"Not bad for a weakling."
Fear was the only way to describe the overwhelming feeling flowing through William as he observed reality crack and break.
It should've still taken a few more minutes for Zephyr to revive, so why did he hear his voice?
Well, there's no way to find out other than by waiting and bracing himself for whatever comes.
After a few second which felt like forever to William, he found himself back in the golden castle which was still in pristine condition unlike the one destroyed in his and Zephyr's clash.
William finally mustered up the courage to lift his head and look at the blond-haired boy who was still sitting on his throne; however, unlike before, his gaze wasn't condescending but one of respect.
"H-how?" William asked, his voice containing disbelief.
He already had a guess as to what was going on, but he still wanted to hear from the man responsible himself.
"Just a little trick I picked up; you've been in an illusion ever since you came back in the memoirs."
"I originally just wanted to send you back, but my curiosity got the best of me."
"I must say you really surprised me, punching me right after coming into my domain."
"How daring!" Zephyr snorted, a small chuckle escaping his lips.
"Well anyways, I wanted you to change your mentality, and you succeeded, not bad." He said it in a tone containing a newfound respect for the boy in front of him.
"Also, let me tell you this right now."
"Do not try a stunt like that again; you should be glad it was only an illusion, or you would've been long dead," he said as the pressure inside the castle intensified, making it hard for William to breathe before it was gone again.
Helplessness was the feeling William was feeling right now, seeing the futility of his own action against the boy in front of him, who's supposed to later be a god.
Unsettled him, he was supposed to possess similar talent and skills to him, and they're even the same age.
So why was there such an insurmountable gap between them?
Despite what Zephyr said before, William had never been lazy; he had always trained and practiced diligently.
His training regiment only got harsher once he regained his past life memories. Sure, he had other goals and aspirations than becoming stronger.
But he still highly valued strength due to the values he learned in his past life and the nature of the world he lived in.
And yet here stood a boy of similar age and talent to him, overwhelmingly more powerful than him.
William wasn't even able to fathom the vastness of the power that the boy in front of him possessed.
Could Rex beat Zephyr?
Had he really been lazy, wasting his talent?
Was this how strong he would've been if he had trained harder?
Nah, he already knew the answer to the last one; regardless of how hard he trained, he wouldn't have achieved the same type of strength that Zephyr possessed, maybe in the future, but definitely not now.
While William was on the ground with multiple questions in his mind, contemplating everything he knew about this new world, a voice called out to him, finally bringing him out of his own self-deprecating thoughts.
"Do not be ashamed, William; weakness is not a sin, but staying weak is."
"If you feel weak, just use this feeling to push yourself until you can call yourself strong, and while you may be weak compared to me or other divine aspects compared to everyone else, you're strong, what I'm trying to say is"
"Stand proud; you're strong," said Zephyr, his voice filled with pride as he looked at the boy he considered his protege.
After hearing the voice of the boy responsible for his current state, William finally looked up as his eyes met Zephyr's, which were filled with nothing but pride for him.
Finally mustering up courage, he stood back up as he asked.
"How did you get so strong? Even for a divine aspect, it doesn't make sense for aa 10-year-old to possess such power."
"The answer to your question is pretty simple; it's the same reason why you were able to kill Jason in your past life, so any guesses?"
William was lost for a moment as to why Zephyr was bringing up his past life all of a sudden.
"The answer to your question is desperation," Zephyr said with a calm expression, reflecting on the horrors he experienced in the past, which pushed him to pursue his current strength.
"Back in my era, the world was in a war with demons. These demons were horrifying and sick, perverse beings who took pleasure in the agony of everyone around them."
"They just wanted to see the world burn, and sadly for us, no one possessed the power to stop them."
"Dragons, the only beings capable of destroying demons, were too arrogant to help creatures; they considered them 'lower' than themselves, so the demons used the opportunity to strike a deal with the Dragon God to not implicate the Neutral continent in the war, effectively removing dragons from the whole war."
"But even despite this, the people didn't give up. Humans, elves, dwarfs, vampires, and beast folk all united under one banner now called the United Race Federation, or URF for short."
"The URF fought valiantly, holding the demons back for many decades, but unfortunately for them, the demons were just too strong."
"As a kid, I always knew I was different from everyone else and that I was special. I watched all my friends and family die; despite possessing considerable strength already, it wasn't enough."
"I could tell if nothing changed, the demons would kill every other race in the world, so I decided to be the change the world needed."
"I joined the battlefield as a kid; at first I was made fun of for my age, but I proved all of them wrong with my strength, proving myself worthy of standing beside all of them."
"With each near-death experience, with each kill, I grew stronger; I saw countless men I considered my friends get slain brutally; and I myself killed millions of demons."
"It was a brutal lifestyle, but my desperation, talent, and intelligence kept me alive even while my comrades died, and just like that, before I knew it, I had killed the demon king, sealed the demon race, and restored peace to the world like I promised."
William was stunned hearing Zephyr talk about his life; everything he said was pretty much common knowledge as the URF still existed and made sure to maintain the peace that Zephyr brought.
However, the thing that really weirded him out was how expressionless Zephyr was telling the story, almost as if he didn't care about talking about all his friends and family brutally dying in front of him.
"So does that answer your question and what you need to do?" Zephyr asked.
William was brought back from his own thoughts by his voice as he responded.
"Yeah, let's go to the neutral continent. Also, I promise to someday beat you."
"Yeah, sure," Zephyr responded, happy that William finally agreed to him, and as for beating him, he didn't take it seriously.
****
Author's note:-
With that, the first volume of 'Descent of Calamity' has ended. I'll be starting the second volume, 'A Calamity Out in the World', tomorrow. I hope your guys are as excited as I am.
It's always been a dream of mine to write a novel, and thanks to you guys, I'm able to live out my dream.
Now, as for some things, I wanted to say , I'm a complete newbie with this being my first novel, so there might be some errors. I proofread my chapters multiple times, but I'm only human,so if you see any such errors, feel free to point them out. Also, it was a bit weird for me to write daily at first, but I'm yet to miss a day of daily upload, and in the future, I hope I can release chapters at a fixed time daily instead of whenever I finish writing them.
Also, I hope you guys can enjoy volume 2 as much as volume 1, as according to me, it should be much better than the first volume, and the writing quality should also be higher as I'm slowly getting used to writing.