Dawn- An age of Darkness

A charred pile of corpses. 

The smell was worse than that night back in Tehram. 

A squeak. Something was alive in there. I got the impression it was that thing I saw before. 

The corpses were mostly dead. The ones in front were very dead. I didn't feel like touching them, I didn't want to. 

But I had to. 

I had to take a look. I dug through the corpse. But even after suffering all this much because of goblins, even after knowing how evil and vile they were, I felt bad. I felt pity. 'Am I going soft again?' 

"What are you doing?" Came a high-pitched voice from behind me. Someone was mad. 

I didn't think she'd be done with the goblins this quick. And not to mention I never thought she'd disobey my wishes and come here in the first place. 

"Nothing." I kept on digging without even looking. 

"That's it? You're not even going to say a word?"

"…" I'd found something. "Take a look at this," I tried to look back. 

"Hey don't change the subject!" She came close and stood right in front of me. Her big luscious eyes were kind of watery and her glare wasn't inspiring anything other than a bit of regret. 

I'd made a big mistake and I had to own it. 

I touched her shoulders and sighed. "Sorry. I shouldn't have done that." I tried to smile but I couldn't. "I'll try to make it up to you." I just didn't know how. 

Strangely my fake arm was still here and I had no idea how to turn it off. 

She looked away. "You better." Her pout was kind of cute. "So, what are you talking about?"

I let her go. "Take a look at this." I showed her what was below the pile of burnt corpses. 

"A human? No, that's a goblin. We should kill it."

One of the charred goblins was still alive deep there, and the moment it heard us, it tried to attack. But the poor thing was already almost dead. 

"I think it's something different. Look." I tried using my magic as a bit of light source. 

"The skin is pink?" At first, it was hard to tell because of the light and coals from the corpses, but as Alisa and I looked carefully, she and I both could tell, something wasn't right. "It could be a different breed but regardless, it's a goblin." But in the end, she concluded it to be a goblin. 

"Pl-pleas- don't kil- her- please. Kill us- al- of i-not her-" The nearly dead goblin tried to grab my sleeve. It had tears in its eyes and this was probably the first time I heard a typical goblin try to formulate something like this. "She- our world-" It could no longer speak and foamed. It was about to die. 

"What?" Alisa stared at me. "What is it saying?"

"Let's decide later." I picked up the goblin from within the pile of corpses, it actually looked a lot like a human toddler, just with pointy ears, kind of like an elf's? It was already unconscious, so no worries there. But it didn't even have a single burn mark on its body. The goblins gave their lives for it, so it couldn't be harmed. 

'There must be more to this… what if-" What if everything I knew was wrong? I'd assumed a lot of things in my life and most of them were just wrong. So I couldn't ignore the possibility that I could be wrong about these things too. Though I highly doubted the possibility. 

I looked at the nearly dead goblin. "Don't worry, I'll look into all this. You have my word." If the goblins were as evil as I thought, I'd murder this thing without any mercy just like we'd eradicated everything here. 

It looked at me with wonder, gratitude, and distrust but in the end, passed on with a relieved face. This was really, the first time I saw something like this from a goblin. 

"What are you saying!" Alisa rebuked stared at me with confusion again. "You can't trust the words of goblins!"

"I'll fill you in later."

With that said, I stared at Dick and Ve, as they finished off the rest of the goblins. The whole colony was annihilated right before my eyes. There was nothing left. 

The few that were still alive didn't have much to live with those wounds. 

Most of the unconscious people were waking up one by one. And some of them were passing out seeing and smelling the horror before their very eyes. 

'But is this really making the world a better place? What am I thinking! These things kill people!' My thoughts were a bit jumbled up. I didn't know what to think or believe but I wanted to know more. 

A pebble fell from the ceiling. With twitching eyes, I looked up: I had sinking feeling that we were in deep trouble. 

There were cracks. 

'Oh shit.'

The ceiling above started to crumble right before my eyes. 

"I might have damaged the walls a bit more than necessary." Ve walked casually. 

"You think!" I fired back. "And his place is a maze, how're we going to get out!"

Not to mention we had a bunch of unconscious people with us. 

"Everyone, get near me!" Dick screamed and we all listened. The conscious were dragging the unconscious towards Dick and we helped. But when we went closer to him, he looked straight into my eyes and handed me the shield. "Just this once. I'm never giving this to you again."

"Funny, you talk like a certain geezer despite being only one-fourth of his age. And how would giving this shield to me do anything?"

He clicked his tongue. "Just imagine a barrier or something. Supposedly this shield has that but I could never do that, and if you can't too, we die. Simple."

Too simple.

I sighed and handed over the toddler to Alisa: she quickly wrapped it into some kind of cloth and made sure not to let anyone see anything. I guess she trusted me. But that only made me feel bad as she thought I might not have trusted her. but that wasn't the truth, I did trust her and that was why I wanted her to stay away from this place. 

"Servesta, if you will." Without a word, Servesta picked me up and held me on his shoulder. I pointed the shield upward while holding the mystic blade in my other hand. I could feel that with both of these things combined, my power was amplified a great deal. "Everyone, I'd advise you to hug Servesta tightly!"

Because the whole ceiling was falling. 'I really hope this works.'

I let my mana flow through the shield and tried to do what Dick told me. A thin line appeared over my head, but it was small and it didn't last. But for the first time, something actually worked on my first try. 

A large portion of the ceiling fell on the sides and crushed a lot of dead bodies. I had to hurry. 

I tried again, this time, with all the mana I had. A much bigger one formed and it looked stronger. But maintaining it took a lot, a lot of focus and I was being drained of mana. 'This might be bad.' But I had to hold on. 

But just as I was about to run out, the mana from the pendant revitalized me a little, but it wasn't enough. I only had another minute- at best. 

"Just fall already!" I wanted this to be over as fast as possible. 

And the ceiling didn't disappoint either. It fell right away!

But I was forgetting that the ceiling was five stories below ground and this place was two stories below that. Meaning, there was a hell amount of stuff just waiting to fall on us. 

At the last moment of impact, I closed my eyes and there was a heavy thud. But I didn't feel like being crushed under pressure. I opened my eyes, and well, though everything was falling, it was like there was an invisible barrier on top of us or rather, on top of the barrier I'd created. 

I looked around and- it was the goblin mages. Even charred, barely clinging to consciousness, they were protecting us, rather, the toddler I'd handed over to Alisa. What was she to them?

And what were the goblins?

I'd only seen goblins mages who couldn't actually use magic other than maybe increase their speeds a little. But these ones were dishing out literal barriers. 

The goblins were giving their lives but they still cast some sort of barrier magic to prevent us from getting harmed. One by one they fell, and yet, another one took their place. 

But then I realized, it wasn't magic and it wasn't just the mages either. My blood went cold for a second. 'They are using their life force." And every single one of them was doing it. 

"W-we shall t-tru-"

They were all crushed and I felt the weight of the ceiling and the weight of something else too. But thanks to the barriers formed before, I could take this.

I didn't know why the goblins would trust someone who just wrecked their all, but I didn't feel like betraying that trust. As per my word, I was going to get to the bottom of this, and for that, I had to survive. 

I was past my limit, but that didn't stop me. 

ARHHG!

Screaming wasn't helping me with this but at least it was helping me divert my mind. Just how much was left?

Servesta's feet were sinking. He was in pain too. 

"Please hang in there!"

"Don't give up!"

"We believe in you."

The words of the people below were nice but they were distracting me. But it did make me feel good about myself. 

I breathed hard, my stamina was drained and I was basically spent. Even the light from both the pendant and the stone was gone. The sword's light was also twinkling. I'd used up everything I had. 

But it wasn't enough. 

I needed more. 

I wanted more!

My bones creaked, my shoulders felt like they'd break, but I had to do this. 

I could feel Servesta was under the pressure too, but, I had to do this!

And then all of a sudden, I started to blackout. There were no more limits. I'd already passed everything. 'This is- the best, I can do?'

"You did good, we'll take it from here."

Alisa and Ve both raised their hands in unison and a wall of fire and ice formed over our heads and pushed through the debris, as my barrier disappeared. Ve transformed and Alisa turned to ice.

"You should have done this sooner." I passed out. 'This isn't enough.'

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