Wrath of a thousand years

As the sun set, so did the celebration. The cloudy sunset brought the cold alongside it, and the people of Aomura returned to their homes to attend to their daily business.

Tired of contemplating the cloudy sky holding the rain so apprehensively, Raiko closed the window of her room and proceeded to rest on her bed. It was still too early for her contract and Iblis wasn’t there with her.

Thinking about it, it was strange. They sent him earlier so Raiko could get used to his presence, but they only meet a couple times a week. For a being that is supposed to become Raiko’s shadow, she couldn’t make sense out of it.

She decided to read to make time pass. She found a history book narrating the second Romani-Babilonian war, conflict that took place between the years 711 and 719 after the great cataclysm and clashed the Kingdom of Babel, where Raiko was from, and the Romani Empire, located on the west border.

This particular war she hasn’t read about, so it was nice to have something to do when Hanako went somewhere. Raiko always admired the queen, Nadeshiko the First, for her various feats.

Being the most ancient of all purifiers, and by extension the strongest, reading about her always filled Raiko with awe. The book, for instance, described an occasion when, after overextending the queen found herself surrounded by two thousand Romani demons, which she defeated on a single blow, thus forcing the invaders to retreat.

While she did find amazing to know the queen has been protecting the people for over a thousand years, the book did raise a few questions in Raiko’s mind. For instance, can a single purifier really have so much power to beat two thousand demons on a single blow? Probably not, the historian may be exaggerating. A purifier like that would be able to keep large areas safe all by herself, but that was probably why she was the queen to begin with.

Lacking a frame of reference to be able to tell how strong a demon is, Raiko concluded that it might be possible for her to do something like this, but she felt something didn't fit on the narrative. On her memories of lessons about the various wars against the demon Empire of Elam, there were many depictions of the queen taking on the demon queen Tiamat one on one.

It might also be that this Tiamat was just as insanely powerful as she was, and so she was the only one who could put a stop to her. This might also explain why demons still exist despite the queen’s best efforts to eradicate them.

But then, how would she be able to defeat thousands on a single blow? Raiko’s head felt fuzzy.

"In a few hours I'll become a purifier" she thought as she lowered the book.

But, what does it mean to be a purifier?

Prestige, yes, her reputation improved considerably when the contractors announced it for the first time. And once she becomes a purifier, she will automatically ascend to the top of the village’s social hierarchy, but ... it wasn't all of it.

It also meant that her village and its loved ones' safety and well-being will be her responsibility from there onwards. If she failed to do her job, terrible things would happen to them, and that was a worrying thought. She tried to remember Shizune’s and Mia’s experiences, the only apparition she ever remembers went down with a single shotgun blast, and as a purifier she would be stronger than that.

Then everything would be okay, right? She still didn't know how she would react on her first encounter with an apparition, but she would be her village's first line of defense, she had to get rid of her hesitations before that moment arrived.

Another question that bothered her was what powers would she have? Iblis said fire with absolute confidence, but was that it? How did he know? Mia said she could slow apparitions down, which sounded strange, but maybe useful?

The queen Nadeshiko was another case, but that was because she was said to possess the legendary Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a grimoire that contained a compilation of all known forms of magic, and the queen could use all of them. Raiko, of course, would only have one or two types of magic, and knowing them was fundamental to planning how to use them against apparitions.

“I guess I'll know in a few hours, the contract is at midnight.” She told herself.

The clouds, stubborn so far, decided that they had enough calm. A thunder roaring across the sky broke Raiko’s concentration. It was there when she noticed that something was not right.

A purple mist began to sneak in through the window; it seemed pretty heavy as well, as it stuck to the ground of the room. Raiko didn’t understand what was going on, but she was pretty sure that whatever it was, it couldn’t be natural.

The mist displaced slowly towards her feet and went past her without doing any harm, but Raiko couldn’t avoid feeling uneasy. This mist also had a smell she couldn’t describe, something the people from the old world would have described as the smell of money.

She couldn’t just stay there, she ran to the household’s courtyard, where she found her mother standing with the same intrigued look. Noticing her daughter, she turned on her for answers.

“Raiko, is this smoke work of an apparition?”

“I don't know, my instructor never mentioned anything like this.”

“It's... strange…“ Raiko's mother was focused on the smell. “I think I felt this smell before but... I don't know what it is.”

And it was not simply the Midorikawa household, the entirety of Aomura was enveloped in this purple fog, which extended beyond the horizon, hiding the clouds in the sky. Many of the townsfolk already got out of their houses looking at the sky for an explanation to the purple mist.

Someone in the neighboring household finally found the answer, pointing at the appearance of a blaze in the sky, a male voice yelled.

“Look there!”

Up in the sky, a creature of an unnatural aspect was approaching fast, floating through the sky. It was big, over two hundred meters in height, it appeared to be the upper half of a giant, hollow armor with spikes on its arms and a menacing glow below the helmet’s eye protectors. The thing seemed to be flexing its fingers, as if preparing for something.

“I-Is that… an apparition?!” Raiko’s voice was suddenly filled with terror.

Raiko observed the scene without giving credit to what she saw, as she never heard of an apparition of that size. Immediately, she remembered Mia’s words, an apparition’s size is proportional to its strength, so if that was an apparition, it must be insanely powerful.

But… apparitions were pitch black and most of the time did not even have a defined shape… What in the hell was this thing?

Furiously, the apparition roared so loudly that the sonic wave alone knocked over most of the village's buildings, including Raiko's house. The heavy wooden beams from the roof in front of them were sent flying towards Raiko and her mother, sending them against the opposite wall.

Raiko’s back slammed against her room’s door, and before she could react the roof over her head fell over, completely burying the terrified girl, barely leaving her with room to breathe.

On the outside, the earth itself seemed to be screaming in pain, silencing the girl’s screams with a deafening sound. At that moment a single thought took place in Raiko's mind: Why precisely NOW of all times?

She would become a purifier in a couple hours, why couldn't it wait? Apparitions were extremely rare in that region, so why?

Why did it have to happen before she had the power to face it?

Outside, countless fireballs formed around the apparition, these began to spin and flew away towards the town hitting the houses that were still standing like meteorites. Flames spread quickly through the village, engulfing the houses and its inhabitants with a wild voracity.

Raiko was unaware of the fires as her house was not affected by them. Buried, in intense pain and deafened by the sounds of destruction, Raiko chanted a single prayer.

“Lord Kanami, have mercy upon us.”

“Lord Kanami, have mercy upon us.”

“Lord Kanami, have mercy upon us.”

“Lord Kanami, have mercy upon us.”

Regardless of the scared girl’s efforts to fight despair, the people of Aomura were not in for a good time. Those who bailed out of their homes didn't have better luck than the ones who stayed inside.

Purple energy flashed from the apparition's core and then tore through the ground like a tiger's claws. Those who got hit by these beams disintegrated almost instantly. The deadly rays danced across the village like the lights of a pub, destroying houses, disintegrating people and devastating the crops.

“Somebody help me!”

Raiko screamed from the bottom of her chest, but nobody seemed to be able to hear her. The earth trembled, causing the debris to hit her as if they wanted her to shut up. The roars on the outside prevented the sound of her screams from propagating, and at the same time it stopped the screams of agony from the exterior to reach her ears. The only voice she could hear was the apparition's roars, full of a wrath that flooded her with terror.

Why? What did the people do to deserve this?

It’s not fair, they were good people who were working to live life the best they could. As she thought this, Raiko noticed tears sliding down her face. The shining star of Aomura… buried under her own house, unable to do anything while everyone else was being slaughtered.

However, that didn’t mean that nobody would.

Another thunder announced a change of pace. The unmistakable sound of gunshots brought new undertones to the symphony of destruction.

“Do you think you can just come in and destroy our village, you piece of shit apparition?!”

Shizune’s mother, Hana, managed to get out of her house with a rifle, and started to shoot at the apparition. It was a large one, so much that every shot made the woman step back; it had the words “Apparition Killer” engraved on the side of the barrel, the old family relic of the Voruzhin.

This old rifle was very effective against countryside apparitions, able to destroy large ones in a couple shots, too.

But this was no ordinary apparition. The bullets didn’t even damage it, but they did certainly annoy it, as it turned towards the direction of the shots, as if trying to face its attacker.

With a disgusting sound, a filament of a purplish fluid came from behind the monster's core and swept the woman's body like an annoying bug. As if it was a snake, the filament backed up, just to hit the trader's already dead body against the ground, scrubbing and scattering her remains against the dusty soil.

Without Hana there was nobody left to fight back, and so the monster got back to its murdering spree, focusing on a man trying to run away. Against an apparition with no real eyes, hiding was useless; a family hiding under a stack of hay was struck by a fireball.

Even if Raiko could fight the apparition, it seemed to be way too powerful for the average purifier. Would fighting against it have made a difference?, Why does such a powerful apparition strike a forgotten place like her village?, in her time under the rubble, Raiko realized something she didn't want to admit.

She was weak, how could she protect anything when the very first apparition she saw crushed her like a bug?

Why did the contractors pick her?

What is she supposed to do in a situation like this?

The people she was supposed to protect are out there being slaughtered and there is nothing she can do about it. The screams of pain and fear became screams of desperation.

She couldn't save anyone, yet she was praying for something or someone to save her. She hated herself for being so pathetic, she couldn’t even accept death like everyone else did, she truly saw herself as a useless spoiled child.

The apparition roared for a last time, perhaps feeling satisfied for the caused destruction, perhaps bored, or perhaps annoyed because it didn't seem that there was anyone alive left.

It was hard to decipher what a being like that could think, or if it could think at all. Regardless of the motive, the space around the apparition contracted, and it vanished.

And at that moment, the clouds unleashed their rain over the desolated land.