Bell reached the northern gates of Orario with Goddess Astraea and Ryuu. With each breath, an emotion faded from his face.
Joy? None. Sorrow? Nil. Expression? Null.
After a multitude of breaths, no emotion remained on his face. It did not mean indifference.
He still felt rage. He still felt pain. He still bled.
He did not let them define him. Equanimous in both rise and fall.
His steps came to a halt atop Orario's city walls. Beside him, archers were busy nocking arrows and loosing them below.
They did not focus on him, too consumed by their own duties, eyes red and hands bloodied from pulling bowstrings too taut.
Bell did not gaze at them for long.
His gaze dropped.
Below was Hell.
Soldiers and adventurers fought one another with the desperate intensity of cornered animals. Sounds of weapons striking against weapons, against armours, against organs, resounded in a deafening cacophony of death and destruction.
Blood flowed in streams, turning the ground a crimson red. Enemies and allies attacked one another, driven by a mindless frenzy. An adventurer pierced another adventurer from behind, mistaking him for a soldier. A soldier shoved his comrade's body into the path of a spear meant for him.
A metallic scent wafted through the air, so compressed into itself that it smelled like rust left to dry out in the open for years. Beside him, Goddess Astraea had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep from retching.
Ryuu at his left gripped her Alf's Lumina so hard that her knuckles cracked.
Bell took a deep breath.
This was a hell created for him. To bury him so deep beneath those bodies that not even his ashes would be found.
He exchanged a glance with Ryuu, then took a step forward. Under Goddess Astraea's widening eyes and Ryuu's gritted teeth...
Bell stepped off the city wall of Orario. Straight into carnage.
Since this is a purgatory created for me... I welcome it with open arms.
He spread his arms wide as he fell. Below were humans whose humanity had been eroded by ceaseless slaughter.
Soldiers leapt at his falling silhouette. Swords. Spears. Axes. Halberds. Hammers.
Hundreds of steel weapons screamed toward him, drowning him beneath an unending deluge of blades.
From above, only steel could be seen as Bell collided with the ground. More people piled over his landing spot.
Every Rakia soldier wanted him dead.
Embers ignited beneath hundreds of weapons. Beneath hundreds of soldiers.
They soon escalated in intensity, until...
ROOOOAR!
An enormous serpent, forged entirely of scorching heat, roared upward from below, melting metal and flesh without distinction.
Weapons were hurled away. People screamed in agony as they were thrown back.
The serpent did not stop. It widened its maw to the very limit, tearing from earth to sky, reaching the clouds above and turning them copper-red for an instant.
BOOOOM!
It detonated.
Clouds were ripped apart. The sky was set alight. Every gaze snapped upward.
It did not stop there. Miniature fireballs rained down from above. A rain of fire.
Apocalyptic. Beautiful. Deadly.
Bell stood beneath the rain. Everything within a meter of him had melted into sludge.
Both adventurers and soldiers cowered back, not daring to cross that one-meter boundary.
He stepped forward. More than a hundred people stepped back.
A thud resounded behind him. Ryuu had landed, carrying Goddess Astraea from above, and set the Goddess down from her hold.
Bell glanced back at Astraea and met her eyes.
"Goddess, I'll carve a path for you." He paused.
"Keep walking. I won't let them stop you." Bell turned his back to her completely, presenting his front to those monsters.
Rakia vanguard pointed trembling swords at him. Some gritted their teeth and glared at him as if they wanted to drink his blood.
Slowly, more soldiers from even further back turned toward him. Thousands of eyes locked onto him. They looked at him like rabid dogs that wanted only flesh. His flesh.
An army stood ahead of him. Thousands of enemies regarded him as a piece of meat.
Goddess Astraea moved to follow.
Bell's heel landed simultaneously. So uncanny were their footfalls that it became impossible to identify whose step followed whose.
"Don't worry. Not a single one of them will touch you." Fire crawled down his heel, expanding to his sides.
"Because... I walk ahead of you."
A wheel with eight spokes materialized above his head. Its spokes trembled, regardless of what stood before it.
An army? It would adapt.
A deity? It would adapt.
Impossible? It would adapt.
The people standing ahead of him finally snapped. Like cornered animals, they rushed toward him, overcoming their fear in a momentary burst of frenzy.
Bell advanced. A sword of blazing steel coalesced in his grip and came to rest on his shoulder.
The inferno spreading from his feet continued to expand at a monstrous rate.
Thousands of people howled as they charged. The vibration from their collective rush shook even some parts of Orario.
He moved toward them. A speck compared to them in scale.
An army?
The wheel above him rotated. Once. Only once.
Clunk
It drowned every other sound beneath its spin.
Fire twisted and turned at his left, soon defying gravity as they wound upward from the ground.
A hand came first, followed by an arm of solidified heat. Torso, legs, and a head followed.
Bell pushed forward and a burning silhouette kept pace beside him.
Another figure materialized at his right, wielding two daggers, its body glowing like stoked embers.
More followed. A figure holding an axe. A figure gripping a bow. A figure with a spear in hand.
They multiplied. Hundreds. Then thousands.
Bell surged forward, and an army of fire surged beside him.
He did not stop there.
Flames erupted from him like a pillar of pure heat.
That blaze climbed higher and higher and higher.
In the sky, under countless gazes, they began to contort and deform, transforming into something new.
Red scales came first, stretching into a spine. Wings vast enough to dwarf buildings followed. A snout materialized, connected to a long neck. Some flames contracted into muscular legs. The last to form was a lengthy tail.
A dragon forged of pure destruction became visible. It flapped its wings once. A tornado of scorching wind from the motion hurled hundreds of rushing people backward.
GRRROOAAARR
It opened its maw and roared, announcing its arrival into this world.
Countless legs trembled from that sound alone.
Bell pressed on.
[Ittou Shura] ignited. The limits of his flesh burned away as his strength climbed, shattering through the ceiling of Level 4.
A dragon hovered in the sky.
An army—his army—marched on the ground.
Bell moved amidst them.
The war... had just begun.
...
..
.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[8 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
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[Authors Thoughts]
Hold tight.
The war... has just begun.
...
Flames destroy yet purify. Fire incinerate yet empower. Embers burn yet liberate.