Chapter 137: Aftermath of the Feast

“This can’t keep going on! We will starve if we don’t stop this!”

“We need to go out there and kill this thing!”

“What about Sir Asterion? He is powerful, he could kill that thing with a snap of his fingers, why don’t we ask him to do it?”

“That old man? He has done nothing in the past years, even during the attack five years ago he didn’t help!”

The loud voices of the villagers echoed through the village hall, as the unhappy residents of Riftfall yelled at each other.

“So what if he wasn’t there! He’s still in the SSS rank, we need to at least ask him for help!”

“That’s easy for you to say because you haven’t lost anyone back then. Never will I ever trust that man!”

The heat in the room increased as the insults shifted from Asterion to each other, and it didn’t take long for two men to break out into a fight.

“How dare you, I lost my best friend!”

“And I lost my son!”

The man cocked back his arm ready to attack the other resident, but his fist never managed to make it to the other one’s face, as it stopped merely centimeters before.

“What?”

Confused, both men looked at the fist that was like frozen in place when a rough and tired voice came from the side, causing everyone to turn in its direction.

“Infighting is not tolerated here.”

Asterion’s figure just appeared among the villagers, causing some of them to step back in fear.

“Y-You!”

The man that threw the punch pulled back his fist and pointed accusingly at the man.

“You should be the one to protect us! But you have done nothing to stop this thing from killing everything around us! We are starving here and you just sit back and relax!”

Asterion met the angry man’s eyes without a change in expression, like his eyes had long lost the ability to be angry or annoyed at the man that yelled right at his face.

“You will not interfere, and stay back in the village.”

His voice sounded emotionless, causing the man to become even angrier, thinking that Asterion didn’t even care about them.

“And why shouldn’t we?! This thing is killing everything around us, we haven’t been able to bring meat to the village in over a month! Our reserves are running low, we won’t be able to last much longer!”

Even though the others didn’t say anything, they silently agreed with the man. Over the past month, all the monsters in the surroundings had disappeared. They had only been able to find small patches of purple blood on the ground, leading them to believe that one of the monsters advanced in rank and began to kill everything it saw.

The meat provided by the monsters was essential for their survival, but now they haven’t been able to bring back a single carcass; they didn’t have much time left before they ate the last piece.

“It won’t take much longer.”

Confused by the guardian’s cryptic words, the anger boiled over in the residents of Riftfall and the first one tried to attack Asterion.

“You good-for-nothing ‘Guardian’!”

One of the men teleported next to Asterion, in his palm a ball of compressed space ready to detonate in his face. But Asterion simply moved his purple eyes and an invisible cage appeared around the man.

The ball of compressed space fizzled away, leaving the man standing inside the transparent cage. He hammered his hands against the walls, but it didn’t budge and no sound came out.

When they saw how he imprisoned one of them so easily, fear bubbled up in them and they took a step back. Asterion’s tired purple eyes washed over the villagers, causing them to shrink back.

“I will say it one more time. You will not interfere.”

This time no one rebelled against him, and he disappeared without a sound, and the caged man fell to the ground as the spatial prison disappeared with him.

“Fuck!”

The leader that yelled at Asterion cursed loudly and stomped the wooden floor hard enough to break it.

But his frustration found no outlet, since even if all of them were to attack their ‘Guardian’ at the same time, they would all die. Without a question.

—

The room was dark; not a single candle was lit or mana lamp illuminated the surroundings. No sound echoed inside the room, as the only person inside it sat motionless on the sofa.

Staring aimlessly into the wall was Lyra, her purple eyes that previously seemed so bright whenever she was with Valerian were dull and cold. Her hands were in her lap, and her breath was shallow, almost like she didn’t breathe at all.

Her beautiful silver-white hair had lost its shine, appearing dull and grey. Her mouth twitched for a moment before falling still again.

“How can I help you… Sir Asterion?”

Her quiet voice suddenly came out of her mouth. It sounded hoarse, like she hadn’t used it in weeks, and when she spoke, the happy girl from before was gone and replaced by a voice that sounded robbed of life.

Asterion leaned against the wall at the back of the room and just looked at the pale figure of Lyra. His eyes went over her body, scanning every little change that had happened since the incident. He could still see faint bruises on her neck where Valerian had choked her, that refused to heal.

“Just watching.”

The silence returned back to the room, and Lyra continued to stare into the wall with her empty eyes. Asterion didn’t move and continued to lean on the wall, his eyes locked onto Lyra, refusing to let her out of his sight for even a second.

‘Soon. Soon it will be over.’

With his eyes staying on the girl, his thoughts wandered to when he first met Valerian. And when, for the first time in his life, he felt like he found the reason for his existence.

—

Deep inside the forest surrounding the Riftfall village, in a place drowned in an ocean of purple blood, was a mountain of corpses. Some were [Void Echoes], some were like the elk beast, and others looked like nothing that ever graced the world of Eldoria.

Their blood pooled underneath them, forming a river of purple whose stench alone could make even a veteran vomit.

Their bodies were sliced apart, ripped into shreds with parts of their bodies missing like they were ripped out by the jaws of a beast, and some had body parts that were cleanly cut off like the space that they occupied ceased to exist.

Sitting on this mountain of corpses was the figure of a lone boy. His body looked like it was straight out of a nightmare with patches of deep black scales that glowed purple underneath, long black claws that had a constant violet glow around them. His horns extended far off his head, looking less like ornaments and more like the war horns of an ancient dragon.

His face was an image of frenzy itself, with long fangs covered in the purple blood, and a face that would normally be considered perfect twisted in a grimace of mad pleasure.

His clothes long ceased to exist, with the only thing hiding his private parts being the black scales. His body was pristine without a single wound, pale skin with tightly coiled muscles covered by patches of black scales.

He ripped apart the monster furthest up, not caring about anything but to eat and devour. With every bite, the sweet blood went down his throat like the sweetest honey.

Opening his jaws to take another bite, the mad frenzy in his eyes suddenly disappeared, clearing his mind of the ecstasy he felt while eating.

‘Wh-what??’

He shook his head trying to shake off the confusing thoughts and memories. His eyes were blurry, but when they cleared and he saw his surroundings, his mouth, that returned to normal, the long fangs disappearing, leaving only slightly longer versions of his normal fangs behind, opened wide.

‘Wh-what happened here?’

His eyes went over the dozens of corpses underneath him, every movement made a disgusting squelch as the carcass underneath him gave in. With pure shock filling his eyes, he looked down and only saw his blood-covered arms and the bodies underneath him.

‘I- I- I-‘

He wasn’t able to form a coherent thought as the memories of the past month rushed back into his brain. All the killing, the eating, the drinking went before his mind’s eye, showing him the extent of his escapade.

Not bearing to keep standing atop this mountain of corpses, he wanted to teleport away, and was surprised by the ease behind it, like it turned from a spell to a part of his being.

To be unbound by the restrictions of space and distance, that single teleport gave him a feeling of freedom inside this madness.

Seeing the mountain from below, he couldn’t help but think to himself:

‘What happened to me???’