"W-What is that monster?!"

Those soldiers of the Great Corporate United were confused. They had turned to attack me rather than the civilians, but some chose to run away instead.

My giant scythe took a cleaving position mid-air. It wanted to cut all of them in one huge swing.

"N-No. I don't want to die here! R-Run!" One of the soldiers in black gears exclaimed.

It was ironic for them to say that. They killed people, but they themselves didn't prepare to die. It was a contradiction.

Still, their time had come.

My scythe swung itself and their bodies were cut in halves, limbs sent flying everywhere. To my surprise, it avoided striking the lingering civilians and Freya members. A few soldiers ended up unharmed because of it too.

The intimidating scythe hanging in the air was enough to make them all scared.

"Pull b-back. PULL BACK!"

The jeeps drove away from the battlefield, with what few soldiers left ran for their safety.

The pain that I was feeling somehow became more tolerable. Even so. the pain was tremendous and it wrenched my heart as time pa.s.sed.

My attempt to form two different objects in the days before ended up in failure, and as a side effect, my body was struck with immense pain. But in that particular situation, the scythe and the crystal fragments protecting me did not lose its forms. It stayed in its place solidly.

I realized that I was not gasping for air anymore.

The Vasquez that fought Jeremy before had s.h.i.+fted his attention towards me. I could not help but grin at him. I quickly shook my head upon noticing that.

'What is happening to me?' I thought.

I held my left hand in front of my face.

It was covered in crimson crystals in a way that my entire left arm looked like it was not made from human flesh, to begin with.

"That Aegis User is unstable," said the Vasquez. He took a fighting stance and launched his beams at me.

My snake-like crimson fragments clumped together to form a large, deformed s.h.i.+eld as a measure against the beams and it protected me well from that attack. My scythe then dropped onto his head, slicing him in half.

The third Vasquez punched at Beatrice, but she evaded it with ease.

Recognizing its next prey, my crimson scythe struck the Vasquez at its side and eventually cut him in half too.

But it did not stop there.

The scythe repeatedly dropped itself onto the Vasquez's upper body, each impact gave me a shudder. It dealt its finis.h.i.+ng blow by smas.h.i.+ng the Vasquez's head, wriggling side to side to grind it. By the time the scythe was done, his head was no more.

"I knew it. You ARE a monster. A monster created by the C.U," said Beatrice. She was glaring at me.

"H-How can you say that . . ."

Campbell emerged from a store as he was thrown onto the street. Blood and gash marks were all over his body.

Jeremy then walked out from the building looking stern as always. His rainbow Mohawk still retained its shape despite all the fighting he'd done.

"I can't believe it. I'm being defeated," said Campbell. His body slumped on the road, unable to move an inch. "But. . . The Great Corporate United shall win in the end. All of you are but another stepping stone to His Supremacy's ideal. You are doomed! No one will survive the wrath of his supremacy! We shall reign supreme-"

My scythe crashed onto Campbell with its flat side and the road cracked. It heaved itself up once more, and dropped onto Campbell, sending large pieces of graphite flying everywhere due to the impact.

Jeremy, who always appeared emotionless, had his eyes widened at the sight.

"I-I didn't do it. It m-moved by itself," I said to both Beatrice and him.

I touched my neck. My voice had changed, becoming more hoa.r.s.e. The crystals covering half of my body could've been the cause.

Beatrice was moving towards me and I tried to restrain the scythe. It appeared that the scythe thought that she would harm me.

"Killing you right here right now would be great," she said while sheathing her Carthia gun. "But I don't want to die yet. That. . . Thing right there seems to be out of control."

I took a few steps towards her, and she backed away.

"N-No. Help me," I said. The red tears kept flowing out of my eyes.

"Help yourself."

She and Jeremy immediately rushed into the back of one of their trucks. I could see Grandpa and Inghild at the driver's seats.

Grandpa looked at me sympathetically. "It appears I'm not wrong after all. I tried to end your suffering, but you made it worse." He shook his head and the truck drove down the road. All the other Freya members followed in their own trucks.

I noticed that the general was missing, and then it struck me.

The fight was over, with only a few civilians staring at me, frightened.

'Go away.'

I kept repeating that same thought for a minute or so. My protective crimson fragments seeped back into me in liquid form after that. The scythe, however, was not budging, and the crimson crystals covering my half still remained there.

"GO AWAY!" I snapped.

The people staring at me screamed as they ran for their lives, leaving me alone.

"GO AWAY! GO AWAY! PLEASE. . . Go away. . . "

My right eye that was shedding tears of blood ceased to do so. The scythe finally responded to me and entered my back in liquid form. In just a few minutes, the pain was gone.

I breathed heavily, trying to grasp everything that had happened. My eyes refused to look at Campbell, and that horrid sight of the bloodied streets.

'My eyes are still black,' I thought.

My crystallized left side remained but I ignored it since I didn't feel any discomfort whatsoever. One way or another, it was just there merely for display.

I walked back to the alley where Jack's body had resided and proceeded to summon a huge gauntlet from my left arm. It was crimson, but what surprised me was the gauntlet itself. It had a sleek, smooth surface, gleaming in pale red.

"It's beautiful."

I never thought I would ever say that.

The large gauntlet grabbed Jack's body gently, and I moved deep into the jungle. Luca was nowhere to be seen, so I a.s.sumed she was already at the mine. I formed another gauntlet from my other arm and clawed at the soil. Surprisingly, forming two objects simultaneously had no toll on my body at that time.

A large hole in the ground was made after a few minutes, and I put Jack inside there.

I did not know how to bury a body as the adults would do, but I was sure that was the basics of it. My gauntlets dumped enough soil on top of Jack's grave.

"This should be . . . enough?" I then broke a small piece from one gauntlet and placed the shard at that clump of soil.

"It should mark the grave well."

I started to walk away from it. My head turned around to see it one last time before heading to the abandoned mine uphill.