22. The Violet Night Pt. 2

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The Elite Guards that had been standing around watched on in shock at what was happening. 

Most of them felt like they wouldn't have lasted even a few seconds against the demonized version of Captain Ohta. Each time he struck the ground with his monstrous hands it was completely destroyed, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust where the attack landed.

But Captain Tatsuo was toying with him. Each time Ohta charged at him, Tatsuo tripped him and walked away like nothing had happened. He even goaded him on shouting "Surely such a terrifying demon can do more than this?"

When the two opponents got into a grappling match, it was obvious that they were even in strength, but Ohta had buffed himself with all the strengthening enchantments he could while Tatsuo only used his magic to keep the purple flames under his control instead of his opponent's.

At the moment, the much older captain was tying his hair back into a bun while he sat on the prone form of Ohta. With a gruff voice, he turned to the man under his ass with a sigh.

"You know, I expected more from you, boy. You had more talent than your father, and yet he would be disappointed if he saw the state you're in right now."

He was met with silence, Ohta opting to keep his face buried in the rubble beneath them.

"So, not even going to give me a response, huh? No much respect for the man who used to change your diapers? You seemed awfully preachy earlier."

"Hm…ehmehm…"

Tatsuo quirked his eyebrow up as he felt the bald man beneath him laugh, only to widen his eyes in the next instant as he shot up and quickly reappeared in the next instant a short distance away. 

Ohta seemed to laugh louder than ever before as he slowly rose up from the ground, stunning even Captain Tatsuo when the purple flames wrapped around him once again and began to consume his flesh at an increasingly faster rate.

"It's over! My mistress consumed the demon! It's time for the world to be bathed in her holy glow!"

His flesh quickly turned to ash leaving nothing but a charred black skeleton behind as the flames grew to a higher degree.

'So this is the demon's actual strength. He was only using its magic beforehand? This is getting more dangerous than I thought.' the two remaining captains thought in unison.

Their attention and alarms quickly rose when the flames were extinguished, leaving only a standing set of bones behind as a wrathful phantom shot out of the remains towards another person. The middle-aged pyromancer tried to set up a barrier of heat and flames to defend himself from the monster. The attempt to protect himself proved to be for nought as the ghost ignored them and flew into his figure.

In an instant, he blew up into a lavender inferno leaving him in as much a similar state of charred death as the captain before him. One by one this repeated in the span of no more than a fraction of a second, killing each of the people the phantom touched before it flew into the body of a surprised Captain Ophelia.

Slowly and painfully she began to demonize as the blood that boiled out of her body, slowly turned into a pitch-black tar-like substance. The voice of the sixty-year-old woman briefly yelled out in pain as she struggled to try and keep the demon trapped inside her as long as she could.

"R-Run!"

Tatsuo took the opportunity to try and get the last few of his men and women as far away from the threat as he could, boosting the strength of the flames under their feet as they tried to rocket themselves away to safety over the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. He redirected his attention to his dying friend as he raised his hands above his head.

"Requip."

The captain's voice was calm but held an unbridled fury and a deep sadness as he uttered the spell. Above his head a large curved blade materialised in his grasp, the blade of the large kriegsmesser seemingly emerging from the mouth of a metal skull atop the S-shaped crossguard.

"Feast, Taima-nai Kiga."

The eyes of the skull that held the blade in its mouth glowed a bright red before the jaw opened up further. A suctionary power began to pull towards the blade as the skull devoured the ethernano in the air, and as the demon's purple flames that were drifting off the nearby corpses and captain flew into the skeletal maw, the blade itself took on a black and purple tint.

"Demons, dragons, gods, it's hilarious how you're weak to your own magic." The captain spoke as he levelled the blade with his chest, the blade pointed towards the creature that was once his friend. "I took pleasure in killing a fire god out of the challenge alone but killing you is entirely personal. Die, you foul creature!"

Black veins seemed to stretch across her neck and up the rest of her face, while her flesh continued to burn and blister and the whites of her Ophelia's eyes melted out of their sockets. A deranged smile twisted onto her face as she lunged at Tatsuo with her own blade which had started to melt due to the heat of the environment. 

Ohelia's strike didn't stand a chance, her blade shattering the second it came in contact with the older wizard leaving for the black and purple sword to strike cleanly into her side, severing her arm as the kriegsmesser slashed into her body.

But there was no scream of pain from the corpse as it fell limply into his arms, only the cruel cackling of the wraith as it flew over Tatsuo and through the buildings of the village in search of its actual target. The captain tried to follow, but the spectre was able to evade him, leaving him to swing his blade at the structures it hid in destroying a large chunk of the city with a single strike. When he failed to find the ghost, he began a mad dash in the direction his men and women ran with growing frustration evident on his face.

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"We're nearing the gates!" a young woman yelled as she and three others flew over the rooftops of the city they were sworn to protect.

All of them were worried and scared for the safety of the captains, hoping and praying that at least one of them was alive. But of the four, none were more scarred at the events than the purple-eyed girl that followed at the back of the group.

And that was because she recognized the wraith that attacked them, she recognized the violet flames that emerged around Captain Ohta the moment she saw them. 

The mind of thirteen-year-old Lyssa Wisteria was a blur of questions as she tried to figure out why her deceased mother was attacking them, and she hoped that everything she was currently witnessing was a terrible nightmare as terrible memories flooded her mind.

The scent of the burning flesh in particular terrified her, immediately bringing her back to every moment she smelled it and the emotions she had felt in those moments.

 The fear she felt as the cultists were burning the corpses of the adults of Rosemary village when it was attacked. 

The hatred that grew when she treated the singed skin she and the other slaves at the tower had when they were shocked by their captives. 

The weakness she felt when Grandpa Rob sacrificed himself for her and Erza.

The intoxicating power that flooded her system as she killed the slavers that robbed her of her and so many others of their lives and childhood.

And the soul-deep helplessness that wrenched her heart from her chest as her friends were turned to ashes faster than she could blink.

Her sanity was on the brink of collapse as she stared at the orange flames she and the others were using to escape. She wasn't fighting back. None of them were. She didn't grow strong at all. She was still weak, and the flames she had tried to use to grow stronger were taking everything away from her. Again.

Her home was being destroyed. Again.

And she couldn't do anything to stop it. Again.

She was cursed. That was the only conclusion she could come to. 

She cursed her family.

She cursed Rosemary village.

She cursed those still trapped at the R-system.

And she cursed Himura.

Everywhere she went, the people there were cursed to suffer from her mere presence. It wasn't true, but that didn't matter to her. The last thread of sanity she had left was being forced to hold the weight of that thought, and all it would take was one good tug for it to snap.

The attention of four who were trying to run away was brought back to the centre of the village as a shockwave of destructive energy levelled every building within a three-mile radius of where they were just moments ago. That brief moment that they took to stop and look back was all the wraith that was hunting them needed to catch up, emerging from underneath the woman that was leading the party and consuming her in the terrifyingly familiar violet inferno.

That sound of the woman's spontaneous combustion drew the other three to see the wraith quickly leap to the nearest man, giving him the same fate as all the others before killing the third in the party. When Lyssa saw the haunting visage of the angry spectre rushing towards her with her arms outstretched she couldn't help but slightly laugh at the all-too-clear resemblance it had with her mother.

Black hair, horns, and tattered clothes perfectly matched the deceased woman she had seen years prior. The only difference is the haunting, gaunt eyes that opened up to reveal a pitch-black abyss and the widely stretched maw that loosely hung from her face by nothing but the skin of her face.

With a defeated, slightly insane smile, the young black-haired teenager closed her eyes and opened up her arms to embrace the spectre having wholly expected, and partially hoping, to be killed like everyone else it entered.

When she didn't feel any pain, she was surprised yet thankful. If death was inevitable, she would hope it was quick and painless. 

When she opened her eyes and saw a white sky filled with black clouds and a ground made of sprawling shadows, she gave a deep exhale before falling onto her back in exhaustion.

"So…this is heaven, huh? I expected more…gold."

"Fufu~ no, this isn't heaven," a motherly voice said startling the black-haired girl. She quickly stood up and came face to face with the source of the voice, locking eyes with a woman she thought she had seen just moments ago.

The woman's black hair had turned a stark white, and the horns that parted it had grown in size. Six eyes appeared on her face, two in the usual spot, two on where her cheekbones should be, and two on her forehead. Six arms stretched around her figure and six wings stood imposingly behind her, giving her already tall stature an even more imposing figure. 

The white of her six eyes was completely consumed by a black pool of ink that destroyed whatever light touched it, making the shining amethyst irises that locked onto the girl before her more prominent. One of the six hands stretched outwards, revealing itself to be completely consumed by fine black-coloured scales that were completely smooth to the touch. The clawed fingers grabbed the startled girl before bringing her into a tight hug.

Lyssa was completely confused at what was happening as multiple arms and wings wrapped around her, preventing any chance to escape the hug she was in. All she could do was weakly mumble in confusion.

"M-Mom?"

"Shh, it's alright, my dear Alectsa. Just let Mommy take care of everything~"

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