In that case, if anything were to happen to me, he also would’ve been dealt with the same damage, which means that he probably could’ve died! Is that what you were aiming for? Huh?!”
The supervisor’s men were shocked upon hearing it and realising the grave mistake they had conducted and became dejected. Lakshman shook his head in exasperation and sighed before looking at them with a serious expression on his face.
“Alright. You’ve had your chance, and now it’s my turn,” he said, and smiled as he aimed his hand at them.
As soon as he flexed his hand, magic circles began appearing beneath the feet of all ten men, causing them to become momentarily surprised. Then, a strong pulling force suddenly activated and they collapsed heavily on the ground, which seemed to be pulling them into it. The strength of the pulling force increase, causing them to experience the threatening feeling of being crushed against the ground with great intensity.
Seeing the result of his magic, Lakshman clenched his fist tightly and smiled triumphantly.
“Great. I can confidently say I can now use Voiceless Incantation,” he muttered in a voice filled with satisfaction.
He thought back to the hectic training that he endured due to the effort of the slowing down of time in the Unconscious World. There, he and Asura put their utmost effort into mastering Voiceless Incantation, which was proving to be a tough challenge for both of them. They continued to train each and every second of the waking moment in his Unconscious World and even came close to going crazy from the stress of failing to grasp the method.
He could remember hearing Asura complaining, “What the hell?! This is ridiculously tough to master! I feel like I’m going crazy!”
“Maybe,” Lakshman had commented shortly, trying his best to concentrate on the training, “but we can’t give up now, not when we are facing an enemy that utilises this thing. What’s more, I get the feeling that this Overlord would be a challenge far greater than the Calamity Titan!”
Asura gritted his teeth and got back into the training, which continued on for several more countless days. There was actually no point in the first Phoenix Titan participating in the training since it was Lakshman who really needed to learn the method, however, he voluntarily undertook the training in order to somehow master it so that he could help his current-self out in figuring it out.
Finally, as both warriors were approaching their breaking point, Lakshman finally managed to master to Voiceless Incantation, and the first spell he used was Restoration without saying it out loud. Both of them were feeling thrilled at the success, but Asura continued to train and then, several countless days later, he also mastered the method to invoke Voiceless Incantation to use the magic spells.
“I may have aged spiritually, but it’s a good thing that my body’s reacting well to this new-found potential of mine,” he commented with a smile on his face. Then he narrowed his eyebrows with a confident smile as he muttered, “I hope you have backup plans for this, alien, because now you’re not the only one with this skill.”
As he was savouring the moment, he suddenly felt something moving beneath his right foot and looked down to see the head of the supervisor struggling as if he was having trouble breathing.
“Oops,” said Lakshman, and he stepped away for the man to swing his head up with a loud gasp.
He coughed several times and took a great lungful of air to get his breathing back in order. It took him a moment to recover and look at his men, who had collapsed on the ground while crying out in pain as their bodies were crushed under the weight of the heavy gravity due to the magic circles beneath each of them.
“Bastard! You’ll pay for this!” He shouted at him.
Lakshman eyed him coldly before stepped down on his head again and saying, “I didn’t ask for your opinion,” before pulling his leg back and kicking the head supervisor in the ribs.
The man flew away and headed towards where his comrades fell before coming to a crashing stop. Lakshman had raced past him at super speed and was already there by the time he came crashing to a stop near his men. He winced and groaned from the pain affecting his body due to the crushing blows he received earlier, as well as the kick in the ribs that caused him to vomit blood out of his mouth. At the same time, Ram, the tall man, Aimi, and the others were rushing towards where they were at with worried looks on their faces.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” Ram asked him, who was looking far worse at close up.
Lakshman smiled wryly and replied, “Better than you, my friend,” causing Ram to smile a little.
However, that smile on Ram’s face vanished and was replaced with seriousness as he accused him, “You broke your promise with me!”
“No, I didn’t,” said Lakshman simply with a slight shake of the head. When the Raven’s Guild leader looked confused, Lakshman smiled and said, “You never said I shouldn’t interfere if someone cries out for help, right?”
“What?!” Ram exclaimed, looking shocked. Then, as realisation dawned, he chuckled and said, “Ah. I messed up.”
“It’s your fault for missing that small bit out when you did a good job of making me go through the trouble of making a promise,” commented Lakshman.
Ram nodded with a small smile and said, “Yes. Well, thank you for saving me.”
“Don’t thank me,” said Lakshman with a shake of the head and looked at Aimi. “Thank your wife because she’s the only one in that crowd that cried out for help,” which made Ram turn towards Aimi, whose face was stricken as her eyes were filled with tears. “Never make a wife worry, friend. It’s one of the worst things a husband could possible do to his wife, who’s waiting for him back at home.”
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“Yes.”
Then he aimed his hand at him and said, “Let’s fix you up already,” and activated restoration using his newly learnt Voiceless Incantation ability.
Within seconds, Ram no longer felt pain in his body as his injuries closed and the blood vanished from sight until he looked normal again. The Raven’s Guild leader let go of the taller man’s support and checked his body thoroughly for any abnormalities and was amazed.
“Wow! Is this the magic you used on yourself?” Ram asked, and Lakshman nodded with a smile. With a smile, he spread his arm out to the victims and requested, “Please, can you heal them too?”
Lakshman shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sure,” and aimed his hand at them and immediately cast his healing magic on them as well. Like Ram, everyone was amazed when their pain stopped and their injuries quickly healed, with the blood vanishing and them returning to look normal again.
While that was happening, one of men of the supervisor managed to muster up the strength to fight the heavy gravity pulling them down and looked up at Lakshman. He was trying to catch a glimpse of this enemy of theirs so that he could report about him to the authorities. However, he was shocked to find that it was none other than the Solaris Hero, whom he only met once at the castle in the capital.
“O-Oh my god,” he muttered, laying his head back down and looking shocked. Then he faintly said, “It’s him…! It’s… him…!”
He was scared for his life, and the reason was because he was there when Lakshman had unleashed the full force of his power during his fight against Gram, the Tempest Hero. Everyone in the castle and in the nearby surroundings of the capital shuddered at the destructive power that he possessed, which seemed to have no depth at all.
As such, he looked towards his leader and said in a weak voice, “Boss… This guy… He’s the Solaris Hero…!”
At his statement, his comrades became shocked despite the pain causing by the heavy gravity inflicting upon them. Even their leader became shocked by it, however, because of the pain he was in, all he could do was roll around while groaning painfully.
“Oh? Someone finally recognised me,” said Lakshman with a smile, looking down at the man that recognised him. “What’re you going to do now? Complain to the authorities? Report me in?”
He was speaking in such a mocking voice that Ram looked at him in surprise and asked tentatively, “Lucky?”
“Oh? Sorry,” apologised Lakshman, looking back at Ram. “It’s just that I’m a little bit angry right now.” He turned to look down at the man that was groaning in pain and said, “I wanted to give these people a chance to get their act together, but instead, I’m faced with the reality that it’d take a miracle to cure their disease.”
Ram nodded in agreement, but he looked concerned and asked, “But this leaves us in a predicament I stated earlier. Now they know who you are, and that’s going to bring us trouble.”
“Yeah! It sure will!” The leader exclaimed despite the pain he was suffering from. He glared up at them and said, “You better be prepared for retribution for seeking help from a wanted criminal, especially one who was summoned as a hero and now has a huge bounty on his head.”
A shudder ran through the crowd of onlookers and they turned to look at one another anxiously. They were powerless and are defenceless against the wrath of the government, as proved by their inability to protect themselves against ten people that attacked them. So, the thought of facing off authority, being arrested, and then punished for the crime of getting help from a wanted hero turned criminal was scaring them.
At that moment, one of the people from the crowd suggested in a nervous voice, “W-We could, um, k-kill them!”
A ripple occurred within everyone as they exclaimed, “What?!” in shock.
“It’s the easiest thing for us to do in order to stay safe,” argued another person, agreeing with the notion of killing the supervisor and his men.
“Think about it people! These guys would’ve killed us if Ram didn’t interfere, and look at what they did to him!”
“They deserve it!”
“They deserve to die!”
“All of them should just die!”
As the crowd slowly begun to agree with the notion, Ram, the tall man, and Aimi turned around to look at them in shock.
Even the supervisor became scared by their crazy behaviour and shouted, “You… You wouldn’t dare?!”
At that moment, they were startled when they heard a high laughter coming from somewhere in front, and they turned to see it originated from Lakshman. He was laughing loudly as if he found the whole situation hilarious, but Ram could sense that he was not really laughing but expressing his sadness in the form of a mirthless laughter.
“You people are such savages,” said Lakshman, controlling his laughter and smiling disdainfully at them all. “I mean, they hurt you, you hurt them back, they attack you, you attack them back, they kill you, you kill them back. What a great sense of logic,” and he began to laugh again with no real humour in it.
Everyone was stricken, Ram looked uncomfortably at the hero and said, “Lucky… Please stop.”
“Stop?” Lakshman asked, stopping his laughter in an instant to look seriously at him. He pointed at the people around him and said, “Tell them to stop, not me! They’re the people with the murderous intentions of taking the lives of people! For crying out loud, no matter what world it may be, this sort of stupidity never changes! Everyone is a fool!”
“Hey!” One of the men from the crowd shouted, becoming angry by his statement. “We don’t need you berating us when you, a hero, haven’t experienced the kind of pain we faced!”
“Yeah!” Said another, picking up courage to shout at him. “Who gave you the right to complain about our way when you enjoyed a comfortable life at the castle and then backed away when you finally found out the real truth of this corrupted system!”
From there, the shouts and the insults began pouring in on Lakshman, who simply stood there, stone-faced, and silent. Ram, Aimi, and the tall man were alarmed by their radical behaviour and attempted to quiet them down. However, they were enraged by his statement and began to let out all the anger, all the pent up frustration and released it all on him.
As the shouting continued, Lakshman closed his eyes for a moment before opening them, raising his forearm up and clicking his fingers together. In an instant, the shouting got dismissed and it became silent all of a sudden. The mouths of the people continued to move as they were clearly shouting, however, no sound came out and they soon realised that they had been muted. Horrified, they looked at him with fear while Ram, Aimi, and the tall man looked towards him in astonishment.
“You’re indeed correct that I don’t know the pain you experienced,” said Lakshman in a sad voice, “and you are also right that I enjoyed the comfort of this world’s hospitality before facing the harsh truth of the reality. Yet, I am a powerful warrior, and silencing all of you is a trifle for a man like me,” and he looked so coldly at them that they shivered from fright.
He paused for a moment as he organised his thoughts before saying, “My world is a harsh world, with monsters roaming the wild and the living was extremely difficult,” and began pacing around as he continued on with what he was saying.
“The first time that I killed was a monster, and that was at the age of seven. It was causing trouble for us, and it had already took many lives, so I took its life.” He looked at them with a small smile and said, “I didn’t feel anything at that time, only the feeling that I saved many people. Later on, I faced off against a monster that was trying to kill a bunch of travellers, and I could’ve killed it like the first one since it was monster, and I would’ve felt the same as before, that I saved the lives of those travellers.
But, I didn’t, and instead I discovered the truth that it was only trying to attack the people that were kidnapping its baby. I found compassion and it made me realise that not all monsters are mindless, cold blooded killers and that humans are also at fault for causing the disturbance. Then, the first human I killed was at the age of sixteen. He killed his own father to take the throne and instigated a war against my kingdom, resulting my wife’s father getting killed. I didn’t want to kill him, so I gave him a chance to redeem himself. Instead, he tried to kill me, and I was forced to take his life.”
Pausing for a moment, he turned to them and said, “Once again, I didn’t feel like I accomplished anything except the fact that I took revenge on the guy who brought me and my people so much harm. I didn’t even feel cold, and I didn’t even feel sick at the thought of killing him… because I considered him the same as the monster that I killed that first time.”
He shook his head and continued pacing around as he went on saying, “I didn’t like the idea of killing people, and ever since then, I’ve fought with less than my potential because I wanted to give my enemies a chance to redeem themselves, to turn a new leaf over before they ultimately failed, and I was forced to bring a closure to their life. Again, and again, I fought, I gave many chances, and I ultimately killed.
People kept telling me I was stupid to give my opponents chances since it gave them the opportunity to exploit my weakness. I refused to listen to them, and my decision cost me many people, including the lives of my parents.”
The atmosphere suddenly felt heavy as many of the men looked shocked while the women covered their mouths with their hands, widened their eyes in shock. Ram and his companions looked towards him with sadness filling their faces and listened silently as he went on speaking.
“I had the chance to kill the killers beforehand, and he even almost came close to killing me, whichthat knocked me out for several years,” said Lakshman, and he raised his shaking hands up to his eye level to look at. “I started to think that maybe I was being too soft on my enemies, maybe I was handing out my weakness for the enemies to play with, and that maybe I should’ve killed every single one of them without a shred of mercy!”
He clenched his fists so tightly that they shook from the sheer force he was exerting. Then he relaxed his fists and turned to look at them with a distraught expression on his face.
“But, if I were to do that, what would I become?” He asked them slowly, shaking a little. “What would become of me? Would I end up becoming just like the enemies that I fought? A killing machine without a shred of mercy, without a care in the world, only focused on killing because it was the best course of action to take?”
There, he paused and looked at Ram before asking, “Ram, you said to me before that there is a program called the Artificial Intelligence, that is programmed to arrange for city constructions based on their priority, right?” When Ram nodded wordlessly, Lakshman nodded back and looked at everyone else before saying, “So, it’s a mindless machine that is programmed to do a set of procedures, and only them. So, If I chose to go down that route, doesn’t that make me… a mindless machine… the same thing that is causing you trouble? Does that mean… that I would be no different from a cold-hearted monster?”
His question made everyone look uncomfortable and even made several people to look away, unable to look him into the eye anymore. Lakshman noted this, and smiled sadly at them as he understood they were finally feeling the hypocrisy of what they were about to do and what they really wanted to do. Still, he resumed his pacing as he continued speaking to them.
“Yet, here I am, making fun of your stupidity. Why you might ask, and it’s simple; I didn’t fall into that trap because I remembered the teachings of my parents, the wisdom of my masters, and the advices from my friends.” Here he stopped to look at the people once more, telling them, “Never give up, and never surrender to those empty emotions because, if they’re complaining about your methods, then you are doing it correctly.
That is what they told me, and ever since then, I’ve stuck with that firm belief and continued to improve myself because… I’m a human being. So, think about it, are you human beings as well, or the same mindless beings that are running your modern society?”
At that, he stopped and knelt down to face the supervisor and asked him, “So, mister nameless person, how did it feel when they wanted to take your life? Scared you, didn’t it? It made you feel afraid, didn’t it?” When the supervisor looked uncomfortably, the Solaris Hero smiled softly and asked, “If you didn’t like what they were going to do to you, then why did you bring harm to them in the first place?”
He raised a finger in the air and said, “The first principle for any living being is that they should treat others in the same way they wanted to be treated by them. Was it your intention to get assaulted and probably get killed in return for getting losing track of the road you travel on because of your authority and your so-called revenge?”
When the supervisor remained facing away from him, Lakshman sighed and straightened up while saying, “You won’t change with such simple words, and I’m not going to bother trying to make you change because it’s your choice. But, take what you experienced here to heart and change for the better, and then, you’ll maybe find that you were wrong the entire time.”
The Solaris Hero aimed his hand at the him and his men before silently activating his magic, which caused a large magic circle to appear beneath the group. While the men were startled by it, everyone else backed away from the circle for fear for their life.
“I’m sending you to the castle in the capital,” explained Lakshman to the men, who were looking worried, “and when you meet that idiot king, greet him for me and tell him… that these people are under my protection. Got it? They’re under the protection of the Solaris Hero.”
At that moment, the supervisor turned to look up at Lakshman and asked, “Why are you doing this?”
Lakshman blinked twice at him before smiling and replying, “Because I care,” and clicked his finger, causing the men to get surrounded by a brilliant yellow light before they and the light vanished from sight. Then Lakshman turned to face everyone and said, “Right. It’s time for us to leave too,” and clicked his finger to enable everyone to speak again.
“Leave?” Ram asked, looking confused. “To where?”
“Yeah. We don’t have anywhere else to go,” added the tall man, looking sadly at him. “Our homes, our hopes, and our dreams are all here. Where else could you expect us to go in order to escape from the government?”
Lakshman chuckled when he heard that and said, “I didn’t just mean you, I also included the whole place.”
There was a moment of pause before Ram exclaimed, “What?! Leave with the entire place?! Are you serious?!”
The hero nodded and asked the fairy, “Excuse me, pixie?”
In an instant, he received a sharp reply in his mind saying, “I’m a fairy! F-a-i-r-y! Get it right already!”
He chuckled and said in his mind, “Sorry, but now isn’t the right time for me to get a lesson on names. Can you tell me whether I possess the capability to transport this whole place and the people to somewhere else in this world in my current state?”
His requested stunned the fairy, who commented, “That is the most outrageous thing I ever heard in my entire life.”
“Is it possible?” He pressed her.
There was a moment of silence as she seemed to be assessing him before replying, “Yes. You can do it, but your body might get heavily strained.”
This made him smile and mutter to himself, “I can handle that.” Then he looked at Ram and the others and said, “Brace yourselves. We’re shifting places.”
While everyone was looking confused, he closed his eyes and imagined vividly on what must happen for them all and the entire place so that they get transported from this place to a remote location that is far away from here. When he got the image in his head, he raised his hand into the air and activated his magic. In an instant, a massive magic circle formed beneath their feet and in the sky, covering them and the entire city from one end to the other.
As the people were worried and looked around the bright glowing lights in apprehension, Ram looked at Lakshman and asked, “W-What is this, Lucky? What are you doing?”
“D-Dimensional Warp!” Lakshman said, and he grunted in pain as he felt an intense pain in the muscles of his body. “It’s… supposed to transport a large area and its inhabitants from here to a either a random place or a place of my choice.”
This made Ram look worried as he exclaimed in a sharp voice, “But… you’ve never been to any other place but here and the capital!”
“It’s okay,” said Lakshman, and he breathed a sigh from tiredness and smiled weakly at him. “I’ve requested the magic to specifically transport us to a place far away and is safe from all kinds of danger. So, relax. We’ll be safe soon enough.”
Ram went on silent, but he continued to stare at him in amazement that was reflected in his wife’s and his comrade’s faces. Lakshman soon felt as if he was short on breath and began breathing heavily as the full weight of the spell finally hit him. His body was screaming at him as it was being strained, however, he endured it because he had felt pain far worse than this and resolved himself to handle it with ease.
Finally, when the magic was ready, he grinned at them and shouted, “Alright! Here we go!”
The moment he closed his raised hand, the magic got activated. There was a blinding flash of light as the whole city got covered by a brilliant glowing light and it lasted for several seconds before it and the city vanished into thin air. No traces of a city remained at that place and the only thing remaining was the empty wasteland that was left behind.
Later that day, when authorities came to find the place after being informed of the incident by the supervisor, they reported that a city had vanished from the face of the world.