Requiem Of A Failed Hero

“What the hell?”

“He just killed them all?”

“What in the name of the eight archons is that?!”

The heroes around Cedar were overthrown as they beheld the mighty view of the sword archon rising from the rubbles. Moreso, the brutality unleashed by Hallan Lamar as he lay hundred of followers to waste.

“This is disgusting…” Curtis Dellagado said, spitting away thanks to the irritation caused by the lifeless body of folks on common clothing bathes in blood. Curtis showed no sympathy for the dead followers and instead was purely irritated by it, that very fact was offsetting to heroes who were standing beside him.

“It seems sir Curtis has not even one shred of sympathy in him. Your reputation as a ruthless hero precedes you.”

Curtis did not glance back to take a look at the person gnarling at him, almost as if he knew or did not care. It has to be the former, since Curtis was known to be a cold person. He owed no on an explanation as to why he does what he does.

In fact, that Curtis Dellagado is here, fighting alongside heroes to save the city is a miracle that is rare, after reaching Cedar two weeks ago to furtherly investigating the mysteries surrounding his brother’s disappearance and be sure if he is really dead, Curtis has been in the city and when the tremors started and the earth began to split, he was one of the first set of heroes that came to the rescue of the people—prioritizing their safety.

They all stared in awe as the colossal being with the head of a sword rose to the sky—

“No way… could that be?”

All of them could guess what it was, this was because no one was oblivious to the might of the archons, even though they had been in a deep slumber since the beginning of Therut, it did not mean that magnificent sculptures and drawings of them have not been passed down to show the people what they believe in. It was part of what strengthened the faith of people in archons.

Moreso, the power of dust and heroes, this played another key role in rendering the people’s belief totally to the archons.

“Oh great sword archon!! After so many years you have finally—

SQUASH

Hallan Lamar jnr was turned into marshed potatoes as the archon’s hand came upon him. Compared to the throne archon that was standing on two legs, the sword archon carried the a crawling appearance, but was still huge, stretching almost 15ft into the sky.

“oii oii oii did you all not just see that?” A bearded man dressed like an isekai mercenary said, gently putting his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Curtis squinted his eyes with his hand ready to pull out his sword from its sheath the moment the archon made a move. 𝘰𝑣𝘭.𝗇𝓔t

“Well, considering that this a man that just killed hundreds of people and also woke the great archon from his sleep, I don’t think there is anything wrong with what the archon had done.” The same lady that yabbed Curtis for not having sympathy spoke nonchalantly.

“I suppose you have no issues with it since you are a hero of the sword archon is what you mean to say.” The man responded to her with a smack on his teeth. “What do you say Sir Curtis?” He turned to Curtis knowing very well that he also is a hero of the sword archon, it is a common ground that ran in the Dellagado family.

“I don’t care whatever the shit you think, its next action will determine whether it’s a friend or a foe.” Curtis said tightening his grip on his sword.

‘He is a sensible man even though he seems to have a nasty attitude.’ The man quickly made an evaluation of Curtis in his mind.

“Impressive…” The man let out a soft smile as he looked at Curtis and turned to the sword archon. “Now… show us, are you a friend or a foe?” He muttered to himself.

Just as the man muttered the archon turned on all four legs and began to walk away.

“Should we be relieved or worried?” The man put forth.

The rest had the same question in their minds and slowly turned their eyes to Curtis.

“What?” Belatedly noticing them, he grumbled with a frown.

“I mean, since you are the one that said it’s next action would determine whether it is a friend or a foe. What do you think it is now that the next action has been carried out?”

Curtis stared blankly at the man talking, very irritated by how petty the man was sounding. He dropped his hand from his sword and walked past all of them.

Cedar had been turned to ruins thanks to the tremors and earthquakes, Curtis was just going to check on the city again and see if there is anyone that the other heroes have missed while the whole city was being overturned.

He suddenly paused—

His eyes narrowed as his shoulders shuddered involuntarily. Swiftly, he turned back—he was not the only one like this, several of the other heroes like the isekai mercenary man and the lady that was yabbing Curtis all had this scaredy look on their faces. As if they were about to shit their pants if care is not taken.

The pressure that filled the air was one thing but the darkness that suddenly covered the entire area was more alarming. They couldn’t help but lift their faces, and what they saw was a gigantic black wing that suddenly flapped its way across the sky as if it was in pursuit of something.

Curtis narrowed face got gloomy and furrowed into a deep frown.

‘So you were alive after all’

He darted towards the direction of the heroes, springing past them like a blur and running right under the dark wyvern.

“Uhmm… aren’t we going to follow him?” With a quaking voice one of the nominal heroes around asked.

At this point, the isekai mercenary man was just frowning, being the outspoken person, everyone was looking up to him for a what to do next.

Having a lot of people depend on him was something he was used to since he himself was a guild master. So, this was not a hard position to be in. What was hard was the decision he had to make, it was obvious that all of them wanted to follow, they were heroes after all—and it is the teaching of each temples not to cower before adversity, in fact, it was part of the ten commandments read to them whenever they are preparing to take trials of their archons. Courage is the weapon of a hero.

But that creature just now was bad news spelt in bold letters. If all of them were to raid it together, they’d probably still not be successful.

“Sir Rudgen… what are you saying.”

He slightly opened his closed eyes, looking at the guy that muttered his name, everyone was diligently waiting for his answers, even the lady who was a hero of the sword archon stayrd silent and awaited whatever he was going to say.

After scratching the back of his head, he finally spoke:

“What else do we gotta do? That monster spells disaster, who is gonna deal with such disaster if not us heroes.” He shrugged his shoulders with a faint smile.

All of them nodded with a smile and darted towards the same direction, freely releasing their dust to increase their speed or taunt the air- some sort of announcing their presence in order to attract strong monsters or scare away weak ones. Quite reckless they are.

Meanwhile…

Raith after getting the location of the sword archon from the throne archon had immediately ran after it. The plan was to not let any other archon get to the crystal shard—as things would get quite troublesome should that happen. Right now, he was getting very tired and all he just wanted was to finish this as soon as possible on go home to have a nice sleep.

‘I might end up sleeping for two hundred hours’ He said in his mind as he thought of how rewarding the rest will be after all this is over.

“My lord…” Noir’ cold voice interrupted his imagination of rest.

“What?” He frowned.

“There’s a human following us, even for a human, he is quite fast, should I destroy him?”

“No, don’t destroy him Noir, he didn’t pose any threat to you why should you do that?”

“Yes my lord” Noir responded and darted forward faster, tearing through the wing in order to catch up to the sword archon who had covered kilometres despite just leaving a few minutes ago. Yet, he wasn’t running.

‘This makes no sense, how did he get so far in such a short time…’

It was a relief Hallan Lamar was dead—Raith witnessed ithappened from the distance he was coming from.

WHOOOOMMM

With an outburst of dust, Curtis spun and leapt high using the hill next to him as a stepping stone.

WHOOOOSSSHH

Noir released his cold embrace—