Explosion

I open my eyes only to find myself back in the belly of the beast.

Nothing changed from before my Second Death, corrupted meat is still crawling all over me, its suction cups still trying to reach for under my skin. But at least, I still have a skin, it means that whatever that creature was, he regenerated me.

But the nightmare was still not over.

It was like a layered dream, awaken from the first layer of the nightmare only to find myself drowning in its second.

I want to scream but there's no way I would open my mouth in this situation, even my eyelids go back to being closed. What do I do? What's the power that should save me he…

No, I'm wrong.

There's something different.

From beneath my chest, where the heart resides, a heat is building up. At first is comfortable, it soothes my senses. The pain from being overwhelmed by corruption doesn't arrive to my brain. There's only this…fire inside me keeping me warm.

But it doesn't stop there, it grows, grows, grows.

Soon, it starts to burn, I feel like a ball of magma wants to come out of my chest. I grit my teeth, it doesn't hurt, it seems that my body has developed a tolerance to this heat, but it scares me. I'm afraid that the pain will come all at once.

After all, it keeps growing.

Until I realize it's not natural.

There's some kind of reaction inside me, immensely rapid, slowed only by the terrible catalyst in which it's trapped, namely my heart.

But despite this, the fire spreads at an alarming rate. I open my eyes, the corrupt flesh that was gripping me has completely turned to ash. My skin glows a pure white.

The energy released from within had accumulated too much, pushing to escape from my mouth, so I opened it wide and a glowing jet shot out toward the sky. Everything around me was turning to ash.

I couldn't see anything, suffocated by my own power.

I understood what it was.

The great equalizer of my world. Being born in a country too rich for war to be made in, I didn't connect right away. Maybe even with everything wrong in my life, I really was privileged enough to not develop a fear of this thing.

But it is scary.

It's the great trigger for the man-made apocalypse. Much crueler than anything prophesized by anyone, much crueler than the future Judgment Day that one day awaited earth.

A death of pure heat.

One that will then slowly kill any survivor by poisoning their bodies. One that can drag the world down with the humans that try to kill each other.

The creature in the void was right being sorry for everyone around here.

As they all were destined to die in seconds.

I came here to save one person, only to end up killing everyone in the city.

I became the greatest symbol of war's destruction of my world, now impressed into this magic reality.

It was crazy to send me here, now I agree.

As now I was a Fateless.

[IRIDESCENT]

The power of a nuclear bomb.

*

Lionheart instincts kick in. All his magical power was focused onto was devastating attack, aiming to take down [MYTHOS] in one moment, but now the knight knew very well that the status was not the greatest danger around there.

The moment his eyes saw the weak girl glowing white, he felt it.
The room had become hotter.

Something was going to happen in mere seconds. He jumped back and sheated his entire body in holy barriers. Then, a schorching wind blew inside the dancing room, all [MYTHO]'s corruption disappeared in a cloud of ash, the statue itself didn't receive any damange, but still fell on the ground and didn't show any signs of action.

Is it dead?

Damn, even inside this protection, I can feel the heat. Which kind of fire spell is it?

Lionheart watch intently towards Kaede. It seems like she was fighting against her own body, trying to keep in the power that shot out of her body.

Can I help her?

He took a step, the wind blew so strong that even that took a lot of energy. But the knight didn't want to give up, at that moment he was not thinking about what was actually happening in the dancing room. His brain could only focus on the most immediate tasks, and one was to reach for the girl…

And do what?
She will obliterate me if this keeps going on.

Still, he took another step. Then another, then another, then another.

The usually translucent holy barrier became a lot more visible, the magic energy keeping it active was wavering.

My mana hasn't depleted yet…

Is the protection spell not enough? That can't be right, what kind of attack is so destructive!?

Still, he took another step.

Kaede was now within reach, so he tried to grab her. He reached out with one hand, the barrier wavering more and more.

Then the girl couldn't contain the energy.

Her mouth opened, a spike of energy came out and the wind blew even stronger. Lionheart was thrown back, all the way to the wall on the other side of the room. The holy barrier protected him from hitting is head, but the spell was wavering more than ever.

He watched his right hand. It was completely burned.

Shit…

I can't move a muscle. I could try to enhance my legs with mana to make them move for a little bit but…doing so will undo the barrier. No mana left for two spells at once.

He could only stand there. Watching as the girl he was dancing with just a couple hours before became the eye of the strongest stom he had ever see.

When will this stop? If it continues…it could destroy the entire mansion. Whoever escaped [MYTHO] will die…it could even damage the chain.

Right when he finished thing that, the heat got stronger. He would have not been able to keep his eyes open if not for how strong his barrier was. Only the best of warriors in the world would be able to withstand whatever was happening there.

He, being one of them, knew very well.

The irony.

I pushed to be put here in the first chain for a bit as a reward for slaying a Fateless. No one would have assign someone of my strength to this city, the only thing it has to protect it's the chain and that's indestructible. Nad yet, here I see the strongest magic.

But then, another impossible thing happened right before his eyes.

Another man approached the iridescent girl. Walking steady, like if he wasn't affected by the heat, only slowed by the immense wind. He was a strange guy, wearing a black round helmet.

*

A scorching heat kept building and building.

It reminds me of a star. But the nature of her power is different, this calamity is not a fire burning to warm the universe, to fill a void, it's a fire building up to destroy everything around here.

These are radiation.

Not something I expected to find in this world.

I can only imagine what kind of reality you come from. It must be terrifying.

The man in the astronaut helmet took another step towards the girl. Gusts tried to push him away but all they could do was slow him down a bit. It was impossible to approach that iridescent body, the only way to save oneself was to get as far as possible.

Maybe in that world there was some king of magic capable of doing something like that.

But [TRAVELER] calamity was not one of movement, it was one of stillness. So he took another step, then another, then another, and the newly born Fateless was within reach. But [TRAVELER] didn't extend his hand towards the girl, instead, he talked to her.

"Are you unable to control it or do you want do destroy everything?"

"A…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

She can't talk huh.

Most likely it's just the usual rampage.

That thing should have learned by now that making its creations go wild does not serve its purpose… or maybe it really does not know better.

All around both him and the iridescent girl, started to form something impossible. The farthest thing from what should exist under the condition of absolute heat. It was ice.

"We'll talk later then. For now, you can let it all out, child. I will take the burden."

Radiation kept coming out of the girl body, but the temperature stopped rising, instead, it lowered. A cocoon of ice surrounded the two Fateless.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

"You really can't contain it. Do not fear your power. It is a calamity, it is scary, but you can control it. And once you've got the reins, it's only as scary as you want it to be."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Soon, the voice of the girl started to grow weaker. Entropy itself stopped inside the cocoon.

*

Cold.

I feel extremely cold.

The energy powering my body is still there, but it seems frozen. I feel the power intention to lash out, but it just cannot. It was reaching the point of a fission, it wanted to explode. But now… it feels like nothing can happen.

I feel my heart stopping.

There's no breath in me.

Everything's reverse.

All that was powerful a moment ago it's not annihilated.

Slowly, my vision returns, I can close my mouth, my rampage was stopped….but the price was to die again. I have no idea what's happening, but this is death. That's one thing I'm sure of. I can feel is on an instinctual level. This is a frightening end.

One I can't do anything against.

As I don't create energy from nothing.

I break atoms to create explosions.

But all atoms are now frozen. Heat Death.

And yet, I once everything stopped, something warm engulfed me. I can't move my body, not from it being covered in ice, but from exhaustion. Being born again was tiring. So, even if I didn't know exactly who this stranger with the helmet was, even if the only time I talked with him was when I thought he was just a weirdo.

His hug comforts me.

It reminds me that there's not just extremes, not just the scorching heat or the deathly ice. There's the warmth in which we human live.

Without any energy to spare, my eyelids close out on me, so everything goes dark.

But I don't feel scared.