The roaring screams had long since faded. The agonizing cries of Daniel, as his body was slowly consumed by the black flames, finally fell silent. Where a man had once stood, only a vaguely human-shaped pile of charcoal remained, a limbless, blackened effigy smoldering in the morning light.
An unnatural stillness descended upon the forest. The birds were silent. The insects had ceased their chirping. It was as if every living creature in the vicinity had been cowed into submission by the sheer, oppressive weight of Rian's lingering aura. He stood amidst the carnage, a cold realization settling in his heart. The gentle man, the one who held a deep affection for all living things, was gone.
A new creed, cold and absolute, was being forged in the furnace of his mind. "I affirm this now, without exception," his own thoughts echoed, sharp as broken glass. "My nature, my feelings, my principles, my ambitions, my desires, my personality, my pride, my compassion, my love, my very life… I will discard them all in an instant if it concerns Catty. I swear this to myself: if anyone dares to harm her, or even harbors the malicious intent to kill her, I will erase every one of those feelings I just named and I will kill them. Without exception. Even if it is a god who strikes her down, they will have to face me first."
In that moment, Rian's resolve was set in stone. He would challenge anyone, even the gods themselves, if they dared to harm Catty.
He turned and walked back toward her, consciously reining in the torrent of mana that still pulsed from his body. He needed to conserve what was left to stay conscious. The explosive release had drained him almost completely.
"Thanks to Gramps," he thought, feeling the familiar ache of mana exhaustion, "I'm still standing after using everything I had." He could feel his internal reserves already beginning to replenish, a testament to the grueling training he had endured. "My mana regeneration is incredibly fast. The vessel is refilling, not all at once, but enough to keep me on my feet. None of it was a waste."
He remembered the sensation of unleashing his full power. It was like opening a faucet connected to a bucket with a massive hole in the bottom—a torrential, unsustainable flood. But the moment he closed that faucet, the bucket didn't remain empty. It was as if an unseen source instantly began to refill it, never allowing it to run dry. His mana vessel was exactly the same.
"My regeneration rate must be similar to the power I showed Catty back at the village," he mused. "Ten times greater than the mana cost of a simple candle flame. Thank you, Gramps. Everything you taught me was truly invaluable."
He reached the spot where Fredd was crouched. The former bandit was in a half-standing position, his body still trembling too violently from fear to fully support him. He had been ready to die shielding Catty from Daniel's final attack.
"You saw that fool who dared to hurt Catty?" Rian's voice was flat, devoid of emotion. "That is how his life ended. Not quickly. It was painful, and it was agonizing. The same will apply to you if you ever harm her."
He walked past Fredd without another glance, his focus solely on Catty, who was still lying unconscious on the forest floor.
A few moments later, her eyelids fluttered. Catty's eyes slowly opened, and the first thing she saw was Rian, sitting beside her, a silent, vigilant guardian. The acrid smell of burnt flesh hung heavy in the air. She saw severed branches, their splintered ends charred black.
"Rian, what happened?" she asked, her voice weak. "Why didn't you run? You could have died here! Run, quickly! I can sense the auras of assassins all around us." She was still trapped in the moments before the battle, unaware that it was already over.
"It's safe now, Catty," Rian said, his voice softening slightly, a flicker of his old concern breaking through his cold exterior. "How are you feeling? Does anything hurt? I can heal you now."
"No, Rian. I don't feel any pain at all. Thanks to you," she said, pushing herself up into a sitting position. Her eyes then widened in horror as she took in the scene around them. It was a battlefield. A slaughterhouse.
"What happened, Rian? After I lost consciousness?" she asked, her voice trembling as she looked at the bisected, half-burnt corpses littering the ground.
Rian didn't answer. He simply stared up at the sky, his expression blank, like a man who had lost the capacity to feel.
Fredd, finally managing to get to his feet, staggered toward them.
"Rian defeated all of the attackers," he explained, his voice still shaky. "There's no one left. Not even the one who stabbed you, Catty."
"You… you killed all these people, Rian?" Catty's eyes shot from the corpses back to him.
"Yes," he answered, his voice a single, flat note.
"But why? This goes against everything you believed in before!"
"That only applies to people who have no ill intent towards you, who pose no threat to your life," Rian stated, his tone unchanging. "But if a single person dares to harm you, to threaten you with death, then without exception, everyone connected to that intent will be killed. Brutally. Just like what you see here."
"He's not the kind man I first met," Fredd muttered under his breath.
Rian's head snapped toward him, his eyes filled with a chilling threat. "I will not see you as a human being if you dare to harm Catty. Remember that."
"Yes, Rian!" Fredd said quickly, bowing his head. "I promise, I will protect her with my own life as well!" In that moment, born from a deep and profound fear, Fredd's absolute devotion to Rian was forged.
"Rian, are you sure about this?" Catty asked, her voice soft with worry. "Don't you feel any guilt?"
"No," he said, his gaze unwavering. "All of my humanity disappears when it concerns you. I will not lose the single most precious person to me again. Even if a god were to take you from me, they would have to face me first."
Catty was speechless. She could only nod, powerless to argue against the terrifying, absolute conviction in his words.
"We still have a three-night journey ahead of us," Fredd said, desperate to change the subject. "Should we continue on our way?"
"Alright," Rian agreed, turning to Catty. "Can you walk?"
"I'm fine, Rian," she said, getting to her feet. She began to follow Fredd, and Rian fell into step behind her, his new place as her silent, ever-watchful guardian.
Their journey to the kingdom of Fulakmi resumed, now completely devoid of any treacherous plans from Fredd.
Far away, in her white realm, the Goddess Bodas was still observing Rian. She threw her head back and let out a peal of unrestrained laughter at his declaration to challenge the gods.
"Hahahaha!" she cackled, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. "Is he really sure he can fight a god? If I were to kill Catty, would he really try to kill me? Oh, this is getting dangerous!"
She dissolved into another fit of laughter. "Hahahaha!"