Episode 50 The Kingdom Plagued With Darkness

Silver suddenly freezes, her eyes widening slightly. She turns to face Ryuu, looking directly into his eyes. “Myougun, did you say?” She stares fixedly into Ryuu’s eyes, her eyes popping slightly madly. “Myougun?!”

“Yeah. Do you know about them?” Kunai asks tentatively.

“Of course I know them!” Silver snaps suddenly. A brief flashing memory of herself lying in a bloody pool next to the body of a scarred and battered boy crosses her mind suddenly. She clenches her fist tightly, snapping an arrow that she had been holding in her hand.

“Heh,” Ryuu smirks, “Lemme guess. Classic story of seeking revenge against the Myougun. I think I’ve heard that story somewhere before.” The images of Kunai, Shuriken, Silver, and lastly himself flash through his mind as he speaks.

“You think you know everything,” Silver mutters. “Keep your mouth shut if you know nothing. What is my business is none of yours!”

“Tch,” Ryuu sighs, “You’re oh so difficult to read. I can sense the thirst for revenge literally pulsing out of you. Listen, I don’t give a damn what your reasons are for wanting revenge—”

Silver snorts suddenly, interrupting Ryuu. “As if I’d ever tell you.”

Ryuu sighs, shaking his head. “We can help each other. Surely you know enough about the Rift World to guide us around it, right? We’re here to defeat the Myougun, and we can help you get whatever revenge you want.”

“And why should I accept? I can perfectly achieve what I want my way,” Silver replies coldly.

Ryuu grips the hilt of his sword impatiently. “Look, I’m not asking you nicely here. I’m asking you as a man who’s demanding assistance. If you don’t help us—”

Kunai cuts him off. “Look, Silver, what Ryuu means is, we need your help to defeat the Myougun. We need someone who knows the land, who can guide us and help us. We’re not asking for you to go out and risk your life for us, we just need someone to show us where to go.

“I can understand where you’re coming from. I see those dead, haunted eyes of yours. They tell me, just like they did with someone I met a while ago, that you lost a very close loved one. Me, I lost my entire family to the Myougun, and I couldn’t do anything about it. We’re all in this to stop the Myougun’s madness.”

“Fine,” Silver replies softly. She raises her head, smiling slightly for the first time at Kunai. “I shall help you. Not only will I show you how to get to the Myougun’s headquarters, I shall guide you there myself. It is revenge I am after, not my worthless life to preserve.”

Arai starts suddenly at the sound of the word worthless. He gazes interestedly at Silver. ‘Worthless life, eh? She is not the only one who’s lost hope in the point of living.’

Ryuu nods. “Hm. Welcome to the party then, Silver. Just watch out for Arai and his damn cookies.”

Arai suddenly sneaks up on Silver from behind, waving a large cookie covered with jellybeans in her face. “Oh, oh, oh! You’ve gotta try this jellybean cookie!”

Silver glances irritably at Arai, slamming a fist into his nose and cracking his cookie in half. Arai sways dizzily and slightly drunkenly and falls to the floor.

Ryuu sighs as the sight. “Anyway, Silver, how far is it from here to the headquarters of the Myougun? As I understand it is north of here.”

Silver nods in reply. “Lord Kimura resides in a castle in the center of the castle-town named Kyreim. It is a very large castle, making up nearly fifty percent of the town. The town is surrounded on all four sides by walls, and can only be breached through four gates situated on each side, each guarded by a powerful Paradox.”

“Hm…speaking of Paradoxes,” Arai mutters suddenly, glancing around at their surroundings as people suddenly burst into screams and drop their things, running for their lives.

“The Paradox storm,” Silver mutters.

“Paradox storm?” Ryuu mutters in reply. “Sounds like…”

“In the Rift World, Paradox attacks are as inevitable and predictable as weather. However, that does not make defending yourself against them any easier,” Silver answers, “Especially to those who possess no means to defend themselves, but instead try to make an honest living as merchants.”

“I see,” Ryuu replies, as large, hulking shadows form around them.

The Paradox drift and surround them in the air as they hiss softly, while others roar menacingly. The sky suddenly blackens, and a dark swirl of fog and cloud covers the bright red sky.

Large, innumerable pools of shadow drench the ground and saturate the air, as the Paradoxes take shape into great big, dragonish creatures, with crooked snouts and bright yellow eyes. Spikes emerge from their bent backs, while shining silver claws gleam despite the darkness.

“Level Fourteen Paradoxes,” Silver hisses hoarsely.

Ryuu turns to Silver in surprise. “What did you say? Fourteen?! But I thought the Triplicates were the only such Level Fourteen Paradoxes that existed, and we defeated them all!”

“You thought wrong then,” Silver answers, “In the Rift World, the rules are different. One might envy the sanctuary you live in in the Maple World. Level Fourteen Paradoxes are as common as flies.”

Ryuu raises his clenched sword as the first wave of Paradoxes crash upon them. He spins and sends a spiraling blast of blue, red, and yellow light crashing into them.

The Paradoxes remain kept at bay for several moments, but then quickly regroup, pushing amongst each other to propel themselves closer to the group.

Ryuu cuts the air with his sword, and sends a blast of fused ice, fire, and lightning hurtling straight into the face of the nearest Paradox. It draws its head back, screeching in pain, and Ryuu takes the opportunity to slice the head clean off with a fiery slash of his sword.

However, the head quickly replaces itself, regenerating as quickly as it had disappeared. The Paradox rears again, and forces Ryuu to dodge a powerful swipe of its claw.

Ryuu dashes to the side, as Kunai sends a Steely to keep another Paradox back. Kunai turns to Ryuu. “It’s no use! They’ve got us all surrounded! We’ll have to fight our way out!”

“No way!” Ryuu pants, “There’s far too many of Triplicate-caliber Paradoxes for us to fight! One was enough…how the hell are we gonna get rid of a whole crowd of them?”

“Hm…Silver, is it usually like this daily in the Rift World, with Paradoxes running all over the place?” Arai asks.

“Yes,” Silver replies, “Ever since the Myougun have claimed the Rift World as their domain, they brought these creatures named Paradoxes to live freely in this already war-torn country. They travel from town to town, raiding and pillaging the villagers.”

“Is that how your important person died?” Kunai asks in a low voice.

Silver lowers her head, allowing her long silver curls to partially obscure her face. She raises her head again suddenly, blinking away the tears. She grabs her Asianic Bow, and strings it with two arrows. She then fires both at once, sending them plunging deep into the side of a Paradox.

The Paradox shrieks in surprise, but easily swallows the poisoned arrows planted in its shoulder. The Paradox then sways forward angrily, glaring down at Silver.

The Paradox lunges suddenly, and Kunai dashes to Silver’s side, pushing her out of the way and blocking the blow from the Paradox. He raises Myou, blocking the attack directly.

The Paradox hisses in bewilderment as it looks down and notices about a dozen Steelys plunged deep within its flesh, each one with a golden coin strung around it.

Kunai stands, a bright smirk on his face. He waves his hand, and all of a sudden each Steely in the Paradox erupts with a loud explosion, and the group holds up their arms to their faces, shielding themselves from the blast.

As the smoke from the explosion clears, Kunai cheers as he notices a pile of dead-looking shadowy liquid lying on the floor. However, it quickly rises into the air and reshapes itself, forming the Paradox once again.

“It…was able to reshape itself?” Kunai gasps. “How are we supposed to defeat these guys?”

Another Paradox lunges forward suddenly, this time straight at Ivy. However, as the Paradox approaches, Ivy silently raises her staff, and the Paradox howls in pain, quivering violently all of a sudden.

Kunai and Ryuu watch in amazement as the Paradox crumbles before Ivy, shattering into thick, solid liquid of shadow and then evaporating into the air. Ivy waves her staff again, and the other Paradoxes disintegrate into the air.

“Ivy! How did you do that?” Kunai gasps.

Silver widens her eyes at the sight of the dark, purplish blotches on Ivy’s arms, and the now glowing yellow eyes of Ivy. “I see…” she mutters under her breath, “the victim of a Triplicate.”

“It seems it’s the power of the Paradox,” Ryuu replies. “For some reason or other, it looks like she’s becoming stronger than the other Paradoxes, instead of just becoming a Humanoid.”

“You mean like with Ayame? Then she’ll retain her human form, right?” Kunai replies nervously.

“Yeah. She’s becoming just like Ayame. We still need to learn a lot about this Paradox mutation thing though. Although, for the time being it seems as if it might have something to do with the reaction with the Phoneme, considering both Ayame and Ivy are the First and Second Phonemes,” Ryuu replies.

“As for whether or not she’ll retain her human form, that remains to be seen. Ayame says that a Hybrid seal will be able to hold back the effects of the Paradox, but she’s shown no signs of reacting to the Hybrid seal.”

A high-pitched scream suddenly rings out loud, piercing the calm air. The group turns their heads, looking back towards the path leading back into the inner town.

“It looks like there are more Paradoxes over there,” Kunai says.

“Yes,” Arai replies. “We should go and help those people out. Otherwise…there’ll be more cases just like Ayame and Ivy’s considering if these Paradoxes really are Triplicate-caliber.”

Ryuu sprints down the pathway after the source of the screams. As he dashes down the stone path, he cuts the air with his sword, quickly slaying several spider Paradoxes in the way.

He stops in his tracks, sliding to stop his own momentum and looks up as several vulture-like Paradoxes hover above him, and Ryuu glances back down at the ground, horror-stricken, to see several dead, bloody figures lying on top of each other in the street in front of him.

“Ah! They’re…” Ryuu gasps hoarsely.

Silver hurriedly catches up to Ryuu’s side. “Quickly! The Paradoxes are moving closer to the center of town!”

Kunai, Arai, and Ivy quickly follow behind as Ryuu and Silver chase after the Paradoxes. They come to a large town square set in the center of town, where many booths lay lopsided or otherwise abandoned. Several buildings already lay in smoking ruins.

Silver dashes angrily forward, drawing arrows and stringing them into her bow as she goes along. She rapidly fires the arrows straight at the Paradoxes, but they merely go through them.

Silver dodges to the side as a Paradox growls and swipes at her with its claw, and she flips in the air, kicking away the Paradox as it lunges forward again.

Several Paradoxes quickly surround Silver, and they easily begin to overwhelm her. The Paradoxes bear down on Silver, engulfing her and slashing at her.

Silver quickly falls to her knees, staring up at the Paradoxes, a trickle of blood running down her mouth. She wipes the blood, and shakes her head, staring up at the sky, which remains dark, but now a bright ray of sunlight has penetrated through the previously blank, clouded sky.

‘All I wanted was to be with my brother…but they took him away, they took away everything. Am I going to rejoin him at last?’ Silver looks up as a Paradox raises its claw to finish her off.

Kunai suddenly yells, and appears directly in front of Silver, shielding her from the blow. He bends over and coughs out blood as the Paradox buries its claw in his back.

“Wh-why?” Silver mutters fearfully, staring up at the painful face of Kunai.

“Heh,” Kunai smiles, “Were you planning on dying? Even if you may not think so, you’ve got a purpose in life, Silver. Everyone does, from the moment they were born, and that purpose is only taken away when you die. It would be meaningless for you to die.”

“What do you know?!” Silver cries back.

“If you think for one second that by dying you’re achieving something…” Kunai mutters, “You’re dead wrong. Dying is like admitting defeat to the Myougun. Why would you want to die?”

“My brother…” Silver mutters softly. She shakes her head, holding back the tears. ‘I’m a stubborn person, but even I have to admit that he’s right…I can’t die yet, not when I’ve got the task of avenging my brother. I can only do that when I achieve that task…I’m sorry Edgar, it looks like I won’t be joining you just yet.’

Kunai coughs again, spilling more blood from his mouth. He wipes it clean, but drops to his knees, as the Paradoxes surround and engulf them again.

Ryuu dashes forward, cutting down one of the nearer Paradoxes and pulling Kunai and Silver out before it regenerates. Ivy waves her staff, and the Paradoxes disappearing within the blink of an eye, retreating back into the darkness.

Ryuu suddenly appears over Silver, grasping her firmly by the shoulder. “Hey,” he mutters softly, “Please. Guide us to the headquarters of the Myougun.”

Silver nods, a single tear sliding down her chin and landing on the cold stone floor. “I will,” she mutters. “I will.”

Above them, four cloaked figures stand on a hill overlooking the town square below. Behind them stands a derelict and broken church, a cross barely standing in the air, looking down on them.

The four stand cloaked and huddled together, side by side, but their hoods remain lowered, revealing their cold faces. “So it begins,” the one furthest left sneers. His long brown hair floats in the breeze. “Heh!”

The one furthest right remains silent, his blue hair flapping in the breeze. He gazes down menacingly at Ryuu, his eyes cold and yet blaring with hatred. He clutches tightly the Black Arund he holds in his hands.

The one on the center left stands silently as well, in a thoughtful trance. Her long purple hair flies behind her in the breeze as she glares down at them. ‘The last bit of resistance standing lies before my eyes. Won’t they ever realize that the darkness will suffocate them all? Or are they all fools…I don’t understand, Ryuu…destiny is inevitable. Why do you continue to pursue death, plunging right into it? That is where you are headed…’

The three figures suddenly disappear, hasting away from the scene. Now only one figure remains. Shuriken glares down at his former group below, his expression cold and unreadable. ‘Hm. Kunai, I’d like to know…which of us is the stronger? Prove to me that your path is the correct.’

Next Time: Episode 51 The True Sickness of the Paradox

Kunai: At last…we’re right in the enemy’s headquarters!

Ryuu: This is the moment we’ve all journeyed and fought so hard for. From this point on, we mustn’t lose!

Silver: There it is, the castle of Kyreim, where the Myougun call home.

Ryuu: [gasps] Ayame!

Kunai: Shuriken!

Shuriken: Let us begin this war for the Phoneme.

Episode 51 The True Sickness of the Paradox