Villain's Rising

It was quiet.

For the first time in years of his life, Sam's head was quiet.

There was no voice. There were no thoughts. There was no one else around him.

For the first time, Sam really felt the true meaning of the word 'alone.'

But Sam knew this would happen. He had always suspected the voice in his head.

That's why he formulated a number of fail-safe plans in case the voice was ever to betray him.

Sam had a guess, but he was still quite surprised to see that the voice in his head actually belonged to the first Progenitor.

What was he to him? Maybe his great great great great grandchild or something? 𝗳𝒓𝙚e𝓌e𝚋𝙣𝚘𝐯𝙚𝙡.𝑐૦ｍ

Nevertheless, after killing his final enemy, Sam emerged victorious.

"SAMAEL!"

Shaking Sam out of his thoughts was an enraged voice that seemed to have come from the entrance of the basement.

Oh, right, there was one last obstacle for him to clear. One last hero was still alive for him to vanquish.

-Swoosh!

From the entrance, a body of a young girl with silver hair flew in and crashed right beside Sam.

It was Kiara.

The poor silver-haired girl weakly got up to her feet and mustered some strength in her body again.

But suddenly, her eyes drifted to the side of the room, and she saw her master standing right there with raised eyebrows. He was staring at her for answers.

"Oh!" Surprised, Kiara spoke. "Sire, you're back? You died on your feet for a few minutes. We felt our mind link breaking up with you. Since I was the closest, I came to check. But Starboy and Rebekah came after me too. So I tried stopping them and denied their entrance to the basement dungeon for as long as I could, but—"

Cutting Kiara off from her seemingly never-ending explanation, Sam said, "Jesus Christ! Shut up, girl. Let me enjoy my long-awaited peace and quiet for a few seconds."

"But sire—" before she could retort, Sam spoke again

"Don't fret. I'll handle them. You stay here and recover." He waved his hands.

"Eh? Should I not aid the others?" Kiara inquired.

"No," Sam shook his head with a stern look. "The war is about to end anyway."

As if waiting for that cue, abruptly, a pair of flaxen-haired siblings flew in through the entrance of the dungeon.

"You bastard! I will kill you!" Anthony raged and shot at Sam like an arrow.

"Ho? So you both defeated my dragons? All two hundred of them? Damn." Sam commented.

"Brother, stay on guard," Rebekah warned. Her feet lifted off the ground as she said, "He has gotten really strong. Plus, I can feel something different about him."

"Got it." Anthony nodded, "Cover me. I'll use– Huh?!"

Before Anthony could finish up his planning, Sam's figure disappeared from sight and reappeared right in front of him again.

That speed left Anthony stunned. Even his eyes, let alone his other senses, couldn't follow Sam's movements.

That display of speed reminded Anthony of his father, making him widen his eyes in shock.

Before he could even react, Anthony found a fist planted in his abdomen.

"Khuuu!" The impact from the punch that he didn't even see coming made him vomit air before his body was sent flying a meter back.

"Anthony!" Rebekah shouted, her eyes marking her brother's flying body. Almost instinctively, her body moved to get to him and save him from crashing into the basement wall.

"Ahh!" But as she tried to move, she found a hand grabbing her by the back of her neck. It was Sam. "Let go, you bastard!"

"Nah," Sam tightened the grip on Rebekah's neck and lifted her off the ground. She couldn't escape.

She was being overpowered. But what surprised her was the fact that she was being overpowered so easily.

Before she could think of a way to escape death's grasp, Sam thrashed her head on the ground and momentarily knocked her out.

"Akashic Records, commence Overdrive!" Anthony, who had crashed through the basement wall earlier, yelled while getting up.

[Host, are you sure about initiating Overdrive?]

A golden translucent screen appeared in front of Anthony's eyes. The flaxen-haired boy nodded without a second thought.

"Initiate 50% right now!" Anthony yelled.

A dazzling golden aura enveloped Anthony's figure from head to toe. It wasn't nearly as bright as Starsuper's 50% but nevertheless, Sam could feel an immense amount of power oozing out from the Starboy.

However, Sam wasn't worried about it. What did catch his attention was something else entirely.

"What did you say," Sam frowned, still holding Rebekah by the back of her neck. "You mentioned Akashic Records. What is it? Tell me about it." pan(da-n0vel.c)om

"Arghhhh!" Instead of an answer, Anthony let out a fierce battle cry and rushed at Sam. The golden aura was clustering around his clenched fists.

"God, fine! Don't tell me if you don't wanna!" Raising his hand and pointing his palm at Anthony, Sam mumbled, "Life drain."

-Thud!

Right at that moment, Anthony felt his heart shudder. He felt his strength leave his body and his knees weakened.

"...Ah?" Tripping, he fell down on his knees. "What's… What's happening?"

[Overdrive retreating.

50% ? 40%

40% ? 30%

30% ? 20%

20% ? 10%

10% ? 0%

Error!

Overdrive is shutting down!

Akashic Records senses that the host's life is in danger!

Detecting the error.…

Error found! The host's life force is being drained. If left unchecked, the host will die in 75 seconds.]

"Eh?" Anthony's eyes widened but he couldn't muster the strength in him to speak out. "My life…force?"

"Oh?" Sam walked up to the kneeling figure of Anthony with an eyebrow raised in surprise. "You sensed I'm draining your life? How?"

"Le-Leave him alone…!"

Turning back to look behind him, Sam found a flaxen-haired girl getting back on her feet.

"You know, Anthony, I won't kill you. Not right now. There's someone else who needs to get even with you before I erase you from this world."

Sam raised her hand and pointed his open palm at Rebekah, who had just gotten up on her legs.

"But your sister, on the other hand…."

"No…" Anthony's face paled as his eyes widened in realization. He tried to muster all the strength he could in his body to get up, but unfortunately, it didn't matter. His legs didn't even budge.

In fact, he was feeling so weak that he couldn't even activate any of his abilities. He was completely… helpless. "NOOOO!"

-Snap

At that cue, Sam snapped his fingers and Rebekah's whole body burst up into white flames.

"ARGHHHHAAAA!" An agonizing burning pain assaulted her body as she was set on white fire.

Her body started convulsing in pain and she fell face first on the ground, still quivering in pain and letting out a beastly howl.

"REBEKAH! NO! PLEASE! GOD PLEASE!" Anthony teared up as he tried to crawl toward his sister. He prayed to every god in existence to give him the strength to save her.

But again, unfortunately, the gods had already abandoned the world. His prayers weren't answered.

Rebekah's regeneration healing factor would kick in and heal her body every so often but it couldn't keep up with the damage she was sustaining from the white flames.

After one full whole long minute, the white flames finally subsided after completely devouring the flaxen-haired girl's body, not even leaving the ashes behind.

By the time Anthony was able to crawl up to her, Rebekah was… gone. Completely gone with not even a trace of her left behind.

Even his connection to her broke.

"Noo…."

"Huh, it worked," Sam, on the other hand, commented while enjoying the sight. "I infused the dragon flames with the ability to drain life and it worked. Of course, I could've done that without doing any of that, but this was way more dramatic and way moooore cool!"

"You monster…" Anthony muttered weakly. His eyes were completely hollow, with not even a trace of life in them.

"Ahh, did I break you? How will Lucas enjoy torturing you now?" Sam disappointingly sighed before he turned to Kiara.

She was shocked. With her jaw practically dropped on the ground and her eyes popping out of her sockets, she looked back at Sam.

"Come on, let's go," Sam said.

"But… What about…" Kiara pointed at Anthony, who was touching the spot Rebekah went into flames with unfocused eyes.

"Oh he? Don't worry, he will die in a few seconds. But I'll bring him back to life and gift him to Lucas. After that, Lucas will do whatever he sees fit with him." Sam said, walking out the dungeon. "The war… is over."