CHAPTER 2

5 Years Later.

X stayed with Sir Frederick and slowly understood how life works in the village over the years. although he still didn't remember anything about his past, he started to like his new life. He had new clothes that fit him well, got food 3 times a day, and even got to do work that did not involve running for his life. And his grandpa was pretty cool.

Sir Frederick had also started warming up to the kid. At first, they both were wary of each other, but over time he realized that X really did not mean any harm. He showed X how he lived, how to eat, bathe, wear the proper clothes, how to chop trees, when to work, eat, and play. X was very shy. Or rather, he was uncomfortable with other people, and no matter how much Frederick tried to change that, his social anxiety did not go away. It must be because he did not remember who he was, and Frederick wasn't exactly a role model for friendliness.

One morning, Frederick gave X a task. 

'X come here and take these logs. We cut them yesterday, but it was too late to sell them. The shops close by 7 after all. Go to the market, and give these logs to the the shopkeeper.'

'But grandpa, can't you go? I don't want to go to the shop. You can sell the wood, and I will chop today's quota of wood. Please.'

Despite all his pleas, Sir Frederick was adamant. And for good reason. Soon X set off for the marketplace, carrying all bundled up logs under his armpit. From outside, a knock was heard on the door. Frederick opened the door, looked at the leader of the village's knights, all his subordinates standing beside him, and gave them a nod. He then asked them

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, sir? I saw it with my own eyes, standing all menacingly deeper in the woods. It probably wouldn't be alone, since demons always travel in threes.'

One of the knights replied. Frederick then entered his small, wooden house, and returned a few minutes later, axe in hand. This axe was different from the one he used to chop wood. This was the axe that he used when before he retired. Two and a half foot long, plain steel, with a single red ruby embedded into the handle, right where he held it. It had a wicked edge, sharp as a sword, if not sharper, tempered in the blood of hundreds of demons. The axe was meant to be wielded with both hands, but for now, Frederick held it in his right. 

The knights were in awe of the weapon. Unlike their swords or pieces of fancy armor, the axe was a complete masterpiece, not valued for its mediocre looks but for the number of people saved by it. After a moment of awkward silence, the leader of the knights spoke

'Sir, are you thinking of joining us? I thought you did not want to fight after retiring.'

'So do you want to fight it on your own? If you do, go ahead. I will inform your families of your unfortunate death.'

Sir Frederick said with a smile. The others did not have the same broken sense of humor and remained grim. Finally, all the knights readied their armor, wearing another robe to protect their shiny armor. The leader, however, removed his robe to showcase his armor, now complete. 

Meanwhile, at the marketplace, X had found the shop after a bit of searching. The shopkeeper was a fat man, undoubtedly in his fifties, beaming with joy. X did not ask him why he was so overjoyed. He simply handed over all the logs he was carrying, and stood there, eyes on the ground. For a while, neither of them moved, nor did they speak. The shopkeeper's joyous mood was ruined by this blonde kid and his pile of wood. Finally, he asked X

'Kid, what do you want to do with this? Why do keep this here? This is a jewelry shop. If you are looking for the timber merchant, he is over there, in that corner. You see that small shop on the corner. Now get out.'

 X mumbled a quiet thank you, which the man did not hear. The man was complaining to himself about how this kid ruined his mood, then remembered about some highly profiting deal he had made that had him smiling in the first place, and continued beaming in joy.

X gathered all the logs, before making his way to the timber merchant in the corner. Halfway through, X heard a loud booming noise, followed by a tremendous shockwave. The clothes covering the shops rippled in the shockwave like a gust of wind blew over them. the ground trembled ever so slightly. The logs fell out of X's hand, and at the same time, the butcher dropped his hatchet. X turned towards the direction of the shockwave when another shockwave came from the same direction, causing the same effects, along with another booming sound of matching volume. X looked straight at the direction in which the shockwave came from. Home.

Grabbing the butcher's hatchet, X sped across the street, yelling to the butcher that he would return the hatchet. The butcher cursed the kid regardless of whatever he told him. There was another shockwave, then another. X sprinted as fast as he could, racing past his hut, straight through the woods. Another shockwave appeared, much stronger, causing even the trees to creak. He heard the crash of a tree right after the booming sound, and when he finally found the source, he stopped dead in his tracks. Standing in front of him, the knights were fighting off two demons. They were similar to the one he fought back then, except their skin was less brown and more like maroon. They were also smaller than the one he fought but were faster. They had bead-like eyes, and pure black like their pupils had filled the eyes. The knights were fighting them and were winning, although barely. This wasn't the reason he stopped and stared in fear. He had seen the knights fight before. No, the real reason was far worse.

Right in the middle of both the demons, was his Grandfather, his white hair dyed red with blood, multiple cuts tearing through his skin, blood flowing down his body from these cuts. His veins had bulged and in his hands was an axe X had never seen before, also covered in blood. There was a hand holding down both of his hands, blood red in color, with long claws piercing through Grandpa's skin. Another one of those hands was holding Frederick in a chokehold, lifting him up in the air. A demon was smiling at Frederick as he held him in a chokehold, his hand squeezing hard on his neck, his claws going deeper into his Forearms. This demon was smaller than the other demons and much, much leaner, with long arms. It was around one and a half times Frederick's height, with a long mouth, stretching with and showing off its long, sharp, serrated teeth, all of the canines. The demon was whispering something into Frederick's ear, which caused him to scream in pain. No, not in pain. In warning. 

'X, run away. This is a Stage 2 demon, get away.'

The Stage 2 demon then turned towards X, looking him straight in his face, and smiled, his face becoming multiple times scarier. It spoke in a harsh rasping voice

'Yes...Run...I see...How far...U go.'

X stood, unable to comprehend what was going on. This demon was torturing Grandpa, and it was telling him to run so that it could hunt him down while taking his time. Upon hearing Frederick's scream, one of the knights turned away from the demon he was facing and ran straight at the Stage 2 demon.

'Sir Frederick'he 

He swung his sword at the demon, who left his grip on Frederick's throat, and backhanded the knight, sending him flying onto a tree, causing the tree to get uprooted from the ground. The knight spit out blood, before curling up and hugging his stomach. X stared at the knight, then at the demon who was heading back to his Grandfather. Frederick, however, was not completely defenseless as he swung his straight to the demon's neck. A great boom was heard, and dust was rising off the ground due to the impact. A great shockwave sent shivers down X's spine. When the dust settled, he could see the axe, embedded in the demon's forearm, blood gushing down. With a deep scream, the demon swiped towards Frederick's face, and as he escaped it by moving backward, the axe cut through the rest of the demon's arm. The demon shrieked at the old man

' You... I kill...'

The demon then rushed toward Frederick, while its amputated forearm stopped bleeding. It aimed a slash at the old man's throat, which, fortunately, deflected off his axe. It aimed a punch to Frederick's stomach with the injured arm, which had, by now, formed a complete fist, lacking only the demon's characteristic claws. The level of the demon's regeneration was far beyond humanely possible, and this punch, unfortunately, did not get deflected. Frederick spit blood over the demon's arm, while the demon caught his neck, catching him in yet another chokehold.

X watched this fight in terror. His head started to hurt. It felt like his brain was splitting into multiple parts. He screamed in pure agony, as scenes he did not recall were flashing one by one. A giant mountain, kilometers high, surrounded by other mountains that were nearly half its height, all of them covered with snow. An old man, holding a walking stick on which he was leaning, his thin feeble aged body covered in blood. So much blood that it flowed off him to form a river. Multiple other scenes like this, all of them making no sense to him. He shut his eyes. Then he opened, and his eyes shone red, like a flame. X felt like someone was looking straight into his eyes, and that he was also looking through the same path, despite not being able to see his own body.

A proper vision came to his mind when he was looking into his own eyes. Not one that made even the slightest sense, but one that stopped the extreme pain. a vision that lasted for more than just a second.

A massive Cave, if you could call it that, its ceiling going up so high, one might think that the sky is rock brown in color. A giant waterfall was roaring, pouring down hot, boiling hot magma from a region near the ceiling of the cave. Behind this stood a ginormous shadow, one so big it was not possible to measure its length, one that was bigger than even the lavafall that hid it. Its head was not visible, and the shadow of its long neck was the topmost, visible part of its body. the neck was massive when compared to any creature X could think of, but looked thin in contrast to the shadow of its body. Its lower body could not be seen due to the frothing of the lavafall, but its massive wings were visible. In fact, the wings were so big, that its tips were visible on the side of the lavafall, not as a shadow, but normally. The tips were scaly, almost reptilian. All the way down, at the bottom of the lavafall, on the solid rock island right in the middle of the pool of lava, stood a tiny speck, slowly glowing brighter and brighter till it shone like a torchlight. X's vision zoomed onto that small, glowing speck, as it stopped glowing.

When X saw what that speck was, his jaw dropped in shock. There he stood, X himself, a few years older, with longer hair and stronger, bigger muscles. He was wearing armor that he had never seen, steel armor made with multiple pieces stacked on top of each other, gilded with gold in intricate, but random patterns. Rubies were embedded in each piece of armor, that glowed like fire in the dark. X himself was performing a weird stance, hatchet in hand. While the armor was great and flashy, the hatchet was made of simple steel without any inscriptions.

X's left leg was behind his right, bent to an almost 45-degree angle. His right arm was bent and placed near his left leg, his left arm placed behind. His whole body was bent forward, and it looked like he was about to pounce on prey. X copied that stance in his real body, following exactly what that armored version of him in that vision did. His eyes glowed brighter, and his body steamed. He looked at the battlefield with a calm mind. Grandpa was getting choked by the demon, while the knights were all fighting the other demons. The knights on the other side were faring well, but on this side, it was a 1v1, and that wasn't going too well.

The leader of the knights was struggling against the demon with only one hand. His other hand was ripped off by the demon, which was leisurely walking towards him. The knight could barely stand, and after the other knight who was fighting alongside him had run off to get bullied by the Stage 2 demon, the leader knew he was doomed. He raised his arm, wielding the sword to the best of his abilities, but the pain was too much to handle and the sword clattered out of his hand. 

X saw this and realized that he was in more danger than Grandpa. He had not thanked that knight for saving him 5 years ago, now was his turn to do it. To pay the debt. X leaned forward even more. The heat that was coming out of his body doubled in temperature. The grass near his foot burst into flame. The hatchet's wooden handle started to burn, and the metal edge got softer. The flames grazed his body, but X felt no different. Something about this stance, a sense of familiarity he had not felt in years, brought him extreme peace. one second he was standing there, knees bent, body leaning forward, eyes staring at the demon with enough ferocity to kill. The next, he was gone. Missing, and even the air in his lungs didn't know where he was.

A stream of fire went flying from where X was standing, twirling mid-air, faster than anything the knights had ever seen in their entire life. Every person in the area turned to look at this bright flame, as it paced through almost 400 meters in less than 2 seconds, aimed right behind the demon that was about to kill the leader of the knights. As the flame shot right past the demon, a hatchet, one that was on fire, sliced through the exhausted demon's neck, ending its life in one fell swoop. Even the Stage 2 demon stared in surprise, as the flame then morphed into X, standing right behind the headless demon, the hatchet in his having burnt to cinders.

'Fire Escape'

He muttered. He was swaying from exhaustion, and had lost the sense of clarity he had just a few moments ago, and was unarmed. The Stage 2 demon got over its shock and re-evaluated its list of priorities. While the old man was way stronger, the kid had immense potential. If it did not kill the kid? it could not ponder over that question. It left Frederick, who was gasping for air and walked towards X, gathering its power to end his life in one attack. Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. It opened its mouth, but the words that came out were in complete sentences, and a young female voice, maybe a lady in her twenties

'No, you cannot kill him. He is the only one I can hope would free all of us. You weak, stage 2 demon, don't you dare to kill my dream.' 

The demon stopped all motion, and everyone felt an unsettling cold. The cold did not feel real, they could still feel the warmth of the sun, and the temperature of the area had increased by at least 10 degrees celsius after X performed fire escape. It was like they were imagining it. The demon which was fighting with the knights on the other side also stopped, and started shrieking, like someone was stabbing it repeatedly. The Stage 2 demon started shivering, and through its chattering teeth, it spoke in its normal, rasping voice.

'Kill...Kill...me'

The knights were stunned and did not know what to do. The Stage 1 demon pierced its own throat with its claws, but the Stage 2 demon did not move an inch. Then, suddenly, it broke through whatever it was going through, and lunged at X, planning to take him along with itself. However, Frederick was one step ahead, and swung his axe upward with all the might he could muster. A shockwave was released that was so powerful that X, who was very exhausted, fell back and fainted. A cloud of dust rose higher than the trees, and when it settled, the Stage 2 demon was cut in half, right through its center. The left half fell on the ground, while the right half fell on X's back.

Frederick then carried X back along with his axe, as he did Five years ago, and this time, no one complained. Instead, the leader of the knights muttered an incomprehensible thank you.