"You… you… why did you…" the black-haired boy whispered, staring blankly at Max, whose chest now had a gaping hole ripped clean through it.
[Ding!! Extreme violent emotions detected.]
[Ding! Congratulations, host, for receiving a crystal-grade chest.]
[Ding! Ding! Ding!...]
The mechanical notifications rang inside Max's head like echoes in a void but he didn't care. He couldn't care. He was already hanging by a thread. NO he was seconds away from the end.
"R… run…" Max mustered the last ounce of strength in his body to whisper the word, before his legs gave out and he collapsed with a heavy thud, sliding limply to the side.
There was so much he wanted to say.
"I'm sorry for your pain, why didn't you listen, this is all my fault, I couldn't repay you, I wanted to help, why was I so weak" Even killing that mustached bastard crossed his mind. He had never hated anyone in his life as much as he hated that man in this moment.
But his body betrayed him. He couldn't move. Couldn't speak. All he could do was stare up at the sky through blurry eyes, clinging to the boy's gaze trying not to close his eyes trying not to rest even though every cell in him screamed for sleep.
The black-haired boy said nothing. He just knelt there hollow, lifeless his eyes empty, his soul numb.
Then, slowly, he turned his head toward Max, watching as the silver-haired boy hit the ground with thud. Max's face tilted to the side, just enough for their eyes to meet each other.
His lips were trembling. Moving slowly. Painfully.
"R… run… please… run…" Max mouthed, his breath almost gone.
The black-haired boy's lips moved at last, so faint it was almost a ghost of a sound.
"You… you haven't even told me your name"
His voice was hollow. Like someone speaking from the bottom of a shattered well.
"Damn it… damn it all!" the mustached man cursed, watching Max crumple instead of the black-haired boy. "He really jumped in front Idiot! Stupid brat! Please don't tell me he damaged the eye! Damn it, it'd be a complete waste now… such a fucking idiot!"
And with that
The crowd snapped out of its trance.
Gasps erupted like sparks. Eyes widened in horror.
He really did it.
He killed a kid.
This guy's insane
Panic spread. Some people turned and bolted, wanting no part in what had just escalated into full-on murder. The marketplace that had once been packed with noise and chatter quickly began to empty. People ran. Screamed. Whispered in fear.
But some remained.
Not out of bravery but out of curiosity.
Their eyes weren't filled with fear. They were filled with wonder.
Because the boy with the blue eyes was about to die.
And they had all heard the same thing over and over all over stories and books. That anyone who harmed one with such eyes… would be cursed.
And now, they waited.
Watched.
To see if the stories were true.
"So stupid… so damn stupid!" The mustached man kept cursing like a madman, pacing and snarling under his breath, still reeling from the events.
The black-haired boy slowly turned his gaze toward him The one who had started all this the man who almost killed him and nearly kill the silver haired boy now lying on the ground.
His hollow eyes fell back to silver haired boy. The boy's lips were still moving. Barely. Still trying to say "r… run" in a voice that no longer reached the world.
Why?
Why did that kid jump in front of him?
Why was he feeling this hollow pain in his chest for someone he didn't even know?
Why did it hurt more than losing his own arm?
He didn't understand. This ache inside it was louder than the numbness in his body. Deeper than the pain of his ruined dreams. Even now, his right arm was gone. Torn from him. His dream of becoming a wand maker... shattered.
"And he knows it. An arm doesn't just grow back unless you have a six-star mage to heal your body. Such mages are said to possess the power to regenerate limbs with their magical spells, but a six-star mage? That's just a legend. Even if they do exist, why would someone like that help him? He's just a street kid, a nobody."
That dream of growing his arm back would never come back.
And yet
This pain was worse.
The black-haired boy looked down at his steel wand lying on the ground. He reached for it with his only remaining hand his left. His fingers trembled. His muscles felt like jelly.
But he picked it up.
Even as his vision blurred even as every fiber of his being screamed to stop, to rest, to give up he raised the wand.
The mustached man, who had been casually approaching Max to inspect the condition of the eye, froze mid-step. He noticed the wand pointing at him.
The black-haired boy's entire body shook as he forced his arm up barely able to keep the weight of the wand steady. His arm felt like lead. His limbs numb. But the rage in his eyes it burned like hellfire.
He didn't scream.
He roared it from the very depth of his soul.
"DIRUO!!"
A bolt of green light exploded from the tip of his wand, laced with pure, undiluted hatred every ounce of pain, anger, and vengeance that had been festering inside him let loose in one terrifying spell.
The mustached man's eyes bulged in horror.
His body instinctively dove to the side not because he saw the spell, but because he heard the name of it.
A dark spell. A forbidden one.
If that thing had hit him if the boy's aim had been just slightly better
He would've been ruined.
Dead.
Or worse.
The green beam missed him by a hair's breadth, scorching the air as it flew past.
Gasps erupted from the remaining crowd.
No one was casual now. Every onlooker stood upright frozen in place as if they'd just seen a ghost.
"D..Da…dark magic…?"A young man in the back stuttered, looking like he wanted to flee on the spot.
Now the problem had exploded into something else entirely. This wasn't just a street brawl. This wasn't just a kid resisting.
This was a direct violation of the Grand Arcane Laws.
Using dark magic in broad daylight, in the middle of a public market? The audacity. The insanity.
Even the spectators knew they wouldn't be spared.
The Arcane Order will come. Investigations. Interrogations. Arcane court summons.
None of them were leaving clean now.
And worst of all?
It was too late to run. They could only curse themselves why didn't they run back then.
The officers would track every single witness. Escape was no longer an option. They were all, in one way or another already tangled in this storm.
"Has that boy gone mad?" someone whispered, too afraid to speak louder. "Or… maybe he's not just some boy how didn't he know something like dark arts at this age"
Because only someone truly desperate or truly cursed would dare to use dark magic under the sun.
"You… you dare cast such a heinous spell on me?!" the mustached man stuttered, his voice cracking, body quaking not with rage but fear. Raw, unfiltered fear. His legs betrayed him, trembling from the shock of realizing just how close he came to annihilation.
If that spell had struck him
No. He wouldn't just be dead.
He would be unmade.
The black-haired boy's dim eyes watched the spell fade into the distance. Missed. He had put everything into it. Every ounce of rage, every flicker of life left in him. And still... it missed.
There was nothing left now.
His mana was spent. His soul frayed. His mind tainted by the darkness he dared to touch. He had tasted the forbidden, and it was already eating away at him.
His body gave in.
He fell back, collapsing with a dull thud, lying flat on the cold stone. He didn't have the strength to scream. He didn't even have strength to think.
"Y-You insolent wretch! You tried to use dark magic on me!?" the old man snarled, his voice rising like a beast unchained. "I'll rip your heart out and chew it with my own teeth! I'll—!"
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
He pointed his wand at the fallen boy.
A spell surged through the air—Iron Cut aimed directly at the last arm the boy had left.
A scream tore through the market like a thunderclap.
"AAAAARGHHHHHHHHHH!! NAAAH! NOOOO!!!"
It wasn't just pain it was agony incarnate.
Even those who had turned away winced, some falling to their knees just from hearing it.
Max, whose breath had nearly faded, whose eyes had all but shut flinched. His dying senses twitched awake.
The scream yanked his soul back from the brink.
His eyes fluttered. Heavy, like anchors.
And then, he saw him.
The black-haired boy lay beside him. Blood pooled beneath him. His face twisted in unbearable torment. His mouth wide open in a cry so raw it scarred the air itself.
One arm gone. The other freshly severed.
The blood hadn't even finished pouring before Max felt something inside him break.
This... this is my fault.
Because of him... that boy in pain.
Because of him, a stranger lost both arms... and screamed like a dying animal in the dirt.
Max wanted to scream too. To crawl toward him. To say something anything.
But even blinking felt like moving mountains.
Another roar came.
"Iron Cut!!" the old man spat again, like a rabid dog drunk on violence.
Max could only hear.
He couldn't see anymore. Not fully. His vision was smeared with tears.
And then..
Silence.
Two minutes of hell.
In the heart of the market square, under the wide, watching sky..
Two boys lay broken.
One silver-haired with a gaping hole in his chest, unmoving.
The other a black-haired child now missing all four limbs blood leaking from him like a river, his screams having finally fallen silent.
The mustached man paced like a caged animal, ranting, foaming, writhing in paranoia.
"I can't kill him… I can't! Arcane Authorities will arrive soon damn it DAMN IT! I can't run. I can't leave a mess. They'll ask questions. They'll tear me apart thinking i used dark arts if they think I killed a kid using dark magic"
He muttered to himself, clawing at his own scalp, ignoring the eyes of the crowd that now backed away in horrified disgust.
This wasn't power.
This was madness.
Why did I want those eyes? he cursed himself. Why did I ever touch this mess?
This was the worst mistake of my life.
Meanwhile on the ground Max remained. Alive. Just barely.
He didn't know how. Maybe it was the screams that kept him tethered to life. Maybe it was the guilt.
He couldn't turn his head, but he could see.
Just barely.
The black haired boy's face lay turned toward him bloodied, battered. One eye barely open.
Max's tears wouldn't stop.
His vision shook.
He wanted to ask
Why? Why did you help me? Why did you throw yourself into this storm for me?
His lips moved.
"W… why…?" he whispered. Broken. Helpless. A breath more than a word.
The boy with black hair who had every reason to give up slowly, painfully, turned his eye to meet Max's.
His lips moved.
Just barely.
"T...trust… my smile… d-didn't I… to-told you… quick guy…" he slurred, the words barely coherent. Blood slipped from his mouth. But even then he tried.
Tried to smile.
The same smile he had shown Max before.
And that smile shattered Max.
Tears fell harder.
Max's chest tightened. His eyes, heavy. His body giving in.
Why does it hurt so much?
His heartbeat, already faint, began to slow.
Thump
Thump
And then, finally
It stopped.
The boy with black hair... watched Max fall still. His eyelids closed.
And a single tear escaped his own eye.
The last thing he had left.
Two seconds
Three seconds.
Five
Ten
and
ZAAAGH
Suddenly without warning Max's right eye flared violently, a surge of raw force bursting from it.
ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!
A ripple exploded outward in all directions, like a sonic boom made of pure energy, tearing through the marketplace. Stalls buckled. Signs snapped. People were flung off their feet as the invisible wave cracked through the air, warping everything it touched
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