The Return

As Irnis gathered her gear from the small spaceship in the park, its real purpose became clear. It was actually supposed to be an arsenal but is being used by Irnis as her personal spaceship. It was shaking but only enough to remain unnoticed.

The air was charged with a sense of impending doom as Irnis grabbed Dephon. The sword's purple glow pulsed with dark energy, its massive size making everyone's skin crawl. The ground shook beneath Irnis' feet like the land itself was afraid.

Irnis' eyes flashed with wild excitement, her twisted grin sickly eager for the bloodshed to come. K's breathing turned choppy, his heart racing with fear as he tried to keep his nerve.

"You might act tough but even you can't hide your fear. I've seen many battles in my life so I can easily tell. You are afraid right now, right? What are you scared of? Tell me?" Irnis was enjoying it.

K remained silent as he looked at her.

"Phew, you seriously are ticking me off."

The empty park was eerily quiet, except for K's pounding heartbeat, which felt like a countdown to his demise.

"It would even take a few seconds for me to kill you. At least say some words... I mean your last words." 

Irnis raised Dephon, unleashing a blinding flash. K braced himself for impact as she charged towards him with a deafening battle cry, her sword slicing through the air like a deadly scythe.

"The countdown has started." She attacked K.

"ONE!" The broad side of her blade struck him with a loud thud, sending him crashing to the ground before he could even react.

"TWO!" A powerful kick sent him flying, his body shuddering as every bone rattled, blood spurting from his mouth and nose.

"THREE!" She grasped his tattered T-shirt and hurled him into the air, the fabric ripping apart as she leaped after him, her sword slicing down with a deadly swing that shattered bones.

"FOUR!" The moment he hit the ground, her fist connected with a precision strike, a blow that could be the final nail in his coffin.

As K was struggling to rise, "FIVE!" there was a maniacal glint in her eye, she charged at him with an insane velocity, her voice dripping with triumph: "The Game is Over... HUMAN."

Meanwhile, the mini spaceship's shaking suddenly intensified, vibrating the ground around it, distracting Irnis with its violent convulsions and she missed her swing. The guards around it immediately stepped aside.

K dodged the deadly attack by mere inches, thanks to perfect timing.

Dephon's blow ripped a hole in the ground, leaving K startled as he struggled to stay upright. He realized his strength against Irnis. 

"Isn't it unfair that you get to use weapons?" He said it in a low tone to Irnis who was closer to him now.

"You think so? If you do then go get your weapons. There isn't any rule in a duel except for not leaving until the result and fighting only one-on-one. You do know that, right?" Irnis used a low voice too.

"But I don't have anything to fight."

"Do you think I even care about that?"

She started going back to her position. The commotion outside was distracting enough but now her 'vehicle' was making it worse.

"Go and check inside and fix it." She ordered one of the guardsmen.

For some reason, even though he always hated people who tried to get closer to him or acted friendly with him, he was feeling a weird sense of attachment to the crowd. He was feeling a little for confident than before.

He started looking around, in an attempt to find something against Irnis.

"You do know that I would not miss again?"

He found it. "Yeah, I do. I know it even more than you."

"Huh, I like that. You finally started wasting time." She readied herself.

"LIKE HELL I WOULD." He ran towards Irnis. 

"Ooh, I like that confidence."

She rushed to attack him and jumped on him but as soon as she could land a hit, K changed his path towards the Princess.

*"What the hell is he doing?"*

He brought his fist backward to punch the Princess and a guardsman came in front to block it. 

Though that punch is not going to scratch the Princess, he probably came in front to protect her from getting even hit in the first place.

Irnis saw him and rushed towards K. That guardsman prepared his gun to attack him. Irnis swung her sword back to cut him in half as she reached K.

K punched the ground.

Just by an inch, he missed Irnis's attack and because of that, her Dephon almost reached the guardsman and he dropped his weapon, and K, without wasting a single minute picked it up and shot Irnis with it. 

He didn't stop shooting her with that gun which shooted lasers to make her death sure. Smoke covered what was in front of him. "DIE DUMBASS!!"

"No, you." Irnis blocked all of it with her Dephon.

With a move, she cut down the weapon he was holding and threw him away.

As he stumbled and fell, he tried to stand up but before he could Irnis kicked him away. 

"You sure do have some wit." 

K gritted his teeth and ran towards her. 

The scene played out like a grim prediction. Just as the sword came crashing down, with a sudden surge of adrenaline, he put great pressure and shoved it away, saving himself.

But Irnis quickly regained the upper hand, sending K stumbling backward with a swift kick, leaving him exposed to the next strike.

The sword fell on him again, its force too great for K to counter this time. He tried but failed. 

This time, his left arm was completely severed.

"Nowhere to run now." 

His vision blurred, his breathing labored, his body faltering, his blood overflowing. Irnis pounced, her eyes blazing with a predator's intensity as K lay helpless, his life force ebbing away.

*"Am I.... going to die?"* His eyes started closing. *"Well, that was fast. I didn't even close my shop."*

His mind raced, memories flashing before his eyes, regrets and longing mingling with the bitter taste of defeat.

The voices called him from his memory. [*"What have I done?" "Goodbye" "Are you alone?" "Who are you?" "Stay away from me!"* "I am..." ] Probably those memories came to keep him alive, but they were not enough.

As death's shadow loomed near, K's mind raced with memories. And then, as rare as a tsunami in a calm sea, a drop of tear came down his eyes, and suddenly his will to live burned brighter than ever.

That mini spaceship from before started convulsing more than ever before.

He tried to stand up again.

"Do you know how much you have irritated me, you little insect?" But Irnis was relentless, hopping towards him with Dephon at the ready. K stood up, willing to fight, but his exhausted body betrayed him, and his knees faltered. He couldn't react, couldn't defend himself from the deadly swing of Dephon.

Just as all hope seemed to be lost, an explosion rocked the arsenal spaceship, something came out at a supersonic speed, creating a hole and interrupting Irnis' deadly attack.

It severed Dephon in half.

"What was that!?" Irnis stepped back.

Everyone there was left in shock. The sudden turn of events left everyone in awe, their eyes fixed on the arsenal-mini-spaceship, breached by an unknown force.

Dephon isn't a wooden sword but it broke like a twig in the wind.

For a second, everything went silent but then a malevolent grin spread across Irnis' face, her eyes gleaming with a sinister light.

"You're blessed, human. The legendary Nandak has deemed you worthy of its wrath. Its power is so immense that even I can barely harness it for three minutes." She discarded the broken Dephon with a flick of her wrist. "I only obtained Nandak through the gracious permission of our goddess. You should consider it an honor to meet your end by this revered blade."

Her voice dripped with sadistic relish, savoring K's demise.

Before K's eyes, a silver sword floated vertically, its crimson edges gleaming with fierce light.

Though smaller in stature than Dephon, its aura pulsed with an unholy energy, seeming to hunger for destruction. The sword's deadly prowess was evident in its effortless bisecting of Dephon, a testament to its unyielding ferocity.

The air around it seemed to vibrate with an ominous power like this weapon was forged from the essence of carnage itself.

K's eyes were fixed on the sword, filled with a mix of wonder and fear.

As Nandak hovered, K felt a strange sensation, as if the sword was silently speaking to him.

"Go and get me Getour. I am going to use Nandak today." Irnis ordered one of the guardsmen and one of them quickly ran inside the mini ship and came with a glowing manicle-glove.

K was still on his knees because of a lack of strength. He couldn't even lift a finger now, much less his body.

The glove flickered on, its dark energy racing through Irnis's veins. She raised her hand, and Nandak stirred, its silver blade shuddering with deadly intent. Irnis aimed the sword at K, its shadowy edge slicing through the darkness with a menacing whisper.

It hit K.

Even if it looked like touch, and even if K was able to see it slowly coming towards him, the impact was brutal, K's body crumpled to the ground with a sickening thud.

The crowd held its breath, captivated by the tense scene. A silent threat filled the air, making every heartbeat feel the danger.

Irnis's gaze stayed fixed, her eyes locked intensely on what was happening. With a small wrist movement, Nandak hovered above K, its sharp point ready to strike.

"You should feel honored for a human," Irnis whispered, her voice dripping with malevolence. "Nandak's energy will reduce you to nothing more than a smoldering ember."

Nandak plunged, its fall slowing to a terrifying crawl. 

It went straight through his chest as he fell to the ground.

K's eyes went wide, his face twisted in pain, as flames burst from the sword's tip, covering his body in fire. The air was filled with the sickening smell of burned flesh and a choking cloud.

The onlookers watched, transfixed by the horror, shrieking.

K's screams echoed through the desolate landscape, a haunting melody that seemed to reverberate through every cell of their being.

The Princess's eyes dropped, her neck bending as if the guilt within her had become unbearable. Her head bowed, like a flower wilting in the autumn wind.

Irnis watched with a cruel smile as K writhed in agony. The flames surged to a height of 10 feet.

Outside, people were filled with fear and sadness.

Women who had grown to love K, like a son, wept uncontrollably. Men looked down, helpless to intervene. Children who saw K as a big brother were overcome with despair.

Elders, unable to see through the crowd, could only hear K's agonized screams.

That old man, who invited K before, fell to the ground.

George was still trying to enter, punching the barrier, to reach K.

It was an end for K... and it was.

••

"It seems that you were successful in your task, Irnis...."

It was the Goddess's voice. "Now I only need to wait for some time."

"Wait? For whom?" A voice came from the darkness. "Do you realize how much you bother me when you do everything on your own?" It was a man's voice. He was standing outside the room in which Goddess is. Maybe he was trying to not come in front of her.

"Hm? I didn't know you would come here so quickly." 

"I just came here for a trifling matter but now I think I have to deal with this mess too...*sigh*...you do know that a few minutes is not enough to take my life."

"As much as I remember... yes, I do."

"Then why do you keep struggling? Just do what I say and you will enjoy the rest of your life as a God. Doing something like this is no-"

"His return... it is enough to kill you. And this time, it will be sure to happen."

"Oh, such cruel words from our Goddess... I'm blessed."

"Yes, and you will be blessed more when I will crush your skull with my foot."

"Yeah, yeah. You've said this multiple times before, right? I don't remember, but.... oh you have said that many times now. Do you think that you will be able to take your 'revenge'?"

"Not now but..... very soon."

He sighed. "You are just proving that talking with you is worthless. You used Irnis just as I did, and you have done the same with other people in the past too so don't you think we are pretty similar? We can do so much together, yet you wait for a soul without a body and still waiting like this to meet him."

She remained silent.

Even though her face in that brightness from that glass capsule was pretty hard to see, her words were enough to tell how frustrated and angered she was after hearing his voice. 

"You still want to repeat what happened many years ago but you always forget me in your plots. You always forget that I can ruin it without much effort... Well, not that you can do a thing even if you succeed...."

He started going away. "You are still alive because of me... Don't forget that, at least for your own sake." As sound footsteps of his departure started fading, the lights started dimming too. 

"You are wrong this time. This time, he will return with those flames...."

••

Those flames were rising.