*Wiuuu*
The loud sounds of wind whistling across the area kept buzzing in my ears non-stop. The rough gushes of wind carrying grains of sand caressed my face which was dripping wet with sweat and blood.
*Drip* *Drop*
My ears were filled with the quiet sounds of blood droplets falling on the ground. The area around me was already coated with a dark crimson color that could make anyone frown with disgust.
My sturdy posture that didn't show any weakness contrasted the hazy look that filled my eyes. I was barely holding on from falling unconscious.
Slowly, my gaze shifted to look at the horizon. The warm light of the setting sun engulfed my whole being and sent a strong feeling of warmth into every part of my body.
I felt a sense of peace from that scenery engulfing my whole body. I was able to admire this natural piece of art for a brief moment so I could forget the pain I felt in my whole body.
"Elijah Keleren!! You Bastard!!"
Suddenly, a loud voice interrupted my peaceful time, my gaze automatically shifted to look at the owner of the voice.
He was a tall man that from his looks didn't exceed 30 years of age. His face was unbelievably handsome to the point where one small glimpse at him from an ordinary human will make him lose his eyesight.
Many would mistake him for a human except for one single thing. What made him look different from normal humans were 2 pairs of white wings stuck to his back. The wings were shining with a white light that made the man look even more ethereal.
Yet, his impressive looks were distorted by anger and frustration. He kept glaring at me while clenching the golden spear in his hand.
I didn't speak at all, or to be more precise, I didn't want to utter one single word. My emotionless eyes were more than enough to convey my intentions.
"I WILL KILL YOU!! HAAAA!!" He shouted at the top of his lungs and dashed at me.
His speed was beyond any human's imagination, it was akin to an instant teleport rather than actual movement.
But, that horrifying agility was nothing for me, he could've been standing still and I won't feel any difference. We were simply not equal.
I held my sword slightly higher. The dark blade that didn't reflect any light released an ominous aura that shook the whole world. The wind became even more violent as if it was following my orders.
Then, with a single move…
*Swish*
I blinked from my position and appeared behind the weird man. It didn't even take a fraction of a second for that to happen, but what I did in that minuscule period of time was not insignificant by any means.
"Ughh!!!! Y-Yo-" His words got stuck in his throat before he fell down on the ground motionless… He was dead.
I turned around and looked at him with cold eyes devoid of any human resemblance, those eyes of mine that have seen and witnessed the atrocities this world could deliver to a person and experienced all kinds of pains and hells have lost their light as the time passed.
'Another one…dead.' I thought as I looked at my black sword. Ironically, this sword that killed billions of creatures was never tarnished with the blood of its victims, it kept that black blade as dark as the night, devoid of any impurities.
"Are there any more enemies?" I muttered to myself as I gazed at the area around me.
Corpses upon corpses of creatures that resemble that man I killed before were littered around covering the dunes of sand for hundreds of meters.
Their spears and weapons were also scattered around them creating what could be described as a sea of weapons with no wielders.
[Life essence detected.]
[Would you like to consume Level 100000 Divine servant life essence?]
[Yes] [No]
A peculiar message suddenly appeared in my retina, I ignored it every time it appeared through this hellish battle, but now, I got what I needed.
"Yes," I said apathetically without giving it a second glance. I was already very familiar with what was going to happen, so I didn't bother to watch it again.
While I was having such thoughts, a dark black liquid started oozing from my hand, the liquid looked like a black slime rather than a liquid but the way it dropped to the ground and started moving on its own created the stark contrast between it and a normal slime.
The liquid crept closer and closer to each corpse littered around me and started covering them slowly. Soon enough, every single divine servant was covered in it.
*Swop* *Swop*
Then, as if nothing happened, the black liquid started retracting back towards me leaving behind nothing but bare ground with no shred of existence left from those dead people.
I sat down in my place as I fought the dizziness, I looked at my right hand. It was full of dirt and blood which was hideous to look at.
"I'm tired." I muttered while clenching my fist. I was exhausted in every possible way. Fighting these creatures for days took a toll on my body and my sanity.
Then, when the tension that kept me awake got released, my eyes started closing slowly. I couldn't resist the urge to fall asleep that took over my body.
"I can't...sleep." I said before I completely lost consciousness letting my mind shut down immediately.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Ting* *Ting* *Ting*
"Ugh...Fuck." I groaned with a frown on my face and extended my hand to stop the annoying alarm on my phone. The sound was particularly unpleasant that morning as if someone was knocking on my head with a metal bat over and over again. My eyes squinted slightly from the sharp headache I was suffering from.
"My head hurts like hell.." I could only rest my head on the palm of my hand trying to ease the pain with a few strokes and pointless massages I saw on the internet.
I never felt such a headache before and that made it even more frustrating.
Knowing for a fact that I will be late for school if I stay like this, I forced myself out of my comfy bed and stood up on my two feet.
Looking at my room that I grew familiar with over the past years. It was a simple, modern room that you could find anywhere if you look properly.
A wardrobe on the left accompanied by a table and a chair for studying and other uses. Then we have my bed which was still messy from a long night.
"I will see if I can deal with this headache later." I left the room to prepare myself for the day.
My house was also a simple two-story house in a normal neighborhood. I have lived with my parents since I was still a 15-year-old teenager barely scraping the surface of adulthood. You could say I was offensively average.
After cleaning myself and wearing my clothes. I went down to the kitchen to get some breakfast.
"Good morning, Mom." I barely looked at the silhouette of my mom who was still preparing the food.
"Good morning, Honey. slept well?" She replied while skillfully moving in the kitchen as if it was her domain.
"I have a strong headache so even if I slept well that feeling got swept along with it." I couldn't bother to do excessive movements so all of my body was motionless except for my hands that shoved food inside my mouth continuously.
Finally, my mother turned around to look at me with worry. She was a middle-aged woman with beautiful features that unfortunately faded with time. The wrinkles on her face and the shades of white coloring the tips of her raven black hair gave out the horrible things time could do to a human being.
"You should take the day off if you can't go to school. The tests are already over anyway." She said while examining my body. She worked as a nurse in the local hospital in our city so she knew what she was doing.
As we talked, my father entered the kitchen. He was also in his 50s with short brown hair and a muscular build. His compact and study muscles were the result of all of his hard work as one of the crusaders.
He wasn't that strong as he was barely a 'D+' crusader who didn't have that strong of a power. Being at the bottom of the ranking, he could barely enter E-ranked portals for a group expedition. A dangerous job with not that much of an income.
We were not that rich but we were happy and grateful for what we had. I, for myself, was more than satisfied with my life. 'Money will come eventually if I become the strongest crusader', that was my belief.
After chatting with them for some time and swiping away half of the food on the table with me. I left the house and went to school.
It was the 23rd of February of the year 2489. It was exactly 340 years ago that we discovered the portals and since then we became more reliant on our powers than actually trying to develop technologies. People imagined flying cars and that we already roamed the universe by now, but the truth is, we concentrated all of our efforts on understanding the mysteries of the portals then actually looking at our world anymore. Instead of building a rocket to go out of the solar system, you could actually leave this galaxy with a single step just from entering a portal.
With that kind of logic, we were able to make the portals a great resource for us. Weird ores, unimaginable artifacts, weapons, and even new species we've never seen before barged into our economy like a raging bull taking place as the new trending market. Companies and world governments started flocking left and right just to get a slice of this fat pie.
This world truly became nothing but a drop of water in the ocean. And it also made us look even more insignificant to this universe.
"Guuuess who~~?" As I was walking while getting engrossed in my own thoughts, two hands suddenly covered my eyes and a sweet voice full of mischievousness reached my ear.
"Good morning, Claire." I responded with a bored look while pulling her hands away.
"Heyy...You're no fuun Eli~." As I looked at the new face, she pouted in a cute way pretending to be angry. She was an extremely beautiful girl in every sense of the word and her very cheerful attitude was the cherry on top of the cake. The number of people striving after her was too many for me to even bother about them.
Claire was my childhood friend. Ah, yeah many of you will think: 'Oh my God, he has a childhood friend...You're living the romantic dream' or something like that. But the truth is, this ball of cheekiness is nothing but a sister to me. We would bicker around like we were siblings and I've never thought of her as a potential love interest. I'm not gay by the way, so scratch that off your head!
"This is the billionth time you did this." My head rested on my hand again and my eyes squinted slightly from the sharp headache I was suffering from.
"Are you ok?"
"Nothing serious, let's go, we're gonna be late."
Our walk to school took approximately 20 minutes since it was in the neighbourhood. As much as it was a painful walk, talking with Claire and keeping up with her attitude does indeed make it a little bit more bearable.
"Finally the assessment is about to start. We could finally become crusaders." Claire was on cloud nine from the moment the tests ended as it meant it was nothing but a matter of time before we could finally enter the portals and get our abilities.
"I hope we will get a good ability or everything will be for a knot." I couldn't count the number of people who got their hopes crushed when they got a D rank ability or worse. Most of our future relied on luck, which made it somehow unfair to some people and generous to others.
Our school was an average middle school you could find anywhere, hell I can't even think of one thing that makes it stand out among the institutes. But since this was my last year, I kind of felt a little bit of nostalgia seeping into my heart whenever I thought about leaving. The good memories and the good people I spent my time with there made it even more precious to me.
"UGH!???" As I looked at the school, the headache suddenly attacked me again, even tougher this time. It was as if my head got stomped on by a speeding train. I was barely able to hold myself up from falling as I felt my legs give out.
I probably should've stayed home that day, that could've changed everything, but I didn't. I just ignored the worried looks Claire was giving me with a dismissive smile and entered the class.
I saw the other person I consider one of my best friends. He was sitting casually while swiping through his phone. You could tell from his sleepy eyes that last night was quite hectic. The black shade under his eyes ruined the good looks he got from his parents and made him appear like a deformed panda.
"Good morning, Eli." He didn't bother to look at me as he was engrossed in whatever pointless things he was doing on his phone.
As the time proceeded, we talked and chatted about random stuff until the class started.
It was a boring history class about the glorified hero of humanity and his mind-boggling achievements. But, being the big fanboy that I was, I threw the pain of the headache to the back of my head and swallowed up every information coming out of the professor's mouth like some kind of drug.
I was a hopeless case indeed. But, that was when it happened. The ripple that created the biggest change in my life.
The pain that I suppressed from before, came back with even more intensity that at this point it could've fried my brain for all I care.
A loud groan of pain escaped my mouth and I felt my body heating up to a crazy degree that my skin started to radiate a red hue like an active volcano.
Everyone around froze in his place, they could not understand what was happening. I fell down to the floor rolling back and forth while fighting the suffering of a lifetime.
It was just that bad. The first person to recover from the shock was Claire and she came running to me.
"ELI?!! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!!! OH MY GOD."
Her worried voice sounded like an encrypted code that I couldn't understand.
Even when she tried to touch me, she retracted her hand quickly. I was literally burning alive.
Even the idea of creating a thought in my mind ceased from becoming possible, my body went into a full alarm situation trying to save my ass from dying.
"Get away from him..." The teacher who was the only adult there came running and pushed the students away from me.
He then pointed his hand at me and like a hose of water, his hand started creating water and blasting it on me. It was probably his ability that he got from the portals.
Trying to cool me down was the best idea anyone could think of at that time, but that professor underestimated the heat my body was feeling. The moment the water touched my skin, it instantly evaporated creating a screen of smoke around me. I was probably the first 'Boiling-hot human'.
"ELI?!" my friends who still didn't get their powers could only scream without doing much. At this point, someone had already gone out to get help.
This hectic scene was nothing but the start, a horrible thing more terrifying than anything else was about to happen and I had the full displeasure of being at the center of it.
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