The Villain's Story

Assimilation was the process where an Alchemist merged with the material they were trying to transmute, and in the case of the remains of an organism, one could see their memories, a summary of their life. Whether this process was useful or not was still a debate, given the risks that came with it.

Assimilate with a strong organism, one related to death, or the element of life, than they had a very vivid presence during assimilation. Alchemists had died more to dead monsters than living ones. On the other hand, the rate of transmutation drastically increased when one was successful, and the experience could also point the alchemist to the greatest products that could be formed from the corpse.

Alice was pretty sure this would do great damage to her, even kill her outright, but she had an inkling it wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t because she thought Azmakul would step in to help, but something else entirely.

[Skill: Assimilation has been used.]

Her vision faded to black, it was so dark she couldn’t discern her own hands even though they were inches away from her face. She also felt ‘alien’, incredibly oppressed and weak. But it all faded away as a dark, red ocean of light appeared above her, an ocean of ‘hate’ bigger than Earth itself. The amount of mana she felt was intense, and electrifying.

If she was still in her original body, she would have vomited out her insides due to the intense mana. Alan wasn’t even close to this kind of mana. But surprisingly…

She could feel hate, she could feel a being loathing something, she could feel rage, despair, and an intense murderous intent, the desire to kill something… someone was so, so great she was so glad it was only focused on killing someone that was not her.

Kizmal’s emotions were so fierce, so focused on one or two individuals, that she was completely disregarded. She was certain that assimilating with a being that was once a supreme would do something to her.

But not this, this supreme was simply focused on something else, a dedication she had never even thought was so possible. He was dead, yet his corpse still held a frightening amount of dedication, purpose that could not be extinguished.

She was still in the dark to what a ‘Supreme’ being actually was, and apparently Alan’s mother was one, she was the one who ruled this planet. Azmakul claimed he was once supreme, but she had no idea what that rank even was. Was it like an SSS-rank to her? She was an ant to an SSS-rank, so was an SSS-rank an ant to a supreme.

The ranks of power were still a mystery to her, mainly because she had no interest in them. It would be incredibly difficult for her to reach A-rank, so why worry about the others far above it? Nevertheless, this amount of dedication to a cause even after death was simply… monstrous. Maybe that was what a supreme was.

In this space, she had to tread carefully, her mentor, that goblin spirit had told her about assimilation and what the signs to look for in another organism would be but… She was in the body of a supreme, would the signs be the same?

She didn’t think that was the case, but she was incredibly thankful that this Kizmal completely disregarded her entire existence, for once, she felt incredibly thankful for being so pathetically weak. Furthermore, she moved along the… space, it was kind of like swimming, and soon, she found the signs of a memory.

‘Study about what you want to assimilate with, what is the one thing that is most known about it, the thing that resonates with you when you think about it? What is its source element? What does it like to eat? What does it think about?’

krrk

The crackling of lightning. Something that sent shivers down her body due to recent experiences was heard in the distance, along with a flash of blue light, it was easy to spot in this ocean of red. For a moment, she was scared.

She was in the body of the being whose fragment had killed her brutally, a fragment completely disregarded her…but she was in the original body now. Just hearing lightning made her body shiver uncontrollably…

‘Deep breaths, Alice. Deep breaths.’

Slowly, and with intense caution she moved towards the sound of lightning, the flashes of blue light became brighter until she found herself to be free of the ocean of hate, and then, she found it.

Three balls of lightning orbiting a crystal, her skill went into overdrive, and she finally found out what Kizmal was so obsessed over. The information flooded her brain and she spent several hours trying to process merely encountering his ‘memory’, his ‘purpose’.

The fire that eats and eats.

The death of the endless frost, the death of the time-stopper.

The survival and prosperity of the giants.

It was these three, it was these three things that Kizmal was so obsessed over, well, two things really. The first one was something else, it was…like something built into giants.

A fear?

‘He’s afraid?’

The giant was afraid of something? No, that was something built in, a fear of fire built in every giant. She reached out with her hand, and tried to touch the ball of lightning that signified such a great fear… of fire out of everything.

But at the final moment, she pulled her hand away. She had gotten greedy, her body was screaming at her to run away from that fear, and she listened only at the final moment.

But at the final moment, she was pulled into it, the lightning escaped from the ball and dragged her in, she screamed and fought with all her might but…what could she do?

*********

Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire.

The words that every giant born after the incident heard and felt deeply within their bodies, mind and soul. Every giant that had been deprived of their home world, consumed in the flames of the end.

Kizmal was no different, even though he was born destined to be a supreme, born in a dying star and in the endless cold of the universe, the first thing he felt was not the vacuum of space, it was not the cold temperature in space.

It was a searing flame, as if he had been thrown into boiling oil and then burned alive at the stake. It was fire, a fire so hungry and so wrathful that it was engrained into the very existence of giants. Something written into them after the incident, so they would not forget their sin.

A hellfire that consumed their home world, all because they thought of themselves to be superior and did something stupid. Something that had left every surviving giant with a deep, and truly unforgettable scar.

Alice saw what it was, she saw what Kizmal saw when he was born in the vacuum of space, she saw fire, fire, and fire.

A tail that toppled mountains and could split worlds in half, covered in obsidian, lava and molten rock, a dragon of humanoid shape, a Warna that was covered in obsidian spikes that spewed magma at every instance, a dragon that made the fragment of Kizmal look like a child stood in the distance, his eyes a deep crimson and his claws a deadly scarlet.

Alice stood still, petrified, there was nothing but fire everywhere she could see, fire of all colors, fire of all types, fire of all kinds, with such power that a mere ember from one of them could eradicate a continent… but it was all here.

Giants that burned endlessly, Giants greater than the fragment screaming with pain and the dragon who stood still, not even taking pleasure in all of this, simply looking as if it was something that needed to be done, a boring task.

Fear me, for I am fire itself. Fear fire.

The words echoed in her mind, it was a raspy voice, but it was so, so powerful.

Fear the fire that consumed your world, fear your stupidity that led to all of this, and first and foremost remember your sin. Forget it, and I will do the same once more.

I will burn you, I will burn you for eternity, your children will weep as their bones turn black and their minds succumb to horror, your elders will be thrown in the deepest, and greatest fire of the end to suffer for eternity, until not even fate remembers them.

Remember me, and never forget yourselves, fear me.

Alice was overwhelmed as the dragon in the distance raised his head high, and his neck began to glow like a sun, like thousands of suns. She lost her vision in an instant, her retinas were scorched as her mind began to register the blistering pain, and the very next instant, even though she could not see, she knew the ‘Dragon breath’ had been unleashed.

And she was ‘nothing’ in an instant, the breath was still, still so far, but her body was turned to nothing.

Fear fire, fear me, I am Agri, Hellfire itself, The eternal flame and the undying wrath.