By the time David and Nicole left on the bus that moved along the river of cars, night had already fallen. There were plenty of people walking on the streets, and every time I saw them, with their carefree faces and actions, I realized how peaceful this world was—at least, how it appeared to be.
What's more, even with someone like Bo'guth—a demon—or Reeta, people were all just as happy to be living their lives as if they weren't the kind of beings that they were.
I looked at the sky. It wasn't quite as clear anymore as when I first appeared here. This city was cloudy most days now. It would occasionally rain, but usually the sky would be covered by white and gray clouds.
As I was looking at the dark sky, the idea that perhaps I should've bothered to see for myself what the 'forces of darkness' were truly like in my world—before the Holy Gods descended and destroyed everything—crossed my mind, however…
I looked back again at the bright lights of the roads and the loud noises of the cars that hardly moved at this time due to how many there were, and my mind went back again to the glowing light of the Holy Gods, and how their words would always sound like the truth.
Still… I shook my head. They were just words in the end, and they were usually coming from people; hardly ever from the Gods themselves. At the end of it all, I was responsible for my actions.
I have to be ready for when the Holy Gods find this place.
I gazed at the sky again, but this time, I felt something strange coming from another road. Someone was using magic. However, judging by the expression on the couple of people that were on the same road as me, none of them noticed what was going on.
I decided to take a look by going into the road that I felt the magic coming from. It was darker than the other roads, even if it still held some illumination, and it was completely desolate, making it ideal for shady people to do deals on this road. I kept steadily walking and I felt another fluctuation of magic. It was similar to the last one, weak, but strong enough to cause some damage.
I heard laughter coming from around the corner, and I knew that someone was doing something vile, since it was the kind of laughter that I'd heard many times from powerful people getting their way with someone.
"Right around here…" I whispered to myself as I prepared to look around the corner.
Just as I was a couple of steps away, I heard quick steps coming from around it and I stopped to see who was coming.
I was stunned for a moment when I gazed down at what appeared before me. It was a short being with stocky legs, large hands, big head, a long nose, and green skin; a goblin. However, there was something strange about this one. It was wearing clothes not too different from what a lot of people around here wore, with short dark-gray pants, a blazer that matched the pants, a white shirt under that blazer, and what appeared to be a black tie.
It carried a desperate expression on its face, and most importantly, it seemed to have a bruise on its bald head.
The goblin looked around the corner, and it's completely dark eyes—that only had a small red dot in the middle of them—quickly shifted on me. It's expression lessened when it noticed me and it started running my way. "Please! Help this one!"
"Hey! Don't let it get away!" shouted a man from beyond the corner.
I heard their hurried steps, just as I had heard the goblin's. The goblin, however, stopped a few short steps away from me, looking back at the corner as sweat poured down the side of its face.
"P-please, call for help!" it begged once again, looking up to me with an anxious expression.
Before I said anything in response, from around the corner a group of four young people showed up. I knew who they were, as they were the same people that I had already faced at the restaurant once.
A young girl next to a young man, both dressed in white clothes; while at the front they were being led by Daniel. Most surprising of all, was the one dressed like them at the back: Brian.
"Well… would you look at that…" Daniel said with a stunned expression. "Hello, Althea. Sorry for disturbing you. That little monster escaped when we were trying to put it in its place, so… if you could just help us catch it, we'll deal with this quickly and we could show you the good work we're doing against darkness."
"Quickly? I thought we were going to have fun with it," the other young man exclaimed, looking at Daniel with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes, of course. We can't be wasting time when dealing with darkness," Daniel calmly replied as he tried to keep an amiable smile.
"Huh? What are you saying? I thought we were just out having fun," the girl said while crossing her arms and glaring at Daniel.
"Please, look at this one. She's got the kind of beauty that can only have been hand-crafted by the Holy Gods. We must show her that we're doing the Gods' work here," Daniel continued while gesturing to me. "Besides, I've seen the blessings of the Holy Gods in her."
The girl hummed while looking me up and down. "I guess…"
"So…" Daniel said, lifting his hand and activating magic to create a small rock. "Let's Get this done with." He turned his head half-way so he could talk to Brian. "Pay close attention."
"P-please! Wait! This one only wants to go back to his family! This one means no harm to any of you!" the goblin shouted, taking a few steps back and closer to me.
In response I took a strong step forward, standing between the goblin and the group of believers. "I won't let you have your way with him." I also glared at Brian. "I warned you about getting involved with them."
Brian didn't reply as he simply looked away.
"Huh?!" the three of them exclaimed, seemingly not expecting me to react this way.
I had to agree to a certain point with their reactions. I felt strange standing strong to defend a goblin, one of the spawns from Salrak, especially after having killed armies of them. But this situation, combined with the knowledge from Salrak about these beings… and the damage that I caused in the past, I couldn't let this happen.
"Are you serious?" Daniel asked, completely incredulous about my position. "Don't you know the kinds of things that goblins do? To beautiful women like you? You must've seen it online."
"Yeah, yeah. They are monsters, and we're just getting rid of them, for the safety of the world and the people," the girl followed up.
'For the safety of the world and the people…' was something that I would've said as well before killing Salrak's armies, only because the Holy Gods said it. In the end, all I did was hand over the lives of everyone, and as I looked down at the scared little goblin, I couldn't repeat the same mistake from before.
"I don't care about anything like that. You will leave it alone," I replied, glaring strongly at them.
Daniel was surprised for a moment before turning his expression into a mocking smirk. "Well now, then I guess you leave us no choice, since you've turned yourself over to the evil ones, we'll have to deal with you…"
The way he said that reminded me of the many times I also did the same to others, like the elves, the other nations that turned on me, or the ones that claimed that killing the Darkness and Hellfire God would only bring our destruction.
With a strong swing of his hand, the rock that he was levitating on his hand quickly flew off, going straight for the goblin at my side. The goblin covered himself with his arm, but at the speed that that rock was going, it wouldn't be enough to block any damage, so I quickly reacted by kicking the rock mid air, exploding it into several pieces that just left dust on the air.
Daniel raised his eyebrows and the girl next to him whistled. "Well, it seems like you're not just some expensive whore on the streets."
Daniel laughed and shook his head. "It is true that the forces of evil get stronger the more time we let them be… it's a shame, especially for someone so blessed like yourself, Althea. But we're going to have to go harder on you."
Again, the things he said… They reminded me of the way that I would talk to others in my days as the Hero; and like them, I wouldn't give anyone I deemed evil the chance for redemption. I closed my eyes and considered how I should deal with them since I hadn't yet fully recovered from today's training, but in the short time I was thinking, I also felt how they started using magic again, so there was no time to think.
When I opened them again, I saw the girl rush over to me at great speeds. It was about as fast as I was during the test a few weeks ago, only that her form reminded me more of the form that people trained by Beastkin would have. She reached me in the blink of an eye, and I looked down at her smirking face as her fists quickly went after my face.
I wasn't going to just let her have her way, so I reacted even faster than she did, blocking her fist with my open hand, and keeping her away from my face by a short distance.
"Kgh!" she grunted while keeping the same smirk. "And here I thought I could break that perfect little face of yours in one go, but…"
As she trailed off, I felt ice magic being formed and launched my way from the other young man. It was a spike about the size of a knife that was coming straight for my face.
"I'm not alone and you are!" the girl shouted and tried to pull her hand away, only to be stuck as I clutched my hand harder on hers. "H-hey!"
She struggled to be released, but I wouldn't let go, and in the time that she struggled, the ice spike crashed on the back of her hand, near the wrist. She screamed as drops of blood spilled out of it, however, it seemed like it was just a superficial scratch, since I didn't feel anything on my hand from the blow.
"You idiot!" she shouted.
The young man that launched the spike raised his hands in apology as sweat formed on the side of his face. "I-I'm sorry! I thought you were going to—"
I threw the girl away as the man was trying to apologize, launching her straight at the young man who didn't have a chance to avoid her as she crashed and made him fall on the ground with her on top.
Daniel didn't seem to have much of a reaction as he seriously looked at me. "I'm going to deal with this."
Soon after he said that, several rocks formed in the air around him, which then quickly reshaped to be just like the ice spike that the other one had used. With a wave of his hand, the rock spikes quickly flew one after the other, all in different directions, but all aimed at my body.
I could dodge them, but doing so would leave the goblin exposed, so I lifted my left hand and created a Mana Barrier. The rocks crashed and exploded on the barrier's surface, scattering smaller rocks that flew all over the place. That attack was much more powerful than I expected, since each rock consumed a significant amount of the little amount of mana I had recovered to block.
Still, I had more than enough to deal with a few trouble makers. "Give up now before you get hurt."
Daniel widened his eyes for a moment before frowning. The other two people stood back up, but he looked straight at me with the same glare that I would sometimes show people. "Don't you know who I am? My magic power is leagues above everyone else's. It should've been you who should've surrendered when you had the chance."
Fire formed around his hands. The young man and the girl next to him jumped back in response, with Brian and the girl in particular looking scared at the flames.
"What do you think you're doing?! You can't use fire on other people like that! Don't you remember what—"
"Shut up!" Daniel shouted without turning to look at her. "She's standing on the side of darkness and we must do whatever we can to eliminate it."
"But you—"
A raging torrent of fire interrupted the girl as it burned the air while making its way to me. I quickly created another Mana Barrier and braced for it. It crashed, covering the whole barrier. I could feel the heat from it even behind it. The goblin also seemed to feel it as he quickly ducked right behind me.
It went on for a while, longer than I hoped. It wasn't nearly as powerful as the flames from Salrak, so I could hold on for a while, but I didn't know for how long since just this much was already draining plenty of what little remained of my mana.
"Stop!" the girl said as she pulled Daniel's hand down, causing the fire to stop hitting my barrier. "You're going to make a mess!"
Daniel looked down at her with a fierce glare before slapping her across the face. "You don't talk to me that way. I'm doing what I must do, and if you try to get in my way, then I'll deal with you too."
"D-dude, you can't just—"
Daniel moved his hand in the direction of the other young man, and in that quick motion a few rocks were summoned, hitting the young man in his face, and causing him to slump over to the side.
"Y-you…" the girl said with a terrified expression.
"What?" Daniel asked, turning to look at Brian before glaring down at the girl again. "You know what we had to do when you joined, so don't get in the way now."
Yet again, the way he spoke was similar to the way I spoke to many people in my past. I looked down on my hands, remembering the things I'd done to those I called my enemies. Holy Power would rend them, and my blade would split them apart. That Holy Power was no better than the so-called evil power from Salrak…
While I was distracted in my own thoughts, Daniel pulled out a small golden ring, placing it on one of his fingers, before turning once again to look at me. I knew what that was. It was a Holy Artifact, used to empower people with a small amount of Holy Power, which meant that whatever he was going to do next, was going to be dangerous.
I couldn't stand here and let him attack me, but if I moved, then it would be the goblin that would suffer. I had to counter him before he attacked.
However, I was currently far too weakened to move with the needed speed, and in that time, he ignited the same torrent of fire that he had been using on me, only that this time, the fire carried streaks of golden light. I quickly reacted by blocking with a hastily created Mana Barrier, but I could already feel the drain on my mana reaching the bottom.
Soon, I will be exposed, and the flames would consume me and the goblin.
"I will expunge the darkness with my Holy Flames!" Daniel shouted before laughing, and I knew that he could do this until I was burned.
In moments like this I could always rely on teammates or… my Holy Power. I didn't want to use it, since it had been replaced by Salrak's Darkness and Hellfire. However, after listening to this man talk, and seeing it mixed with fire to kill an innocent being, I realized that my Holy Power was not a power for good, but just a tool for destruction.
Darkness and Hellfire was no worse. If anything, it was a power that was used by Salrak to protect people from me and my unrelenting attacks, and right now, I needed to do something to protect both me and the goblin.
There was no longer any hesitation to touch the power that was left by Salrak in my body. I reached for the same place where my Holy Power had been, and I felt the power of the God in there, but unlike the Holy Power that felt like moving someone else's arm, this one felt like I was trying to move my own arm. It quickly reacted to my calling, and like my mana, it filled my body with its power.
The Mana Barrier cracked and it slowly fell apart, allowing the heat of the fire torrent to slip past it.