The Vengeful Anarchy’s Perspective (3)

After having my body mangled by that heavy dragon fist, I used my Regenerative Blood Skill Overlay to boost my healing factor. However, it wasn't enough to get back into the game easily.

I'm pretty sure my physique look like nothing more than a meat patty after having been hit so precisely by such an gigantic being, that too one that had improved its strength using the Fire Attribute.

But even as I writhed about in pain, the feeling of the other villagers using this opportunity to back me up moved me. When was the last time people had helped me out this way? To think that they'd be able to save me in this dire moment of peril...

It was only then did I realise that my actions of pushing people away in the past wasn't the right thing to have done. My heart wanted to change as I saw the Dragon being beaten down by multiple Magic Circles prepared by many Mages at once.

The injuries they were able to inflict on the gigantic lizard was tremendous. However, that didn't change the fact that their combined efforts had become too rushed due to the threat this flying lizard woman posed. It wasn't enough to kill her...!

My Mana Sense and Consciousness Sense could still feel the clear killing intent of the Dragon that hadn't wavered once after it became sealed in an what I think was an Icestone Barrier. In fact, its Mana spiked enormously before concentrating...

It's mouth seemed to have compressed the strongest Destruction Breath it could muster in the time it was being trapped in the barrier. I knew what it was about to do but couldn't stop it...!

The Destruction Breath it will let out after they run out of Mana will definitely destroy the village! What am I supposed to do...?! How am I going to stop the suicide attack of the Dragon with just my strength?

The cries of the children in the village muddled up my consciousness until a particular voice entered my Consciousness Sense. My daughter was scared of the Dragon, she was wanting it to disappear...

And so, I made it happen.

'Dark Spawns, you know what to do.'

'Affirmative!' Their voices resounded into one synonymous echo that entered his mind.

All those villagers who had lost hope upon seeing the Destruction Breath blasting towards them were shocked as my Dark Spawns did their jobs to protect them. These years of nurturing them wasn't for nothing as they used their 'Darkness'.

If the Fire Attribute created attacks the focused heavily on 'strength', then I'd use the Dark Attribute to 'devour' that strength whole. The shadows turned into tendrils that wrapped around the Destruction Breath before it could land a hit.

Like fire being smothered out by the coldest night filled with the deepest shadows, the pillar of flames was 'grasped' before being extinguished. The eyes of those who had been on the verge of being burnt to death widened as they saw the breath slowly die out. This was a trick I learnt over the years, to be able to control darkness through my Dark Spawns.

My body lifted into the air as I floated towards the fireball that was moulded by the darkness and continued to devour it whole, one strand of Fire Mana at a time. This was all until I finally extinguished the last speck of flames with my power. It was only after I finished did I disengage the Dark Spawns that hard darkened even the sky.

Yena was the closest to me as I looked at the villagers in silence. After the scene they saw, it was natural that they didn't know what to say. This was because of a particular fact: Dark Mages weren't particularly welcomed anywhere unless 'affiliated'.

Unless a Dark Mage joined an organisation, they would be regarded as rogues that needed to be kept a close eye on. Perhaps they were feeling moved right now because I saved their life, but it was a wonder if this gratitude will last long.

"...Hey, are you guys not going to thank him for saving your lives?!" Yena was the first to turn her head around and shout towards the Adventurers in the distance. They marched closer to me after I'd landed on the ground with serious looks.

The Branch Manager in particular looked like he had a lot on his mind as he looked at the unmoving corpse of the Dragon. They didn't say anything, yet it didn't take much for me to hear their thoughts:

'...Was he the one who killed the child?'

'The Dragon kid was killed silently, right?'

'Why did he hide his Affinity for so long?'

'Is he trying to trick us?'

'That power... Is he even Human?'

'What if he is a Demon in Angelic clothing?'

'There is something suspicious about him.'

'He is quite dodgy to have hid this for so long...'

'That power...'

'That power...!'

'That power...!!!'

'He must be trying to dupe us!'

'I am NOT falling for this...!'

'Dark Specialists are scheming.'

'Dark Mages are all evil.'

'Dark Users are all the same.'

'A Dark User cannot be trusted...'

'Dark Mages must not be trusted...!'

'They are always after something.'

It only took a few moments before those I wasn't particularly close with had gradually interpreted what they saw today in their own way. Only the Branch Manager and my regular party members thought differently as they worried on my behalf.

Though I'm unsure of why that samurai-like Branch Manager had a different opinion on the matter than the rest of them. It didn't particularly matter to me one bit. My heart only desired to see if Madeline was okay as I walked to go where my house was.

I left my spoils (Dragon corpse) unattended as the crowd parted to open up a gap I could walk through. There was countless whispers and gossips coming from the surroundings, but I could not do anything about it as this was my decision.

The safety of the village in exchange for revealing my affinity for darkness. The trade off was good.

There's no point crying over spilt milk now that it already happened. The only thing I could do was return home and perhaps move somewhere else where others wouldn't know of my Dark Attribute.

The first thing I saw after entering was Bob's mom who looked like she had finally understood something as she looked at my direction. Perhaps the way I carried myself changed a little from the fatigue, I couldn't quite put up a perfect 'show' of me being Bob as Madeline jumped into his arms with tears in her eyes. She wasn't old but she was mature enough to sense the atmosphere's change.

"Daddy, are you going to leave us?"

"There's no way I would. Who told you that?"

"My friend said Dark Users don't stay at home and leave to travel all the time. Everyone doesn't like them." She replied in sorrow. My little girl sobbed as someone I wanted to see was at the door.

"Bob..."

"Branch Manager." I responded to the samurai.

"You may want to leave as quickly as you can."

"Why?" Even though one of my secrets was out now, the villagers wouldn't kick their saviour out this early, would they? And here I thought gratitude was worth more than your fair share in gold...

"I've recently gotten word that the Holy Church has been mobilising their forces towards us. You will be persecuted if you stay here for too long." The kind man spoke worriedly before leaving it at that.

As the samurai walked away, my heart trembled as something happened over on my other form's side.

Over at the Church that Knight Apostle frequently visited, I was summoned out on the account of the danger the woman faced. There was something going on that I didn't know about as seemed be fighting against people who veiled there faces.

'What is going on?' I spoke to her on a thought level where we could exchange information without too much passing in the real world. Reality seemed to slow down as we talked about her situation:

'Extremists have begun acting up.'

'What kind?'

'They believe in racial purity and are narrow-minded about Dark and Evil Affinities even if the rest of the Church certifies I'm not a threat. You need to watch out, they already know about-'

Even that short exchange was done in 0.0001 of a second in real-time was cut off as my human form was attacked by someone unexpected. The woman bore down with her Earth Aura and attacked me.

"Give me back my son!" Her voice was hysterical as it seemed like she had figured out my abnormalities but only started assume I was a fake the moment I revealed my Dark Attribute openly.

Even if she wasn't a trained Swordsman, a hit from ANY user of Aura Manifestation could strike a lethal blow if handled incorrectly. My quickly grabbed onto her arm redirected the attack away so Madeline wouldn't get caught up in her madness.

"I'm not-!" No one gave me time to explain as another old-timer across the street shot a Fireball Spell at me. The rest of the paranoid masses had their fears ignited as they started thinking scarily:

'He was an imposter!'

'Even his mom thinks he is an imposter!'

'Was Bob kidnapped and killed?'

'I heard Dark Users can wear the skin of others.'

'For justice! Help them take him down!'

"Everyone, he is a Demonic Beast in disguise." An unfamiliar voice from someone who definitely wasn't a villager of this place rang out to incite a riot. They and even my own mind was already on edge to the point we couldn't stop this flow of events. Once the spark ignited, their paranoia became a raging storm thinking of conspiracies.

Most of them were tired from the strength they used to defend against the Dragon attack, but as they were the kind of people who would even fight an entity they couldn't beat for the sake of their righteousness, this didn't stop them their attacks.

"Stop!" The Branch Manager tried to smoothen things out and stop them as I hugged my child.

I couldn't hold back as I used my Earth Marble to shape the ground into a wall that stopped the attacks. It was at that point that the fears they had of me became powerful enough for them to ignore the Branch Manager entirely as they looked at me.

'He used the Earth Affinity!'

'There is no way he is the same Bob we know...!'

'That guy is right. He must be a Beast!'

'He is a Demon trying to trick us!!!'

"Give me back my granddaughter!" Bob's mom seemed to entirely see me as a foreign creature with her son's face. Her rage and despair-filled expression broke my heart as the village I had lived in for so many years easily turned against me.

[Arrow Art- Quiet Puncture!]

An arrow silently bypassed my defences and stabbed into my arm, causing blood to spray out from behind my earthen defence. The rioting people, and especially Bob's mom, saw this as me harming Madeline as she screamed in hysteria:

"Noooo!"

Even the Branch Manager was fooled this time as it was him who chopped apart my earthen defence to see what was wrong. The scheme of those Extremists went as they had planned as I couldn't help but try using my Dark Spawns to restrict them.

Why did that happen to me when I'd put all my effort to gaining their trust? Why was it that several years of investment had went down the drain as soon as my Dark Attribute was revealed to the world? But the most despair filling moment happened at this exact moment when my heart shuddered and I'd lost my focus for one moment.

A white veiled man in priest-like clothing gave a signal, and 'something' that seemed outside my range of sensory appeared in front of me as if through teleportation. Thinking back on it, I'd have recognised the description of his face from what Jordan Darby told me was what he'd heard his organisation's 'Death Head' some time afterwards.

My Consciousness Sense and Mana Sense seemed to be blocked by the skeletal masked warriors he'd brought with him as his blade- His blade... stabbed into the neck of someone I loved with all my heart.

Madeline's expression turned cloudy as strength left her body, a few words then entered my ear:

"Don't take this personally." The assassin with a prince-like demeanour about him spoke coldly.

'A-aaaaaargh!!! I'll kill you all! I'll skin you alive! Die! Die! AAAAAAAAARRRGH!!! I'll slaughter all of you!'

That was the last thought going through my head as I did an insane action. The Doppelgänger Form that had been travelling at a rapid-pace through shadows finally returned to my location and ended up 'devouring' my daughter the same way as Bob.

Tears streamed down my eyes as Madeline's empty eyed corpse disappeared from my sight, leaving me with no one in hand. Why was this happening? I was living in peace and minding my own business.

I don't deserve this. My daughter... she didn't deserve this kind of meaningless death...!

"Ahhh...! Aaah...!! Argh...!!! ARGH...!!!" I could no longer speak in human words at that time as my mouth turned into an outlet venting the grief I felt from my daughter's sudden death. My heart was filled with a similar hysteria to Bob's mom as I looked at the culprit. There wasn't a need to flip my little 'kill switch', as the amount of killing intent that exuded from my body was more than ever before.

It was at this moment that I thought it would be fine if I let my sanity slip, even if it was just to feel better. The 'Darkness Armour' wrapped around my body as my Human Form went on a killing spree.