บท 1: Nameless Hero
"I am sorry."
Someone shouted inside his mind.
It was a heart-wrenching scream, but he was used to these. Many of his sealed shadows produce such sound at times.
But his expression was far different this time.
He felt guilt.
"I am sorry. Are you Guillemot? The Knight of South?"
Another shout.
"...Benson?"
Another.
"Didier...?"
"..."
"..."
He had killed all of them.
He had killed thousands of them.
In fact, he could quell the shadows's shouts right as he willed. Afterall, he was the Sovereign of Shadows. But he let them express their anger that time.
Because he wanted to apologise.
He was sitting on his knees, a little further away from the corpse of the Demon King, Loht. A single bright sword was shining as it was struck upon the chest of the seemingly invincible tyrant.
His eyes were blindly fixated on this scene that nobody ever anticipated. Although that was not what he was seeing.
In his mind, he could only see darkness. A seemingly endless stream of shadows and a flow of extreme shouts of despiration, hopelessness and grief.
In the dark abyss, he was watching them all. Occasionally apologizing to one and another. Of course, none of the shadows forgave him. Who would forgive him?
He cared not for a single soul but himself, as if with Loht, he would ascend to the heavens and back.
But its all a lie. Loht is dead.
He was simply doomed. Doomed to hell.
"I am... sorry..." a few drops of tear came out from the eyes of the Shadow Sovereign as he apologised again.
Did it not hurt his pride? In fact he had no pride left.
His hopes, dreams, and beliefs, all were shattered that day. He was living a lie, a lie conspired by the worst of the worst.
As though he regained his senses a little, he felt his powers fade.
Of course, since he was turning into a human. With the death of Loht, every demons on the world had returned to its original race.
As the scenes in front of him vaguely cleared up. The blurs faded, and he again, witnessed the corpse of Loht.
A certain figure was standing in front of the corpse this time though.
His blurry visions prohibited him from seeing the face. But he knew who it was. It could be only one person.
The Hero.
The Hero who was prophecied to save the world from Loht's tyranny.
He sincerely waited, still kneeling on the ground for his visions to clear so that he may take a glance at his face.
To his surprise though, he found the figure aproaching him crossing a flood of blood that made its way from Loht's corpse.
It was a figure in a pale blood-stained white robe. He had long black hair and decent features. In his right hand, he tightly grabbed a light sword. The sword was rather green in color, in fact, the same sword was struck on Loht's chest. It was obvious that sharp light was eminating from it.
At last, he noticed another feature of the Hero.
He was gently smiling as though nothing happened.
"Are you Salaric Nightfall?" The Hero asked coming very near to him.
He replied, both amazed and terrified, "I am."
"Weren't you Loht's right-hand man? Do you wish to die with him?" he asked again.
Salaric gazed downwards at a piece of his horn which broke down just a few moments ago. He picked it up and looked with a hopeless gaze.
"I am a human now."
Tears.
Drops of his tears fell on the horn, as its red and black scales started to turn into grey ashes. He looked up at the gentle yet dominating face of the Hero, then murmured, "What should I do now?"
"Aha, even I am feeling pity now..." said the Hero, but in truth he just laughed once, "Say, you wish to go to heaven. Don't you?"
"I do..."
"That is somewhere Loht can never go. But were you any better? You were his sword afterall."
"No..." he confessed. At that point his vision had nearly cleared up.
As he watched, he was only more and more impressed by the face of the Hero. He looked majestically beautiful. Grand. Yet calm, and peaceful.
Stunned for a second, he uttered again, "Can I be forgiven?"
Naturally, for someone who lived as a demon for hundreds of years, he never considered to grasp even the foundations of the orthodox religious teachings. So he asked the blessed of God himself!
Who else could give a better answer?
"Yes," the Hero exclaimed, smiling "But for a soul as black as yours... perhaps you can't atone enough in this life."
"..." Salaric's face turned paler as if he was paralyzed hearing this.
"So I recommend you to seek out a certain item."
"An it- item?" hopes ignited all of a sudden again, as he stuttered.
"Yes. Its a flower if memory servers me right. One who drinks its nectar can receive redemption."
"Where can I find the flower?" Salaric wasted no words.
"Even I don't know. How will you?" he laughed again. "But I know who knows. Go to Mayham Mountain, and seek out Yashim Yas. He is a Guardian."
"What's a guardian...?" as he asked the question he noticed a strange phenomenon.
The Hero's lower body was turning transparent before his eyes.
The Hero acted as if nothing happened again and replied, "The guardians guard the flower of course. Oh, the flower's is name is Vitaflora."
"That easy? What if... what if I defeat those guardians and forcefully get the nectar?"
Hearing this, the Hero seemed to sigh. Perhaps he expected Salaric to turn into a righteous person all of a sudden. Afterall, Loht died and he seemed to had realized how all he had done was for naught.
"It is not possible. You will understand why as you meet him. Perhaps you can see. But I can't stay much longer. Do you wish for anything else?"
Salaric found that his lower body had then turned almost entirely transparent, and almost so was his upper body.
The horn in Salaric's hand had completely turned into ashes. Aside from the sea of blood and Loht's corpse beside the Hero, everything seemed surreal to him.
His tears that were losely dropping of his cheeks had finally stopped. In the kneeling position, he looked up at the Hero again. He truly was a hero.
He could kill Salaric right if he willed but he did not. In fact, he showed him the way to seek redemption for what he had done and find a better way to live.
"Aren't you afraid that I will again cause messacres?"
He asked the most obvious question.
After Loht, and him, and perhaps those guardians he mentioned, he was supposed to be the strongest alive! Or so he knew at least.
"Aha! If you did not ask me about your redemption, I might have."
That answered his question.
But Salaric saw that the Hero was not done talking. His lower body was invisible at that point. And his upper body would hardly last for a few more seconds. Therefore this was supposed to be the Hero's last words.
Salaric understood what he had done. He sacrificed his soul to defeat Loht. Although of course, he did not appear the least bit regretting his decision.
"You see, Salaric. In my life I was always reserved and hardly talked. If I did, I did it like a charlatan, perhaps I angered a number of people for that... well perhaps they will forgive me."
Salaric kept quiet and listened to his words with full concentration.
"They will never know that I am the Hero, and oh. Do not reveal my identity to them, all right? As you can see, these are my last words. I forgive everyone, everything. I am dying a nameless tonight."
'Nameless?' Salaric pondered in his mind and thought about how less he knows about the world.
"I have met my goals. I have been satisfied. Salaric, you are the last to witness me. Go forth, seek your redemption. I wish to see you in heaven! And I want to learn your story. In fact I can confirm that yours will be a crazy journey. You know, Yashim once told me he was indepted to me. Tell him that it was I who burnt his book. Let's see where that debt goes then..." saying this, the hardly watchable figure laughed once again.
"And Salaric... my sister, she is a nameless as well. If you find her... I don't think you will though. Tell her that her name is Misha! And... my final wish is that you will forgive me for murdering the worst of the worst. Would you not? So no regret tonight! Under the full moon's gaze, I shall then take my leave..."
Salaric hopelessly looked at him for one last time and shouted with all his strength, "I will fulfill your wishes. If anybody has saved me, its you! I will stay indepted! You are the Hero!"
He kept smiling gently at the pale face kneeling down before him.
Then, he faded away.
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