Chapter 12 - Attacked!
A couple of days later, where Maxmillan had long arrived in the city by feet and drank from pools of water that he saw on the ground to quench his thirst, nearly everyone in Shining Lake City had known who he was.
Details about him and the incident that surrounded him, had spread like ravaging wildfire to every home and institution within the city. And so, whenever any of them came across him while heading in certain directions or to a particular destination in mind, they immediately avoided him like he was a frightening monster that only his gaze alone would cause them to be filled with illness and bring about their instant perishing and immediate decay.
At the moment, Maxmillan was really hungry that he could entirely devour a full bucket of rice and hot tasty soup. And this was because he hadn't eaten for days since he arrived at the city where nearly everyone did their utmost best to avoid him like he were a plague.
He was so famished that mouth-watering intercontinental delicacies from planet Earth would appear on the ground from to time. But he fully ignored them and tried to remain rational.
But other than the maddening excessive hunger that he experienced, he had a bleak and dismal aura exude interminably from his hungry, thirsty, weary and dreary figure that seemed like it could collapse to the ground anytime soon. And he was growing thin and incredibly weak by the moment that if a strong wind blew past him, he would be shoved by it to the ground.
Although he had tried begging people for money, but he furiously got punched in the face and was threateningly warned not to ever come close to them again, or that day would be his last.
After receiving hard and heavy punches from some people that he came across who instantly treated him as their worst adversary, with his face now looking battered and his gums missing some teeth, Maxmillan who now had a face completely similar to that of a squashed tomato, made up his mind to break into people's foodstores at night to cart away with things that he would sparingly consume before going for another item-stealing round some other time.
But as an homeless individual that moved from one place to the other, as he didn't have a place to stay and was indignantly chased away all the time by different groups of people that came to viciously brutalize him at the spot that he chose to sleep, finally found a small building that seemed abandoned and he could gladly rest in for the night.
"I think I can stay here." Maxmillan said and sighed in relief, as he could recall the devastating things that he went through in the hands of some thugs simply because of some spots that he chose to sleep.
"The people in this world are extremely wicked. Excessively wicked and overly callous. None of them have compassionate minds and souls. Except for my loving parent and sisters. If I had an ability like theirs, coupled with my vast imaginative ability, I will make sure to bring endless ruination upon everyone of them. Starting with the godforsaken Floating Lotus academy."
"These tortures and afflictions are just too much for me to endure, all because I can't enter into harmony with Astra Mystralis. What so special about the trashy energy? Can it resurrect a two-year dead adult? Can it turn wind currents to a stack of well-ironed clothes? Or transform one to a blindingly radiant, domineeringly strong skygod? Bunches of useless wicked people that think they are exceptionally formidable."
"If I had an explosion-resistant technological armor and a fast-flight jetpack, then a heavy auto-loading electro-mechanized blastgun and an automated mini-launcher rocket cannon from the Special Armory and Advanced Weaponry Research Center on earth, then an unlimited supply of explosive-shell chain ammunition, wide-burst incendiary shells, or large-area lightning-arc devastation shells, I will definitely immerse this city and every other city in the sea of engulfing darkness and endless tempestuous chaos, irregardless of the massive number of shitty Astra Mystralis users that will come at me with unbounded ire." Maxmillan said loathingly and spitefully, as he now hated everyone in this world to the core, except his parent and sisters.
"If a day comes that I can't cope anymore with the brutalizations that I face endlessly in the hands of these ill-hearted people, I think I will immediately return home."
"All my body aches and hurts. And for days now, I haven't eaten. I only drink smelly water leaving the open drainages of people's home. Ugh! I haven't been able to take a proper bath for days now. And worst of all, I haven't brushed my teeth. The clothes on me are dirty and causes me severe body itches. And I can't remember when last I had a peaceful ten-minute nap. I have always been on the alert due to the guys that will seek me out to attack me for fun."
"This is a really sad and unfortunate life. It's a life totally worse than death, since in death, there is no way I will experience all these terribly sad things. I will be eternally calm and peaceful."
"Well, I brought this upon myself. I should have gone home instead of making up my mind to stay away from them. But it's for their own safety. I don't want any deleterious harm or annihilatory danger that I drag along with me to encompass them too and extinguish their smoothly-progressing, wonderfully calm lives."
"Dad, mom, Nailah and Lylla, I am sorry. Really sorry. I am sure you guys would be worried sick by now." Maxmillan said and imagined their excessively worried faces, especially that of his compassionately caring and doting mom Lenna, in which the somber feelings that she would be experiencing for not returning to her, suddenly caused his heart to be deeply pierced and beat erratically, his whole being strongly impacted and filled with regret, and his stubborn resolve to tremendously weaken and waver endlessly.
He just couldn't bear it anymore, as he could effortlessly, emphatically perceive the level of anguish and cheerlessness that would surface in her heart for not returning home to her patiently-waiting loving embrace. And it was highly possible that she would leave everything that she was doing to go look for him relentlessly within the city, not caring for anything dismal or bad that would happen to her.
"Why didn't I think of this well? It's best to return to them. But it was really diabolical of me to keep them in this condition where they will suffer from intense emotional pain and anguish. They are too good to experience such from me. Besides, I would be returning home to the one cheerful place where I would feel safe, loved, happily and generously cared for." Maxmillan said further, fully making up his mind which totally brightened his mood and filled him with more vigor and energy for the new task.
But about twelve minutes later, as he walked down a particular grave-quiet route that will lead to his faraway town, since he could still recall the route that the carriage from his hometown plied to arrive in the city, Maxmillan could abruptly hear the footsteps of people walking behind him.
Fathomless fear and wariness instantly seized both his heart and mind, since the footsteps that sounded like the footsteps of many from behind him, seemed to be walking towards him, which then caused Maxmillan to immediately take to his heels so as to escape from them.
But with what energy that someone who hadn't eaten for days run with? Besides, his feet were heavy from swelling, numb and were structurally weak.
Also, he suffered from many injuries that covered the entirety of his legs, right from the inner thighs to his feets and caused movement to be extremely difficult for him, since they agonizingly ached.
He had received these injuries from the really gruesome beatings that he experienced from certain groups of thugs who completely disliked his presence in their vicinities and chased him off after wickedly and joyfully pummeling him with magically enhanced punches, kicks and heaviness-imbued thin wooden poles.
After running for sometime, where he had ran out of breath and panted and had his whole body produce sensations of extreme pain, Maxmillan collapsed to the ground with a totally dejected aura beginning to exude from his figure that was covered in numerous scars and wounds.
"What do you people want? Why don't you leave me al-" Maxmillan asked. But he couldn't finish his speech when he was suddenly kicked really hard in the mouth by one of his masked attackers.
"P-please, don't do t-this to m-" Maxmillan struggled to mention with tears beginning to stream down his eyes in an uncontrollable fashion.
But just like before, he couldn't complete his speech when his jaw was suddenly hit with a wooden pole that seemed like it could crush small stones to pieces due to the shocking heaviness it possessed.
Seeing that there was nothing he could do, as it seemed his attackers were totally bent on attacking him to probably inflict him with more pain, Maxmillan who couldn't hear anything again as his ears rang unendingly, with his vision totally blurred out and an overwhelming ferric taste continuously surfacing in his mouth, finally surrendered himself to be seriously dealt with by the cloaked and masked people gathered around him.
"Cripple, we aren't here to beat you. We are here to put you of out of your misery. So, prepare to die and be erased from this world that doesn't want someone like you breathing in it. Hahaha."
"However, after I am done with you, you will become a living dead monster that will join the countless others that my Sacred Lord Master is creating an army out of to unleash unstoppable chaos in every corner of this inevitably doomed world! Hahaha!!" One of them who seemed like the leader of this group, said and laughed evilly. While the others joined him in laughing evilly too.
Then with gleaming icy-cold eyes that shone with both tyranny and evilness, the leader of the group aimed his palm at Maxmillan and uttered a short powerful spell that caused the instant manifestation of a thick and viscous, jet-black fog that had terrifying resentful wails and frightening shrieking and shrilling sounds come from within it.
Also, bizarre illusionary images of dozens of decomposing and withering, bitingly cold pale-white hands, could be seen emerging from the violently churning, evilly groaning dark black fog from time to time and would cause horrifying dark red circles to appear in the air which would in turn give rise to berserk rippling waves anytime they surfaced.
The baneful pitch-black fog after manifesting before Maxmillan, fully encompassed his figure and caused his already thin body to rapidly dry up and begin to wither, where it then caused a shocking transformation to begin to occur.
But as this happened, with the cloaked masked men taking in what was going on with serious looks in their faces, a small mysterious orb of light that was however invisible, since the light that emitted from it was much more higher in frequency than what the eyes of the masked men could naturally perceive, immediately surfaced above Maxmillan's head like it had warped both space and time and abruptly penetrated into his body.