It took almost half an hour for the water and bodies to stop flowing out of the cave. During this time, neither me or Anise said a single word and just watched in silence. Once the cave was clear, Anise said:
"I think we should leave for now. The water must have reached some of the villages by now and someone might come to investigate."
I nodded absentmindedly and we both started sprinting in the direction of the village. Once we reached the outskirts, we sat down on the ground in a slightly remote area and Anise said again:
"You don't look so good. Let's just rest here for a bit before deciding on our next move."
I nodded and laid down before closing my eyes, but all I could see was the endless river of bodies flowing out of the cave. When I was about to open them again, I felt a small tug and woke up inside my soul space, Senna sitting next to me. She continued to look in the distance as she said:
"I asked the little brat to bring you here. How are you?"
I thought hard for an answer to give, but the only thing I could say was "I don't know."
"You think that killing all those people was wrong?"
"No, I understand that they were beyond saving, but a massacre like that.."
"Massacre? Do you think that was a massacre?" she asked with a sarcastic voice.
I looked towards her, confusion obvious in my eyes.
"Try not to resist, I'll send some memories to you." I was about to nod when Ai appeared right between us and said:
"Ethan, you can't allow her to send anything inside your soul."
Senna put on an exasperated expression and said: "I'm just trying to show him something. I can also send the memories to you and you share them with him right after."
Ai surprisingly nodded and said: "That is acceptable. Please proceed." Seeing Ai agreeing with Senna on something seemed a bit incredulous, but I didn't say anything and waited to see what Senna wanted to show me.
After Senna sent a part of her memories to Ai, tears started flowing down Ai's cheeks and an expression of pain mixed with happiness also appeared on her face. Startled by the sudden emotional outburst from the always expressionless Ai, I was about to ask Senna what she did, but I was interrupted by Ai's soft words.
"Thank you."
"What happened?" I was obviously confused by the whole ordeal, but AI didn't answer and the entire world around me turned dark all of the sudden. When I came back to my senses, I was floating slightly above a massive hall. I started looking around to search for Ai and Senna.
Ai was nowhere to be found, but I could see Senna kneeling on one knee in front of an tall man with her head lowered. The man had long golden hair and a pair of bright blue eyes, a pair of eyes that seems to peer into the depths of any soul they were laid upon. Four pure white wings were waving slowly behind him as he looked down at Senna and said with an amused expression:
"Why are you here, Senna? Your mother sent you again?"
"Your excellency, I'm here for a different reason today." Replied Senna as she lifted her head with a expression full of grief.
"Oh, do tell. What made the *inaudible* come before me and kneel? It must be something incredible."
"The Empire attacked Luna."
The man's amused expression finally changed into one of pain and anger after hearing about the attack on Luna. The light inside his eyes began dimming slightly as he ordered in a cold and royal tone.
"Stand up and tell me what happened exactly."
Senna continued to kneel on one knee, refusing to stand, as she said: "The Black Star Empire kept conquering words all around Luna, but the people of Luna ignored them because they believed your words will serve as enough deterrence for the empire to not risk setting their eyes on them as well . After they conquered all the words around, they sent their armies and attacked Luna as well. The spirits on Luna used their last bit of power to send a message to us in the dark dimension and ask for help. I set out myself, but the space around Luna was locked and it took me a while to reach them. When I finally got there, I checked the place myself and the entire world has been razed completely, no one left alive. My people won't agree to a war with the empire, so I came to beg Your Excellency for help.
The man's expression turned dark, his expression twisting into one of uncontrollable rage as changes started occurring to his body. His perfect golden hair turned pitch black, and his eyes that seemed gentle and peaceful before turned completely red. The white feathers from his wings fell down like autumn leaves, with black ones growing in their stead. It was like watching an angel turn into a complete demon in the span of a few seconds.
Killing intent manifested in the air all around him, forming a blood red aura that distorted the space nearby. He looked at Senna and said in a deep voice:
"No need for you to beg for anything. I kept tolerating their behavior since I didn't want to interfere too much in mortal matters, but they went too far this time."
He waved his hand in front, cutting a hole into the fabric of space and told Senna to follow before stepping inside. I was stunned by everything I was seeing, but had no time to process anything before the scene changed once again.
Senna and the man were hovering in space in front of a completely brown planet, bereft of any vegetation, water or life. Senna looked at it with pain in her eyes as she said:
"This is all that is left. Are you going to send The Order, Your Excellency?"
The man shook his head, the killing aura growing even stronger around him. Even I, who was just a spiritual projection was affected by it, feeling a chill down to the core of my very soul. He looked at the planet for a while longer before saying in a horse voice:
"I'll take care of this by myself. I want them to suffer in despair as I kill them all one by one. If you want to see them all die, I suggest you abandon your vessel and inhabit me for a while, I will slaughter every single member of the empire with my own hands."
Senna's body turned into bright specks of light that floated silently and entered the man's body. After that, two bright red swords appeared in his hands, each longer than two meters and he disappeared once again.
The scenes kept changing as I followed the man and his two swords teleporting to a planet, killing every single living person there before teleporting to a new one and repeating the process again and again. This went on for what felt like hundreds of years and millions of different worlds. At the last scene, I saw the man holding his foot on the chest of what seemed to be the leader of empire he removed from existance, sword pointed at his neck.
"Your Excellency, why? Why did you kill us? We never offended you in any way?"
The man started laughing out loud at the emperor's words and said: "Never offended me? Do you remember 700 years ago when you wiped out everyone on Luna even if you already knew that I declared that any enemy of Luna is an enemy of mine? How is that not offending me? One of their people saved my life once, you know.". There was a trace of madness and endless hunger for slaughter in his words.
The emperor seemed to know that there was no way for him to escape and started yelling like a madman:
"Oh, *inaudible*, just because you are strong now do you think this will last forever? Someone will come for you as well and I can't wait to meet you inside the Spirit Pool."
The man snorted before cutting the emperor's neck in one swift motion. After the emperor was dead, his features changed again into the old angelic ones and Senna materialized nearby as well. She bowed her head again and said:
"Thank you for seeking justice for our children."
The man shook his head and sighed: "I did it only to quench my anger. Go now, you will probably be in a lot of trouble with the council."
Senna nodded and turned around before saying: "I knew they will not be happy with me when I came to you. I owe you one, thief. You are not so bad after all."
The man smiled after hearing her words as he watched her walk away and slowly fade out before disappearing completely.
After Senna left, I expected the scene to change again since I figured I was seeing one of her memories, but surprisingly I remained inside the room with the man. He turned around and looked straight in my direction, scaring the hell out of me.
"I don't know who you are, human that dares to peek into my past, but since you came here following Senna's memories I let you live and see everything as a favor to her. Send her my regards when you return."
With that, he waved his hand and I woke up inside my soul space again. It took me a while to come back to my senses and remember what was happening before I entered her memories.
"Senna, what was that? How long was I gone?" I asked as I looked at Senna. The entire thing started feeling like it was just a dream.
"Around two minutes. You experienced The Dusk of the Black Star. Maybe not the biggest, but one of the bigger massacres in the history of the multiverse."
I sighed at her words, finally understanding a little of what she meant. Compared to what I witnessed inside her memories, me killing a bit over a thousand people really seemed like child play.
"I understand what you mean, but the scale does not make it any less wrong."
"Oh, so when you killed that bandit in the forest it was better? If the scale doesn't mean it's less wrong why didn't you wallow in self pity then?"
Her words stumped me once again and I knew I had no way of winning an argument with her.
"Listen to me, Ethan. On this path you are walking you're going to kill a lot of people. It might be wrong by the standards of your old world, but the strong live and the weak die is the law of the multiverse. Get those stupid ideals out of your head."
I stayed silent for a moment and before asking: "But, if I keep killing like this, what if someday I'll just become a monster? A monster who just kills for no rime or reason."
"Your stupidity is really something. People change, whether they or we want to or not. You don't happen what will happen to you in the future or how will you change. Will you become a monster that just kill for the pleasure of it? I don't know. But, I can promise you that just killing a certain number of people will not turn you into one. Do you think that the man you saw kill endlessly for over half a millennium was one of those monsters you fear of becoming?"
"I don't know…"
"Let me tell you a few things about the Black Star Empire. They were an empire that lived by feeding on anything that had life in it. They kept going from one world to the next, leaving behind only death. Him getting rid of them all saved countless amount of lives. He was a butcher and a monster to the people of the empire, but he was also the hero and savior of countless other races. Would you have left them to continue devouring world after world just because you were scared of becoming a quote monster unquote? What if your home planet was next on their list?"
"I understand your point." I sighed and laid back staring at the endless expanse of white in the sky.
'She is right, I have to stop thinking like that. I can only do what I consider to be the best choice in any situation and see where that gets me.'
After a while, I turned towards Senna and said: "By the way, that man in your memories asked me to send you his regards."
Senna's body trembled as she looked at me with an amazed expression as she asked: "He spoke to you directly? Are you sure?"
I nodded and replied: "Yes. I don't remember all that much about the endless killing, but the final scene is still fresh in my mind. After that I explained the last scene to Senna, including the man's exact words.
"Amazing. His strength will always amaze me."
"Who was that man?"
"My Lord." Replied Ai, who was just sitting nearby and listening to us the entire time. She returned back to her emotionless expression, but traces of her dried tears were still left on her cheeks.
I turned towards her and asked: "So He was the one that created you?"
Ai nodded and said: "Yes. I don't have many information about Him recorded in my database, but I would recognize him..."
"Enough about that. You should check on your girlfriend as well. She might live in a world that killing is considered normal, but I doubt she's taking this as well as she seems." Said Senna, interrupting Ai mid sentence.
I got the feeling that Senna just wanted to avoid the subject of that man, but I was indeed a bit worried about Anise so I decided to just ask Ai to send me back for the moment. Once back inside my own body, I looked down and saw Anise holding my hand and crying with her eyes closed in silence.
I felt a tinge of pain and guilt in my heart for worrying about myself and not even considering how she felt. I at least knew what was going to happen, but she just went along with my plans and listened to what I told her to do.
Squeezing her hand slightly, I asked: "How are you?"
Anise opened her black-purple eyes and looked straight into mine before saying: "I'll be fine. I'm a little sad about all those people we killed. Sad about the fact that they had to have such a miserable ending, but I know that there was no other way."
'At least, she seemed a lot stronger than me.' I said to myself as I slowly wiped the tears from her face using my other hand.
"I'm sorry you had to see that. I should have explained to you what was going to happen clearly beforehand."
"It's okay. I figured it when I saw the bodies at the entrance of the cave."
I nodded and turned to look at the sky that was already brightening. After a few moments, Anise said:
"What do you think we should do now?"
"I say we rest here for a while and sleep to recover out mana. We can go report the quest completion to the guild after we get some sleep. Even if I doubt they will believe we managed to kill all the harpies."
"Don't worry, I recorded everything that happened on a memory crystal. We can remove the fight so they won't find out about your magic and use it as proof."
"Good thinking. With that we should be able to get a decent reward."
"But, didn't you want to explore the ruins inside the cave?"
"I did, but I don't feel like seeing all those dead people again so soon. I imagine you feel the same way."
"Yes, but if you really want to go check it out, I'll also come. Don't worry about me, I'm a lot stronger than I look."
"I know you are. I'll think about it and decide after we get some rest. You should try to sleep a bit as well."
"Ethan, can I.." She seemed to want to say something, but started hesitating halfway though her sentence."
I turned towards her with a curious look and asked: "What is it?"
"Can I hold you while I sleep for a bit? Every time I close my eyes, all I could see is the endless black charred bodies flowing out of that cave and I can't fall asleep. It might calm me down a little."
"No problem." I replied as I put one of my hands on her back and pulled her closer. Anise placed her head on my chest, still holding on to my hand with hers as she said: "Goodnight, Ethan."
"Sleep well." I replied as I looked up at the sun that was slowly rising over the horizon.
A smile appeared on my lips as I closed my eyes as well.