Chapter 78
[???]
Darkness. Thick nothing that consumed everything. Nothing to be seen, nowhere to go, and nothing to feel.
It was a suffocating nothing. An all-consuming nothing. Everything within would join the nothingness.
And yet there I was. Within the nothing. Consumed by it. But still, undeniably,
And if I existed, perhaps there was more to the nothing than I believed? What arrogance it would be for me to assume only I could exist. I was not a god after all.
So who was I?
There was no touch, no taste, no smell, no sound, and nothing to see. Yet I had thought. I had awareness. I had a will.
How long had I drifted?
Not too long. I had not lost my awareness after all. Prior experience had taught me that losing track of my awareness was a surefire way to erode my sense of self.
Haha. How funny. To think of past experiences when I had nary a memory to call upon.
Funny. Humour. A trait that developed due to social exposure in a species. An isolated something like me had no such thing, so how could I find something humorous to begin with?
A forgotten history. But a history nonetheless. I existed to some degree the nothing claimed me.
A shred of light appeared. Something other than the endless dark.
Had I the means of movement, I would have investigated. But alas, I was but an incomplete something.
Something without motion.
Something without meaning.
Something within nothing.
But… I was also something with history…
***
[Axel's POV]
The elves were tricky opponents, and not just because of their numbers.
Their bows could be imbued with mana, and their spells delivered via the arrows. Dodging would usually be no issue for me, but the way they fired from any position without slowing down, even at close range, made it difficult to read their intent.
Was the one to my left going to use his knife to test for weak points in my armour?
Nope, she dropped to the floor and shot up into my chin, then her comrade yanked her away before I could respond.
Were the two brazen challengers in front of me going to keep hovering just out of range and peppering me with arrows?
Of course not. Instead, they got right up into my face and focused on evading and redirecting my attacks.
It was truly the most frustrating experience I had in fighting a group. The elves had this strange way of perfectly moving in tandem with one another without a word. It went beyond simply being well-trained in joint combat.
The other elves I killed were either taken off guard or separated from their allies. Now that I saw how they functioned in regular combat, I had to reassess their threat levels.
I stopped and tensed my muscles, fuelling my with enough mana to ward off any attack.
Arrows splintered, two swords snapped on my neck, and the two who stubbornly blocked my vision fractured their wrists when they tried to palm-strike my face.
The entire group sensed the shift and made distance, only to immediately draw their bows and begin focusing their mana.
They were building up to something big, thinking they were safely outside of my immediate range.
But then one of their heads snapped back, a fountain of blood bursting from their nose. It wasn’t a fatal blow, but that didn't matter.
The same thing followed for each of them, one after another. Despite no movement on my end, they correctly assumed I had done something and moved to extend the distance between us even further.
That was a mistake.
The two who had been taking me head-on fell to the ground as an invisible force collided with their legs.
The others tried to react and save their comrades, but they were already committed to their retreat and were too far to be of use.
I activated my Gift, instantly converting all the mana in my body into aura. With my physical attributes fortified, I easily covered the distance and knocked the two elves out cold with a swift kick.
Killing them would have been easier, but I figured we should try to keep alive for interrogation later.
The others were quick to adapt their formation, compensating for the loss of two members. Still, they looked hesitant.
“What's the matter? Never seen that trick before?”
I mocked them and held my arms out wide. The red, crackling electricity of my caused even this slight movement to send out stray bolts.
“How ‘bout I give another demonstration?”
I punched the air lightly two times.
And two elves doubled over as they grabbed their stomachs. I followed up with my favourite new move.
“
Two streaks of crimson lightning burst out of my fingers and blew them to the ground. These soldiers must have been stronger than the ones inside, as my bolts only destroyed their hearts without penetrating straight through.
The elves began cursing—I think—and three of them fired a combination attack without waiting for the others.
Three twisting arrows danced closely together as they arced towards me. One wreathed in flame, another freezing the air, and the last bathed in radiant light.
“Haha! Nowhere near good enough!”
I pushed off the ground and took the attack to my forehead. To their credit, it was enough to draw some blood.
They could die proud that their efforts weren't totally useless.
I clotheslined the two on the sides, then brought my head down onto the man in the middle.
His skull shattered against mine, and the others had lost their heads entirely.
“Hahaha! Still don't get it? Fine, I'll just tell you.”
My blood was pumping, and the angry screams being directed at me only made the chaos all the more enjoyable.
“I learnt this from the great Benedikt Kuhn. It is the basis of my very own
The remaining 13 elves closed in, fury clouding their previous methodical precision. I didn't know how much they understood my words, but I continued to educate them anyway.
“It's simple, really. Just focus your mana just like you would with aura, then…”
I ducked and weaved between the flurry of blows that followed. One elf had been boosted up into the air by a comrade and was using the momentum of his downfall to attempt a plunging attack.
“
Without moving, I directed my mana into a tiny condensed sphere and shot it from my chest. It was hard to see, and even harder to react to, but if one were eagle-eyed enough, they would see the crimson blur collide with the airborne elf's wrist.
He dropped his weapon as a result, and I met his awkward landing with a full-force swing of my fist.
His armour shattered. As did his ribcage. He crumpled to the floor as a broken, deformed mess, but luckily, he died instantly.
“Handy, isn't it?”
I threw back my head and let my laughter roar out around me.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The rest came at me in unison. I knew they were just acting in anger, but it was actually the correct response. The more they spread out, the easier it was for me to catch one or two off guard with
Unfortunately for them, this just left them open to another tactic.
I lifted one leg and waited for the crowd to enter my range. Once I determined none would escape, I stomped as hard as I could, sending a burst of aura-fueled electricity out into the ground.
The result was a shockwave that left me the only man standing in the middle of a crater.
As I watched the elves rising into the air from my attack, a fun idea sprang to mind.
How many could I kill before they hit the floor?
I leapt upward, slicing the air with a spinning kick that broke two necks. I followed up by taking their swords and pelting them through the chest of the most distant target.
They were at the peak of their ascent now. I quickly began preparing another shot of and ran to punch the nearest target in the face.
Four down. Eight left.
I jumped, driving a knee up into the chest of another. I could feel his heart burst under the weight of my attack. I used his body as a platform to leap my way onto another, throwing them so hard into the ground their spine shattered.
They were falling now. I had to be faster.
I shifted all the energy of into my legs and moved twice as fast.
A kick drove one elf into another. I then booted a loose brick to pop both their heads at once and immediately turned to pile drive another into the ground.
Four more.
I channelled my inner Soot and shifted back to gift myself a pair of horns. Then, I skewed one more elf with a charging headbutt right before they could land.
I spun and fired off the scoring another two-in-one kill.
“Time!”
As the honest man I was, I called for a stop to the game as the final elf regained his feet.
“10 out of 11. Not too shabby.”
The final elf surveyed the field and settled his furious gaze on me.
“You were the lucky winner. As a reward, I'll let you go free.”
I smirked and pointed towards the gate.
My had been lowered, and the elf used that fact to shoot me in the centre of my chest.
“...So it's like that, huh?”
I pulled it out and snapped the arrow. There had been no magic reinforcing the attack, and the arrowhead only pierced flesh. My body was too sturdy for anything further.
Then, I hit him with a I started with his legs so that he couldn't run.
He crumpled, but was still able to fire another shot from the ground. I swatted it away like an annoying fly.
Another broke his fingers before a third arrow could be readied. Yet he remained hostile, readying a knife and pulling himself forward across the ground.
The resolve to go down swinging may have been admirable to some. But in the circumstances, I just saw it as pathetic desperation. He knows he can't hurt me, but instead of doing something clever, he just starts trying to stab me.
I kicked the knife away, no longer having any fun with the fight.
Then, with a sigh, I slapped him.
His head spun all the way around with a series of cracks, then he dropped dead.
“Damn. You really dragged that on, huh?”
I stretched my limbs and looked at the two men I had knocked unconscious. They wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, and Draven should be on the way regardless. I decided to leave them where they were and go find Rex.
Because I'll be damned if I wasn't going to get in on the destruction he and Gaspard were causing at the back of the campus.
***
[A soul with history]
The light continued to taunt me.
I knew something lay beyond all the nothing around me. I knew that light was just like me. And I knew that things that could create experiences. Things that like the nothing, would never change so long as they remained nothing.
I had changed. Only a little. But the change was there. I had identified a history in myself. Proof of existence. This change only occurred because I was a part of the nothing.
Thus, the light must be capable of further change. I could not touch it or move closer. So… what I do with it?
Ponder?
Yes. I could ponder on the meaning. What does the light suggest?
It could be something within the nothing. Perhaps the nothing was simply in a transitional state, and this was the start of the change.
That thought felt wrong.
The nothing was undeniable. It was heavy. Thick. Endless.
So then perhaps the light was something else. A beacon calling out for me to see further beyond the nothing I had allowed to enshroud me.
Why was I in the nothing, instead of the light? Was I placed there, or did I choose to remain in the comfort of ignorance? There was no need to think, no need to stress, no need for anything when all is nothing.
If so, does the light represent my own doubt? The part of me that wants to make my own decisions regardless of the consequences?
Pain and frustration. Mistake and embarrassment. Trial and error. Reward for effort. Growing emotionally.
The motions of life are chaos. They are as painful as they are delightful. Would such chaos be preferable to empty stagnation?
The light expanded. The empty void of the nothingness cracked and peeled away, letting a web of wondrous light rain down on me.
Of course I wanted to leave the nothing. Come rain or shine, a real lived experience was what made life worth living.
I was something with history, and now, something with motion. But I was still an incomplete something.
Something without meaning.
Something within nothing.
But… I was something that sought to understand myself.
I urged myself to move, and the light grew slowly closer.
***
[Axel’s POV]
As I rounded the corner to join the ongoing battle, I was stunned by the state of both Gaspard and Rex.
Gaspard’s armour had been torn through and broken in various places, as if a rabid beast’s claws had raked across his armour numerous times. And yet, there were no visible wounds on his body.
As for Rex—or whatever was in his body—he had long since shed the masquerade of a humanoid figure. He stood three metres tall and was hunched over on all fours, a deadly tail of jagged bone coiled around him. A heavy fog emanated from his mouth, blanketing the field with an eerie mist.
The ground had been littered with deep scars, scorched earth, and craters of varying sizes.
It looked like I had entered the fray while the two of them were staring each other down. Perfect.
Neither had noticed me yet, so I fired off two attacks and switched to a mana-fueled to prioritise defence.
Gaspard’s long ears twitched, and with a single swing of his glaive, he deflected both my attacks. I continued my head-on charge without pause, planning to either tackle him or create an opening for Rex.
But Gaspard vanished without warning before my plan could get started.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I instinctively ducked just in time to avoid a slash aimed for my neck.
Rex lunged towards me and swiped over my head at the enemy behind me.
The mighty clawed hand was swatted back and bombarded with a flurry of explosive magical attacks. Gaspard had fired from his fingertips a series of spells that rivalled myin firepower.
Rex opened his mouth wide and responded with a gout of green flame, instantly melting through the earth and creating an unsteady terrain for Gaspard.
But Gaspard vanished from sight again. This time, I caught the brief moment where the runes carved into the length of the glaive shone. Likely, there was a teleportation spell imbued into the weapon itself.
And given the lack of sound last time, I had to assume that relying on my ears would not save me. So, I instead tried to follow the shift in the air’s mana density.
“There!”
I ducked and grabbed a stone, simultaneously avoiding another death blow while countering by pelting Gaspard in the shoulder.
But his reflexes were unbelievable. He avoided the attack with the bare minimum level of movement, knocked me back with a thrust from the hilt of his weapon, then conjured a barrier to defend from Rex’s second flame attack.
I understood why Rex had failed to cause any serious injury despite his own immense strength. Gaspard was in a whole other league.
A wild grin had plastered itself over my face as I rushed forward, eager to put the man to the test.
Reckless, full-power punches were thrown high and low. I imitated his example by only dodging his own attacks by the smallest margin, then countering with yet more strikes. We barely moved our feet, but our torsos were swaying at such speed that they began to blur.
Not a single strike landed on him, yet his own swift strikes were rapidly adapting to my movements. What began as a glancing blow off my armour had, within seconds, become consistent, solid strikes that penetrated right through and drew blood.
I was still blocking around 80% of the damage thanks to , yet my body was covered in deep cuts.
It was time to mix it up further.
Just like last time, I stomped my foot down and sent out a shockwave.
But Gaspard saw it coming.
He teleported once more, only to reappear in the same spot again as my blast passed by harmlessly. The glaive’s blade shone with increased intensity and came arcing down towards my skull.
With my foot so deeply planted into the ground, I could not avoid the attack.
I channelled aura into my hand and prepared to remove my own leg to escape...
But a flash of white and red passed overhead and sent Gaspard flying.
“Storm Child. This child of Eve is beyond either of us. Regrettably, the lost soul’s body is unable to contain my power. We must strike together.”
Rex’s tail hovered before me protectively as he spoke in a guttural growl.
I didn’t even have time to respond before a downpour of shining lights crashed down on us, each one causing a small explosion.
Rex hunched over me and took on the brunt of the attack, but the follow-up blade of light that flew down separated Rex’s right arm from his body.
Gaspard had landed on his feet and was already upon us once more.
It occurred to me that we may have bitten off more than we could chew.
***
[A soul in motion]
I no longer wanted to drift in comfort. I resisted the natural pull of the nothing and drew myself towards the light.
What lay behind the veil of nothing? What would I see within the light?
It was an exciting moment. I was no longer just something with history. I was creating a new memory for my future self by taking a grand step forward.
The light was right before my eyes. I could see through the nothing and into the world beyond.
A grand, unending, empty world.
Was that it? Was what lay ahead yet more uncaring emptiness?
No. I could make out some things within the great white void. Vagaries only, but still enough for my mind to recognise. It was as if they had all been painted in a haphazard fashion by someone who only had a verbal description to work with.
There were ‘trees’ represented only by thin brown lines and nonsensical green blurs. Within them was a herd of horned, four-legged creatures joyously prancing around.
There was a grey patch of land opposite it with small black squares sprinkled around. The word ‘graveyard’ came to mind. A hulking black figure was shambling around the perimeter, too distant and indistinct for me to identify.
Between the two was a long brick road, extending as far as the eye could see.
I remained within the nothing and thought about what was before me. The light had appeared because of a realisation. The light had grown because of my resolve.
Perhaps I made the things in the light? Perhaps I could find more within it?
I looked back into the uncaring nothing that made up my world. It was time to move on.
I moved into the light and fell to the ground. The solid, tangible ground. I looked at my hands. They were not so tangible. Like everything else in the light, they were only vague, undefined shapes.
But it was mine. It was visible proof of a that existed. I moved my legs—I had those too now—and approached the brick road.
I stopped as I stood between the trees and the graveyard. The animals stopped to stare at me, as did the black monster on the other side.
Perhaps I should investigate each side?
I moved to approach the animals, who perked up and moved towards me in kind.
But I stopped, and slowly returned to the brick road.
The creatures were so detailed. So real. So certain. Not like me at all.
I faced the monster instead. It had also approached me and now loomed over me like the shadow of death. Yet I felt no fear.
A single red light shone down on me from the top of the monster, as if expectantly awaiting me to make a move.
It was hard to comprehend, but not in the way everything else was. It was as if this creature had forgotten its own form, much like I had. Even the poorly detailed gravestones still registered as ‘gravestone’ in my mind. But this creature resembled nothing specific.
They were wrong. Both the monster and the animals. They were outside the . I felt they could make something of me as well, but only as a mirror image.
Did I want to become like the animals in the forest? Or like the monster in the graveyard?
Neither.
I was already I wanted to know what that something was. To discover it for myself, not be told.
The road ahead was endless. But perhaps it would lead to an answer. That was my meaning. A meaning to find meaning.
That was me.
No longer without history.
No longer without motion.
No longer without meaning.
And no longer within nothing.
I moved forward.
