Chapter 12: Lyra Diego

(A/N: please do bring any typos or grammatical errors to my attention, either by chapter or paragraph comments so I can immediately fix and attend to it. As I am only human too, there's only so much I can do without making mistakes. Thank you, and enjoy!)

***

Lyra took a while to slowly take in all she had just heard. It sounded bizarre. No, it was bizarre.

 And made no sense!

That hadn't answered her question...well it had, but wasn't satisfactory!

But Lyra was the only one to think so among the two as she watched Huey nod satisfactorily at his explanation.

'From seventy years ago? Whisked away... another world?'

Now she had even more questions.

'What world? Dragon? What's that?'

'You say you're from the past, did you ever see the sun?'

'You just said you were human, are you? Explain the scales and eyes!'

'And what's with that ridiculously long hair for a man? Get it cut!'

Huey nodded one more time then gripped his sword and stood up leaving Lyra even more confused by his sudden action.

"I need to get going now. There's a lot I have to confirm, and thank you for all the information you have given me about the seventy years blank. This is where we say goodbye." He said, then nodded appreciatively at Lyra before turning around to leave again.

Seventy years was a long time; long enough for an invasion to happen. That was much more than what Heuy had expected.

Suddenly hearing that most of humanity had been erased while he was gone shook him to his core.

What about his family...his Old man, and all those little pricks he was going to get back at; his friends?

All of them were dead.

Mankind had its numbers dwindled to the last during the first invasion. And even if, somehow, by some off chance his family, the Blades managed to survive the invasion, seventy years was still a long period. Long enough for old age and natural causes of death to happen.

Especially for his old man.

'I can't think like that.'

No, he couldn't.

 That was why he was going to make sure himself. Was his family alive? If they somehow were, some of them at least, then where were they? And if they weren't...he wanted to make sure himself.

And his Call Of Duty account...

Huey had questions, and he was slowly going to get his answers.

"Wait! Hold on, you can't just take off all on your own. It's dangerous out there, y'know? Ever since the first invasion, the earth has been inhabited by the Elder Gods; It's not like it was seventy years ago." Lyra quickly got up after him.

Huey paused in his steps and replied without looking back.

"I'll be fine. There's no need to worry about me." Saying so, he continued forward.

And Lyra only chased after him.

"E-even of you say that..." She struggled with the words to say — "The Earth's different from what you might be familiar with. Civilization fell; countries burned and continents were erased. Most importantly, you can't just leave me here!" She shamelessly admitted.

Huey paused then turned around, genuinely raising an eyebrow.

"What?" He said.

Lyra gulped then nodded firmly before stumping up to him.

"You can't just leave a young lady like me out in the apocalypse, unarmed and alone. Let me come with you." She proposed.

Huey's eyebrow raised even higher and more incredulously.

'She's playing the maiden card, isn't she? She's more shameless than she lets on, right?'

Then he turned around and approached her before leaning forward.

"Why would I let you come with me?" He asked, and Lyra readily revealed.

"If what you've said is true, the world is vastly different from seventy years ago; a lot of things have changed, and you lack the knowledge of those changes, if you aren't careful you could get in serious trouble. That's why you should let me come with you." 

Huey leaned back and then sighed shortly before turning away with a palm to his face.

Then shamelessly lamented, himself.

"It's all because I'm hot. It's all because I'm too beautiful, right? That's why you suddenly can't let go of me now. Sigh. This is a dilemma; what a major dilemma! What'd do I do now?" He cried dramatically.

Lyra had the facial expression of someone who had been slapped twice in the cheek all of a sudden.

'Fucking shameless...' she realized.

Huey withdrew his hand, revealing his cold and aloof expression that had resurfaced like nothing ever happened.

Under the silently judging eyes of Lyra, he appraised the girl from head to toe, silently weighing his options.

'I don't wanna, but she does have a point. The world has vastly changed from what I was aware of after the first invasion. It'll be a pain if I went ahead and touched a girl and be persecuted for it all of a sudden.' he furrowed his brows.

"What exactly do you offer to me on this?" He questioned.

Lyra composed herself and assumed a calm and measured expression, externally, then calmly stated.

"I'm someone born into this Era. I have combat experience with the dagger if provided. I hold the common knowledge of the current world, which you desperately lack. On the other hand, the reason I want to come with you is because you're strong—" Lyra thought back to the red wave slash of before and shuddered subtly without letting it show before continuing.

"At my current state, I can't hold my own against a single Elder God, and that's if the Radiation doesn't kill me first." She still had slight reservations about suddenly being immune to the effects of" Mana" radiation, after all, only Knights were.

For someone like her of the current Era, it was simply inconceivable for someone without a core to brave the Radiation.

Feeling some confidence grow from her words under the heavy and aloof red gaze of Huey, Lyra concluded.

"For a returnee like you in the apocalypse, I'm a boon."

"..." Huey remained quiet, considering her words.

Lyra remained steadfast, merely a hint of unease and uncertainty gripped a small corner of her mind.

All of a sudden, Huey's blood-red eyes glowed sharply as he let some of his red aura surge into the air, his long black sword vibrating in resonance.

"What makes you sure I won't kill you after I have had my use for you?" His voice was cold and heavy, vibrating with what resembled growls in between.

Lyra's composure instantly broke underneath the weight of the pressure released by Huey. Sweet began to bead on her forehead, her azure eyes visibly trembled in fear, and her heart raced with horror.

Lyra stammered.

"I...I..." She hesitated and then clenched her fist. And under a shivering voice, she uttered.

"T-trusting you is my choice... and it's for you to prove me wrong."

Huey lingered shortly, then withdrew his aura and pressure.

He peered at the girl for a while longer before turning around to leave.

"I'll warn you now, it's a bad choice. Don't regret anything." He said coldly.

Lyra gazed sternly at his distancing back after regaining some composure, and soon quickly followed from behind.

***

For as long as Lyra remembered she had always wanted to see the blue sky and twinkling stars.

When she was little, her Mom and Dad would sit around her and fill her with pleasant stories of the world before the fall.

The world with a blue sky and white clouds.

For a generation like hers, such a world felt like a distant fairy tale.

She listened to how her parents would describe the vibrant gold rays of a burning sun and the shimmering twinkles of a starry night. How the white fluffy clouds drafted freely throughout the sky, forming shapes and forms reminiscent of all things imaginable.

They spoke with so much enchantment like they were there, which they actually went but had also listened to the same stories in the same manner from their parents, Lyra's grandparents whom she also never got to meet.

As just a little girl during those times, Lyra would dream.

She would let her imagination run wild, picturing the picturesque clear azure sky with fuzzy clouds floating across in funny shapes. How much she wanted to see the blue sky that once was.

That was why she became a Hunter. But Elder Gods were terrifying foes of the human race.

That was why never once had she imagined she would see such a spectacle.

A one-sided beat down from a single man.

"These are what you call Elder Gods?" Huey randomly commented, casually pounding in the head of an Elder God over two meters tall.

The massive head became a bloody pulp as what was left of it sank into the body.

At the same time, a different abomination charged in on him; its massive feet forming heavy groves against the ground. It was massive and covered in thick and heavy armor crowned with steel horns. The withered ground quaked in its wake, a muffled groan reverberating from its ghastly maws.

Huey turned his head and raised an arm, grabbing the horn and forcing the creature to a stifling halt.

The massive feet of the abomination shattered the floor surface in a wide tapestry of cracks as it cried and struggled to break free. It was larger, bigger, this in accordance to the gathered momentum from its earlier charge should have given it the advantage of more power than the puny little person before it.

Huey remotely looked into the creature's frenzied eyes, his blood-red eyes glowing slightly as he growled an order.

"Hold still." 

And for a short second, the abomination did pause still and hesitated, but broke out of the trance the very next with even more frenzy.

Huey furrowed his brows. His single grip on the horn tightened slowly crushing the adamantine horns of the creature. His eyes went black, highlighting the red sclera and vertical pupils.

"I said, hold still!" Huey growled venomously once more then pulled the abominations into the ground, forcing it to bow its head in a shattering thud.

His red eyes gleamed, he raised his other hand and straightened his fingers. The next moment his arm from below the elbow acquired a black steel-like sheen as he shot it forward like a spear Into the armored body of the creature. 

Easily bypasses all of its innate defense, armor, and flesh reaching its insides and organs in less than a second.

Just as swiftly, Huey retracted his arm with a trail of indigo blood. In his grasp was a pale violet crystal, shimmering as the abomination fell dead instantly with its core removed.

***

Authors' Note:

A late chapter it seems for RED, but I've been considering changing the schedule, so here it is! A chapter per day for five days in a week by this time. It might seem late but I need time to actually write these chapters, and most of my priority is on my other book, A Certain Magical Reincarnation.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed today's chapter, and it's been a while since I got any comments or reviews, so please drop some for me to read and react to, describing the paceing of the novel .