Chapter 102: Recall of Fervour

I opened my eyes to a vast battlefield, one sprawling with humans, beasts and monsters.

I gazed around; my expression bewildered.

Where in the wo-

"GET UP, SOLDIER! WE'RE NOT DONE YET!"

I heard a gruff voice exclaim, prompting me to twist my throbbing head to the right.

Ugh...what's happening?

My vision was blurry, struggling to discern the obscure figure who was marching to my side.

"SOLDIER!"

The voice called out again and soon I was yanked to my feet.

My vision grew even more blurry, becoming nothing more than a hazy kaleidoscope of mismatched colors.

A powerful hand gripped my right arm, and pulled me to the side, "BRACE YOURSELF SOLDIER! WE ARE AT THE PRECIPICE OF THE END! THE KINGDOM OF FIRE SHALL BE VICTORIOUS!"

The man's voice grew with even more vigor, "THAT MONSTER, BALOR, WILL FALL! OUR KING WILL SLAUGHTER HIM!"

BOOM!!

A powerful shockwave shook the world, sending me and the man plummeting backwards, into the soil.

I saw something move in my vision and the man yelled again, "LOOK! DO YOU SEE THE VALIANCE OF OUR KING?!"

My vision which was once hazy slowly began to clear and soon the view of the world came to my eyes.

They widened in shock.

"Wh-wha?!"

DOOM.

Hundreds of meters away from my position in the chaotic battlefield, an especially harrowing battle was being fought.

A battle between a man wrapped in ceremonial garments, wielding countless of swords and bathed in scorching flames, and a monster who...

Wait a moment!

"I-isn't that the Breathing Giant?!"

I yelled at the top of my lungs, truly and utterly bewildered.

Indeed.

The monstrous titan who was engaging the radiant man in battle was indeed the Breathing Giant.

"BREATHING GIANT?! HMPH! HE DOES BREATHE AND IS A GIANT BUT WHAT A NAME! THAT IS BALOR!", the man who was next to me spoke in his usual energetic tone.

I turned to him, and with my eyes working, I was able to see him fully.

He was a man who seemed to be in his early thirties, spotting a scruffy black beard, calloused fair skin and wearing a suit of rubicund scale mail armor, on its right breastplate was an engraving of three suns – the signature of the Kingdom of Fire.

A black plumed helmet with narrow eye-slits rested on his head and a sword, which I believed to be a gladius, rested in his right grip – its blade lined with intricate patterns.

I blinked.

Is that aesthetic or is the sword ma-

BOOM!!

Another shockwave emanated in the distance, formed from a mere step of the Breath- I mean Balor.

My eyes remained fixated on the two figures.

The man, the King of the Kingdom of Fire, had several flaming swords revolving around him like a dozen fireflies. He charged them fiercely at the towering mass of Balor, the Breathing Giant and the King of Chaos.

HA...

When I had first seen the Giant, its monstrous size immediately became apparent to me but seeing it alive, standing and fighting, I became deeply aware of how truly... how utterly ginormous it was.

On God, what the actual fuck?!

I stared at the one-eyed Giant who's glistening red skin pulsed with each movement. He resisted the blades of the Flame King, using his large sword as a deterrent against him.

Back in the quarry, I had never seen the Giant's full face. The reason was because of the thick dust fog that obscured the edges of the chasm, shrouding its legs and head.

Never had I expected that the Breathing Giant will turn out to be motherfucking Balor, the King of Chaos and the Ruler of the Fomorians!

But wait...

I frowned.

If the Breathing Giant was Balor, then why were the Fomorians devouring his corpse?

The conclusion I had reached earlier was that just like me, they wanted to escape from the quarry, into the Abyss Below but this new revelation now had just shattered that notion.

And...

I raised my head up, taking in the dreadful battle.

How did he die?

SWOOSH!!

Far in the distance, the eponymous Flame King and Balor, the Ruler of the Fomorians clashed with each other. Powerful shockwaves accompanied by blazes of heat and bullets of dust erupted from each of their blows. Searing flame, blades of steel and a fog of familiar dust swirled with each other, obscuring the harrowing battle.

Meanwhile at the closer parts of the battlefield, warriors of the Kingdom of Fire clashed against other monsters, including the Fomorians.

I stared at the chaotic land with a solemn gaze, watching as humans and monsters alike were being brutally slaughtered.

Now that I think of it...

My gaze turned over to the man beside me who was brandishing his sword to rejoin the battle.

It's been a while since I have encountered humans...

I turned back to the field. I watched as a Fomorian ruthlessly batted down a soldier with its club, causing the man to crash into the ground.

The man urged himself to his feet, trying to rise only to get his head brutally smashed by the Fomorian or... at least that was what was supposed to happen.

If the man standing beside me, didn't suddenly just throw out a fiery arc from his gladius.

"YVAN!"

SCREE!!

The Fomorian let out a cry as its arm fell off, and at the same moment, the soldier immediately rose and pierced the Fomorian's chest with his blade, extinguishing the light in its eyes.

Yvan, the soldier, turned to us – a stern expression on his face – gave a short bow and returned to the war.

My gaze lingered on the man's blade, its pattern glowing slightly before losing its luster.

I remained silent for a moment before asking, "Why are you showing me this?"

The man didn't respond immediately, he simply stared forward, watching the battle before speaking,

"Because I wanted our struggle to be seen."

"..."

"I wanted someone to see our struggles...the struggles of I and my brothers."

The man paused, taking off his helmet and looking down,

"The King couldn't win."

"He couldn't defeat Balor. Balor's might was too great even for our king.", he paused before continuing, "This war is the Great Cataclysm, the war that caused this Palisade to fall."

My face was passive but I listened with rapt attention.

"This war...it was gruesome...it was harrowing. It had claimed so many lives...too many.", his voice cracked, letting in an emotion; grief,

"The King had assured us that he would bring down Balor with his own two hands and we believed him. After all, he was the same man that had won countless battles against demons, elves, angels and even other lesser deities. He had protected the Kingdom of Fire for eons but in the end, he was still...painfully human."

They burned. They bled. They begged for the King to save them.

But the King burned too.

I stared at the raging battle in the distance, which slowly seemed to grow out of perspective.

"So how did he die? Who killed Balor?"

The man was silent for a moment before saying, "The Inevitable."

My head snapped in his direction, my eyes asking a silent question.

"When the King lost, his influence was destroyed and as a result, the Kingdom of Fire was overrun by the Fomorians. Balor was ruthless, he didn't let any human live. He made sure that we were all thoroughly hunted down and slaughtered."

"The Palisade collapsed, plummeting into the Eon Ocean and becoming the Land of Balor."

"He ruled it for many millennia until something dreadful happened."

I blinked, "What happened?"

The man turned to me and smiled, "The Abyss swallowed the Palisade."

I was stunned, remaining still for many minutes before asking, "Wait...how do you know all this? How did you survive?"

The man's smile widened slightly, but it didn't quite reach his eyes, "I and the several citizens of the Kingdom of Fire were all eaten by Balor."

My eyes widened, and a strange unease gripped my heart.

"Many of the netizens were quickly digested and destroyed, I and my fellow soldiers were able to escape his abdomen and invade other parts of his body. We thought of destroying it from the inside but it was futile. Balor's body later consumed us and made us a part of it."

"Each of us slowly succumbed to the process becoming mindless..."

"Except you. Why?", I narrowed my eyes.

The man laughed, "I was stubborn."

At his words, I twitched slightly.

"I had wanted to rebel, I had wanted to destroy, I had wanted to win against Balor but all I did was prolong my own suffering..."

I stared at the man for a moment and asked,

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Didn't I say before? I wanted our struggles to be remembered."

"You're lying.", I spoke with a cold expression.

The man went silent, then he spoke, his voice dripping with raw, unfiltered malice,

"You are right. I am lying.", he paused before saying, "I'm lying because...I hate you so much."

He turned his head towards me, staring at me with a frighteningly inhuman gaze.

"My brothers whom I had suffered with, who had endured an experience much worse than death, met their end to a foolish youth swinging a sword."

"They were slaughtered as beasts, as mindless animals."

His gaze bore deep into me, reaching the very depths of my soul. I used every willpower I had to stop myself from shaking.

"You see...I want you to feel every pain they've had. Every harrowing experience they've endured, I want it to burden you for the rest of your miserable, wretched life!"

My face twitched, my lips tugging up slightly.

"I would love to subject you to pain, I would love to kill you over and over again! But I won't need to..."

The man's smile grew even wider,

"The Abyss is a cruel wretched place...it is truly and utterly vile. You stupid fool won't last a cycle in there. It will twist you, break you and toy with you in so many ways. You'd be dead before you even know it...but I don't want that...I want you to live with their burdens, regretting their death till the day you die."

My eyes were half-lidded, my heart encroached by fear. I was struggling desperately to conceal the extreme fear I was feeling but deep within that storm was another emotion...

Glee.

"Hihihehe...fine then, I'll take their burdens to my grave...where it'll never see..."

I paused, my eyes reflecting the large pillar of flame that fell from the sky.

"The beauty of fire."

"You-"

The man twitched, lunging forward to grab my throat.

I didn't react. I simply waited for the very moment; a blinding light erupted in the distance.

SWOO...

And then the man, the battlefield and the world turned to dust.

The void returned and my body fell through the cracks but not before the system spoke,

[You have gained an Uncommon Item: Crown of Thorns.]