Red trudged through the area outside of the forest, now terraformed into a swampy marshland. He paced around aimlessly as the names of the soldiers rattled around in his head, before dropping to his knees. The listless look on Leon’s face before Red took his life painted itself onto his eyelids.
Red doubled over and threw up, the sounds echoing through the grassy plains and bouncing back to him. He wiped his mouth and stood up slowly. His ornate armor began melting off of his body. After a few seconds, every piece turned into a soupy liquid and dripped off his body onto the ground.
Red stared at his shaking hands as the blood slid off of them, “I…I killed them. I just wanted to incapacitate them and escape. But something took control of me. I made a pact to never kill again, but I just couldn’t stop myself. I’m a monster. No different from the one I killed earlier…” Red thought to himself.
Red slammed a hand into the ground and placed his head in his other hand. He let out a few inarticulate sounds between sobs and vigorously shook his head.
After a few minutes, Red picked himself up and sat down, cross-legged. He faced the forest and closed his eyes.
“I just need to calm down and meditate like Day always says,” Red thought.
It felt as though the sun pierced his flesh as he entered a trance-like state. The rustling of the wind, the howling and roaring of animals, and the heat of the sun all commanded his attention; but he tuned them out, and after a short while, they ceased to exist. He could no longer feel the ground underneath him or the air against his face; instead, he could only sense the flow of arcana around him. The arcana was overwhelming and all-encompassing. It was hot and cold, hard and soft, liquid and solid, all at once. Opening his eyes, he still sat in the same field, but it now seemed to be submerged in water. The arcana naturally took on that shape. When Red stuck his hand out and squeezed it, the texture was more akin to rubber. When he gripped it even harder, it slipped through the cracks in his fingers.
“This isn’t a safe place, I need to move this to the guild hall,” Red thought.
Red pinched his face hard and snapped up. He had been sitting in the same position for hours. The sun sat low in the sky and the pale yellow light gave way to a cacophony of orange and red streaks.
He began to walk. Although he had regained most of his energy, the faces of the soldiers still dwelled in his mind. Attempting to shake those thoughts off, he turned his thoughts to his subconscious.
He couldn’t help but think that something more sinister was going on, and he also couldn’t understand why the boy felt so familiar. The young man looked like Red right before he officially became a knight, but there was something different about him.
Red trekked through the open field for a couple of hours, until a large wooden building came into view on the horizon, illuminated by the moon. And farther back, there was something else.
There was a small group of armored knights; their armor was much more pristine than the group Red faced earlier. The knight in front was on a tall black horse and approached quickly. The man was tall but quite skinny, with wise features, flawless dark skin, and long, flowing black dreads.
The horse galloped right in front of Red, nearly trampling him as the man descended. Standing right in front of Red, the man had an intimidating, menacing aura, and even without using any magic, it was plainly obvious there was mana pouring out of him.
"Former Celeres Red, known as the King of Crimson Blood, you are under arrest,” The man spoke extremely quickly, as if each sentence was a single word.
"And who are you supposed to be?"
The man frowned at that comment, "I am Commander Grand Officer Olo, representing the Kingdom of Oldum’s army. The king has sent me personally to capture you."
Red examined the man quickly. He wore extremely lightweight black armor that seemed to be just a step above cloth. Looking closer, he noticed Olo’s strange dagger. Olo wore a sash made of some monster skin on his waist and placed his dagger in it in place of a scabbard. The blade end was covered in magic runes from end to end, without a single blank spot. On the other end, the handle had three prongs, like a crown. It was finely carved and sharpened, and it glistened with pieces of gold.
Olo paced around, petting his horse but never breaking eye contact with Red, "I would advise you to come along quietly, sir. You were heading up there to the guild hall, correct?"
Red tried not to look in its direction, only maintaining his eye contact with Olo.
He continued, "I’ll have everyone in there arrested for aiding and abetting an infamous criminal. There won’t be a trial. They’ll be executed on the spot," Olo smirked with the last statement.
Red quickly reached his hand out and opened it wide. A dagger of blood filled the gap and he closed his fist quickly. He jumped into a battle stance and yelled, "Take that back!"
Olo smiled madly, and without even making a motion, multiple bracelets of magic runes went up both arms. Olo didn’t enter a battle stance; however, he became more relaxed. Despite his relaxed demeanor, Red was almost suffocated by the killing intent exuding from Olo.
"Commander!" A distant voice called out. A young man, much shorter than Olo, but visibly powerful in his own right, quickly ran between the two.
"What is it, Yasuke?” Olo snapped at him.
Yasuke looked Red up and down, squinted his eyes, then turned back to Olo, "We have a situation at the guild hall! Baal is acting strange, I think he may have turned into some kind of monster! He keeps trying to bite the other squad member’s necks…”
Olo’s smile narrowed and his nostrils flared, “Restrict him but don’t hurt him. I’m sure that’s the work of some blue mage who wants to be a hero. We’re taking them all in. Kill anyone who fights back, thinks about fighting, or looks at you funny. Arrest anyone else." Without another word, Yasuke quickly raced back up the hill to the guild hall.
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Red took the opportunity and stabbed Olo in the neck. Olo didn’t even look at Red as the blade passed right through him. Red looked in awe as Olo’s entire body turned into a cloud of black smoke and floated through the air as Red continuously attempted to strike him.
After putting distance between them, Olo turned back into a human and stared at Red with an eyebrow raised, "I don’t think you want to do this. I know everything about you. Hemokinesis is your innate ability, correct? Controlling blood, making weapons from it and the like? It's powerful, but I know it can be very harmful to yourself," he paused, "and I know it's vulnerable to the elements."
Red chuckled while summoning a spear. "Since when do knights in Oldum know about innate abilities? When I was a knight, you all didn’t know what end of the sword to point at your enemies. Fighting you all was like stepping on ants."
Olo gritted his teeth, and black smoke began to billow from his body, "Is that how you felt when you killed my squad yesterday? Was it like stepping on ants?"
Red hesitated for a second, then stabbed his hand and yelled out, "It was easier than that!"
Olo stepped backward into a cloud of black smoke and disappeared. Red looked around for him frantically as the smoke dissipated. He formed his hand into a circle and put it to his eye, whispering to himself, "Outrider," but at the same moment, a hand grabbed him, completely covering his nose and mouth, and stabbed him, thrusting the blade into his back and through his chest. His temperature rose exponentially as his entire body began to feel like it was on fire. The pain of the stab overloaded his senses and he let out a primal scream.
“Damn! He’s fast, I didn’t even have time to summon my armor.” Red thought to himself.
Before the figure could let him go, Red turned all of the blood in the area into chains and wrapped them around the figure.
Red pushed himself forward, off of the blade, and turned around to see Olo bound by the chains. He dropped his blade and began tugging at a particularly strong blood chain around his neck. Red picked up Olo’s blade and examined it closely. He made an indistinct motion with his hand and turned the blood on the blade into a needle, aiming it at Olo’s eye.
"What did you say about knowing everything about me?” Red gloated.
Olo struggled out a laugh and relaxed his body, grabbing the chain around his neck with one hand. Starting from where he was grabbing, the entire chain began to freeze quickly. A second later, Olo squeezed it tightly, and it shattered. Easily breaking free from the rest and swatting the needle, Olo stood face to face with Red once again, towering over him.
Red stuck out his hand in front of him, and immediately bracelets of runic symbols ran up his arm. He yelled out, "Thalas-," as Olo reached out his hand as well, clasping them together with Red’s and whispering, "Holy Restriction."
Confused, Red kept his hand out and attempted to summon the runic symbols again, but he couldn’t summon them. Red ran through the catalog of spells in his mind, and tried every tactic to cast a spell, but none worked.
Red summoned his winged spear and lashed out at Olo, attacking him wildly, screaming, "What did you do to me!"
Olo easily dodged all of the attacks and grabbed the spear. He froze the spear and snapped it in one motion. Olo got in close to Red’s face, he softly whispered, “A simple trick. I locked down all of your spells except your innate ability. This is nothing compared to what I have prepared for you. I’m asking you to surrender and come with us, but honestly? I’m hoping you don’t."
Red looked around the field, then back at Olo, and snapped his fingers, turning all of the blood on the ground and on their bodies into spears. He telepathically launched them at Olo, but Olo stood unbothered.
He put his hand out in front of him and shouted, "Flames of Ogun!" White flames burst out wildly from his hand. The heat was so intense, that Red could barely open his eyes. The white flames instantly burned up the spears and stopped short of burning Red. He shielded his face from the flames for a second. After a few seconds, he put his arms down and looked at Olo, confused.
Time completely halted. The torrent of flame that raced toward him remained motionless. Olo’s intense expression and imposing figure became statuesque.
A compulsion came over Red. The same sort of automatic body function that forced his heart to beat and his lungs to breathe compelled him to reach his hand out and place it into the fire. Red seemed to lose all common sense and drooled as he moved his fingers inside of the fire.
Time began to resume. Slowly.
The fire began to regain some of its heat and motion. Olo’s fierce expression transformed into a mix of confusion and disgust as he looked down at Red’s arm.
Red turned his attention to his arm as well. The fire began to flow into Red’s pores, orbiting around his forearm as it did so.
After a few seconds, time returned to normal, and the fire was completely gone.
Olo backed up a little bit, and had a look of terror on his face. He placed his pinkies together and formed the shape of a diamond. They faced each other for a while, both breathing heavily.
Olo dropped his hands and clenched his fists, ”You’re not a legendary knight for no reason. Reign Magic…I thought that accursed magic was just a theory. I’ll have to look more into it myself. We'll leave the guild hall alone for now, but when I see you again..." Olo jumped onto his horse, staring at Red more intently than ever.
Red followed him up the hill, and watched as he called out to his men in a foreign language. The men had a few individuals pinned down, including one foaming at the mouth with pale skin.
Olo said a few more words in that language, and they all stood up in unison. The soldiers jumped onto their horses and rode off into the horizon. The young soldier, Yasuke, hoisted the man with pale skin over his shoulder. He glanced at Red one more time before riding into the horizon as well.
A woman in lightweight armor had a hand on the shoulder of one of the individuals who was pinned down. She turned to Red and walked over to him slowly.
Red was struck with an instant wave of severe pain. He looked down at where he had been stabbed, and it was leaking blood intensely. He placed his hand over the wound, coughed blood out of his mouth, and fell face-first into the ground.