20 The Burden of Hatred

'To be a hero like her father'

'To seek the glory in the battlefield'

'To become a renown mage throughout the Kingdoms'

Those were the biggest three things that Persephone always sought in life. Little did her naive self back then know that that the reality of what she sought was far from her expectations.Amidst the chaotic academy's corridors where swarms of Chaos Beasts flooded the hallways, Persephone was slowly having her biggest dreams and aspirations crushed. She may have become famous yes but that was for another reason. Instead of being praised by the masses for her valor she was mostly feared for her uncontrollable yet mighty power. The so-called 'glory' is no where to be found on the battlefield. In battle the only thing that matters is wether you live or you die, everything else is trivial. The battle she just experienced told her that much.

At first battling the swarm of chaos beasts was relatively easy as she was able to easily literally melt dozens of them with the raw strength of her magic alone. Apparently the average chaos beast's hide is nigh impenetrable unless one has both a high quality weapon and high physical power, to the point that only knights and those comparable to knights would be able to deal with chaos beasts. However, in the face of her all-powerful magic, they might as well be living moving targets with their over-size conspicuous bodies and disproportioned limbs and teeth.

Soon her performance in battle drew the attention of everyone, friends and foes alike. The chaos beasts started to focus their firepower on her while her allies looked at her with either amazed or fearful awe in their eyes. Literally melting her way through wave after wave of chaos beasts she soon found herself in the surprisingly empty western block, not a single soul was in sight.

To say that it was completely empty would be a lie though. Dead bodies and organs from various chaos beasts littered the floor. The floor was dyed black from the black blood of dead chaos beasts.

"Did she do this all by herself? Wow I doubt even I am capable of something like this"

Persephone was unable to keep her words of amazement in her mouth. While she did fight her way through dozens of chaos beasts, it was thanks to the help of accompanying students and professors. Without their help to funnel and control the chao beasts, she would have been surely overrun by the overwhelming number of chaos beasts.

The smell of blood finally caught up to her after the euphoria of using her magic started ended. Soon a creeping feeling of deep-seated hatred welled up in her heart. She felt jealousy and envy that she, the all powerful Persephone who wielded the unstoppable magic power of hatred can be outdone. Charging her chaos smites to unleash her anger, a sight that caught Persephone's gaze drew her attention away.

It was herself... more specifically the reflection of herself that she saw in the fresh black blood on the floor. When staring at her own image, bloodshot eyes fuelled with hatred were staring back at her. [This... this is me?] The sight of her own disdainful expression and hateful eyes stunned Persephone before finally remembering the pills she kept in her pockets. Consuming them immediately, Persephone felt her senses return as the feelings of disdain at everything around her faded away.

"Damn... to think that I have to rely on that snake..."

It felt like a pick your poison to Persephone, while dealing with the curse of her own powers, she could 'remedy' this through the pills produced by the Alchemist, while she detested this on a moral level, she had to agree with the logic that this was the lesser of two evils. While the idea is to have Persephone train and get used to the effects of using her magic slowly, the fact that this may never end up working and Persephone is forced to rely on the pills forever terrified her. Afterall, she would prefer not to become permantly indebted to someone who views life as stats and numbers rather than.... life.

[That's not important right now. What's important is that I find Justicar! Although it seems like she got things covered I still have to make sure she's safe.] Banishing the distracting thoughts from her mind, Persephone set out throughout the vacant corridors of the west block. As she went deeper into the heart of the block, the bodies on the ground grew more and more sparse until eventually the ground was mostly stainless apart from the pieces of leather and paper which remained as an aftermath of the chaotic evacuation.

Eventually she came across something that caught her attention. In the three way intersection of the hallways a black crater with black smoke emanating out of it was embedded into the wall.

"Hey that's kinda looks like what happens when I use... my chaos smites..."

Looking to her right and across the intersection she found two figures. One was lying on the floor, seemingly unable to move while the other stood on top of them... a ball of crimson red light emanated from the standing one's hands.

Without even thinking Persephone unleashed a quick chaos smite on the black haired figure, hitting her on the forearm causing her to narrowly miss the brown haired figure on the ground. Grimacing in pain, the black haired figure turned back to look at her, a terrifying yet joyful smile etched deeply into her face but what drew Persephone's breath away was the figure's eyes. The same bloodshot eyes that she saw in her own reflection yet belonged to an entirely different person. [There was another one... like me? No that's not right... After all the last time there was a hatred magic caster they disappeared during... an incident within the academy.]

A flash of realisation appeared within Persephone's mind, looking at this other black haired figure who despite seemingly suffering in pain from being attacked was still smiling brightly, no hostility could be found in her expression. The silence didn't last of long before the figure spoke.

"Finally found you."