MAGUS INFINITE

I looked at the boy, and the coldness in me wanted to kill him, and this was not necessarily out of cruelty; it was just simple deduction. This child was a member of the Conclave, and he was a part of the atrocity happening; who knows if he had killed other children in his time here, and what sort of monster he could grow to become.

I had set myself to clear the Conclave from this continent; if I was not killed, then I would kill them all, and that promise did not have room in it for the question of whether what I was killing was a child or if they were afraid of dying.

Closing my eyes, I looked back at the memories of my slaughter, and yes, I had killed children in some of them, but I wondered why I was not killing this child and moving on.

I slowly raised my hand, and the boy began to shake, while whispering under his breath; well, he thought he was whispering, but I could hear everything he was saying as if he was screaming it into my ears.

Mages do not pray, and the boy was not praying to a god; he was only saying farewell to his family. He did not know his parents, but he had two older brothers, and he was saying goodbye to them.

My hand paused mid-motion, and I asked the boy, ”What’s your name?”

”What... what?”

”Your name, boy- what is it?”

He looked at me, and his hands slowly steadied. ”Liam,” he said after a while.

I nodded. ”One day we will meet again, Liam, and this world would be different, and children like you would not be forced to fight wars like this.”

My hand completed the motion, and his small head fell from his neck; his body stood still for a moment before it fell to its knees.

I gritted my teeth so hard that a sweet taste flooded my mouth. I looked up at the sky, and I began to see changes across it... It was not yet enough; I had not shown the conclave enough pain.

I glanced at the fox on my shoulder, and she was quiet, but she was looking at me with bright blue eyes. I smiled at her, but this smile was filled with sadness.

With a mental click. I removed Lightning Arcanist and the Heavenly Beast Tamer Title from my status, and I slotted Storm Bearer and Death Consort.

”Elric, please...” The Moon Fox’s eyes widened for a moment before she vanished, and my white hair began to turn red, as a cool voice entered my soul, ”My Beloved, I knew you would call on me. Are you here to deal death?”

I paused and nodded, ”Yes.”

Death laughed, ”This world is filled with the dead. Are you ready to carry all the Weight of the Dead?”

”Yes.”

”My Beloved, you are going to be my favorite.”

Her voice sank deeper into me, and I gritted my teeth in pain as hundreds of chains made from blood burst out from my back and passed through every body I had slain on this field, and the chains did not stop moving; they continued pushing into the distance, disregarding the constraint of space and time until they plunged into everyone that I had killed.

I fell to my knees when, in an instant, it felt as if I had just carried the weight of a mountain on my back.

I spent several seconds doing nothing but taking in long, deep breaths. I knew that this weight was not being exerted on my body, but my soul... however, there was something strange about my body due to Mortal Shell.

This Broken Celestial ability stitched my soul and body together. It ensured that it was very hard to damage my soul. It was one of the reasons I was able to spend my soul without any restraint any longer, because the regenerative capabilities of my body were boosting the regeneration of my soul... and in this instance, a weight that should only be borne by my soul could be carried on my body as well.

After a few seconds, my eyes that were tightly shut slowly opened, and I stared down at my hands; they appeared normal, but I could see faint trails of red lightning inside my channels.

I looked up, and I saw a dark cloud whose center was bloody red slowly gathering above me. Red lightning flickered in the center of that growing storm cloud, and I felt a connection with that storm... as it turned out, Death Consort and Storm Bearer was the perfect combination.

Storm Bearer made me a Storm Source, but the lightning inside me was now cold, and the essence it was pulling from all around me was lightning that had been colored by death.

With Storm Bearer active, every moment that passed, the range of the storm gathering above me could cover the entire continent. I had once feared this power, but now, I was counting on it.

I looked behind me, and I stared at the chains of blood that had pierced through the corpses, and I let the coldness sink into my veins. There was once a time when I would run from a fate like this, but that time had passed; it was gone with the ashes of my home and the tears of the innocent.

All that was precious has been lost, and the only thing left behind was the monsters, and I will be the greatest of them all.

From the moment I took my first life, this path had already been decided, and every life that I had collected would not be forgotten, because they had not finished paying.

I lifted one knee from the ground, and the ground for several thousand meters shook and sank an inch. With that motion, the shrieking souls of everyone I had killed were ripped from their corpses.

These souls had the shapes of their bodies when they died, but it was as if they were all soaked with blood, and blood was dripping from their bodies that evaporated in the air.

I fully came to my feet, and all chains behind me rose into the air, carrying 12,358 souls, and they all shrieked as they were lifted to the sky, their voices rising into the heavens.