Chapter 297: A Mistake Paid In Blood

I shielded my eyes from the initial blast before quickly looking back, only to see that Khar had moved himself in front of me and he was raising his arms to control what looked like a wall of flames to protect us.

I heard a groan coming from the side and turned to see Nuul on the ground laying on his back, his eyes wide open and staring up at the sky blankly.

That was when I realised that his bottom half had been blown clean off and he had already bled out.

I turned in the direction of where the survivor’s camp was, only to see it engulfed in that white light as the explosion had completely wiped it from existence.

The centaur... And the people who had been tasked to clear out the camp... They were completely enveloped by the explosion...

Dan moved in front of me, lifting up his shield and placing himself between the fire and me.

"Oi!! You ok or not?!" He shouted, looking back at me.

"What... What happened?!" I demanded.

"A bomb..." Maylene muttered, her body shuddering visibly beside me. "They... They must have placed bombs around their camp before they left..."

Liliac was looking around her with a face of shock, clearly not expecting herself to be in the middle of this either.

I quickly stepped out from behind Dan, "Khar!!"

He did not answer me, fully focused on using his fire to shield us from the remnants of the explosion.

A few tense seconds passed before the fire finally died down and we were left with just the smoky remains of what was left of the base.

I quickly ran up to Khar, just in time for him to fall backwards and for me to catch him before he fell.

I gasped when I realised that he had not been able to fully protect himself as he bore the brunt of the initial explosion. The entire front half of his body had been burned to the point that he was suffering severe boils on his skin.

Even his face was quite disfigured with his hair almost burned away and his skin melting to show parts of his skull.

He reached up and grabbed my sleeve, his breath coming in gasps.

"M... My Lord... Don’t... Don’t let me... Become one... Of them... Please... Please..."

No... No, no, no... Nooooo!!!

"Please... I... I don’t want... I don’t want to... Turn into those things... Use... Use my fire..."

There was a growl and I turned to see the corpse of Nuul already mutating into one of the Anomalies but he did not change completely as Olivia was already there to smash the remains of his corpse into pieces before it could fully mutate.

"Please..." Khar gasped again.

I gritted my teeth and grabbed him by the head and twisted it with a loud crack.

When I released him, Khar had a rather serene smile on his face.

I was going to reach out to draw heat from the remains of the fire to use it to cremate him, but paused when I felt a new connection to the fire.

As though responding to my confusion, my Jade book appeared of its own accord and flipped open to a page to show Khar’s figure rapidly being painted on its page until he was etched on the page with his figure standing amongst a sea of flames.

I figured I could think about why I managed to absorb his powers later since I had a time limit before his corpse mutated and focused on using my new powers to bathe the corpse in a blast of flames, burning it into ash.

I watched the body burn away, not taking my eyes off the fire until it finally died down and the ashes scattered away with the wind.

That was when I shifted my gaze to the rest of the camp... Or what remains of it.

The explosion had basically taken out the entire block, leaving a smoking crater at where the camp had been.

At least... That was what happened to my half of the base.

Behind us was a wall of water and wood which were undoubtedly made by Siti and Diana, protecting that part of the camp from the explosion.

Sure enough, when both walls dissipated, everything that had been behind the wall was completely fine and the people within it were unharmed.

As compared to my side though... The centaur who had been the leader of this Vanguard group and the people in the survivor camp... They had been completely disintegrated by the blast...

And the two survivors that had followed me were now also dead.

I was the only one here that could not protect my people and even had to have someone protect me and lose his life for it...

Some kind of Mortal God I was to not be able to--

"Bro!! Snap out of it!!" Dan shoved me from behind with his shield, causing me to stumble a few steps forward.

I turned to him, finding my best friend standing there with furrowed brows.

"Stop blaming yourself for being unable to save everyone all the time, bro! This is not your fault!"

I turned back to look at where the survivor’s base had been, "But... I was the one who invited them here... And because of that... Everyone paid for it..."

"It’s their fault for taking advantage of the generosity you gave! You did what is right! That’s what is important!"

I clenched my fists, "No... I had just been simply too naive... I thought that they would also share my sentiment and choose to integrate instead... But I see now that the others were right... These people never deserved a second chance to begin with... Granting it to them placed us in this position."

Dan wanted to say something but Olivia stepped up beside him, "My Lord... No one can fault you for what you did. It is well within your right to do so. The fault laid with us for not doing our own investigation to make sure that they were cleared which we should have done. If we had searched them beforehand and uncovered that they had such plans from the beginning, we would have informed you and you would not have made such a decision."

I paused after hearing Olivia’s words.

Even I could tell that she was just saying this to draw blame away from me and onto herself instead, even though it was still a fact that I was the one who made the decision and the fact that I made the decision effectively meant that they had to accept it because it came from me.

I let out a breath before straightening myself to turn to them, "Clean up the area and... Honour those who fell here. I am heading out to deal with this."

Olivia frowned, "My Lord... I have to--"

Dan stopped her with an outstretched hand, looking straight at me with a neutral expression.

"Are you sure about this, bro?"

I nodded, "I started this mess... I have to clean it up. I have to close this."

Dan stared at me for a moment more before letting out a sigh, "Got it... Two hours bro. If you’re not back by two hours, we assume that you got into trouble. Ok?"

I gave him a wry smile, "Fair enough."

Without waiting for anyone else, I materialised my teleportation door and stepped through it, closing it behind me so no one could follow.

The place that I had stepped out was the garage of the underground bunker where we had first come across the survivors of this World.

Looking around, I found the exact truck that we had seen on the road just earlier parked inside the garage.

The only difference was that the truck was not in the parking spot but parked close to the entrance of the bunker, clearly having been driven out of this place earlier.

Additionally, the hole in the garage door had also been widened, just so that the truck could fit in that hole since I assume that the door could not be opened because of that hole anyway.

I ignored everything and focused on myself first.

I first summoned my usual two gauntlets above me, using them as my floating arms but I also summoned two, smaller ones that I turned them into two halves of a chestpiece to wrap around my torso.

Then using them as the target, I projected the shield in front and behind me as my defense against the laser weapon they might have and any explosion that might still happen if they have planned this far.

With my preparation complete, I stepped towards the broken door of the underground bunker, ready to confront the bastards that I should not have helped to begin with.

I have shown them mercy and they spat on that mercy... Then there is no need for any more mercy as I will now show them my wrath.