— Where am I? Mariah? Where is Mariah, what happened to her? — my champion asked, tears rolling down his cheeks, pathetically crawling on his hands and knees as he looked around.
— She's dead. As are all your friends, your army, your ex-wife, your father-in-law and mother-in-law, and so many others — I replied, making the slender androgynous avatar I assumed smile on his generic throne.
The entire space around us was pitch black, I was so focused, so excited that I hadn't bothered to build a complex space for that meeting.
My captivation was such that I drummed the fingers of one hand on the armrest of the seat, wondering how I was supposed to proceed with all this.
— W-Who are you?
— Would the most interesting development of events simply be to have Haicard execute my champion, and then transplant the present Veronico's consciousness into his past self?
— What...? A-Are you God?
— No, Veronico would be capable of massacring Haicard at any time in his life other than now, that wouldn't be fun...
— Fun?! — my champion stood up abruptly, clenching his fists. — And what does it matter?! Send me back! Send me to the past, and I'll kill that bastard!
— Hmm, instead, perhaps I should narrowly save your life and allow Haicard to rule over Álfheim, making you a tragic hero?
— Aren't you listening to me, you shit God?! — Veronico ran towards me with his fists clenched, but with every step he took, not only his attributes, but also his constitution underwent drastic changes.
At the foot of my throne, the scrawny, pimply, black-haired high school boy fell to his knees, drenched in sweat, clutching his chest and breathing heavily. He was still wearing the same rumpled uniform, marked with boot marks from the kicks he had received before he had thrown himself into the street, hopeless.
— Come on, please, you have nothing to complain about, do you? — I stood up and walked down the steps of my throne towards the boy. — Yes, I can send you to the past or the future, I can swat Haicard like a fly, or do anything else. But I won't. And you should be grateful to me. After all, you were free in your last life, and what did that bring you? What was your last wish when you were truly free? "For it all to end"? "I just want to rest"? — I crouched down in front of the schoolboy who was biting his lower lip and trembling all over. — But it's different now, isn't it? Tell me. Tell me how your last wish is different now, at the end of your new life. In the life I gave you. In the life I carefully built just for you. In your life as a slave.
I grabbed his hair and made him look at me, and the face the boy showed me was one soaked in tears and mucus, almost comically colored red, and so full of wrinkles that it simply would never have a place in my world, not as the face of one of my favorites.
— ...I don't care if I or the entire world are your slaves, toys, or whatever. But if you won't give me Mariah back, then at least give me the power to kill Haicard!
— Granted.
҉
The divine metal beneath my feet melted and evaporated, and the air around me ignited, turned to plasma, and my own body was untouched by the effects of the overwhelming flood of power that surged within me: my skin was forcibly ejected from the surface of my body and replaced by armor-like bony growths, and a new arm emerged from my severed shoulder, merging with Dawn and ending in a white blade. Never before, not in my life as a Hero, nor when I was a nobody, had I felt such pain as I felt in that micro-instant.
Even if my body were to be torn apart completely, however, I would not allow myself to be distracted from my goal:
— HAICARD!!! — I chased the Shadow King, who had been thrown out of the tower by my explosive transformation, flying so fast that the sonic boom I left behind seemed to move in slow motion.
I swung my sword at my opponent's gorget, and he managed to narrowly deflect my blade with his own unholy weapon, before activating whatever mechanism powered his robotic armor, trying to escape me with a jet of fire coming out of the fans on his back and elbows.
— Haicard! — I repeated, flying after the hated fugitive over a sea of lava, while covering myself with pure aura, exuding more magical stamina in a fraction of a second than half of the elven species would produce in an entire lifetime; when I passed between the devils that were feasting on the charred bodies of my soldiers, they were reduced to ashes by my aura alone. — I will never forgive you! — I grabbed the feet of the target of my revenge, spun him in mid-air and threw him into the gates of Hell that he had brought to the surface with whatever unholy Spell he had used.
I dove into the lava after the Shadow King, and when I reached him, I punched him with such force that the lava around us was expelled away and I parted that sea of flames like Moses parted the Red Sea with my own fist. And I didn't stop with a single punch.
— Why?! — I punched his rib, and the bones he wore as armor broke and pierced his own body. — Why couldn't you just shut the fuck up and be satisfied?! — I punched his collarbone, and it sank inward like a soda can. — I had everything here! Everything! Everything! — I punched his arms and stepped on his legs, breaking their pistons and flattening them, the limbs inside the macabre protection evacuating through gaps that I created in the armor as I crushed it, his flesh and bone being squirted out like a homogeneous paste. — You ruined it all — I commented, struggling to control my own breathing. — And now I'm going to finish you — I plunged my sword into his heart.