stefan3B, still filled with rage, quickly picks up his sword. There were only 4 elementalists left, 2 fighters and 2 rangers. He takes no time to dash quickly and swing his sword at the next fighter. The boy quickly tries to brace himself but when he sees the sword being swung at him he catches it with his hands, stopping it for a second before stefan3B kicks him back. He then goes for a downwards slash but he’s hit in the head with a kick from the other fighter. He quickly restores his balance, the fighter throws a punch and he catches his arm right before it would hit his face, then he simply twists it. The fighter groans in pain but stefan3B puts him out of his misery by stabbing him in the core. Another wave of blasts is shot at stefan3B and he briefly cuts them with no sweat. The last fighter on the ground was crying as his palms were bleeding from the sword. stefan3B suddenly got a flashback, he remembers someone crying… It was someone little, defenseless, who was simply forced to go through it and endure it, but he doesn’t remember who. He feels bad for the boy, but he knows that it has to be this way. stefan3B chops off his head and stabs his core, as for the rangers, he launches 2 blasts of energy at them which are enough to make them hit against the wall, neutralizing them. He starts to feel bad about all of this.
“Not all of them were willing to fight me… Or maybe they were just scared after they saw the rampage I could cause. Yeah, that must be it.” says stefan3B in his mind as he reaches the end of the hallway. The door to the entrance of the panopticon was a giant steel door. stefan3B tries kicking it down, but it only makes a small dent and pushes him back. He leaps backwards a few hundred meters then sprints towards the door, gathering energy around him, then dashes and kicks with barely enough energy to break down the door. He finally entered inside the panopticon, it was… Simply stunning. There are at least 200 prison cells surrounding him, bigger than anything he's ever imagined. He starts to worry a little, as anything can jump out of anywhere anytime. There were several lightbulbs on the ceiling which would illuminate slightly the enormous room. He walks towards the center of the room where a watchtower was located. He takes a better look at it and he sees a shadow elementalist inside. Its body was mostly covered in black sludge and he could see its core’s shape through its body, as if it was emanating energy. He leaped towards it, but as soon as he touched the building, a barrier of thick black energy covered it in an instant, knocking stefan3B back. He gasped then he looked around him. Sirens have been turned on and red lights started flashing. Some of the prison cells started to open randomly.
"What the hell is going on?!" said stefan3B in his mind.
Then, silence. The red lights had been turned off and so were the sirens. Everything returned to normal… Not quite though, he could feel that something was going to happen. He starts to slowly walk around the room, looking for anything suspicious. He suddenly hears something approaching him at insane speeds from behind he turns around and blocks. It was a shadow elementalist, but it resembled someone very similar to him, it was Nicolas, however, due to his brain damage, he could not remember him, he just thought it looked similar to something. Nicolas rushes him and bashes his forearm into him, stefan3B blocks then pushes him away and grows worried.
“What the…” said stefan3B, confused.
“Oh, did you miss me? Come on kiddo, I know what you’re made of~.” said the shadow replica of Nicolas.
stefan3B doesn’t want any more of this, he charges his blade and then swings, releasing an energy slash which strikes it perfectly right in the hips, slicing it in half. The clone starts to groan in pain as shadow energy starts to drip from its eyes and mouth. stefan3B, fearful, approaches it.
“What the hell…” said stefan3B in his mind once before as he raised his sword.
The clone starts to cough liquid energy.
“Don’t you have any mercy, of your so, so sweet friend?” said Nicolas with a cracked and deeper tone.
stefan3B gasps slightly and stops moving, having his sword fully raised.
“What…?” asked stefan3B.
“You… Unthankful… Unreliable…” said Nicolas, trying to reach out for him.
stefan3B gets scared and quickly stabs its core then backs off.
“Unthankful? Unreliable? What did I even do wrong? I’ve never met him before, what the actual hell is going on?” said stefan3B in his mind.
Suddenly, he hears several voices from behind him.
“Come on, don’t be so rash… We only want your good.”
stefan3B turns around, there are 2 figures, a shadow copy of Ares and Iulia. stefan3B can barely recognize his own mother but at the same time he is extremely confused due to why they’re made out of shadow energy.
“Back the fuck off!” shouted stefan3B as he aimed his palm at them.
“Or? What? Are you actually going to shoot your own brother? Your own birth giver?” asked Ares.
stefan3B does not reply, he starts to tremble a little.
“You’re not my brother and you’re not worthy of being a mother…”
“Is that so? Are you even worthy of being my son? You’re always so unforgiving, so brutal and so mean, always a dickhead to everyone you see. You just want everything for you, do you? You narcissistic waste of life.” said Iulia.
“I-if you were my mom… You would never say that… You have no idea how to…”
“How to what? Raise a child? I raised you very well, it was you who wanted to drift off and become worthless junk, so I just disposed of you.”
stefan3B starts to shed a few tears then launches a blast of energy at Iulia, but she manages to dodge it.
“My my, that wasn’t even full power. Are you holding back, sweetie~?”
stefan3B frowns as hard as he can and clenches his teeth as he continues to cry.
“You’re not worthy of calling me that.” said stefan3B, fed up.
“Oh, someone’s a bit ma-”
But she didn’t get to finish her sentence because stefan3B has been charging energy in his feet until now, then he suddenly releases it all, dashing towards her and impaling her in the chest perfectly. She coughs then starts to shake. She puts her hand on his right shoulder and smiles.
“I hate you…” said stefan3B, as he kept shedding a few tears and frowning.
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Ares speaks up and starts walking towards him.
“How could you ever say that to-”
stefan3B lets out a battle cry, plucks out the sword from her chest, spins around and slices off Ares’ head. His body tries to reach out for him, but falls down soon after.
Suddenly, he feels a hand being pressed onto his shoulder.
“You monster… How could you do that to your own brother and mother…”
“Get your hand off me. Last warning.” said stefan3B.
“You need to learn some more self control, son.”
“You need to learn TO SHUT THE FUCK UP!” shouted stefan3B as he turned around blindly and gripped the throat of the person and slammed it into the ground.
Upon a greater look, it was a shadow clone of the cat. He gasps and his eyes widen.
“Monster.” said the cat.
stefan3B quickly stabs its head with his sword then backs off.
“Shut up, shut up! I’m not, you forced me into-...”
Suddenly, several shadow humanoid entities summon around stefan3B and they all chant as a chorus “Weapon. Weapon. Weapon. Weapon. Weapon.”
stefan3B looks around him, still blazing with anger and sadness at the same time. Wielding his sword in his left hand, he tries to clear his mind of negative thoughts and find a way to get out of this situation. Everything around him started to lose visibility, his surroundings starting to be swallowed by darkness. He suddenly feels someone grip onto his back. He turns around and it is Daiana, with her disfigured face and missing arm, also in the form of a shadow clone.
“You would never hurt me… Would you?” said Daiana in a softer yet husky tone.
stefan3B looks at her and doesn’t say anything, he feels like he’s going insane.
“You’re not cruel… Right? You’re a good boy, a good man… You have mercy on your soul, right?” said a familiar voice.
stefan3B turns around once more and he sees a shadow copy of the elementalist which had his palms sliced and was crying.
“No… Way…” said stefan3B in a low tone, his rage not letting go of him at all.
"You'd never hurt anyone, right? You were just forced into doing so… By who? You know damn well by who."
stefan3B turns around once more and he sees all the other 19 elementalists he's killed in the hallway. His mouth starts shaking but he doesn't lose even the slightest from his frown, tears however still flow from his eyes.
"I hate you, I hate you all…" said stefan3B.
"But you don't want to hate us, right? You never wanted to hate or kill anyone in the first place, you're just afraid to have people go through what you went throu-"
"YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I HAVE GONE THROUGH!" said stefan3B as he swung his sword in the air.
"We all know very well what you've been through, but it's alright… We forgive you." said all of the shadow clones.
stefan3B finally starts to lose anger from his expression.
"Wh-wha… What… M-me?... Forgiveness?... You're joking… You only want to make fun of me…" said stefan3B in a weak and low tone.
"No, we all forgive you, nobody hates you, you just never knew that." said all the shadow clones as they started to walk towards him, surrounding him.
"Stay away, I'm warning you! Stop!" said stefan3B, trying to aim his sword to the shadows.
"If you really intended to damage us, you wouldn't give us a warning." continued the clones.
stefan3B slashes downwards aimlessly, his blade snaps in 2.
"We all forgive you, you're one of us." said all of them, suddenly slowly hugging stefan3B.
stefan3B's breath starts to hitch harder than ever, he coughs out trying to grasp for air, as if some spear pierced his lungs.
"T-thank you…" said stefan3B, closing his eyes.
…
But, in reality, he was pierced with hundreds of long, thin and sharp shadow spikes in every part of his body. Shadow elementalists from each and every cell of the panopticon have been throwing spikes into his body while he was within his trial. He failed. His sword broke when he tried to parry a spike. His body was now facing the ground, fully impaled in almost every spot, then his Yellow Blitz deactivated just soon after, his body still having a slight grain of life energy within it, as his soul tried to desperately cling onto it. Suddenly, an echoing voice can be heard from the hallway.
"STEFAN3B!!"
It was Radu, running with a brand new sun blade in his hand towards him, he was huffing and puffing as he ran towards him. He then threw the sword towards stefan3B, as a last resort. The sword, like a magnet, stuck right into his hand, activating Yellow Blitz once more. He wakes up and realizes the situation he is in. With just a flinch, all the spikes shatter and scatter around the panopticon before fading into oblivion. He gets up and sees his previous broken sword. He aims his new sword towards it and his new sword absorbs the old one, giving him a slight power up. He looks at the hallways and he sees Radu smiling as he runs away, holding a thumbs up.
"Heh, such a crazy dude." said stefan3B with a smile as well.
He looks at the middle of the room, the watchtower, as it was still covered in energy. He charges up his blade then swings it fiercely, shattering the barrier with ease.
"They didn't care about me, they were just gaslighting me in order to have me at their little finger." said stefan3B as he got into the watchtower.
The person stuck in the sludge appeared to be a middle rank shadow elementalist. He stabbed its core, but the core flew away into the panopticon. The lifeless body of the elementalist fell down and slowly started to vanish together with the sludge. As soon as he walked out, he saw the core of the elementalist midair. It was glowing with a powerful shade of purple. He looks down and sees every single shadow elementalist pop out of his cell and surround the watchtower. stefan3B smiles, as now he knows that there's no reason to stop now, he must and he will crush every single malicious entity in this building.
"This Yellow Blitz is different from the one I used against Daiana, I'll just call it Yellow Blitz mark 2." said stefan3B, before slamming down into the crowd of elementalists.
There were over 200 fighters in there, but no more than 300 by any means and so, stefan3B started the slaughter. He lunged towards them as he let out a loud battle cry, making himself able to pierce several of their cores at the same time. Elementalists tried to attack from behind but he quickly turned around and slashed them instantly, smiling. He charges his blade once more then releases the energy as he spins around, creating a shiny powerful vortex of energy, propelling him upwards as well and killing dozens of elementalists at once. Once he was in the air, he shot beams of energy from the tip of his sword, blasting away many of them. They clearly stood no chance against him now. He slams into the ground with the sword, causing a great burst and pushing them back. The elementalists stopped rushing and they keep a 5 meters distance from him. stefan3B feels yet another hand on his shoulder. It was Daiana once again.
"You wouldn't hurt me, would yo-"
But stefan3B doesn't care anymore, he chuckles as he turns around and punches her in the head, knocking her down. He slices her arm then shoves it up her mouth as he smiles widely with widened eyes and a sharp sight. He then put her out of her misery by stabbing her core.
"Anyone else?" asked stefan3B as he stepped onto her vanishing corpse.
The elementalists were reluctant for a brief moment, but then a great part of them grew angry and started rushing him again. One of them launched at him with a punch, stefan3B parries and slices his arm with an upwards slash. He turns around and kicks the next one right in its heart, then turns around again and swings his blade, slicing the elementalist in two. The numbers never seemed to stop, despite him killing about 70 of them they felt like there's an endless amount of enemies, then he gets an idea. He summons 2 spheres of pure energy which spin around him with great haste, pulverizing any shadow elementalist touching him, this allows him to charge up his blade then release several energy slashes, destroying yet another couple dozens of them at once. Blood was gushing across the entire panopticon, but with each movement of his body and swing of his sword the blood of his enemies flinged off his body. He keeps his brave smile as he continues to slash through his enemies without any signs of slowing down soon, no elementalist can even touch him at this point, he's in a pure flow state. But, he realizes that he might be able to speed the process up if he destroys the core which floats up. He launches one of his spheres at it, but the core swiftly dodges it. stefan3B gets angrier. He charges his feet then launched up and sends both of his spheres to attack it, but it still manages to dodge them. stefan3B aims his sword at the core then starts blasting beams at it and soon enough, the spheres manage to hit the core and annihilate it. The entire panopticon starts turning back to normal and the shadow elementalists lose their boost.
"So they were that weak even with a boost? That's something new." said stefan3B in his mind, before rushing down and killing the remaining elementalists.
A few blasts there, some more slashes of energy in bigger crowds and eventually they're all wiped out. The cubic outer layer of the panopticon starts to fade away and the building is buried beneath the soil.