Echoes of Enlightenment

Roar, turning towards the source. I saw the Chosen One tearing the giant apart. With my own eyes, I vaguely discerned how the black soul of the Giant was torn into pieces, entering the mouth of the grotesque dragon with a human face.

When the Giant fell silent, the Chosen One raised his head and turned towards Vallynor and his group. He felt that their souls were the most appetizing and pure. Shouting that he was the Chosen One, he lunged straight at them. However, from the shadows of the fallen, black chains flew, unable to catch and stop the dragon but managing to slow him down. Next to Vallynor, Riku appeared and said apologetically:

"Forgive me, I didn't think you'd be in trouble. If I had known, I would have come earlier..." - after which he enveloped the entire group in shadows and tried to move them away from the battlefield.

***

Watching the battle and how they managed to kill the Giant, the man frowned slightly and, shaking his head, said:

"Strange, something's not right here." - then he noticed Riku and the way he was trying to reach his goal. Shaking his head, he added: "Not enough information. So, he won't get far yet."

***

Riku looked surprised at himself and the others when he noticed that his technique had been canceled. Then, in his ears, he heard Caesar's words.

"Slow down the enemy." - Not understanding anything, Riku just nodded and lunged at the Chosen One, using techniques related to shadows.

"Come closer to me. We'll move away from this battlefield." - spoke the Withered Old Man, addressing Vallynor and Ashley. They looked at each other and nodded, approaching the old man.

The Chosen One howled angrily, targeting Riku and attacking him. However, sometimes his gaze wandered to Vallynor, who was approaching the group and trying to escape. The Chosen One roared and somehow ordered the fallen to attack Vallynor.

The old man looked surprised at his hands. Then he noticed the approaching fallen. Looking at Vallynor, he said:

"I can't move us." - Vallynor turned to him to ask, but didn't even get a chance to start speaking. The old man continued: "While I'm trying to move us, you stop these beasts... Don't look at me like that. Start fighting, being alive."

Vallynor sighed and took up his swords. He created undead and summoned soul hands. Oh, he hadn't summoned these soul hands for a long time. Looking at his hands, he was amazed to see colored hands of different sizes and shapes. Green hands resembled reptilian claws, like those of a dragon. Black ones were grotesque. And the red ones somehow exuded something demonic.

The nearest fallen attacked the undead, drawing Vallynor's attention. While he studied his new soul hands, he made an attack with the red hand on the fallen. He was surprised to notice that touching the fallen drained its soul, similar to killing someone. Then a mist came out of it, entered him, and the fallen's body fell and was cut in two.

Frowning, Vallynor attacked another fallen using the black hand. Unfortunately, nothing happened. Then I attacked with the red hand. The fallen became more active, its strength increased, and it even grew larger.

Using the red hand, I killed the strengthened fallen. Then I looked closely at my soul hands. While Ashley and Glazik killed the fallen with the created undead.

I noticed that there were colorless ordinary soul hands. Like before, looking at them, I wondered why they became so different. This happened after the change in my soul.

Soul! Exactly, these hands are soul hands. And perhaps before I had soul hands created from different parts of my soul. But now my soul is a real mosaic. Each part has its color.

Reflecting, I directed the blue hand to one of the corpses and cast the undead creation spell on it. I was surprised that the process of creating undead accelerated, though not much. But the process became easier. So, each color of the hand corresponds to a certain part of my soul.

Watching Vallynor summon Soul Hands, the man in the suit grimaced in disgust. Then, after a few seconds, he smiled, as if discovering a treasure.

"Hero, just like his opposite - the Villain's Effect... Until this moment, I have never met anyone who possessed both of these concepts of destiny. But you, Vallynor, are the first... I wanted to know more, but instead got even more questions... Hmm... Do you consider this Effect an enemy? How interesting!"

Closing his eyes and massaging them, he turned and said:

"You're still too weak. So, I'll leave you for a while. I won't learn anything more anyway. My dear ticket." - After that, pillars of light appeared on the battlefield – a creature created from light and various mega-destructive spells. The target of all these attacks was the dragon, which screamed in pain.

***

Vallynor killed more fallen, witnessing all these destructive spells that wounded the dragon. It made him marvel – for the first time, he saw so many unfolded spells of massive scale.

"Ready..." – the old man shouted. In response to the Old Man's words, everyone turned to him and instantly approached. Then they were engulfed by the earth and disappeared from the battlefield.

The Chosen One, wounded, humiliated, and having lost his prey, fled the battlefield after some time. The remaining fallen were quickly eliminated.

***

Caesar, raising his summoning staff, directed through it a completed spell of the nuns, as well as his personal spells designed to kill the Giant. And now, they flew straight at the Chosen One.

Fortunately, the pressure hindering Caesar from attacking the enemy normally disappeared. He felt the burden that had weighed on him lift, and he could finally create spells properly.

Columns of light, lightning, swords of light and darkness – all of them flew at the Chosen One.

The Chosen One tried to stop or dodge the flying projectiles, but Riku always interfered and slowed him down as much as he could, receiving many wounds in the process. The Chosen One howled, turned, and fled.

***

Alexander drew his swords and looked closely at his daughter. A mad smile adorned her grotesque face, which was slowly recovering after she turned a servant into a shelf.

"Nos sumus finem..." – she uttered a few words, after which she began to growl and, gritting her teeth, mutter. Then she jumped at Alexander with an open mouth.

Screaming with an open mouth, Alexander's daughter swallowed something soft. She instinctively tried to do so.

It was a piece of Alexander's flesh filled with pure souls. He caught these souls himself and, using his modest knowledge of souls, purified them.

The question remains: how to make her eat these souls? Because, in her eyes, he looked like a juicy piece of meat, next to not the most appetizing food in the form of processed souls presented by Alexander.

So, he tore off a small piece of his flesh along with a small piece of his soul. Because of this, the girl, without thinking, ate the piece of flesh. After that, she quickly fell and restored her grotesque body.

Alexander waited for some time to make sure that the paralyzing and drowsiness poisons had fully affected her body and soul. After waiting a few minutes, he was ready to enter the battle at any moment.

Approaching, Alexander looked at his daughter, and then at the slain Dorlisa. His soul became heavy. Now, who would take care of his daughter? Sighing, he still decided to accept Caesar's offer and become a golem.

Alexander, lost in his thoughts, was surprised when the maid, rising, grabbed his leg. Then she tried to attack and consume his soul.

***

Lia sat on the bed in a seductive pose, watching the battlefield. With apathy, she observed as Vallynor and Ashley trained, and suddenly, the Giant appeared on the horizon.

Lia raised her eyebrows and began to contemplate. Eventually, she summoned a crack next to the bed, from which several eyes peeked out.

"What do you want?" Tinny asked discontentedly.

"Learn to communicate with your mistress, slave," Lia replied with an annoyed tone.

"Yes, mistress in the guise of an innocent maiden," Lia sarcastically responded.

"Suffer."

"Oh, sorry... forgive me. Nothing shameful that you... you're a thousand-year-old virgin," Tinny screamed in pain, trying to beg for forgiveness.

"Pain," Lia said discontentedly, making Tinny suffer even more.

After a while, as Lia tormented Tinny, she occasionally glanced at Vallynor and Ashley. Shaking her head, she wondered how pathetic they looked.

"Go and find out who is trying to interfere on the battlefield," Lia ordered when she finished tormenting Tinny. After that, she got up from the bed and changed her light purple dress to another light purple dress.

"Why? Check yourself... I'm lazy," Tinny replied discontentedly.

"You're just..." Lia began to flare up with anger. Her long hair started to rise as if gravity no longer affected them.

"Alright!..." Tinny shouted in fear and disappeared.

Tinny vanished, leaving Lia alone. She sat on a chair, calmed down, and took a glass of red wine in her hands. With a sad face, she sighed.

"I'll get out of this hole soon and come to you."

***

The Chosen One, wounded, turned and fled while various spells were flying towards him.

Caesar, letting the Chosen One escape, looked down at the men and women destroying the fallen. The souls of the fallen gathered so that they could no longer resurrect and attack.

If the souls of the fallen were not collected, the world would be filled with these poor souls. However, by collecting the souls of the fallen, after which they were processed and purified, the souls remained pure. Impurities, on the other hand, were collected and sealed so that others could not pollute their souls.

Sighing, he turned his head to the place where the instigator of this disorder had recently been. Using a few spells, he tried to find the instigator. But he had long gone, leaving a message on the black sand.

"The end does not wait."

"Are you warning that the world will soon be destroyed? I know it's weak myself. But he must understand that he needs to change his teaching method."

***

"Phew," he felt the pressure on the barrier decrease. Gavriil sighed and looked at the mages lying on the floor. They groaned, falling into a faint.

"Master Gavriil, we have a report," a man entered the room holding a small orb and handed it to Gavriil.

Gavriil took the orb, infused it with his mana, and activated the spell to transfer the recording into his mind. He waited for a few minutes until all the information entered his brain and would be processed. Then Gavriil released a tremendous intent to kill upon learning that his daughter was nearly killed, and she lost her leg. Fortunately, there are many ways to restore limbs, so it's not that dreadful. But it's awful that she didn't listen and went to the field to teach the boy... Could it be that she fell in love?

"No!" Gavriil shouted and quickly rushed out of the room, leaving the mage who brought the orb sighing. He already knew what was in the orb and expected it to be so. Sighing again, the mage turned to the barrier's base and began infusing his energy, restoring it.

***

In the dark room, the God of Death contemplatively stared at the hovering image of Vallynor's soul hands before him. He carefully analyzed the image, mentally replaying everything he saw, and pondered whether his choice was right in allowing the Immortal Koshchey to plunge his needle into Vallynor.

However, upon reconsidering the situation, he shook his head. It was already too late to change anything. So, he needed to contemplate the next steps and decide what he should do in the future.

"So, the first plan related to rebirth, we'll discard. Let's move on to the second... the heir," - closing his eyes, he began to formulate a plan for his future actions and ways to aid the boy so that the Gods wouldn't notice his peculiarity.

***

Gavriil ran through the city, trying to find his daughter using various spells. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find her. There could be two reasons for this: she's either dead or someone is interfering.

The first is impossible and not worth considering. The second reason — only one person could interfere with him finding his daughter, and that's Caesar. Glancing quickly at the castle, Gavriil used teleportation magic and found himself inside.

Approaching Caesar's office with big strides, Gavriil entered without knocking. No one was in the room, and it began to irritate him. Worried about his daughter, he couldn't stop thinking about various possibilities of her whereabouts, from death to abduction by pirates. Even younger than the youngest cockroaches.

After quickly considering all possible options, he decided that his daughter could be in the medical center, where the best doctors and alchemists gathered to study and analyze the Fallen. He opened the door to the medical center, connected to the city hospital using magical teleportation. He saw that many doctors and alchemists had gathered around several beds. Lightning through all these people, he noticed his daughter sitting by one of the beds. As soon as she saw her father, she began to rise, looking pensive at him.

Ignoring her gaze, Gavriil immediately looked at her legs. Seeing that they were intact, he sighed in relief.

Then he placed both hands on her shoulders and infused his mana to see what was happening inside. Understanding that everything was fine with her, he embraced the somewhat displeased Ashley. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth of her father. Then Gavriil stepped back and began to look around.

He saw Vallynor and the Old Man sitting on the bed with closed eyes. In the corner of the room, a huge eye hovered. Sensing something strange, Gavriil turned to Ashley, who asked:

"Why are you here? And not at the barrier base?"

"Don't worry. The barrier no longer needs such strong support. It will hold without serious injuries," Gavriil replied.

"Why are you here? Not there?" Ashley repeated the question, seeing that her father was avoiding the answer.

"Okay, I confess. It's because of you. Are you satisfied? Why didn't you listen to me? I told you not to go to the battlefield. What if you were killed or kidnapped by pirates?"

"Don't worry, Dad. I'm over 18 now. I can take care of myself. It's my life, not yours. You always watch over me and send your servants. That's why I never had a normal relationship. That's why I remained a virgin for so long! You can't even imagine how much pain your guardianship caused me."

Gavriil was completely bewildered. This tantrum wasn't the first, and each time he felt even more guilty. "Enough! You're talking too loudly," intervened Caesar, trying to prevent a conflict.

Ashley nodded, looking at Vallynor and the Old Man. Anxiety was evident in her eyes, recalling the moment after the battle.

After some thought, Gavriil dragged Caesar to a secluded place. Then he cast several spells to hide them from prying eyes and began the conversation. Initially, Gavriil wanted to accuse and shout at him immediately. However, understanding his daughter's hint and not wanting to fall even lower in her eyes, he decided to talk to him face to face.

Ashley shook her head and looked at Vallynor, who was now in a coma due to overusing spells and putting too much strain on his soul, which had not fully adapted yet. He needed some rest to wake up.

But the same couldn't be said about the old man who was nearby. Remembering how he called himself Koschei the Immortal, Ashley pondered and began to recall everything she knew about him. She knew him in a few words. But as Daddy's daughter, she considered leaving home or his absence to be one and the same. Ashley stopped thinking about others and did what she wanted. Of course, she didn't overdo it to avoid being locked up by her father. And when they locked her up to prevent her from doing what her father considered improper, books of all genres dispelled her boredom.

Remembering all the books she had read, she quickly remembered stories about the villain. The villain who was supposed to appear in a world where a hero would soon appear. His goal was to set on the true path, find his love, and prevent the hero from leaning towards the dark side, full of debauchery and lust for power. In addition, Koschei the Immortal had to kill foolish or evil kings, stealing the future love of the hero.

There were cases when Koschei the Immortal violated the rules and directly helped new heroes. He guided them so that they could overthrow other heroes who had turned to the dark side. The title of the hero was a powerful one. They were on an equal footing, and sometimes even stronger than the heroes. After all, in essence, a hero was also for his people. Heroes were powerful in close combat but weak against magic.

Recalling all the stories about Koschei the Immortal, Ashley couldn't help but remember the moment after they moved to the city. Koschei the Immortal introduced himself and began to criticize Vallynor for somehow losing part of his humanity. Fortunately, it affected only his creative talent, not his personality. Then Koschei began to demand several things when meeting with his daughter, and so on. Vallynor fell to the ground. Koschei the Immortal leaned on his staff, as if he had lost all his strength. Even now, his words sounded in her mind:

"I will fall, and behind me, the world will fall. But before I fall into the abyss, I must prepare the boy to survive and meet my daughter."

"Daughter, daughter," Gavriil shouted at his daughter. He saw that she didn't respond, and she didn't even move. Putting his hand on her shoulder, he began to shake her.

This brought her out of deep thoughts. Understanding what her father wanted from her, she nodded. Before leaving, she looked back at Vallynor and Koschei the Immortal once again. Then she left, leaving these two with the medics and Caesar.

The medics, having done everything possible, began to gradually leave. Leaving Caesar, who was looking at Vallynor, trying to understand what he saw and what decisions should be made. Was it necessary to change the plan or leave everything as it is? This incident showed that Vallynor had many flaws. And time... Time was too short until this world perished.

Touching his head with his index finger, Caesar directed the energy of his soul with a bit of knowledge in it. This energy entered the chambers of his mind and soul.

"The first step of enlightenment. The boy's soul can contain three times more information than that of an ordinary mortal. Although it should have been twice as much. Even with such soul problems... It's incredible that you preserved your identity and even gained more strength," Caesar shook his head, turned, and left the room.

Vallynor felt that Caesar had left and sighed with relief. Looking at the door, he pondered over Caesar's words. Vallynor felt that Caesar knew he had just awakened but pretended to still be in a coma. Perhaps these words were not addressed to him alone.

Turning his head to the ceiling, Vallynor thought about how he must have looked in this battle. After all, it was strange why Ashley told him not to give up and die, only to then resurrect.