By Zephyria The explosion of gunpowder, the shaking of the earth, the fractured screams, the thick stench of blood.
Memories like inseparable shadows.
Leonardo was consumed by those memories, wandering through a terrible nightmare.
The whispers of resentment dug into his ears as if to devour him, causing a loud ringing. It sounded like human screams, or like rusty metal. Either way, it wasn’t pleasant at all.
Something hot flowed down from his brain, through his eyes, and down his spine. The thick blood vessels connected to his heart shuddered at the tingling sensation. Soon, it turned into extreme pain, spreading through the peripheral nerves to his whole body. The hazy consciousness that was fading along with it dragged him back to the battlefield once again.
Standing in the middle of an ear-splitting explosion, he often lost his sense of reality. Even though bombs were about to rain down on him, he would fall into a state of panic where he couldn’t even move a leg.
Whenever that happened, the chaotic surroundings were filled with fierce flames and splatters of blood. Pale hands that came through the red feast pulled at his skin and hair.
His head was thrown back and his neck limply bent. As his trachea opened, stinging dust rushed in. He coughed, and at some point, he couldn’t breathe. White hands gripped his neck.
Leonardo’s pupils turned white and rolled back, and he twisted his body, making a choking sound. As he opened his mouth, gasping for breath, his internal organs felt as hot as if they had been burned.
At the same time, the curse in his ear raised its voice. It screamed as if to steal his mind. He couldn’t do anything in the overwhelming hallucinations. He could only suffer, hoping to be freed.
“……do.”
Then, a familiar voice that knocked on the door of his consciousness approached. The faintly heard sound was both unclear and familiar.
It seemed that he had had a similar experience before, so it was easier to concentrate than before. As he brushed away the unpleasant whispers one by one, the blurred sound became clear. His pupils, which had been about to roll back, returned to their place. His cloudy vision was becoming clear.
Before long, a faint breath returned, and the voice from before pierced his ears once more.
“Leonardo―!”
The moment he heard Hugo’s voice cutting through the roar, Leonardo’s Gold Eyes, which had been half-closed, flashed open.
“Heueuk, keok―.”
Along with a choked groan, the first thing Leonardo recognized was the golden flames surrounding him, the ominous roar like a bomb exploding, the vast Magic Power that he couldn’t control, and his own two hands that were strangling his neck.
His entire forearm was stained purple, and his hands were clenched tightly. The veins on the back of his hands were grotesquely raised, and a liquid that was either blood or saliva was dripping from his mouth.
In a bewildered state, he tried to move his shoulders and forearms, but unlike his will, his hands would not let go. Rather, as they tightened more and more, veins stood out on Leonardo’s temples and forehead. His confused face turned pale, and things that could not become words flowed out from between his stiff lips.
As he was about to die from suffocation, Leonardo unknowingly sharpened his nails and scratched at his neck. His own ego, recognizing the pain, wanted him to stop doing this.
“Leo, calm down! Don’t lose your mind!”
But what freed him from self-harm was, unexpectedly, not the nails digging into his neck. It was Hugo’s desperate voice, which he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
Sharp currents mixed with Magic Power swirled all around. Because of that, the other person’s appearance was not easily visible in his dizzy vision. But as Hugo’s successive shouts shook his consciousness, Leonardo’s fingers, which had not been moving, gradually twitched.
His fingertips, which had been holding on so hard that his joints were bent, fell away from his neck as if they had been pushed away at some point.
“Euheuk, heoeok―, heok.”
On the pale neck that was revealed in that way, there were clear bruises in the shape of handprints. But Leonardo, unable to check the condition of his own neck, could only breathe roughly and heave his upper body. Although the air was polluted with volcanic ash and gas, he was finally able to think properly as a small amount of oxygen entered.
At the same time, as the events up to now flashed through his mind like a panorama, his spine, which had been burning up, suddenly turned cold.
‘Am I, right now, trying to die?’
Everywhere, as if Armageddon had been unleashed, rocks containing flames fell, causing roars and shockwaves. The flames of lava flickered occasionally through the black smoke, and the screams of demon beasts and the roars of nature made him realize the chaotic situation.
He didn’t remember the details of what happened after stabbing the core. He only vaguely remembered that the demon beast had returned to ‘nothingness’ and entered eternal rest along with the light of the Holy Spear.
But the problem was what came after that. As if it were the price of power, the Holy Spear gradually expanded its area and exceeded the range that could be controlled. Then, it sucked in the things around it one by one, and in the end, it even tried to swallow him.
After struggling in the distorted space-time gap, he was barely able to escape after releasing Magic Power. After that, everything in front of him was painted in darkness, and when his vision brightened from time to time, only his appearance of not being able to control his power and Agrizendro’s voice chasing after him lingered.
Leonardo, who was shocked, covered his body with his arms and lowered his upper body. His whole body was trembling. He had thought that the things that had been strangling his neck until just now were the resentment that followed him, but he realized that that was not the case.
The Ideological Education that the Imperial Army constantly instilled in the S-Class Mages. One of them was ‘to commit suicide if you are on the verge of going berserk’. This was to minimize the damage that could be caused by the rampage of a Mage with strong Magic Power.
If the person going berserk was an S-Class, just controlling him would take an enormous amount of time and manpower. If casualties occurred, it was common for Mages of the same rank to fight each other to the death and be annihilated.
Therefore, the Imperial Army’s policy was to have the person himself end his own life before an accident occurred and meet an honorable death. His ego, which had been thoroughly brainwashed by such Ideological Education, was unconsciously strangling his own neck when he was on the verge of going berserk.
As he thought that far, the consciousness he had regained began to shake madly. He was very anxious because he didn’t know when his hands would strangle his neck again. The fear that was slowly creeping in consumed him from head to toe.
Only one thought came to Leonardo’s mind. He had to get as far away from people as possible and take the Stabilizer that Alex Siles had given him.
Barely making a decision, he hurriedly changed direction and rummaged through his inner pocket with trembling hands. Even in the midst of the chaos, he had carefully kept the vial of pills in his inner pocket. He had even cast an enhancement magic on it just in case, so he had to hope that it would hold up well in his arms.
As Leonardo desperately wished, he groped his chest and his fingertips touched the round surface. As soon as a tingling thrill flowed through his fingers, Leonardo grabbed it and took it out.
Then, just as he was about to pull out the stopper of the vial,
Changgaeng―!
Due to his uncontrollable Magic Power and brute strength, the vial shattered with a chilling sound.
Without even realizing that the area under his eyes had been scratched by the sharp fragments, his Gold Eyes, filled with despair, widened.
“Ah.”
Letting out a sigh mixed with dismay, he immediately tried to grab the pill that was slipping through his fingers.
As he fumbled and threw himself downwards along with gravity, he was fortunate enough to see a piece of the fallen pill caught in a gap in the Boulder. More than half of it was broken and the size was very small, but he really didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t eat even that.
But all the situations were unfairly not on his side. A fierce Boulder pouring down from above mercilessly fell on the place where his gaze was fixed.
“Ah, no―!”
Kwaaaang―!
His voice, filled with resentment, was buried in the roar and scattered. The place that had been dug out as if a bombardment had been poured out in an instant was only left with sizzling Boulder fragments. The white solid pill, which was his last hope, could no longer be found.
“……Ah.”
Watching the hope that had turned to dust before his eyes, Leonardo only uttered the voice that was intermittently coming over. His bloodshot eyes did not know how to fall. Even if the stinging ashes hurt him, he couldn’t even blink an eye.
He just covered his face and head with both hands as despair covered his whole body. He shook his head to deny reality, and then sharpened his fingertips and grabbed his hair. At the same time, unleashed Magic Power raged from his whole body. In the end, a desperate cry rose to his chin.
“Eu, euk, uueok.”
But when his blocked throat opened, it was not a cry that came over from his trachea. A hot liquid gushed out. Unable to hold back his nausea, he gasped and vomited, and a black mass of blood came over and soaked the front of his clothes.
No matter how badly he was injured, he had never vomited this much blood. Seeing that his condition was deteriorating uncontrollably, Leonardo’s eyes were filled with shock and he covered his mouth with his hand.
Each time blood dripped between his trembling fingers, his mind rapidly collapsed.
“Leo!”
Kwaaaang―!
And then, Agrizendro’s voice, which had only been heard from afar, now echoed from a fairly close place.
Leonardo flinched and raised his head because of the sound of destruction that rang out at the same time as the shout. The many Boulder chunks that had been pouring down on his head were instantly halved, and through them, a man with radiant blue eyes was approaching him.
Hugo’s appearance, entangled in the swirling currents of Magic Power, was so badly cut and scratched that it was difficult to find a place that was intact. As he seemed to be rushing into the vortex formed around him, Leonardo began to flee into the deeper abyss so that Hugo could not approach.
“D, don’t come near me!”
He was now on the verge of going berserk, or rather, he was already in a berserk state. If he allowed someone to come near him in this situation, he might unintentionally tear them apart and kill them with his Magic Power.
He had been stressed by his uncontrollable abilities throughout his stay on the peninsula. It was not difficult for those memories to become a fuse and fall into a panic due to the fear of going berserk.
Leonardo, who no longer trusted himself, did not stop even at Hugo’s shouts that echoed from behind.
His skin was burning as if it were burning, his vision flashed, and he was losing his mind. Just as all kinds of senses were mixed together and pricking his sensitive nerves, suddenly, the front of his eyes darkened rapidly.