Chapter 74 - Reaper

Just as Elior was preparing to leave, a glitch struck his soul and body again as he fell on his four limbs. Moreover, a couple of flies just behind him. Though not the big ones, they were still deadly to him.

Elior was preparing to deal with them, getting control of his body when one of the corpses flying just a yard behind him blasted into incineration. The other one got the same treatment as his eyes drifted off towards the whistle slender figure holding the revolver.

Aanya was looking exactly at him at his bloody mask and face. To his knowledge, she did not like this type of vigilante business, but she still blasted all the flies that came in his way, keeping an eye on him.

Others have noticed him too, but they were too busy dealing with the flies. Now Elior needs to find an opening to escape from the gaze of his senior. And with an exchange of glances, Roan left him in care of Aanya as he had to take care of the corpse files.

Elior stood up and with the only rapier in his arm, he fought the corpse and wandered to the sides, where no guardians were protecting.

"If you want to live, don't wander around on your own," Aanya said in between her shooting. She was even moving towards him, and he was not sure if she was trying to protect him or uncover his identity. Probably both.

"I can take care of myself," Elior answered with a gruff voice as the voice tuning runes got destroyed in the mask.

"How come a dungeon appeared here out of nowhere?" Aanya shouted, working with her gun to blast the corpse flies. Even with her ability, she was finding it hard to shoot them. "And out of all people, a suspicious person like you appeared here. I would like to take you in for questioning."

Elior gritted his teeth and moved faster, ignoring the flies as if he could. Like Aanya mentioned, she won't let him be on his own. She was too far on the righteous sides and with her values, she would never leave a suspicious figure like him. Not to mention he was suspected of killing so many garbage apprentices and appearance in many siting of dungeons.

The only way for him to escape from here was to turn on his void stealth, but to do that, he would need to be alone so that Aanya won't have a particular place to look for. His order was still lower, and even though he had overpowered ability, he still could not hide it from her as she seemed to have even more overpowering ability that he was not sure of.

Like how she had teleported him and the others on the advancement mission by shooting a ray of light out of her gun, and yet killing these flies with the same gun. He had been suspicious about her power from the times he had seen her using in both of the timelines, but he was not concrete about how far she could reach with it.

A huge amount of the flies were coming at them now, and Elior thought this should be the chance. He was similarly not worried for his senior, not because he was too invested in fleeing, but he knew Aanya was far more powerful than she looked.

Even though she had not reached the ranks of guardian, she was not far from it. Like how he had killed a chaos fiend two orders higher than his level, putting his life on the line. She could do something like that too, though it was overly limited. Killing two levels higher than would be impossible for her, but she could deal with monsters easily that were close to her level. 

As he had thought, Aanya did not run after him, seeing the incoming three meters large corpse fly. Light shimmered from her gun as it transformed into a sleek long-sword in white, matching her dress. She looked no less than the knights of the light of the mother world.

"Don't you run off!" Aanya shouted at him, battling the fly with her sword. The smaller ones were all over the place, making it harder for her to battle alone with the huge one.

Elior would be an idiot if he listened to her. The corpse fly was only around level 100, so it would not take her much time to deal with it, so in between, he had to flee from her as well as the other guardians in the path.

Turning away from there, he immediately turned on his void stealth to hide, but it was not over yet. It would only end when he escapes safely from the environment. The guardians surely would not be able to create the barrier so quickly, but they surely could do it in the direction where most civilians should be. Keeping that in mind, he ran.

Yet he did not even move a couple of hundred meters away when his senses picked up some danger. Elior moved away immediately and a ray of light hit where he was standing.

It was none other than Aanya, who had a darker expression. She actually finished the corpse fly and was able to find him while he was using void stealth. 

Elior did not want any conversation with her or even a contact as he started to run, but that glitch in his soul appeared again, leaving him on his four limbs again.

Aanya knitted her brows and walked slowly towards him. "Tell me," she asked in a cold tone. "Did you kill those apprentices?"

Blood rushed out of Elior's mouth as he stood looking at her. In any confrontation, he would surely lose in his current situation. So, he has to do something to misdirect her attention for a few seconds.

"Yes," the masked vigilante said as his eyes turned vacant and cold. "And I will kill more."

Aanya's eyes turned even colder as she transformed her revolver into a sword. "Why?" she asked.

"Why do you ask?" the masked vigilante laughed. "Because they deserve it. They are the very reason something like this happened today."

Aanya arched her brows. She was surely not buying this entirely, though she had some suspicions. "Even if they did something wrong, who are you to punish them? Who gave you rein to punish them? There are guardians in place to stop them, court for trials, yet you are killing them as if you are the judge and you are the punisher."

"Someone had to do it," the masked vigilante said and prepared his rapier to battle her. "And it's the fastest way. If I leave it to the legal services, then the earth is left to be doomed. They would destroy the earth from its very core when you are still preparing to put a few small fish behind the bar."

His words seemed to anger Aanya even more, and it was what he was attempting. She came at him, bearing the light sword.

The masked vigilante was barely able to keep her sword at bay when she said to him, gritting her teeth. "Only you think that way."

"You still have not learned, seeing your mother dying?" The masked vigilante said in the cold vacant voice, eyeing her. Those cold eyes saw her shaking, and he continued. "Aanya Neldor Daylight, you surely are your mother's daughter. Like your mother, you also think everyone fights for the same goal.

"If that was true, then Emperor Ashoka already should have won against the dark force thousands of years ago, yet he was betrayed by his own people."

He twisted his body below her sword next and moved behind her to deal a blow, though she stopped it with a shaking sword.

"WHO ARE YOU?" she shouted with a shaking voice. Many people of the mother world did not know how her mother had died, yet hearing it from someone here made her shake.

"I truly respect people like your mother. People like your mother fought for the good of mankind with their all—they surely deserve my most heartfelt respect. But i felt unfortunate for them as well. You will surely go in that direction as well, give your all in protecting mankind until dying."

Elior felt awful using her trauma against her, but he had no other option. "They say, in each generation among the maidens of the Daylight clan, there is a seer. Your mother was the previous seer. Did she see her doom?"

"YOU KNOW NOTHING," Aanya screamed with her legs shaking.

Elior exploited that opportunity and broke the space around her sword. The sword flew away from her arm.

"Yes, I know nothing," Elior admitted. "But I know something that you can't deny.

"You will surely follow your mother if you do not let me do what I'm doing." Elior then damaged the earth below her with a shockwave, helping her shaking legs to fall.

Aanya fell to the ground as if all the power left her body, shaking.

Elior stood straight and looked at her pitiful state on the ground. Even though the words he used are cruel, someone really needed to tell her that. Sadly, he had to do it now when she was not that prepared for it.

"There are people I respect wholeheartedly," the vigilante said, walking away. "Yet there are few people I could not help but murder. Even though the way I was using is sinful, and it pains me to kill a few people, I will surely do it. 

"I will surely do it, in the hope of the brightest dawn. I will surely become the reaper in the hope of the brightest day."

____________________________

END OF PART ONE: REBORN