There was a loud ringing in his ears.
His vision blurred and shook, incapable of enduring what laid in front of him yet unable to look away. The stench of the smoke now made perfect sense.
But it cannot be right.
He looked away from the head of the child and with his eyes he stared at each piece of gruesome decoration. Making sure that the nerves had not gotten to his head.
However, no matter how many times he looked, how many times he shut his eyes and opened them again. The nightmarish visage in front of him remained in place.
"Here!" A man shouted from the streets of the town.
Das slowly lead his eyes towards the man, who was soon joined by a large group of other men and women. They dressed in shabby or scrapped armor, the majority had chain mail and cloth or leather, together with some part of full plate armor that they had probably taken from the guards of the city, be it a helmet, arm, or breastplate.
Their clothes were bloody and ragged, some had makeshift bandages on their wounded bodies. But something they all had was a wide, deranged, ear-to-ear smile.
"He said he would come and he did!"One of them joyfully spoke to his comrades but then his neck was cut open with an ax by a woman standing next to him.
"Of course he did! HE said it!" She wholeheartedly laughed together with the rest of the group while the man drowned in his own blood.
He too laughed.
The sound of their carefree enjoyment, as the bodies of the innocent burned next to them, made Das sick enough to throw up right there in the spot.
"Oh! the mage is throwing up!!" One of them pointed at Das, who kneeled on the ground next to the pool of recently expelled breakfast he had that morning.
"Is that a man or woman?!" One of the others said but immediately glanced at the woman with the ax, who stared at him with an arguably crazier pair of eyes than she had before "An ugly woman!" He exclaimed, fearful of the ax wieldier's retribution.
This seemed to work, as she closed to distance with him and just slapped him a few times on the back.
"I-I can't!" One of the other men, shaking with excitement, yelled to the top of his lungs as he watched the idle archmage "I can't wait anymore!" He screamed as he rushed towards him with his spear in hand.
His breath was unsteady, his tongue hanged free outside his mouth that couldn't stop drooling. Soon he was close enough that he jumped towards the archmage, his spear ready to pierce him.
At that moment, Das's eyes turned scarlet red.
Hitting the end of the staff on the ground once a barrier of sorts formed around him like a bubble, deflecting the attack of the madman and making him break his nose when crashing against the barrier.
The orb filled up with red mist quickly. His dark nails grew in size until they looked like claws and the white bandages on his forearms began getting stained with fresh blood.
The group of bandits laughed once more, this time pointing at the man with the spear trying to pierce the barrier without any success.
"That looks like fun!" One of them said as he rushed forward to join the spearman's struggle against Das's barrier.
Soon a group of twenty bandits was bashing and slashing against his barrier with maces, axes, spears, and swords. All while laughing and crying.
"All of you..."Das whispered as he stood up from the ground, his now completely scarlet eyes shinning and expelling a red mist-like substance "...DESERVE NO MERCY!!" He yelled, wrath having consumed his mind.
The red mana gathered on his staff and hand as he stretched both to his side, eliminating the barrier. As it disappeared, all bandits suddenly levitated a meter above the ground, incapable to move.
Das raised his head and looked at them one more time, their chests shook and mouths as well, desperately trying to laugh.
The archmage for a moment regained a little bit of his mind, truly shocked that even then, they tried to laugh. But this shock came and went as fast as lighting, soon his whole face contorted into pure hatred and disgust as he screamed to the top of his lungs.
As his scream went on his arms kept raising and with them, a fire began consuming the bodies of the bandits from the feet up. Das freed their bodies from his spell and threw them back to the town once they were completely on fire.
The laughter continued until they stopped twisting on the ground and laid still. Soon the all-consuming melody of burning bodies was the only sound that could be heard.
"laugh" Das whispered "LAUGH YOU BASTARDS!" He yelled at the bodies.
He picked up the one that belonged to the woman of the ax, making it levitate. And with a motion of his hand, the body was torn into a dozen pieces.
Breathing heavily, he turned his attention to the street leading inside the village and began levitating with the help of his red mana that was constantly expelled from his body.
"I TURN ALL YOUR BODIES INTO ASH!!" He yelled as he flew fast into the village in front of him.
The stone houses were all messed up, with a few blood stains on the streets but no corpses in view except the ones burning in piles. Occasionally he would find a bandit or two walking with big grins on their faces.
He either crushed their heads from afar or lit their bodies on fire. Until he found once again a fairly large group near the center of the village, there were some bandits on top of horses.
"He is here! I knew the lighting was his doing!" One of the bandits on foot shouted.
"I-I will tell him!" One of the men on the horse said as he turned around and began galloping at full speed.
Das pointed his staff at him but failed to him combust. It seemed the presence and speed of the horse made it impossible to aim correctly for his spell.
Frustrated, he moved his staff from one side to the other and as it went, a firewall raised from the ground in front of him and swallowed whole all the charging bandits. But their laughers wasn't the only thing that could be heard. The horses cried and ran in all directions as their bodies were slowly but steadily turned into charcoal.
Once again this almost brought back Das from his rage-induced trance. But as the fire inside of him began to dwindle, the raging fires around him forced him to remain in that state.
"No! You need this!" He thought as he forced himself to keep going forward.
The biggest of all smoke columns was near.
Once he turned around a corner and got a full view of the main plaza of the village the vision in front of him could only be described as hell.
The largest pile from the all laid in the middle, one hundred bodies or more burned and cracked as the fire roars. Bodies of all ages hung out the windows of the two-store-high houses, by the neck with blankets.
The only place that seemed unaffected was the sanctuary behind the burning pile of bodies. A square building made with beautiful marble and engravings on its walls that told the story of The Lightbringer. An image of the idol carved right above the portcullis and its sturdy wooden gates closed shut.
There were at least fifty bandits gathered, dancing around the burning pyre with skins on their shoulders and severed heads in each hand. In front of the burning pile, a dozen bandits were riding on top of horses.
Lastly, one knight, at least seven feet tall with an impressive built, covered from head to toes in his steel armor. His horse was just as large and equally protected. He had a large shield with human skin hiding the symbols of the kingdom and in its place, painted with blood two long strikes.
"You..." Das said pointing at the knight surrounded by horsemen with his staff "...you are responsible" He said as blood dripped from his forearms.
"I don't want to die!" One of the horsemen yelled and hit his horse to run away, the rest of the riders soon followed him.
"I WON'T LET YOU-" As he prepared to blast them away with another wall of flames he stopped his attack.
The giant knight had just cut both man and horse in half with a claymore as big as a grown adult. Das watched stunned how for the next ten seconds the knight cut either the bandits or the bandits and their horses in half with one strike from its giant sword. Sending their bodies flying in all directions.
The clank of metal being torn and the watery sound of entrails splashing on the ground and walls soon went silent and when it did, the knight turned his horse around so it would face the archmage. Challenging him to fight without saying a word.
"Kill the impostor!" One of the dancing bandits shouted, not stopping his dance.
Soon the whole group yelled and shouted supporting words at the knight while trying to make fun of Das.
"I will NOT PLAY YOUR GAMES!!" Das screamed as he raised his staff high up and a giant fireball suddenly appeared.
Blood was sent flying from his bandages and the pain finally got to him, making him bite his teeth and endure it as best as he could. He then made the fireball fall on top of the entire plaza, setting everyone and anything that wasn't already burning, in flames.
Reaching his limits, Das lowered his body until he could touch the ground, then barely managed to not collapse, supporting all his weight on the staff.
"It is done" He whispered in between heavy breaths.
He looked around and saw that his fireball had caused more damage than he intended. All of the nearby houses now burned brightly and added even more smoke to the sky, not to mention, it would obviously spread now that it had a path with the connected roofs.
The sanctuary was the only one spared from the fire, thanks to it being mostly stone and iron. Even its glass windows had held up.
"I better try to extinguish the fire, before it reaches the forest..."He thought while forcing himself to stand straight.
The red mana emanating from his eyes began to dissipate, as well as the red mist in his orb. But then...
The screaming of a horse made him turn to the knight whose horse was standing up, still being burned by the flames.
Soon, the knight itself stood up and sat on top of its horse, shield, and claymore in hand. The fire began to die out of nowhere until it was no more. In its place, it left both horse and knight alive.
Das prepared to fight. Now his anger diminished as well his rational mind had returned and it forced him to wonder.
Against what type of monster or demon is he fighting against. And just what had he done, as for a moment, he glanced at the burning bodies of the bandits he had damned to the fire.