Chapter 2 Smells Of Blood?

As soon I pressed accept on the travel ticket, my vision begin to crumble.

The room twisted violently before my eyes as if reality itself was being torn apart. A sharp pain took my head, followed by countless scream echoing endlessly in my ears.

Men, woman and children.

Desperate cries overlapped with one another until I could no longer what were they saying.

My breathing is getting tight.

The glowing monitor in front of me flickered violently, bathing the dark room into flash of white and crimson light.

"..W-What the hell is this....?"

I grab my messy hair as dizziness overwhelmed me. 

"I shouldn't have accepted the ticket on the first place..."

A nauseating sensation rose from my stomach. The floor beneath me felt unstable, almost as if the entire room spinning a and sinking into endless darkness.

"..Ugh..."

My vision blurred.

Before i completely passed out, i caught one final glimpse of the computer screen.

The game window was glitching uncontrollably.

The monitor screen distorted while the reward notification remained frozen at the center of the screen.

[Rewards Successfully Claimed]

My body suddenly felt unbearable heavy.

Then...

A whisper echoed inside my head.

Faint.

Distant.

Yet strangely clear.

"I hope you can change the future that cannot be changed... Chosen one."

The moment those words faded, the last bit of strength left my body.

My knees gave out.

Darkness swallowed my vision completely as i collapsed onto the cold floor of my room and lost consciousness.

....

After i opened my eyes again, the first sensation that greeted me is cold.

A chilling cold that seeped into my bones.

"..Ugh.. So cold..."

My head was still spinning, making it difficult to think clearly.

At first, I didn't pay much attention to my surroundings.

Only when the dizziness began to fade did I finally realize something was terribly wrong.

I was falling.

Free-falling through the sky.

The blood red sky stretched endless above me.

A sea of crimson clouds dyed the world in ominous hue, as though the sky itself has been painted with blood.

Countless screams echoed across the battlefield.

Not human screams.

But demon.

My eyes widened.

Far below, the land was covered in corpses.

Human corpses.

Demon corpses.

The dead lay piled upon one another without end, forming mountains of flesh.

The stench of blood hung heavily in the air.

It was so overwhelming that nausea immediately rose within my stomach.

I nearly vomited.

Not a single living human remained.

At least, that's what I thought.

BOOM!!

Explosion erupted in the distance.

Instinctively, I turned toward the source.

"...No. I was wrong."

There was one.

Standing amidst an endless sea of demons was a lone man.

A black mask covered his face.

A single crack ran across one of its eyes.

In his hand rested a pitch-black sword.

Alone.

He stood alone before thousands of demons.

My eyes immediately drifted toward the figures behind the demonic army.

And then I froze.

There was no mistaking him.

The Demon King.

The final boss of Hero Academy.

The very game I had been playing moments ago.

As for the masked man...

No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see his face.

Yet for some reason, he felt strangely familiar.

As if I had known him somewhere before.

As if he were someone important.

I searched through my memories, trying to identify him.

But nothing came to mind.

In the end, I gave up.

After all...

I was still falling from the sky.

At the moment, I probably looked like a skydiver who had forgotten his parachute.

Honestly, the situation was so absurd that I almost wanted to laugh.

"...Well... what exactly am I supposed to do here?"

A furious roar suddenly shook the battlefield.

My attention returned to the scene below.

Ten figures burst forward from the demonic ranks.

The Ten Demon Generals.

Every one of them was a named boss from Hero Academy.

Crimson mana exploded from their bodies as they charged.

The atmosphere trembled beneath their overwhelming power.

Magic circles appeared one after another.

A storm of destructive spells descended upon the lone man.

Yet the masked swordsman remained calm.

Without hesitation, he raised his sword.

One swing.

The torrent of magic was split apart.

The black blade looked strange.

There was no guard.

No decorations.

A normal sword would be forged with a sturdy guard and a thick blade to improve its durability in battle.

Yet the weapon in his hand possessed neither.

It consisted of nothing more than a simple hilt and an unnaturally thin black blade.

It looked incomplete.

Fragile, even.

As though a single powerful clash would be enough to shatter it.

And yet...

Yet for some reason, that incomplete-looking sword radiated a terrifying pressure, as though it alone was enough to cut apart the world itself.

A question suddenly surfaced in my mind.

If this was truly the world of Hero Academy...

Then why was there a swordsman?

According to the game's lore, swordsmen no longer existed in the current era.

At least, that was what the game implied.

The developers never once mentioned the existence of a living swordsman.

Before I could think further, the battle below changed.

The space around the masked man suddenly distorted.

The next moment, he vanished.

Not a trace remained where he had stood.

Then he appeared high in the sky.

Directly above the demonic army.

The surrounding space twisted and warped around him.

It was as if his mere presence was forcing reality itself to bend.

Without uttering a single word, he slowly raised his sword.

The world fell silent.

Then.

Thousands of black swords materialized behind him.

The endless blades filled the heavens like a storm waiting to descend.

And a moment later...

The rain of swords began.

Countless blades fell from the sky, crashing toward the demonic army below.

The demons desperately raised their defenses.

But against that overwhelming barrage, even they looked insignificant.

After several minutes, the rain of swords finally came to an end.

The countless black blades slowly dissolved into particles of darkness.

Silence briefly descended upon the battlefield.

A thick cloud of dust covered the devastated ground below.

I stared at the scene while continuing to fall from the crimson sky.

Then the dust slowly cleared.

"...They're still alive?"

My face twisted in disgust.

The Ten Demon Generals were still standing.

Or at least, pieces of them were.

Some had lost half their bodies.

Some were missing limbs.

One had its entire torso split apart.

Yet none of them died.

Dark red flesh squirmed like living worms.

Bones extended from broken stumps.

Muscles intertwined and reconnected themselves.

The wounds regenerated at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"...Ugh..."

A chill ran down my spine.

"That's disgusting..."

The sight alone was enough to make my stomach churn.

Yet the masked man showed no reaction.

As though he had already expected this outcome.

The space around him distorted once more.

BOOM!!

The air exploded.

His figure vanished.

The next instant, he appeared directly before the nearest Demon General.

His sword flashed.

A black line cut through space.

The Demon General froze.

Then its body split into hundreds of pieces.

Before the fragments could regenerate.

The swordsman disappeared again.

BOOM!!

Another shockwave erupted.

A second Demon General lost its head.

Then a third.

A fourth.

A fifth.

His figure continuously flickered across the battlefield.

Appearing.

Disappearing.

Reappearing.

Again and again.

The battlefield became a storm of black flashes.

The Demon Generals roared furiously.

Magic erupted from every direction.

Flames.

Lightning.

Curses.

Yet none of it could touch him.

The black swordsman moved like a phantom.

No.

Even phantoms would have struggled to keep up with his speed.

The only thing I could see were brief flashes of black light.

And every flash was followed by another Demon General losing a limb.

Or its head.

Or half its body.

Minutes passed.

Then dozens of minutes.

The battle became a one-sided slaughter.

Thousands.

Tens of thousands.

Hundreds of thousands.

The swordsman continued swinging his blade.

Again.

And again.

His attacks never stopped.

His movements never slowed.

As though he had abandoned everything except the act of killing.

Eventually...

The first Demon General failed to regenerate.

Its body collapsed into dust.

Then the second.

The third.

The fourth.

One after another, the Demon Generals finally died.

Until only one enemy remained.

The Demon King.

The ruler of all demons.

The final boss of Hero Academy.

The monster responsible for humanity's destruction.

The battlefield fell silent.

The two stood facing each other.

No words were exchanged.

No speeches.

Only silence.

A silence heavy enough to crush the soul.

Then.

Both disappeared.

BOOOOOOM!!!

The world shook violently.

The clouds above exploded apart.

A giant shockwave spread across the battlefield.

The Demon King appeared behind the swordsman.

A crimson spear of magic pierced forward.

The swordsman twisted his body.

The spear grazed his shoulder.

Before the Demon King could retreat.

A black sword slashed toward his neck.

The Demon King raised his arm.

CLANG!!

A deafening metallic sound echoed across the battlefield.

The impact shattered the surrounding space.

The ground below collapsed.

Entire mountains of corpses were blown away by the shockwave.

The battle accelerated.

Neither side held back.

The Demon King unleashed countless magic circles.

Thousands of crimson spears filled the sky.

Each possessed enough power to erase a city.

The swordsman answered with countless black slashes.

The heavens split apart.

The earth cracked.

Reality itself seemed unable to withstand their battle.

I could barely follow their movements.

One moment they were on the ground.

The next moment they were in the sky.

Then beneath the earth.

Then thousands of meters away.

It was less like a battle.

And more like two disasters colliding.

Yet despite his overwhelming strength...

The swordsman was reaching his limit.

I noticed it.

His movements had become slower.

His breathing heavier.

His body was covered in wounds.

The Demon King noticed it too.

A cruel smile appeared on his face.

The next exchange decided everything.

The Demon King sacrificed one of his arms and charged forward.

The swordsman swung his blade.

The black sword cut through the Demon King's chest.

For a moment...

Everything became still.

Then—

A crimson spear erupted from the Demon King's hand.

The attack pierced straight through the swordsman's chest.

Blood scattered through the air.

The Demon King's body slowly split apart.

A deep black line appeared from his shoulder down to his waist.

The line expanded.

And the Demon King was cut in half.

The ruler of demons had fallen.

The final battle was over.

Yet victory came at a terrible cost.

The swordsman's left arm was gone.

His chest had been pierced completely through.

Blood flowed endlessly from his wounds.

Even from this distance, I could tell he was dying.

Slowly.

The man staggered toward a mountain of corpses.

Then sat down.

His black sword slipped from his hand and stabbed into the ground beside him.

For the first time since I arrived here...

He looked tired.

Truly tired.

His gaze wandered across the battlefield.

The corpses.

The ruins.

The endless sea of death.

A bitter laugh escaped his lips.

"What is the point of victory..."

His voice was hoarse.

Weak.

Broken.

"When everyone I wanted to protect is already dead?"

Silence followed.

The wind carried his words across the battlefield.

Then he laughed again.

A laugh devoid of happiness.

"Not that it matters."

"I'll be joining them soon enough."

Cough!

A mouthful of blood spilled from his mouth.

Meanwhile, I was still falling from the sky.

For some reason, my descent had been strangely slow during the entire battle.

Almost as if someone wanted me to witness everything.

To witness humanity's final battle.

To witness its ending.

But now that the fight was over...

The speed of my fall suddenly increased.

The ground rapidly approached.

"...Wait."

"...WAIT!"

The battlefield grew closer.

Faster.

And faster.

Yet my attention remained on the dying man.

The masked swordsman slowly raised his remaining hand.

His fingers touched the cracked black mask.

Then...

He began removing it.

My eyes widened.

Who was he?

Why did he seem familiar?

Why did I feel like I already knew him?

The mask slowly lifted.

A glimpse of his face appeared.

Just a little more.

Just a little.

Suddenly the ground reached me.

Yet I never crashed.

The moment my feet touched the battlefield, everything became blurry.

The crimson sky.

The corpses.

The dying swordsman.

The battlefield.

All of it began fading away.

My vision darkened.

Then everything disappeared.

...

When I opened my eyes again.

An unfamiliar ceiling greeted me.

And the smell of blood was nowhere to be found.

"Wait.. Smell of blood?"

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