Chapter 317

Ascendance (XVIII)

Cain stood up from the ground by heavily leaning onto his arms, panting and heaving in the process, coughing while trying to expel dust from his lungs. Looking around, he couldn’t really discern much; most of it was covered beneath the layers upon layers of dust, flickers that rose into storms that clouded the skies above.

All around, rubble and debris coalesced to form indiscernible ruins of places that used to be. Mountains were no longer mountains as rivers were no longer rivers and forests ceased to be. Instead, they were all replaced by ravaged landscape turned upside down, wrung and strung together in a manner that seemed impossible.

Coughing again, he took out a bottle of water from his inventory and doused it, recovering somewhat. That final clash... broke the world, it seemed. He had no clue where he landed as the sheer expulsion of energy created a whirlpool of Mana that swung him round and round for nearly half a minute before tossing him away.

It split the world in two, and when it all blew up, things burned. He was blinded for a moment and even lost consciousness for a split second as he overcharged on his Mana usage.

“It’s been a while,” he mumbled, straining himself to walk. Every inch of his body hurt, with gashes and lacerations just now being clotted with Mana’s help. More than that, several of his ribs were cracked, his right shoulder was dislocated, and a good chunk of his bones were at the very least bruised.

It truly has been a while, he mused, since he last got so hurt. So long, in fact, that he’d nearly forgotten the pain. But it was back and it was burning, reminding him of many, many painful memories.

He began to drift through the dust, though not encountering anyone or anything. It wasn’t strange; outside of him, it was unlikely that anyone caught in the immediate vicinity of that collision survived. No, not unlikely. Impossible, though he didn’t burn through any of his true life-saving measures, he was on the cusps of it, especially toward the end.

Luckily, he managed to drink a single Mana Potion which allowed him to absorb some of the injuries that could have propelled his body further into shock. Nonetheless, the pain was still ever-present, causing him to grunt with each step. Though he was healing, even with Mana to use, it would still take time.

Sighing, he found a nearby rock and sat down, taking out another bottle of water and drinking through it. Of many things that accompanied fighting, this was one that he didn’t miss. Still, he won--at least he was fairly certain that he won. The last time he saw the King, the man had his sword-arm ripped to shreds, with the blade disintegrating straight after.

And though he had no idea where he flew off to, it was likely that even if he survived, he was on his last breath. This was the inconvenience of not having a system in place as it would have confirmed whether he succeeded or not.

“He he, stupid human! You were almost kind of cool there!!” Te’gha gingerly peaked his head out of the inventory and made himself comfortable in Cain’s lap.

“Huh? Stupid cat, couldn’t you have helped me slightly?”

“S-stupid cat?! Who are you calling stupid cat?!! Grrr! I’ll scratch you, stupid human! Besides, humph, Great Te’gha doesn’t fight weaklings!”

“... hoh?”

“W-w-what’s with that expression?”

“Nothing,” Cain said. “I’m just thinking of having you fight that Divine that shows up from time to time. If you kill her, we’re bound to get tons of rewards.”

“...”

“Anyway,” seeing the hurt and conflicted face of the tiny cat, Cain felt much better, petting the little feline’s head. “Can you sense where anything is? I’m really fucking lost right now.”

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“... I... I can... t-the King is still alive... it’s in that direction...” he extended his paw southward.

“Hoh? Still alive? I’m surprised. His constitution must be pretty amazing, huh? I’m kind of jealous, to be honest. If I got blasted that directly, I’d have been turned into smoke immediately.”

“... weren’t you the one who did the blasting, stupid human?!”

“Oh, right. He he.”

“Grr...”

“Alright,” he stood up, grunting as his bones creaked. “Let’s go.”

Following Te’gha’s instructions, who surprisingly didn’t go back into the inventory and instead remained perched on Cain’s shoulder, the strange duo headed southward through the smoke and debris and dust of the aftermath. It was a strange thing, he mused, almost as though he were walking through a post-apocalyptic landscape. Will Earth become like this one day?

He was certain it would. At some point, however far in the future it may be, the entire world will undoubtedly move into the Tower. Some would stay behind to live out their days, but once they were gone... who’d take care of things and maintain them? Years and decades and centuries would come to pass and the world will slowly start changing.

The Towers would likely disappear at some point as well... and once they were gone, Mana would be gone as well. It wouldn’t be death of Earth--far from it. Animals would continue to live, even thrive once the apex predator was completely gone. Other species would rise to take the humans’ place, and the world would shift. In time, perhaps, another crux of evolution might take place where a human-like species appears once again.

Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but sigh; it all seemed so surreal. After all, mankind’s lifelong dream was to reach for the stars and explore the universe. However, aim was never to completely abandon Earth. And yet, it became an inevitability. Sometime in the distant future, he mused, when he gets bored, he decided he’d take Emma, Lanna, and Senna on the cross-cosmic journey and to Earth, to see what has become of it without people inhabiting it.

Ah, it’s pointless to think about it, shaking his head, he dispersed the stray thoughts, moving onward. It was some half an hour later that he finally reached his goal. There was a massive crater, some half a mile deep, that spread out and covered a vast swath of the landscape. At the very bottom, a mangled, beaten, and dismembered body lay still, though it still breathed.

Cain was quite shocked that someone could still be alive in such a state as that looked far more like a corpse than the body of someone still had a breath left in them.

He descended the crater slowly, eventually winding up at the bottom, next to the body. Strangely and eerily enough, the pair of eyes opened and looked at him, and they almost seemed to be smiling. The lips parted, and despite the mangled state of the body, a voice came out.

“... you have bested me,” it was a young man’s voice, a somewhat cheerful yet bitter and melancholic one. “Hah.”

“Bested? Well, that’s one way of putting it, I suppose,” Cain said. “I’m shocked you’re still alive.”

“I’ve got pretty strong vitality,” he said. “But it won’t be long.”

“I’d be shocked if it were.”

“...”

“Anything you want to share with the world before being whisked away?”

“... I’ve lived a good life,” he said. “So, there’s no point. What the world needs to know, it knows. And what it doesn’t... well, it was never meant to know.”

“Profound,” Cain said, sitting down. “I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

“It’s a wasted apology. Anyone who sets foot into this world knows they’ll only leave it dead. Kings and Emperors included.”

“Is that really the case?” Cain mused aloud. “Why can’t you just leave?”

“Who knows? Ha ha. Pride? Comfort? Greed? Multitude of reasons, I suppose--gah,” the man coughed, spraying out a mouthful of blood. “Damn. Dying hurts.”

“Yes, that tends to be the truth.”

“At least... I get to go out proper,” he mumbled. “To another King.”

“... I’m... happy for you?”

“Ha ha ha, you’re a strange one, eh?” he coughed yet again. “After I die... the Council will take more caution around you.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“It’s good to be someone with a level-headed approach, but there’s a good reason why most of the cosmos elected to side with one of the two,” he added. “Not because all of us believed in our holy causes. But because it was the only way to truly survive.”

“... I’m not judging. Nor do I care, to be honest.”

“That’s good. Hey, I have a favor.”

“What?”

“Burn me.”

“... will do.”

“Haah, dying really hurts...”

“Sure does...”

“It’s... strange...”

“Sure is.”

“I...”

“Rest now.”

“... yeah.” Cain remained seated as the King's eyes closed and the last breath left his lungs. A few moments of silence settled in after, with even Te’gha not making any sound. In the end, Cain stood up and sighed, conjuring up a fireball and gently laying it onto the body, letting it burn. Life was much like this fire, he realized. It seemed impossible to extinguish during the certain portions of it, but, inevitably, it fizzles out and fades, leaving in its wake only a few pieces as a reminder of what was once there.

How many people has he watched die? Too many, he recalled. It has gotten easier, but he’d never become immune to it.

“Hmm?” he exclaimed softly, inspecting his Mana flow. “Wait...” realizing something was strange, he ran a complete check as his jaw abruptly opened and dropped. “Did... did I just Ascend?”