[Calibration in progress...]
The Wanderer’s eyes flickered open to the instrumental sound of the Spiral. Above him, it loomed, its ethereal form appearing more massive than before.
[Consumed energy conversion: 80%]
[Energy insufficient to regenerate lost limb]
The Wanderer stared at the emptiness of his severed arm. "You can replace my arm?" he rasped to the void.
[Redirecting power to heal and stabilize current world mana reservoir...]
"I have five circles now..." he whispered, the realization of his new power sinking in. Then, a cold dread seized him. "Wait... what happened to Valak?".
[Calibration complete, scanning for nearby threats]
"What threats?" the Wanderer shouted, his voice echoing through the mental space. "Answer me!".
[No threats detected, switching control to the vessel]
The Spiral retreated from his vision with a piercing whistle.
The Wanderer’s physical eyes snapped open. He coughed violently as the air -thick with pulverized stone and dust - filled his lungs. He sat up in the heavy mud, surrounded by total darkness. He stretched out his hand, his fingers brushing against cold masonry. "Is this a section of a falling building?" he wondered.
He posed himself, channeling reinforced mana into his fist, and punched the obstruction. The wall shattered, allowing a dim light in. He ducked beneath the debris and stepped out into the ruins.
Looking up at the cloudy sky, his mind a blank slate of confusion. Something solid hit his leg, washed along by the rushing rainwater. He looked down to find a severed leg. His eyes widened in horror. "Someone attacked Draemir!" he breathed.
Dropping the limb, he scrambled up the mountain of wreckage he had been buried under, to find half the city was gone, replaced by crushed buildings and scattered limbs. In the center of the devastation lay a massive crater where the rain had pooled into a lake of pink water.
A scream cut through his thoughts, before he could make a realization. He saw a woman nearby, desperately hugging the torso of a child. Elsewhere, a man wailed into an arm without a body attached. The entire district was a chorus of mourning.
"What the hell happened?" he shouted into the rain. "Who did this?".
A flash of memory -Valak’s face, the desperate fight- burst into his mind. He leapt from the debris and sprinted toward the arena, only to find the monumental structure leveled to the ground.
"Valak! Sergeant! Are you there?" he roared, looking around.
Suddenly, a weight slammed into him, pinning him face-first into the mud. The Wanderer flared his magic in a violent pulse, throwing the attacker backward into the ruins. He sprang up into a fighting stance. "Show yourself!".
The commander he had faced earlier launched himself from the shadows of a collapsed building. "BUTCHER!" he shrieked, bringing his sword down in an arc.
The Wanderer pivoted, catching the man with a sharp kick that sent him tumbling into the dirt. He dashed forward, kicking the broadsword out of the man’s reach. He stopped as his eyes caught the glint of Draemiran armor. "I'm not the enemy!" he yelled. "Why did you attack me?".
The commander surged to his feet, ignoring the pain. He lunged, his hands locking around the Wanderer’s throat in desperate, trembling fingers. "You killed my soldiers!" he screamed. "YOU KILLED MY FAMILY!".
The Wanderer reacted on instinct, driving an explosive uppercut into the man’s chin that sent him reeling.
As the commander fell, the blurry images in the Wanderer's mind finally sharpened into focus: the unnatural storm, the gladiators being torn apart, the anti-magic chains... and Valak.
The commander looked up from the mud, his spirit broken. "Kill me!" he sobbed. "Just kill me too, god damn it!".
The Wanderer fell to the ground as the realization crushed him. "No, no, I didn't do it. That wasn't me!"
He began crawling away on his back, his breath coming in gasps. As he moved his hand slashing the pink mud, something hard hit his lower back. He looked behind to find a man's head, eyes and mouth opened wide, frozen in a silent scream. The contact brought visions of him killing that man flashing back to him with agonizing clarity. He looked around, and with each body part his eyes landed on, the visions of the slaughter were refreshed.
He stood up, terrified in disbelief, and began to run. The commander’s voice chased him through the ruins. "Coward! Get back here and finish the job!"
But he ran, his boots stumbling over severed limbs every few steps. A torso on the ground made him fall, and he looked up to see a woman crying beside him. "Father! Why... why him?" He stood up trembling, unable to lift his gaze from her.
But his own legs pushed him to flee.
He ran further, trying to escape the guilt and the haunting wails. Kuma’s words rang in his ears: Even the kids?
He had taken many lives before, but he had always justified them by his need to survive. “I deliver the hit, but Skida bears the guilt,” he had always thought. But there was no justification this time.
As he fled the city, his mind raced. The Spiral did it, not me. Yes! Yes! That's it.
The Spiral and Skida pushed me!
A moment of silence and relief by his new justification.
Then the realization hit. “No… it was all me from the beginning. Everyone had told me to fight my demons, but I hadn't. Tharos, even that stubborn zealot, had tried to push me to fight.”
He screamed into the sky, punching his heart as his tears vanished in the rain, "IT WAS ALL ME!"
He ran for days. His new body was forged for worse conditions, but the storm he had created did not stop. The dark clouds chased him, a mockery of his guilt.
He finally fell, his body giving up. He turned on his back, staring at the clouds as raindrops hit his eyes.
And screamed at the top of his lungs. "HELP! PLEASE!... ANYONE!"
He begged any deity, any demon.
Anyone to save him from himself, to save the world from him. But none answered…
Only the rain showered him, as if the sky itself were spitting in his face in rejection.
The Wanderer stood up in desperation, his back arched as he flailed his single arm to his side. But the Spiral would not let him go; it began roaring within him, a primal urge pushing him to seek combat and grow even further.
Without shifting his posture, he whispered to the entity inside, "Never again. I won't let you out."
He walked further aimlessly, avoiding any village or city in sight, gripped by the fear of losing control again.
A distant sound reached him, and he quickly ducked behind a line of trees.
Two men were passing by.
"Have you heard about Draemir?" one asked.
"Yeah," the other replied. "I heard they were doing some experiments that failed, leveling half the city."
"I heard a single man did it," the first man countered, "in revenge for his destroyed village."
The other man laughed. "One man destroys a city? And not just any city, but Draemir? Don't be so gullible, my friend."
Their voices faded into the distance as the Wanderer held his head, rasping, "No more. I promise."
He pulled himself up and continued moving, until he saw massive white walls carved with large blue blocks that shimmered even beneath the dark clouds.
He was about to turn away when he felt something different, a sensation that eased his internal struggle.