Given how Irnis got her Dephon mid-battle, it was clear that it came out of the hovership near the park. It was supposed to be a normal vehicle, but after putting every weapon she owns in that hovership, Irnis was using it as her arsenal too. However, her walking arsenal was shaking a little, not enough to be noticed by someone, especially because of all the ruckus.
The impending doom came closer as Irnis lifted Dephon from the ground. The sword's purple glow pulsed with dark energy, making everyone's skin crawl. Dephon has a feature to absorb all kinds of energy it deals with, including kinetic energy, and Irnis always keeps it charged up by using it as her punching target. Since she hadn't used it in a while, Dephon is just craving to unleash what it has stored up until now.
The ground shook beneath Irnis' feet like the land itself was afraid. Her eyes flashed with wild excitement, her twisted grin sickly eager for the bloodshed to come.
K's breathing turned choppy, his heart racing with fear as he tried to keep his nerve.
"You might act tough, but you can't hide it from me. I've seen many battles in my life, and I can easily tell... You are afraid right now, aren't you? What are you scared of? Tell me?" Irnis was enjoying it.
K remained silent as he looked at her, not showing interest in her words.
She sighed. "You seriously are ticking me off."
The empty park was eerily quiet; the barrier was unduly good at keeping the crowd's noise out, but K's pounding heartbeat was still audible, which felt like a ticking clock.
"It wouldn't even take a few seconds for me to kill you. At least say some words... I mean your last words."
Irnis lifted Dephon, unleashing a blinding flash. K braced himself for impact as she charged towards him, her sword slicing through the air like a deadly scythe.
"The countdown has started."
Irnis pulled Dephon back to her left as she jumped and then forcefully swung it forward against the motion.
"ONE!" The broad side of her blade struck him with a loud thud, sending him crashing to the ground before he could even react.
"TWO!" A powerful kick sent him flying, his body shuddering as every bone rattled, blood spurting from his mouth and nose.
"THREE!" She grasped his tattered T-shirt and hurled him into the air, the fabric ripping apart as she leapt after him, her sword slicing down with a deadly swing that shattered bones.
"FOUR!" The moment he hit the ground, her fist connected with a precision strike, a blow that should be the final nail in his coffin.
As K was struggling to rise, "FIVE!" there was a maniacal glint in her eye, she charged at him with an insane velocity, her voice dripping with triumph: "The Game is Over... HUMAN."
Meanwhile, the hovership's shaking suddenly intensified, vibrating the ground around it, distracting Irnis with its violent convulsions, and she missed her swing. The guards around it immediately stepped aside.
K dodged the deadly attack by mere inches, thanks to perfect timing.
Dephon's blow ripped a hole in the ground, leaving K startled as he struggled to stay upright. He realised his strength against Irnis. It was a miracle he was still standing.
"Isn't it unfair that you get to use weapons?" He said it in a low tone to Irnis, who was closer to him now.
"You think so? If you do, then go get your weapons. There isn't any rule in a duel except for not leaving until the end and fighting only one-on-one. You do know that, right?" Irnis whispered to him, too.
"But I... I don't have anything to fight." K couldn't speak much anymore.
"Do you think I even care about that?"
She started going back to her position. The commotion outside was already hushed, but now her 'vehicle' was doing it from inside the megravent.
"Go and check what's wrong inside and fix it." She ordered one of the guardsmen.
Two of them ran inside the Hover, looking for what was causing the shake, after all, it shook the ground while it was not even touching the ground, heck, it never did. It was always hovering a few inches above it, so anything inside has to be affecting things in such a way that it can shake things even out of its reach. But when they went in, they only saw a few different types of gauntlets, a few modified guns, a completely charged energy capacitor plus wave creator, namely Hur-q, and a sword wrapped completely in a black colored cloth.
The Hover had only a few control areas, limited seating, and an odd fruit slice—nothing more. So why was it vibrating as if it wanted to mate with a wild female Hover?
However, people outside didn't notice the tremor it caused, since all kinds of interruptions from inside were being cancelled by Megravent. They instead were causing the earth to quiver by themselves, though Megravent cancelled it from coming in too.
For some reason, even though K always ignored people who tried to get closer to him or acted friendly with him, and acted a bit socially awkward, he was feeling a weird sense of attachment to the crowd.
He started looking around, in an attempt to find something against Irnis. Something that can potentially kill her.
"You do know that I would not miss again?"
He found it. "Yeahh... I do... I know it... even more than you." Though he doesn't know if he can do it in the state he's in, he knows what to do for now.
"Huh, I like that. You finally started wasting time." She readied herself.
With a steely scream, he ran towards Irnis.
"Ooh, I like that confidence," Irnis said as she rushed to attack him and jumped on him, but as soon as she could land a hit, K abruptly changed his path towards the Princess.
*"What the hell is he doing?"* Irnis thought as her Dephon flew ahead of her, making her slide ahead with its weight.
He brought his fist backwards to punch the Princess, a guardsman ran in front to block it. Though that punch is not going to scratch the Princess, that guardsman probably came in front to protect her from getting hit in the first place.
Irnis quickly moved and bolted towards K. Guardsman prepared his gun to attack him. Irnis lifted Dephon back to cut him in half as she reached K.
K punched the ground.
In a second, he missed Irnis's attack, and because of that, her Dephon almost reached the guardsman, and he dropped his weapon out of fear in an instinct, and K, without wasting a single moment, picked it up and shot Irnis with it.
"DIE DUMBASS!!"
He didn't stop shooting her with that gun, constantly shooting lasers to make her death sure. Smoke covered what was in front of him.
"No, you." Irnis blocked all of it with her Dephon.
With a move, she cut down the weapon he was holding and picked K up and threw him away.
As he stumbled and fell, he tried to stand up, but before he could, Irnis kicked him away.
"You sure do have some wit."
K gritted his teeth and ran towards her.
Just as Dephon came crashing down, with a sudden surge of adrenaline, he put great pressure and shoved it away while moving in the opposite direction, saving himself.
But Irnis quickly regained the upper hand, sending K stumbling backwards with a swift kick, leaving him exposed to the next strike.
The sword fell on him again, its force too great for K to counter this time. He tried but failed.
This time, his left arm was completely severed.
"Nowhere to run now."
Irnis pounced, her eyes blazing with a predator's intensity as K lay helpless, his life force ebbing away. His vision blurred, his breathing laboured, his body faltering, his blood overflowing.
*"Am I... going to die?"* His eyes started closing. *"Well, that was fast. I didn't even close my shop."*
His mind raced, memories flashing before his eyes, regrets and longing mingling with the bitter taste of defeat.
The voices called him from his memory.
[*"What have I done?" "Goodbye." "Are you alone?" "Who are you?" "Stay away from me!"* "I am..."]
Probably those memories came to keep him alive, but they were not enough.
As death's shadow loomed near, K's mind raced with memories. And then, as rare as a tsunami in a calm sea, a drop of tear came down his eyes, and suddenly his will to live burned brighter than ever.
That mini spaceship from before started convulsing more than ever before.
He tried to stand up again.
"Do you know how much you have irritated me, you little insect?" But Irnis was relentless, hopping towards him with Dephon at the ready. K stood up, willing to fight. Any other human would have died a while ago; it was a wonder he was still breathing, but his exhausted body betrayed him, and his knees faltered.
Everyone outside was screaming as they saw K down on his knees. Their voices were impermeable to megravent, and didn't reach K.
Dephon was right above K.
He couldn't react, couldn't defend himself from its deadly swing.
Just as all hope seemed to be lost, an explosion rocked the arsenal hovership, and something came out at a supersonic speed, creating a hole and interrupting Irnis' deadly attack.
It severed Dephon in half.
"What was that!?" Irnis stepped back.
Everyone there was left in shock. The sudden turn of events left everyone in awe, their eyes fixed on the hovership, breached by an unknown force.
Dephon isn't a wooden sword, but it broke like a twig in the wind.
For a second, everything went silent, but then a malevolent grin spread across Irnis' face, her eyes gleaming with a sinister light.
"You're blessed, human. The legendary Nandak has deemed you worthy of its wrath." She discarded the broken Dephon with a flick of her wrist. "I only obtained the Great Nandak through the gracious permission of our goddess. You should consider it an honour to meet your end by this revered blade. Even I can't hold it in my hand for a few minutes." And now she can't stop talking like before.
She relished this feeling, her sadistic eyes savouring K's upcoming demise.
Before K's eyes, a silver colored sword floated vertically, its crimson edges gleaming with fierce light.
Though smaller in stature than Dephon, its aura pulsed with an unholy energy, seeming to hunger for destruction. The sword's deadly prowess was evident in its effortless bisecting of Dephon. The energy it gave off made their throats dry.
The air around it seemed to vibrate with an ominous power as if this weapon was forged from the essence of carnage itself.
K's eyes were fixed on the sword, filled with a mix of wonder and fear.
As Nandak hovered, K felt a strange sensation, the sword was silently speaking to him.
"Go and get me Getour. I am going to use it today." Irnis cheerfully ordered one of the guardsmen, and one of them quickly ran inside the arsenal-ship and came with a glowing manicle-glove.
K was still on his knees because of a lack of strength, staring at Nandak. He couldn't even lift a finger now, much less his body. Why didn't he die after so much blood loss was something only he might know.
The glove flickered on, its dark energy racing through Irnis's veins. She raised her hand, and Nandak stirred, its silver blade shuddering with deadly intent. Irnis aimed the sword at K, its shadowy edge slicing through the darkness with a menacing whisper.
It hit K.
Even if it looked like touch, and even if K was able to see it slowly coming towards him, the impact was brutal; K's body crumpled to the ground with a sickening thud.
The crowd held its breath, captivated by the tense scene. A silent threat filled the air, making every heartbeat feel the danger.
Irnis's gaze stayed fixed, her eyes locked intensely on what was happening. With a small wrist movement, Nandak hovered above K, its sharp point ready to strike.
"You should feel honoured, human..." Irnis whispered, her voice dripping with malevolence. "Great Nandak will reduce you to nothing more than a smouldering ember."
Nandak plunged, its fall slowing to a terrifying crawl.
It smoothly went straight through his chest as he fell to the ground.
K's eyes went wide, his face twisted in pain, as flames burst from the sword's tip, covering his body in fire. The air was filled with the sickening smell of burned flesh and a choking cloud.
The onlookers watched, transfixed by the horror, shrieking.
K's screams echoed through the desolate landscape, a haunting melody that seemed to reverberate through every cell of their being.
The Princess's eyes dropped, her neck bending as if the guilt within her had become unbearable. Her head bowed, like a flower wilting in the autumn wind.
Irnis watched with a cruel smile as K writhed in agony. The flames surged to a height of 10 feet.
Outside, people were filled with rage, sorrow and horror.
Women who had grown to love K, like a son, wept uncontrollably. Men looked down, helpless to intervene. Children who saw him as a big brother were overcome with despair. Elders, unable to see through the crowd, could only hear K's agonised screams since Megravent was letting all the noises come out from the inside.
That old man, who had invited him before, lowered his head with grief. George was still trying to enter, punching the barrier to reach him.
It was an end for K... and it was.
••
"It seems that you were successful in your task, Irnis...."
It was the Goddess's voice. "Now I only need to wait for some time."
"Wait? For whom?" A voice came from the darkness. "Do you realise how much you bother me when you do everything on your own?" It was a man's voice. He was standing outside the room in which the Goddess was. He was trying not to come in front of her.
"Hm? I didn't know you would come here so quickly."
"I just came here for a trifling matter, but now I think I have to deal with this mess too..." He sighed in disappointment and pity, "...you do know that a few minutes is not enough to take my life."
"As much as I remember... yes, I do."
"Then why do you keep struggling? Just do what I say, and you will enjoy the rest of your life as a God. Doing something like this is no-"
"But his return... it will be enough for your death. And this time, it will be sure to happen."
"Oh, such beautiful words from our Goddess... I'm blessed."
"Yes, and I will bless you more when I'll crush your skull with my foot."
"Yeah, yeah. You've said this multiple times before, right? I don't remember, but.... oh, you have said that quite a few times now. Do you think that you will be able to take your 'revenge'?"
"Not now but..... very soon."
"Haha, you are just proving that talking with you is worthless." He remained silent for a while before taking a long breath and saying:
"You used Irnis just as I did, and you have done the same with other people in the past, too, so don't you think we are pretty similar? We can do so much together, yet you wait for a soul without a body, and still waiting like this to meet him."
She remained silent.
Even though her face in that brightness from that glass capsule was pretty hard to see, her words were enough to tell how frustrated and angered she was after hearing his voice.
"You still want to repeat what happened many years ago, but you always forget me in your plots. You always forget that I can ruin it without much effort... Well, not that you can do a thing even if you succeed...."
He started going away. "You are still alive because of me... Don't forget that, at least for your own sake." As the sound footsteps of his departure started fading, the lights started dimming too.
"You are wrong this time. This time... both of them are coming back..."
••
Flames were rising.