Misunderstood Villain: Heroines Mourn My Death

Chapter 295: Only I Will Remain

Malik walked slowly.

One step at a time, his boots cracking the snow beneath.

And though he moved slow, every step landed with a BOOM, not metaphorical, but real.

The Aether around his body had warped, condensed, burned, and reshaped itself into fire.

It bled into the soil, warped the snow into smoke.

He was a walking, active volcano.

Every single footfall shook the earth.

Yet, for all the fear he inspired, he looked half-dead.

No, not even.

He looked post-death. Like someone who had kept going after death had already come and taken him.

Paler than ever, his skin was split, spiderwebbed with fissures of blue and gold. His eyes, which returned to their usual gold, were blank—bloodshot, flickering with dying flame.

His lips were cracked, blackened by the fire that constantly leaked from between them in slow embers.

His body hummed, barely holding itself together under the pressure.

One might think he’d be rejuvenated after becoming a Great Demon, but no.

His uniquely high healing factor was all used up in keeping him amongst the living.

So yes, though his being stabilized, he wasn’t out of the woods just yet.

He needed time.

Besides, ten days of no food, no rest, just cultivating, forcing a monstrous amount of Aether into a body that should’ve crumbled halfway through day two, and nearly turning Hollow at the end, unsurprisingly, wasn’t all that good for him.

What he did wasn’t training.

It wasn’t enlightenment.

It was punishment.

Ten days straight of sitting in a storm, clawing toward the next level of power because he had to.

And he made it.

At a price, for sure, but a price he was willing to accept.

Across from him, around him, and standing before each hill, the enemy waited.

Thirty thousand men. Thirty thousand bastards. Thirty thousand soon dead.

Earlier, not all stood in position; most were back at their camps, ones likely built just outside of this choke point, waiting for their turn to come here and die.

But now, all of them were here, heeding Malik’s call.

The call to die by his flaming hands.

Despite their numbers, not one bastard stood confident.

Not one bastard dared hurt the fifth cohort, not wanting a taste of his Hell.

They were smart enough to fear that, but they weren’t smart enough to escape.

Even now, they had still underestimated Malik.

Or perhaps they could not process his increase in power.

Either way, they were too terrified of the ten, of Shimr, to ever think of escaping.

It revealed an incredible parallel, if and when compared to a… certain group that the sharp-eyed wouldn’t fail to notice.

Yet Malik, the most sharp-eyed of all, didn’t seem to.

Again, his focus was singular.

Resisting the dome above, the one suppressing every drop of Aether in its region.

Everything under it had dimmed, but not him.

Malik had gone past suppression.

What lived inside him now wasn’t something one could cage or siphon so easily.

He himself struggled to keep it out, so what good would a wide-range Holy Relic do?

Malik walked amongst the bandits, and none of them dared attack.

Instead, they made way for him, pushing against each other to get as far as they could.

He didn’t seem to even acknowledge their efforts, eyes scanning the land where his people had thrown down their lives, until they eventually landed on the leader of the fifth and final cohort.

They paused.

“You did well.”

He whispered to all of them.

“I’ll handle the rest.”

Kabir limped up, bloodied and half-dragging his own arm.

“My Lord—are you sure—?”

Malik walked past him.

“…Right.”

Kabir nodded.

“We’ll take your path back.”

The rebels returned to their camp.

And Malik kept walking.

His dark cloak flared in the wind, flapping over his shoulders like the wings of a falling angel.

He was truly and utterly terrifying to behold, and when the enemy saw him step towards them…

“MOVE BACK!”

They nearly jumped backward.

Malik took another step.

“MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!”

He took ten steps.

“GET THE FUCK AWAY!”

Twenty.

“NONONONONONO!”

Thirty.

“I—I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING, PLEASE!”

He stopped before the screaming man.

“LORD! PLEASE HAVE MERCY!”

He drew his sword—Spine Splitter, white and curved, humming with wrath.

“I WAS FORCED TO THIS! FORCED! FORGIVE ME!”

The fire coiled up from his arms into the steel, igniting it without a single spark.

“PLEA—”

“Only I will remain.”

BOOM.

He was gone.

Vanished in a single pulse.

And then the screams started.

The pitiful man exploded, as did everyone behind him.

Not in a neat way. No. It was just disgustingly pure chaos.

A flash of movement. A blast of golden fire. And a whole battalion was erased.

One moment they stood, the next they were nothing but limbs and weapons raining from the sky.

Witnessing such incredible death, a ripple of silence passed through the ranks.

Then, holding onto that fear, they charged, their roars drowning out their doubts.

Five hundred at once.

BOOM.

Malik reappeared in their center, dragging a body by the face, sword held like a torch.

Throwing the body away, he lifted his hand and swung it down.

“FALL.”

Every hove of fire carved into the snow erupted, as did the burning remains of the bodies.

These flames spiraled upward, forming a tidal wave that fell upon all those surrounding him.

BOOOOOOM!

And ’FALL’ they did, simply unable to defend themselves.

Those outside his attack’s range weren’t safe either.

Their dormant cores overheated, killing them from the inside out.

They screamed as their own Aether imploded, turning their veins into lit fuses.

Malik didn’t even look at them.

He was focused on a new addition to this battlefield.

Magi.

Not the ten Jinn he was after, but still something of note.

Though… they weren’t at all an issue, their numbers lacking, not even matching the Jinn.

It seemed that not even the world’s most well-known birthplace of Magi could help Shimr out.

No one wanted to be associated with him, and the Jinn were likely only with him by force, large money incentives, or maybe even blackmail.

Either way, Malik didn’t care.

Preserving his Aether, he moved low, sliding under swords and then snapping bones with short, brutal strikes.

He crushed skulls with the pommel. He sliced bodies with his free hand.

One fighter made it close enough to attempt to block him, but Malik kicked through his ribcage, literally, then launched what remained of his body into the sky.

It exploded.

The battlefield kept shifting around him.

The snow melted wherever he went, replaced by ash that looked much like sand. The rocks turned red. His Devil’s Footsteps cracked open the terrain with every movement, golden shockwaves firing from his boots. Ember’s Touch launched bursts of concentrated fire that twisted mid-air and followed those who ran.

And when they tried to regroup?

He raised his sword to the sky.

A whip of golden fire burst forth—

BOOOOOM!

It slammed the ground, detonating the valley floor.

A crater twenty meters wide swallowed men, weapons, armor, and rocks whole.

When the dust cleared, all that remained were burning silhouettes stamped into the snow.

Malik kept walking.

They kept dying.

He didn’t get tired.

He didn’t breathe heavy.

Yet he wasn’t immortal.

His core was overworked.

His skin kept breaking, and he bled from his eyes.

His arms looked like they were made of cracked stone.

But, of course, he didn’t pause or stutter. Not even once.

Malik fought like he was erasing the memory of this army.

And for ten hours, he did.

By night, only scraps of the army remained.

A hundred survivors, maybe—crawling, hiding, retreating like rats.

One tried to sneak behind him and catch him when he was off guard.

Malik turned and broke his neck with a flick of the wrist.

Just as he glanced at the body, his knees suddenly buckled.

Malik was about to fall onto the charred ground, but his sword, still warm from battle, fell first, stabbing deep, holding him up, acting like a cane.

Indeed, he was not immortal.

Still, remaining unbothered, he took that moment to breathe, to plan.

Killing all of those bastards proved tougher than expected, though that was mostly due to his deteriorating state.

Because, yes, the current Malik looked even worse than earlier.

But to those watching? The camp, the rats, the world itself?

He never looked more blinding.

A twisted but beautiful moment.

Malik had faced thirty thousand alone.

The sky turned gold for ten straight hours.

But that was not how he would remember it.

To him, it wasn’t him versus thirty thousand.

No.

It was thirty thousand versus him.

They challenged Malik.

He answered.

And they lost.

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